Man's Best Friend

I used to think that dog lovers were kind of crazy. Well, maybe I still do a little, but maybe now I am more understanding of why people love their dogs so much. I just don't understand why dogs must be treated like people. THEY ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN! Growing up, we always had pets. We mostly had cats, but we dabbled in birds and hamsters too. We only owned a dog once. I can't even remember what kind of dog it was, but I do remember that we all loved it with the exception of my parents. This may have been because the dog was impossible to potty train, chewed on everything and peed on everything. When we moved to Germany the first time and had to give him away, I don't remember my parents being too upset about it. Needless to say we didn't always live in a dog friendly world. We did, however, grow up in a cat friendly world. Don't worry, we weren't like the cat lady. We just always had cats because they are easier. They are so independent and they don't really require any work.

On my mission I hated dogs because people would use their dogs as an excuse to not talk to you. Almost every house had a dog and they all barked when you knocked on the door. For some reason barking dogs cause people to become stressed and get frazzled. I often wondered why they had dogs if they couldn't handle the barking. It was like they were saying to me oh I can't talk to you because my dog as barking I just don't know what to do. Don't use your dog as an excuse! Just man up and say no!

Now we have a new house of our own and a dog. It's a dog that Garret has had for a while, it's just been at his parents' house. I'll admit, in the beginning I never wanted a dog. They jump and shed and lick and they are dirty, but this dog isn't really like that. Her name is Precious, and she really is precious. She's a pomeranian and looks more like a huge fluff ball. She hardly ever barks and is already house broken and kennel trained. There is nothing better than coming home and having someone or really something be happy to see you. She doesn't judge you or act grumpy, she just wags her tail and runs around you in circles because she's just so happy that you are home. It really is a huge self esteem boost. She sits with you when you sit, walks with you when you walk and snuggles when you want to snuggle.

I now understand why people call dogs a Man's Best Friend. It's true! They really are! I mean cats are great, but they are kind of snobby and they only want to be nice when it's on their terms. Precious will never be viewed as one of my children. She will always be a dog and not a human, but at least now I don't hate dogs anymore.

We Have a House!

Two weeks ago we finally signed our mortgage papers and moved into our house!!!!

I found that the whole signing of the papers was very anticlimactic. I'm not really sure what i expected, but it definitely wasn't what happened. All we did was go in, sign a bunch of papers and then leave with a book of all the papers that we signed. When I say book, I mean BOOK. Holy Cow! It's like a really very boring novel. Anyway, what everyone has said is true, there are a lot of signatures and it does take some time, but for some reason I though it would be bigger. Maybe I should have requested fireworks or something. The numbers of it all were a little bit daunting, but I guess that is to be expected. Honestly, I don't feel any different. It's like your birthday when everyone asks you if you feel older. Well, no I don't feel any older, it's just a day like any other day. Being a home owner doesn't make me feel any different. On the other hand, I love my house! I also do recognize that it's pretty awesome that we've only been married for a year and we already own a house. We also celebrated our one year anniversary the day after we moved in. I would say that's a pretty dang good anniversary present to ourselves.

Now some disadvantages to having your own house...

There is no maintenance man. In our last apartment our AC broke at least twice! In the end they ended up just having to get a new AC unit all together. When the AC did break all we had to do was call the maintenance man and he came and fixed it. It was great! Now, if the AC breaks we don't have a maintenance man to call. We are the maintenance man, well lets be honest, Garret is the maintenance man.

We don't have a lawn guy who comes to mow the lawn and water it. Technically right now that's not a problem for us because we don't have lawn, just weeds. These weeds are killer weeds too. Not the kind that are green and could kind of pass as grass. They are like little mini trees and very indestructible. I'm pretty sure they will consume our house one of these day. I'm praying for for snow to come sooner so that it will cover up our house-eating weeds. I personally think that we should just make the entire backyard into cement and maybe put a pool in. That is so much better than a lawn that you have mow every week. I HATE YARD WORK!

We noticed some strange things about this house. It's brand new so all in all it's a great house, but there are a few things that it is lacking. In the bathrooms there were no toilet paper holders or towel racks. maybe it's just me, but I thought that homes came with those. Luckily we noticed that there were no rods in any of the closets before we signed any of our papers so we actually requested that those be put in. Another strange thing was that in the basement where the washer and dryer go there were faucet for the hot and the cold water, but they weren't actually hooked up to the water. There also weren't any electrical outlet hook ups. Unfortunately we did not notice that before or we would have requested that it be fixed. There was so much detail put into this house as far as the craftsmanship and the materials used, but there were just those random things that were not done.

Over all, we're so happy to be in our house. We honestly thought it would never happen.

Now I just need all of you to come and be our guests! Who's first? Any takers?