Ten Day YOU Challege--Day 4

Day 4--Seven Wants:

1. For this deployment to end. =p

2. That this deployment would be a time of personal growth for my hubby and me as Christians--both as individuals as well as a couple.

3. For Munchkin to start listening more (ah, the Terrible Two's, ha ha).

4. To finish my online course well and learn a lot from it.

5. To read more.

6. To live faaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr away from anything and essentially be 'off the grid'. . .in a snowy climate and near mountains.

7. To be able to hug and be hugged by my hubby whenever I want.

 

Ten Day YOU Challenge--Day 3

Hello again! I think I'm setting some sort of a record for posts in one week for me (at least for the past year and a half probably, ha ha!). I hope you are enjoying hearing from me more frequently--though I can't promise that I will be able to keep this up long term, ha ha!


Anyhow, on to. . .

Day 3--Eight Fears:

1. That I'm failing as a mom. . .since I didn't babysit growing up I'm still 'learning as I go', sometimes I worry that I'm not doing a good enough job.

2. That I'll somehow manage to mangle our finances while my hubby is away. I think in some aspects that fear is somewhat helpful. . .it helps prevent me from making stupid financial decisions and makes me think twice (or well, maybe more like five or six times =p) about anything before I buy it, ha ha. ;)

3. That my horse is truly what he has been termed by some--a rogue--and may never be trainable. =(

4. That my hubby is going to get bored with my somewhat repetitive daily letters since my life doesn't vary much day to day, ha ha. =p

5. That my acne is never going to go away (seriously, what happened to it being just a teenage problem? Bleh).

6. Caterpillars. I'm serious. I know it's irrational--I can't even explain why I'm afraid of them. . .I used to play with them when I was a little kid (I LOVED Wooly Bears!!!)--I was still fine with them even after having a traumatic experience involving a Catalpa caterpillar when I was about 4 that still freaks me out to think about and getting stung once when I was probably 7 or 8. I'm not entirely sure when I developed this fear, I just know that sometime around the time I entered into the double-digits age-wise anytime I saw a caterpillar anywhere near me my heart would start beating faster--and each time I had to go in the chicken coop after the web-worms had left their nests I about died from the thought of one falling off of the overhead wire onto me (hey, it was a very real possibility--I've seen them falling from there!). I may or may not still have that same reaction at the thought of a caterpillar falling on me. The few times I have actually found a caterpillar on my clothes after walking through underbrush or sitting on the ground in the summertime for awhile have been the closest I have ever been to having a panic attack I think. Over a caterpillar. Like I said it's irrational. . . .

7. That I'll never be truly good at something. . .just mediocre in a few things.

8. The same things any wife of a deployed soldier fears--I just can't put them into words.

Ten Day YOU Challenge--Day 2

Nine Loves:

 

1. My Heavenly Father

2. My Amazing Hubby

3. My Crazy Munchkin

4. Animals

5. Photography

6. Snow

7. Reading

8. Doing things with my hands (e.g., puzzles, crocheting, sewing, cross-stitching, etc. I have a hard time sitting still without doing something with my hands. . .growing up if we were watching a movie I wasn't actually watching it--I would be listening to it and glancing up occasionally while working on a puzzle.)

9. Solitude (but with my hubby and son!)

Ten Day YOU Challenge--Day 1

So, I saw this on a friend's blog and thought it looked like fun. We'll see if I can stick with it to the end. =)

Ten Secrets:

Okay, so I don't really know if I have ten secrets and the secrets that I may/may not have aren't going to be published on this blog for all the world to see. . .sorry. That is why they are SECRETS. =p Soooo, with that being said I'll just change it to:


Ten Random Facts About Me:

1. I absolutely love wolves. When I was younger I wanted to grow up and be a biologist that studied wolves so I could help protect their species. I had pictures of wolves tacked up around my room that I'd saved from old calendars. . .I'll admit that I actually have a wolf calendar now as my "Countdown Calendar". =)

2. My favorite genre of music is instrumental movie scores. My favorite composers being Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Howard Shore, and occasionally James Horner (though he has a tendency to re-use themes from other movies in new movies, and it bothers me that he can't come up with entirely new music each time. . .don't believe me? There's a bit of Zorro, Willow, and possibly Troy [if I remember correctly--it's been a while since I listened to it all the way through] in the Avatar score--and that is just one example).

3. My husband and I were pen-pals for a year and a half before we ever met for the first time (my mom met him before I ever did!!), but that is a story for another post. . . .

4. I absolutely hate having water in my ears and generally have to use a q-tip to get it out after I shower every night (I blame my dad for passing this quirk on to me, ha ha).

5. I have a mixed heritage. . .I am 1/2 British (my dad is from England), and then a big mix of German, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, Dutch, and a tiny bit of Native American (not sure what tribe. . .seems like my far-back family was too prejudiced to think of recording those things. . .we don't even know what her name was--she was apparently just referred to as the "Squaw". Makes me sad). My Grandfather's family were apparently German Jews who immigrated from Germany before/around WWI (I don't remember for sure when it was). . .they weren't practicing Jews I guess, because no one in my family knew anything about it until after my grandma passed away and we found a document stating that my grandfather's family were Jewish.

6. When I was 13 my dad, sister, and I went on a one month trip to England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales--visiting family along the way. It was an incredible experience and I dream of going back again one day to so many of the places we visited--but this time with my husband and Munchkin(s) so they can share the experience with me.

7. I play the violin/fiddle. . .though not very well and it's been years since I was able to play it regularly. I wish I had brought it with me because I keep wanting to play it, but sadly it is in storage in Hawaii. I didn't have room to bring it with me when we moved. =(I am worried that it is going to be ruined in storage somehow by the time I get back to Hawaii.

8. I got bucked off a horse that I was thinking about buying the day before I discovered I was pregnant with Peanut Butter Cup. . .my hubby was videoing the whole time (you'd have thought he would have been too concerned to keep filming, but apparently not, ha ha =p)--and oh, how he loves to watch that video clip (and re-watch! Not to mention he showed it to anyone who came to our house for the next couple of months after that, ha ha). He likes to watch it in slow motion and then he watches it in slow motion going backwards. 

9. My hair used to be long enough for me to sit on. Then I started cutting it off in 10-inch increments to donate to Locks of Love (once each year until it got too short to cut off 10 inches and leave me with a length of hair that I was comfortable with).

10. Speaking of hair. . .I was born with jet black hair and my aunt nicknamed me "the little Indian baby" because of it. A short while later my hair turned red (yes, you read that right it turned red--it didn't fall out and then grow back in red), by the time I was 2 years old I had super light blonde hair (not quite white blonde, but close to it). It stayed that way for years and then slowly started getting darker until it reached it's current (and seemingly final) color that is something between a golden and a honey blonde.

So there you have it! Ten Random Facts About Me. =)

Introducing Sasha

Handsome (albeit somewhat dirty, ha ha) boy.

 So, I know what those of you that have been following my blog for the past couple of years may be thinking. . ."What--ANOTHER dog?!"

Big stretch!

Well, in our defense, it's been really HARD finding the right dog.

Apparently someone else likes to eat snow too. =p

 Though I'm still not 100% sure that Sasha is that dog, I'm giving him a chance to become that dog (he needs training and a LOT of patience).

I LOVE the background in these next couple of shots!

 We got him from a German Shepherd Rescue--yep, you read that right: he's a White German Shepherd Dog--back in early December.

The snow on his nose makes me smile. =)

 He came from a home in Tennessee that couldn't keep him anymore. We were told that he is a little over 1 1/2 years old (so he's still got a puppy mentality in a lot of aspects).

He was having a blast in the snow.

 He is a little too curious/hyper about the cats at the moment so I can't let him free roam the house now that the cats are out and about. That is one 'issue' we are going to have to work on. . .it's just hard to do it without my hubby here to help.

Ready to spring again. =)

 Oh, and he jumps the fence (and then runs for the hills, ha ha)--hence the reason why he is tied out in the yard. I am going to get an invisible fence for him so we don't have to have him tied whenever he is outside.

I was happy he liked the snow as much as the rest of us do--at least in that aspect he fits right in!

He had really bad separation anxiety when we first got him and would destroy stuff if left alone for (literally) even a minute. We got a crate and crate trained him so he wouldn't be alone unsupervised if we had to leave the house or if he had to be in a different room for a while. At first he didn't like the crate (I can't say I blame him since it was entirely new to him) but now he chooses to go in there quite often. It really has become his 'den/safe spot'.  =)

I thought this one's perspective was kind of funny.

So, even though he can be really frustrating a lot of times, he seems to fit in somehow and I think with some training coupled with a lot of dedication and patience, he just might be the right dog.