Sun and Surf and a couple of 4-legged friends

This past weekend I worked.  Very, very hard.

Oh hell, who am I kidding.  It was a sunny, crisp Florida day, the kind that you want to lay back in a hammock and rock yourself to sleep, soaking up the rays and maybe listening to some music in the background.  If of course, you have someone who can bring you a drink even better!   But, instead I settled for the sunny, crisp day surrounded by this type of cuteness:

Yes, I want one, as soon as I get rid of the ones that I have at home

Yep, don’t you want one?

Yeah, me too.  Tom had to hold me down and make me swear that I was not bringing anything like that home.

And were was this cuteness? My sister’s company was celebrating its 2 year anniversary and well, I had to drag myself to a park, right off an island on Saturday morning to play and roll around with puppies and dogs of all breeds and sizes.  Dude, how can you say no to spending time with something like this:

Feel the breeze, the sun

Look at that face, I’m still wondering how they keep him all nice and white!

But nothing can prepare you for this  type of awesome:

Sun and surf people, that is all you need

Yeah, that’s right people, that is how aw-some the day was, that face tells you all you need to know!

Afterward I went home to prepare for Tom’s mom birthday lunch.  Lasagna and Quesillo were the players  in the Birthday menu and I need to get going in doing some mixing and filing and baking.  If you mossy over to the Sweet Bites tab, you will find the step by step of making a Quesillo, which is made with eggs, condensed milk and dark rich caramel sauce, similar to crème caramel. ridiculous super easy dessert that will wow everyone and looks amazing.

And if you are like me and Tom, will not last past a day in your refrigerator.

Road Trip in the horizon,with stress around the corner

In 22 days we will be packing up Tom’s mom car with 3 adults, 1 eight-year old and 2 dogs, one which weights the same amount as me (and I’m not kidding). We will then hit the I-95 north and work out way out of Florida, past Georgia, all of South Carolina and parts of North Carolina.

So we can spend 3 days stuffing ourselves full of Thanksgiving food and family fun.  I’m looking forward to this trip because

1) I don’t have to cook
2) I don’t have to host and
3) I don’t have to do anything at.all, except relax and let others do everything.

Heaven… I’m in heaven (well NOT YET, but in TWENTY-TWO DAYS I will be)

But, there is something I’m NOT looking forward to, and that is the ACTUAL car trip because, well simply put people, its Ten hours! Let me repeat that for those in back of the room – TEN HOURS.IN.A.CAR with a 8-year old, my boyfriend’s mom, 2 dogs and the actual boyfriend.

LORD.HELP.ME

So, since I know myself and I know that I will probably want to jump off the car (and my skin) in the first half-hour of the drive, I decided to convince Tom, that the best course of action for me all of us would be to split this trip up and do it in a 2-part, 5 hour drive.

Which means that I have to find a hotel, on the way, to take us ALL in.

Including the 2 dogs

Did I mention that Rufus weights what I weight?

Yeah, I thought so.

This is going to be hard

I have 22 days to stress over it.

Warpath Day

Now that Tom and I are hitting the almost 1-year anniversary of living together mark, we have ironed out the various routines around the house. After a couple of false starts, we are a well oiled machine around the “CP” house.

One of these routines is our “right-before-bed” routine.

We usually watch TV together on most nights in the living room, and then somewhere around the 10:00 pm mark, I move to our bedroom to watch “my” TV shows read, while I give him the right to watch all the comedy central his little heart desires (sorry, folks, I’m not a comedy central girl, but then he is not a Bravo boy either – so we even out).  By the time that Tom closes up shop, and comes to bed, I’m usually out like a light; because you know I’m OLD and OLD people need more sleep – apparently. And when that sleep is totally interrupted, this OLD person becomes a totally non-recognizable bitch who takes everyone down to the hell that her day has turned into.

It’s pretty basic: Don’t fuck with my sleep pattern, or YOU. WILL. BE . SORRY.

Now by trial and error we have learned that the dogs need about 20 minutes, at a minimum, of backyard time. Because you know, they, on top of having to go “potty”, have to sniff every fucking plant in the backyard, and chase about a gazillion squirrels and other critters in the middle of the night.  So 20 minutes is the designated time frame they need to be out in order to sleep the entire 8 hour night without having to go out again.

Does this sound familiar to new mommies everywhere? Yeah, I thought so.

So, since Tom is the one downstairs, he is in charge of letting the dogs out, before coming up to bed.

Tom is in trouble folks.

For the last couple of weeks, the 20 minute time frame has magically been reduced to 5 to 10 minutes. Which means, that for the last couple of weeks, the following has been happening more regularly, last night the whole thing blew over with this timeline, which is totally acurate, because I CHECKED THE CLOCK EVERYTIME.

1:00AM: Rufus walks up the stairs and stands on MY SIDE OF THE BED and starts deep breathing. (Have you guys had a 150 pound dog breath on your face before? NO? Trust me, its NOT RECOMMENDED) After attempting to wake up Tom, with no success, I yell to Rufus to settle down and go away.

1:15AM: Seems the yelling worked and he plucks down and start to lick himself very LOUDLY.  I apparently fall back to sleep. (but, NOT.FOR.LONG)

1:45AM: I wake up to Maggie’s crying downstairs.  I nudge Tom, who FINALLY wakes up!  And, he, like the man he is, shouts down to Maggie to shut up.  Apparently, it works. And everyone goes back to bed.  I, instead sit staring at the wall, trying to fall back to sleep.

2:00AM: still looking at the ceiling and NOT SLEEPING.

2:05AM: Maggie starts to whimper again.  I ignore her.

2:10AM: Rufus starts to breath loud and in my face AGAIN.  Maggie whimper turn into cries and little annoying barks.

2:15AM: Maggie’s start to cry harder. Tom is not moving even after numerous shoves on my part.  Rufus, not waiting to be left out, start to whine as well. DOOMED CITY here I come!

2:20AM: get up and hurry downstairs to open the back door to let the ungrateful dogs out. Start to rethink about not getting pregnant, because you know babies cry and cry, and they cannot just put them out and let them take care of their business on their own. Shit! Cannot sleep, Need to do something! Power up the laptop and kill time by reading twitter and blogs. Realized that Twitter is awful quiet around early morning – nothing exciting happening. No celebrity deaths, or dramas. We are in the clear people.

3:10AM: Let dogs back in and give them a dress down, making sure they understand that enough is enough and they better go to sleep or else!

3:20AM: Back to bed. Rufus, once again makes enough noise to wake up everyone, except TOM.

4:00AM: Still looking at the ceiling, no sleep anywhere.

4:15AM: turn on the lights, and I start to read. Hoping to fall sleep.

5:30AM: Still reading, still NOT SLEEPING.

6:00AM: alarms goes off, I snooze it and hope for 10 more minutes of sleep.

6:45AM: alarm goes off again and WAKES ME UP – SHIT I FELL SLEEP, to finally WAKE UP? WTF?

7:00AM: debates in calling in sick at work. Totally remember that I can’t.  I shove Tom awake (have to take out on someone right?)

8:00AM: Arrive at work – barely keeping my shit together today.

8:30AM: Tweeted “With only 3 hours of sleep, today is going to be a total warpath”

11:35AM: finish writing this post and realized that I still have 5 more hours to KILL before I can go home and SLEEP.

want to cry and ask for my mommy.

We are at the home strech

Tomorrow night I will be sleeping in a new place, unfamiliar and with nothing of my own around me.  Yes, I will be taking my clothes and bathrooms stuff, but for the most part most of my STUFF will be sitting in a 10×10 storage.. awaiting until I can get them OUT INTO THE LIGHT again.

Since we will be doing extensive remodeling in Tom’s house, in the coming months, we figure it would not make sense for me to take my furniture and other stuff there, since then we will have to haul them out of the way when we are knocking down walls and painting and putting up tiles and all the stuff that goes with a remo event… better to have all of that stuff out of the way, and then bring everything back in when all is nice and CLEAN and with a designated place.

But, I know that I will be missing having my stuff around me.  My home and the things in it are my center, and I feel that this major change, while its all good and I’m looking forward to, will also call out to me to seek my stuff in order to keep my shit balance together. I have given Tom warning about this, and to just ride the wave, since its just a matter of me getting comfortable with the situation.  I also told him to have lots of caramels and cupcakes around me at all times.   Because it NEVER HURTS to have PLAN B in the background at all times.

My cats on the other hand are in for a rude awakening.  They have never shared the house, but with each other and having 2 dogs come into the picture will most likely freak them out… which means that they will be all stressed out and probably hide for quite a while. And that means that for a while I will not be able to have them around me to comfort me, so that is another thing that will NOT be working to my favor as well.  So as you can see the coming weeks its going to completely stress the shit out of me. I may blog more about it just to get it off my chest… or I may be absent for a bit, in order to organized my crap and come at you guys all nice and shiny new.

And for those following the odds… they are NOT in my favor people!

The weather gods, still fucking with me… Today while I was able to sneak in 2 runs to the storage with my cars (and a friends of mine – Thanks T!) full of boxes, the moment I got back home.. all hell broke loose and again we got soaked with rain pretty much for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow, the chances of showers are at 40%… I’m hoping that I have called in my dues, and they will give me a window of opportunity (about 2 hours) for me to get this done and then sit in my new gigs eating caramels and cupcakes.

By giving a little you end up giving a lot…

As some of you know, my sister own a Pet Sitting business, and in order to give back to the community she is sponsoring a Fundraising Walk for the Animals called “Bark in the Park 2008″ which is taking place this coming March.

I’m making this post as a call to arms if you will and go out on a limb and totally ask that for the love of all animals out there, please sponsor us in our efforts. (plus that will TOTALLY give us the incentive to walk the miles, we would not want to let YOU internet down)

You can donate as little as $1.00 or any amount you feel comfortable with. What ever the amount is, it will be greatly appreciated not only by us, but by the thousands of animals that are relinquished to the shelter each year and will receive shelter, food, spay/neuter services and medical care.

Help us meet out goal! By giving a little, you end up giving a lot!

You can click here: I will DONATE.. get to walking!

Donating through this website is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to support our fundraising efforts.

Many thanks for your support — and don’t forget to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate too!

There I totally sold myself!

New family member

My sister has added to her fold …

meet the new addition: Maximilian, or Max

He was adopted from the Tampa Humane Society. After having been on his presence for 5 minutes I made the decision to change his name to Jumping Rabbit (its pretty self explanatory). He sat his ass down for 2 seconds for this to be taken, the only reason the picture came out?

My fast clicking ability with the digital camera. (also the treat being offered off camera range helped too)

Yeah, he knows that he will be the center of attention for a while.