RIP Couch

We've been crate training Roxie, so during the day while we're at work, she's in her crate. We're looking forward to the day when we're confident that she's potty trained so we can let her hang out in our apartment while we're away. We've been slowly training her, having a handful of successful 2-3 hour adventures away from our apartment while the two dogs hang out by themselves in our living room. Each time we've returned, she's done really well.

Today, we left her out while we were at work all day. I walked in the apartment after work, and everything looked good upon first glance. Then I saw green stuff all over the floor.

Roxie had bitten a hole through the zipper on the bottom of our couch cushion and somehow "unzipped" the entire bottom of the cushion. Oh, and when I say "unzipped," I mean to say she bit two different tears into the zipper, so there's permanent damage and it can no longer be zipped up.



My first reaction was surprise. Next came sadness, at which time Koda started apologizing by licking my face and jumping up on me. Then I was even more sad, because I could tell that even though Roxie was guilty, he felt bad. He's pretty perceptive in knowing when us humans are upset in any way.

Next came the humor in the situation. Frankly, at least she was polite about it and the cushion is only messed up along the bottom side, and in a straight line. It could have been worse. It seems like everyone's puppy has to do something equivalent to this at least once in their puppyhood. Here's hoping Ro got it out of her system with the trashing of the couch today.



A bunch of hours had passed since discovering Roxie's damage, so I had the dogs pose for a picture. If we think this is humorous today, I imagine this memory will be even more funny as time passes.

Phone Issues

We've been having phone issues this week that we finally got resolved tonight. Our incoming calls were all going directly to voice mail, and we haven't been able to check messages.

If you left a voice mail this weekend, I will try to call you back this week!

Between a busy day job, our wedding, and school, life's been busy. Since our engagement has been such a long one, wedding planning up until now has been pretty nice. I've been slowly gathering glass jars, craft supplies, and decorations, taste-testing wine and desserts, and gathering inspiration from different sources. Now it's time to actually pick a final direction, finish projects, and cross things off our to-do list.

Yesterday, I worked on our ring bearer book. I'd seen this project on a wedding planning web site, and with my love for vintage books, immediately fell in love and knew I had to make my own version. I found the perfect book on eBay a few weeks ago. Turns out it's over 100 years old. I made a yellow fabric flower, found the perfect ribbon, and painstakingly used my round hole punch to cut a 3/4" deep hole in the pages of the book. There's a cursive handwriting inscription on the inside of the book that you can faintly see on the left-hand side- it says, "With love, from Stella. Xmas '99." This page was actually on the right-hand side of the book originally, but I decided it needed to be preserved and glued it to the left-hand side of the book.

And now is the part of my night when I make a pot of coffee and try to pretend like I still care about writing about Michael Dell and his Dell computer empire.

Michael Dell, you dropped out of college and your breath stinks. Boom- roasted.

I'm writing a 5-page paper tonight on Dell computers. I hate that I have this due by midnight on a Friday night, and at the same time secretly enjoy that I'm learning something new.

I can feel my perspective on business and technology growing by the minute. And by perspective, I mean my brain. I'm thinking about work in a whole new light these days, which is great.