Mary Mary Why Ya' Buggin'

I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. But then it occurred to me last night that Valentine's Day is when we got Leia. Today marks the one year anniversary of Leia Skywalker joining our family. Mr. W was dead set on getting a dog.  I was less than thrilled. The last thing I wanted to deal with was a puppy. The original plan was that our 2nd dog would be a German Shepard. We soon realized that no way would a hairy, large dog fit in our RV, The Wonder Wagon.  Thank God! We went camping and saw the perfect dog for us, a Swedish Vallhund. Picture in your mind a "low rider" German Shepard, same coloring but only smaller.  Perfect temperament and size for our family after online research. The downside was puppies were extremely expensive.  Mr. W came upon a Swedish Vallhund website and saw that there was a breeder in our area who had a Cattle Dog/Swedish Vallhund mix puppy for free. It took Leia and I a few months to bond. She was Mr. W's idea but she has ended up a...

For those of you who don't know I homeschool. Please, please drop whatever judgement that just popped into your head just now. No, I don't drive a 15-passenger van. No, I do not make my girls write passages out of the bible nor do I wear denim jumpers. Don't get me started about how some women think that yoga pants should be banned. That is another blog post for another day. Since I homeschool that means that I am with my children twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. After awhile it begins to wear on me. Thankfully, I homeschool with a few other moms and we have a mini co-op of sorts were we [GASP] socialize together a few times a week. I love that we have scheduled fun educational activities with other friends my girls' ages like art lessons and book club. It makes for some crazy busy mornings, finishing up schoolwork to meet up for activities in the afternoons. Most days I feel like all I am doing is racing the clock all the while making sure that we have acc...

Tonight I finished up a four week swim class at my local community center.  After my first triathlon in September I struggled with the swim the most, complete with a freak out moment half way through the swim.  I was also having some pain in my left shoulder which had me worried. I am so glad that I signed up for classes as my form has improved and I am no longer in pain. I think I might actually be faster! Up till a few years ago I didn't know how to swim that well. I've never been afraid of the water. I just don't know how to do any of the strokes. I am pretty much still clueless when it comes to swimming but I am in the pool and I know more than I did when I first started on this triathlon journey so I feel at least I am making some kind of progress. My friend Anne was right when she said that swimmers are silent assholes. Have you been to a lap swim lately? I took her advice a few years ago and took lessons which helped a lot not only to help me not choke on water but t...

A month ago I had to say good-bye to Rudy, my very first dog that I've owned in my life. I had sort of prepared myself for our parting one day. She wasn't a puppy when I got her almost six years ago. You are never ready to say good-bye to some one you love.  Her health had been deteriorating the past six months. She was no longer able to hear. Her vision was beginning to fail. Yeah, I know people will say she was just a dog. To me she was my friend. My constant companion, always happy to see me not matter what was going on. If I had a bad day she was ready to snuggle in my lap. She was always ready for an adventure by foot, car or RV.  It's been a month now. I can look at pictures without crying. I can even laugh now when retelling funny stories of Rudy. I know that I will never be able to replace her. No dog will take her place. I am thankful for the brief time that we had together. I am glad that I have another dog in the house otherwise the pain of losing Rudy would ...

Happy Winter Solstice! I had some fabulous pictures from our family's celebrating last night, but my  computer is being difficult this morning. We celebrated a night early. We have a yearly tradition of eating dinner by candlelight as a family. I love that this year during Hanukkah, Winter Solstice and Christmas Eve fall during the eight nights of celebration. I love Winter Solstice. To me it's like a finish line. I've made it to the shortest, darkness day, now it's only going to get lighter and days longer. The count down to summer is on! As my daughters grow older I love incorporating different winter celebrations into our celebration Christmas. I want them to learn that many of the Christmas and Hanukkah traditions come from ancient Winter Solstice rituals from ancient times. The more I learn about history I find it fascinating. Like how people in Northern Europe used to light huge bonfires (this sounds like a fun tradition to incorporate into next year's f...

I am so excited to be named a Nunnbassador for 2015! I've claimed my that my thirty-ninth year is going to be awesome so far it's proven to be pretty amazing. I was so excited to receive my email from Nuun notifying me that I had been selected. How fitting that I received my notification on the 17th, nine months from which I will be turning 40. 2015 is going to be epic. I told you all. In the spirit of 39 I've been saying yes, stepping outside my comfort zone so when I saw the Facebook post advertising for applications for the 2015 Nuun ambassador program I figured why not? I had just been looking at my calendar and was researching different races. I love Nuun, so it's easy to represent their company.  I hopped over to their website and filled out the application. So today I am bugging over the excitement that I get to represent Nuun for the next year!