The Prettiest Q Ever

Unfortunately, the only digital puppy picture I have of Q makes her look fat and ugly. She was a cute puppy, I swear!! This was taken when she was about 9 weeks old in the bed Bro bought for her. The bed was later destroyed in what appeared to be a foam explosion (with tooth marks) but the tug lives on.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Q. She is so pretty and lovely and shiny. And look at those ears!

This is how I wish Q would sleep at night--all curled up in a ball. She looks so tiny, you'd hardly believe she's 65lbs.

Q in the trunk. No, we don't put her in the trunk; she loves the car and will do whatever it takes to get in.

Aw, Pretty Q!

I do love this picture of Q--she really is a good looking dog.

We brought Q home on Valentine's Day 2004. Adopting a puppy wasn't really the plan for the day, but as with all the great things in life, it happened all at once. It all started in 2000 when we made our own Valentine's Day tradition: we would take turns planning a Valentine's Day meal and/or excursion for just the two of us. In 2004, it was my year to plan. I intended to surprise D with a night at GameWorks, pizza and maybe a movie. I thought it would be fun and maybe he could teach me to play a video game or two. As we headed to Block E, he figured out where we were going and protested, saying that it wasn't fair that I planned the night out just for him and it wasn't something that I would usually do. Umm...that was the point...and I don't think that Anthony and Cleopatra at the Guthrie the year before was really for him.

So, my plan was foiled. As to still do something on Valentine's Day and not just go home to watch a rental, or worse, TV in separate rooms, I had to think on the fly of something that we would both enjoy doing. I came up with a visit to the Humane Society (we were close) and then making a nice dinner at home. Three hours later we had a puppy and were showing off our newest member of the family to my parents.

Q is our Humane Society Pedigree. She is mostly black with white tips on her toes and a slash on her chest. We adopted her at 8 weeks old, weighing in at 8 pounds. She was bow-legged and her ears were tipped just enough to give her attitude. We let that little girl rule our house with her puppy breath and wagging tail. Her name is derived from Cupid, for Valentine's Day. She had a slew of nicknames early on (Q-girl, Q-dog, Pretty Q, Snotty Q, Qt P2T, etc.) but now she goes by Q, Snot or Pretty. And she is just as snotty as she is pretty. Seriously.

Q now weighs in at 65 pounds and has the look of a black, smooth coated German Shepherd, if ever one existed. To see her run is something: she has a beautiful gate and a muscular build. We have no idea what breeds she is; vets, trainers and friends have guessed everything from the general Lab mix to Border Collie to Basenji. Q climbs trees, loves fish and only recently discovered the joys of belly rubs. She is a great cuddler, awesome jumper and a smart little devil with a truck load of crazy. We've been to our wits end and back with her, but we've enjoyed the ride and are glad to share our lives and our bed with her.

Happy Gotcha Day, Q!

Wandering

In lieu of an actual post, I have randomness for you.

Our CEO has a runner in her pantyhose. I am embarrassed for her but loving that she is human at the same time.

D and I went to a dinner party with some of his higher-ups on Friday night. It was much better than I thought, but still nerve-wracking. On the way home, D asked both if he was professional enough and funny enough. Guys need affirmations too!

Today I told a co-worker how Scotch Guard was invented. She laughed at me. I thought everyone had heard that story in science class somewhere along the way; but perhaps I really heard it from all of my family members that work at 3M. Don't worry, I did not tell her about hymnals and Post-it Notes.

Q likes to chew her fish oil pills; this morning she squirted Carter on the nose and quickly licked it off.

Last Thursday a soon-to-be ex co-worker committed a major sin when talking to a woman. A certain director here has gained a bit of weight since starting last spring, she also carries that weight in her mid-section. (Do you see where I'm going with this?) Almost ex co-worker walked up to her with her hand reaching for her belly and asked if she was pregnant. The answer was a royally pissed off and insulted, "No." !!!

I had a facial on Saturday morning. My skin was glowing the rest of the day; I was actually in love with my skin...for about 10 hours. When I woke up on Sunday morning I had small zits all over my face. I've heard of this happening before, but it has never happened to me.

I was pleasantly surprised that Victorya was auf'd and nearly died of shock when Ricky won.

Success! Previous non-post has been replaced by current non-post.

Here I Am. Love Me.

Here is Cooper, the Second Cutest Puppy in the World. I had the pleasure of meeting him on Saturday and he is so sweet and roly poly and has puppy breath and everything.

I know my friend will disagree with me on his runner-up title because he is obviously adorable and she has photographic evidence to back up her argument, but I am ever so slightly biased.

Here is the official M.O.V. Cutest Puppy in the World title holder, Carter:

Awwww! Isn't he cute!?! He's WAY BIG now and moves like a deer with all of his uber long legs, but he's definitely a cutie.

After spending the afternoon with Cooper, I decided that I definitely wanted another puppy. (Don't tell D!!!) I even said it out loud. As my friend rightly stated, "If you get another puppy you'll never have kids." And I do want kids (someday--don't ask me when), so no more puppies for me...yet.

We Breed TV Junkies

Wow, it's been entirely too long since I've posted! I'd like to say it was because of something fun, but really, I was busy with an event for work, then I was sick, and then I was busy because of the event and being out sick. It's a vicious cycle. But, I'm back, less busy, and feeling much better. Thank you.

Right now it's incredibly gray and rainy in Minnesota. Yuck. D and I sat inside much of the weekend and watched TV. And rented a movie. And watched movies that were on TV. It was really exciting. I watched some pre-season Vikings and a bit of the Twins game with D on Friday night--that is love, people. We rented Vacancy--I couldn't watch it, it was a bit too scary for me, and also not very good. D gave me the CliffsNotes, and I'm glad I didn't stick around to see the whole movie--all of the eye-covering and ear-plugging would not have been worth it in the end.

A Time to Kill was on TV this weekend. I love that movie! I did get a little analytical during the trial though--like how did Mr. Brigance seemingly get to argue jury nullification? And how did he get to introduce evidence in his closing? (Well, maybe because he posed it as a hypothetical it wasn't actually introducing evidence...) Anyway, I still enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy) watching the movie for entertainment purposes. Also, I realize that I asked uneducated law questions; I'll try to refrain from that in the future. Now enough about my L&O degree and back to me being a TV Junkie.

Home Improvement shows. There are so many of them! And D and I have become avid watchers of so many of the HGTV, A&E and TLC series that it's ridiculous. When do we find the time to actually do the projects we learn about if we can't stop watching the dang TV?!? As some of you know, we recently finished putting in new flooring and painting the trim of our living room. It looks beautiful. Thank you very much. Well, we need to paint the trim on the rest of the main floor now--progress has not been great on that. And watching all of these DIY shows only makes me want to tackle more and more projects around the house--that 70's kitchen? we can totally transform that into a gorgeous modern kitchen with a new tile backsplash and countertop, not to mention painting (or replacing) the cupboards and buying all new stainless steel appliances! Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, not only would doing this hurt our budget, but I've learned that home improvement projects are bad for my marriage. So, I will continue to plant myself on the couch and leave the big projects to the professional house flippers.

Oh, and about the picture of Carter. Yes, even he watches TV. And if you come to visit us, you can say, "Carter, go watch TV!" and he will run to the bedroom and stare at the television. Seriously. This provides us much entertainment and we end up watching strange Animal Planet shows because we get a kick out of watching Carter watch TV. I'm glad we're not tracking anything for Nielsen ratings.

Weekend Ramblings

I had so many things I wanted to write about over the weekend, but did I bother to make a list? No! So I'm just going to shoot from the hip and we'll see what happens.

My weekend included watching old guys golf, seeing Matt Damon look less hot than usual, teaching my dogs "Back" and buying some of the cutest and some of the ugliest shoes. Sounds fun, huh?

D got golf tickets from a client for the 3M Championship at TPC this weekend. We went on Friday and Saturday, and then he went with friends on Sunday. We had a lot of fun walking the course and hanging out in the 3M tent. We ate entirely too much, and despite covering ourselves in sunscreen, we both got burned. We followed Thorpe, Irwin, Watson, Jenkins, etc. We also saw Lee Trevino and Chi Chi Rodriguez. Oh, and I almost walked into Tom Watson in the 3M tent! I was highly embarrassed, but I don't think he knew that I was inches away from colliding with him as I headed to the ice cream cooler. I'm so awesome.

Oh, and I bought a new pair of Crocs at TPC. This is my third pair. Yes, I'm a bit obsessed. And no, these were not 'some of the cutest shoes'. I know they're ugly.

Saturday morning we had our first training lesson for the dogs. Q and Carter were quick to let her know just what they needed to work on as they were jumping so much she couldn't even get in the door. It was like Greeting Olympics! Who can jump the highest? Who can whine the loudest? Who can kiss her face first? I believe Q was the gold medalist in all of these competitions, but Carter really stepped it up from previous visitor greetings to show Maureen just how much obedience training he really needs. We made progress. D and I were trained (and you thought dog training was for the dogs--it's really for the owners!) and we think we can work on a few things before our next lesson. Do we have any volunteers to visit us as we're working on greeting? No? That's a surprise. We had our participants on Sunday. They had no idea what they were in for. Thank God we have 3 more lessons.

Oh, I also bought a pair of black leather, peep toe wedge slingbacks (that was a mouthful), so I think that redeems me for my Crocs purchase. And we saw Bourne Ultimatum. I liked it, but it wasn't as good as the first two. Parts of the movie seemed more like a comedy of errors than the Action/Adventure/Drama that it's being billed as--but I still found it enjoyable and if they make another Bourne, I'll definitely see it.

On a final note; we drove on University Ave this morning on the way to work. This was our first in-person look at 35W since the bridge collapsed last week. It was exactly the same and completely different from how I imagined it. While the news footage has captured all the angles and covered the tragedy non-stop, seeing it for myself impacted me in a whole new way.