Honesty is the Best Policy

[At Bentley's follow-up appointment yesterday with the specialist]

Me: "Does he look too skinny? I kind of think he looks scrawny."

Dr. F: "No, last time he was here, he was fat."

Good thing I am familiar with not sugar-coating things. :)

Just Another Manic Monday...

Let's recap my morning, shall we?

• Slept in for 15 minutes on purpose because I was dead tired. Fifteen minutes can't mess up a morning, right? The answer is yes, yes it can.
• Woke up with the beginnings of a sore throat and ear ache. Excellent, I love those.
• Bentley ran down the steps at 5:55 a.m., woke Baxter, and knocked the gate over at the bottom. I can only imaging that Matt and Erin thought someone was robbing us.
• Could only find one shoe from every pair I considered wearing with my outfit. Maybe the sock thief runs around with the shoe thief.
• Couldn't find my keys. This is nothing shocking, as this happens about 18 times a day. Just not usually at 6:15 a.m....on a Monday....when we're already running behind....while we have sleeping guests.

The good news? I made it to work on time, Bentley willingly went into his crate when he got in trouble, I found one complete pair of shoes for work, I found my keys in Matt and Erin's van, and I am only working a 1/2 day today.

Has your Monday been as manic as mine?

No More Dreams, Please.

Every night for the past 6 weeks, we've tried a new sleeping arrangement and have allowed Bentley to sleep in his bed on the floor in our room. And just about every night, I frantically wake up at some point during the night and mumble something to Seth along the lines of "did he just pee?" "is he throwing up?" "I just heard him go to the bathroom." And every night except one, that has not been the case.

I'm almost positive that the overwhelming thought of that possibility of him doing those things in our room has launched me into some very distinct dreaming about puppy bodily functions.

Last night took a serious turn for the worst in the middle-of-the-night-Bentley-bodily-function-fiasco when I sat straight up, tapped Seth and told him that I heard Bentley go the bathroom and now smelled pee.

I turned the light on and jumped up, of course thinking Bentley had tried to wake us, but we didn't hear him and so he peed on the floor. As I frantically searched for pee and rounded the bed, I saw it:

Bentley sound asleep in his bed, no pee in sight.

I've officially hit a new low in dreamland.

Happy Friday!

I am so giddy that I only work until 11 on Fridays, that I could squeal with excitement. Typically, Bentley and I take a pretty nice nap on Friday afternoons. And because it is raining and cold, today would be no exception. But I have my 70,000 mile service at the Honda dealership this afternoon, so no such luck. At least I'll be reading Real Simple and US Weekly though! Maybe I can squeak in a quick nap after my appointment.

Tonight, Aunt Polly and Uncle Dirk come for a visit. Tomorrow, Ben, Salli, Charlotte, and Calvin come and are staying until Sunday. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't rain tomorrow because we are all supposed to go to the Apple Festival. I've never been to this one, but I've heard it's great, so I really want to check it out this year. We are looking forward to seeing our next round of visitors! :)

Any fun weekend plans for you?

English: 101

Occasionally, there are times when I am writing that I just stop for a second and realize I have absolutely no idea how to say what I'm thinking grammatically correct.

I have googled some words and phrases I just didn't know, and some I was curious about. One day, I decided to just go ahead and buy the book, Words You Thought You Knew: 1001 Commonly Misused and Misunderstood Words and Phrases. So, here are a few examples--some shocking, some obvious, some annoying, and some just downright weird.

Saps my energy/Zaps my energy
Sap means to deplete, so the correct expression is "saps my energy" (NO WAY!)

Another thing coming/Another think coming
The correct expression is the somewhat ungrammatical another think coming, as in, "If that's what you think, you have another think coming." (How weird! I bet enough people don't know that is correct...I'll probably sound like I'm the one who doesn't know what she's talking about!)

Bald-faced/bold-faced
Bald-faced is correct. It means obvious, without any mask or covering. You will typically see this used in "That was a bald-faced lie." (Interesting...)

Champ at the bit/Chomp at the bit
Funny one, because champing does mean repeatedly chomping. Some animals champ (open and close their mouths, making a chomping noise) as part of a mating ritual. The correct expression is champ at the bit when you mean to say someone is eager or excited. (Sounds odd, but makes sense)

For all intensive purposes/For all intents and purposes (this is where my obsession with saying these things correctly began!)
Even though it's a redundant expression, for all intents and purposes is correct.

Your/You're
Easy one, I know. But I want to strang....um, correct people when they use it wrong. To borrow one of my favorite Ross quotes (from Friends) "Y-o-u-r means your. Y-o-u-apostrophe-r-e means you are!" Your shows possession. You're is a contraction. Let us (Let's!) share this knowledge with our friends in hopes of everyone catching on!

I hope you enjoyed YOUR English lesson today! :) If you are totally intrigued by everything you say incorrectly, or just feel uneducated, you won't want to read the 995 examples in the book. Trust me. I wasn't sure my degree was real.

Oh, the Snoring!

He snored all night. I knew he snored a little, but never that bad. When it started, I thought it was a teeny bit cute--and even chuckled to myself a little. I just rolled over and went back to sleep. I love him, I thought. A little snoring can't bother me.

Then it came with a vengence. I mean, he SNORED. All. night. long. It sounded like a wild animal. I covered my ears with my pillow and somehow managed to make it through the night.

And, tonight, he'll probably do it again. Because he is just that tired from playing with Baxter.

But he's the cutest puppy I've ever seen, so I'll live. And laugh it off.

And then fall asleep at my desk because he kept me up so long.

(How many people thought I was talking about Seth?) :)

What a Cute Bee!

I went against all rules in the house and bought Bentley some clothing. And not just any clothing. I bought him the cutest doggie Halloween costume ever. I've been talking over the last 2 weeks or so about how I wanted him to be a bumble bee for Halloween. So when I walked into Jo-Ann Fabric and saw a display of doggie costumes, I was pumped to see this:


Seth hates it and shot me the look of death, and Bentley is constantly trying to de-antennae himself...but I love it!

Thanks!

Bethany helped me figure out how to make my blog look nicer, so thank you, Bethany! I am completely clueless as to how to do those things, so the help was wonderful. Blogging probably would have been out of style until I figured it out. :)

Tomorrow is...?

I hope you're ready for tomorrow! Yes, it's September 17th!! And we all know what that means, right?

Wrong.

At dinner, Seth asked me if I knew what tomorrow is. Of course I know what tomorrow is. It's back-to-school night for Seth. It's 3 months til Seth's birthday. It's 2 days before Matt, Erin, and Logan come. It's halfway through the week.

None of those answers were correct in his eyes.

My history-loving husband gleefully informed me that tomorrow is Constitution Day.

Break out the candles, we're having a celebration! :)

Oh, how I love him. <3

The Office (Not the Show!)

I watch a lot of HGTV. I could easily fill my nights with Get it Sold, My House is Worth What?, and Design on a Dime if I wanted. And I do, don't get me wrong. I just have other more grown up things to do, like work, take care of a puppy, spend time with Seth, cook, clean, etc.

But all that design TV was started to take a toll on me. Because, the other night, as I sat on Seth's college futon while Seth typed on his college computer, while I glanced around our college-esque decorated office, it struck me that we are actually grown ups now. Since we moved in, we never really did much downstairs. Ok, we did nothing. Well, except yank out the cat-pee laden carpet from the laundry room and lay down (ourselves) carpet my parents gave us. Other than that, nothing. Nada. Zip.

The college stuff didn't even bother me so much. But the blue crayon on the walls, and the 108271972 nail holes were getting old. Plus, Ben, Salli, and the kids are coming next weekend and need to stay in the office (since it is technically the 3rd spare bedroom). It didn't seem fit for someone to stay in, so we got motivated. Oh yes, we got motived real good.

We bought painter's tape, paint, trim paint, brushes, and all the necessities and got to work! I'm a fairly sloppy painter, so it gave me a little bit of anxiety to just push everything to the center of the room and work around it. But we survivied, and our stuff was paint-free!

After much puttying, sanding, taping, and painting, the room is pretty much done! The once-brown carpet does have a teensy weensy bit (lot) of paint around the edges, but we weren't planning to leave it for too long anyway.

Once I get the solid futon cover, a nice lamp, and a cute picture, I think it'll look very nice.

Oh, and it'll look even nicer when I take my handy dandy little scissors and cut off all the fibers that have paint on them. Because my sanity is cheaper than new carpet right now.

Happenings and Such

I am beyond glad that tomorrow is Friday, and that it also happens to be my 1/2 day with my new work schedule. Because let me tell you, I am tired. Once I'm awake for the day and actually moving, getting up at 5:30 doesn't really seem to affect me. But by the end of the week, those few hours of lost sleep tend to catch up to me.

Work is absolutely insane. Most people know that when I get stressed, I tend to get itchy. Well, needless to say, I may or may not have scratched off my top layer of skin this week. I'm hoping that within the next week or so, I should have most stuff wrapped up at work for Breast Cancer Awareness month and can actually enjoy the month of October. That's a good thing, because I hear that October is nice.

Right now, I'm in the midst of planning for the Pink Zone game with the athletic and marketing reps at Penn State University. Pink Zone is the name they give to the Penn State vs. Iowa State Women's basketball game on February 15, 2009. Both teams wear pink and the whole day is about breast cancer research and awareness. This year, all the money raised will benefit cancer research being done right here in Hershey at our Cancer Institute, which is very exciting for little 'ol marketing rep Danielle!

Everything else is pretty much same old, same old at the Ran house.

After finally getting some rain, we mowed the lawn for the first time in a month. And mowing the lawn exposed the mysterious cement in the backyard, which means yard repair 101 has ensued. What is the mysterious cement, you may ask?! Well, we have an odd rectangular border about 5" wide around about a 20' x 15' section of the yard. We noticed something was weird because the grass was brown right above it and we had a little piece sticking out.

We have no idea what it is from. The neighbor said it was from a trampoline. Because everyone knows trampolines frequently come in 20' x 15' rectangular sizes for backyard use. My mom suggested that the reason Bentley digs in the yard is because something/one is buried there. I like my idea best--that it is a foundation for an addition to the house that was never built or an old barn from when it was still farmland. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Well, we possibly could not go on in life with a piece of cement sticking out. Seth grabbed some weird tool with a hook on each end and went to town.

There is no more cement sticking out anymore!! But we do have a fun, ankle breaking 8" ditch in the yard now! I think that when I break my ankle I'll get my cast in blue. I'm pinked out.

Stand up to cancer.

Not sure if you got a chance to watch, but NBC, CBS, and ABC hosted an event called Stand Up To Cancer tonight. What a beautiful show. I was pretty much teary-eyed the whole time. I think we can all say that we knew or know of someone who is battling cancer, so it touches pretty close to home.

It's unbelievable to think that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer, 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer, and 1 person a minute dies of cancer in the United States.

Clearly, this is the marketing person in me because I advertise for several of our cancer awareness and treatment programs at the Medical Center, but don't forget to schedule your yearly screenings.

October is breast cancer awareness month and the perfect time to start on the breast cancer one. And, if you come to Hershey, you get one of the t-shirts I designed for free if you schedule your mammogram. :)

If you want to check out the site, go to http://www.standuptocancer.org/.

I'm sure the researcher who will find the cure for cancer is out there--he or she just needs the money to fund the research.

Sweet Dreams?! No Such Luck!

3 nights ago I dreamt that I saw a commercial plane crash.
2 nights ago I dreamt that my friends hated me.
Last night I dreamt that Bentley was sick again.

There's a strong to quite strong chance that the stress at work may be affecting my positive dreams.

Here's to hoping Breast Cancer Awareness month comes and goes quickly!