Charlie graduated from doggy school today. Overall, I'd say he's improved a lot in the past two months. We need more work getting him to stop jumping on people, but once we master that, I think he'll be a pretty darn good dog.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Man, how come I find someone I want to be friends with and she lives in a different state? Yesterday I found an Army wife knitter who loves Alton Brown.

I've had a couple glasses of wine, so bear with my crush here. But I love Alton Brown. Numerous times I've asked my husband if we can marry Alton Brown. I can't get enough of Good Eats, and I tear up every time I watch Feasting on Asphalt. I often toy with the idea of driving to Marietta, GA, and just camping out at grocery stores until I see him.

Seriously, if you haven't seen Feasting on Asphalt, you should. No one breaks down the charm of America like Alton Brown.

I think celebrity crushes are ridiculous, but I swoon every time Alton is on TV.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:37 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Any time you want to come down to Marietta come on! I'm not far away lol (ok so I'm a total stranger, but who cares!)

Posted by: Jill at September 09, 2006 04:22 PM (EOWoo)

2 tee hee!! I always scope out his locations... especially that Kroger where he always seems to be. Alpharetta, I think? He & Rachael Ray need to do a Food TV special together. I think it would be hilarious.

Posted by: The Girl at September 09, 2006 08:20 PM (yuPDN)

3 I just followed your link... did you see the movie she was watching?!

Posted by: The Girl at September 09, 2006 08:22 PM (yuPDN)

4 Hee. I know now what a brain sandwich is, and that I don't want to eat it!! :-) Maybe it's Alton's hair? Or that he's goofy smart? Or that he's got a stand mixer with flames on it?!

Posted by: Princess Jami at September 14, 2006 11:45 AM (0gPLe)

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You know what's scary about parenting? I think sometimes you can do everything you're supposed to do, and things still don't turn out the way you want.

I've spent the last month playing Gregory House to our dog. When we moved here, we decided he was old enough to start trying to sleep out of his crate. He loves being under our bed, so we started letting him sleep there. He began throwing up occasionally in the middle of the night, but I read online that this can be normal if it's not too frequent. I didn't think too much of it until I started feeling like it was happening too often, so I started marking the calendar every time he threw up. Turns out it was happening every other day. Our dog trainer suggested switching to a sensitive tummy food, but that didn't do any good. Finally I made a vet appointment, but the earliest we could get in was in a week. We decided we were tired of getting up at 0400 to clean up puke, so we put him back in his crate. No barf for a week.

Today was our vet appointment, and though the vet was super-nice and super-cheap, I don't feel good about the visit. I wanted tests run and MRIs and sonograms and pushing 100 cc's of something. Instead, the only thing we can come up with is that we crate trained Charlie so well that he is neurotic about sleeping elsewhere.

I really think I did a Houseworthy job of diagnosing the pup. He can't be allergic to the carpet because he naps on it all day and only throws up at night. I know he's not getting into anything because we sleep with all the doors shut, and anyway I'm such a light sleeper that I wake up every time he rolls over and his collar jingles. It doesn't seem likely that he has acid reflux or something that only affects him at night because he would've gotten sick at least once in his crate. So that leaves us with two possibilities. One, he's allergic to something or has a stomach condition, but there's no way to figure out what it is without a major investigation that the vet didn't seem to think was necessary, and so he can't sleep with us. Two, we turned our dog into a nervous wreck and now he can never sleep with us. Either way, I don't like the way this turned out.

We did everything we were supposed to do. You're supposed to make the crate a happy place for your dog. You're supposed to crate train them until they're responsible enough to be left alone. And now that we want to feel close to our dog and let him sleep with us, he yaks every night. How utterly sad.

How could we not want to sleep with this stinker?

Posted by: Sarah at 10:07 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Powerline writes about a Connecticut sports committee decision to suspend high school football coaches who win by more than 50 points. He then links to another article called Rising when we fall and learning when we lose:

I reminisced about this last week with my son, now a college sophomore. What was the greatest memory of his sports career? His answer was prompt: the soccer team his junior year in high school. I was astounded. Their record was a dismal 0-15.

Usually it's not the winning that sticks with you. When we were home on leave in May, I visited my track coaches after ten years of being away. Their memory of my team is a special one for them, one they discuss frequently, because they were embiggened by a decision we girls made.

There was a girl on my team who was a phenomenal athlete. She could run faster than anyone we'd ever seen and barely break a sweat; in fact, the first time she ever ran the 400m, she qualified for State. But with her incredible talent came a personality that was truly the pits: she made teen-movie witches seem like Pollyana. She was arrogant, spiteful, and mean, and she believed that the only purpose of the rest of the team was to help her win.

In her senior year, she was awarded a college scholarship in basketball, her favorite sport. As soon as she was certain of the scholarship, she quit our track team, right in the middle of the season. Unfortunately for her, her new college coach found out about it and was not impressed. He didn't want someone who lacked commitment on the team and told her she needed to rejoin.

Our coaches held a team meeting so everyone could discuss what we wanted to do; the choice to let her back on the team was now up to us. Few of the young girls wanted to say anything; heck, most of us were scared of this girl. But those of us who had already been running with this monster for three years knew what we had to do.

We didn't want her anymore.

We knew it would mean that we wouldn't win as many meets, and that we'd have to work harder to make up for the enormous advantage her talent had given us, but we didn't care. Winning wasn't as important to us as being a team was, and now that she was gone, we were a team instead of one star. We politely declined to accept her back, and that was that.

The coaches are impressed to this day that we chose the quality of our team over the ability to win. I'm sure a part of them wanted to keep her and keep winning. But it was a no-brainer to us; we had learned the lessons our coaches had taught us. Why did we have t-shirts that said "Winners make a commitment" and signs that said "Winning isn't everything...the effort is" if we weren't going to take it seriously?

And so high school track taught us more than winning. Ten years and bad knees later, all I care about are the bigger lessons I took with me.

But I still think that a football team should be allowed to kick someone's tail by 50 points if they can.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:01 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It's usually pretty easy to gripe about the military health care system, so I wanted to write and say that I had the most wonderful visit this morning. My doctor was so helpful and scheduled me for all sorts of follow-ups and treatments for various things. The whole thing -- from appointment to lab work to pharmacy -- took one hour. It was amazing. Yay for the people here at our hospital!

And I've lost ten pounds since I moved here too!

Posted by: Sarah at 06:09 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Yesterday I stopped in at Goodwill to check out their book section. I left with tons of books, including fifty cent copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting and What to Expect the First Year. I've heard these are popular books for pregnancy reading, and I didn't want to pass up such a good deal when I know I'll want them someday. Anyway, they caught the eye of the girls working the checkout counter, who got really excited for me. I realized it's a tad embarrassing to be explain that you're not pregnant but you're buying books about pregnancy.

Of course, anyone who knows me well is probably laughing, because they know there's no way on earth I'll get pregnant until I've read both books cover to cover and used different highlighters to color-code important information within. My husband and I are the ultimate planners. We spent months researching the type of dog we wanted, for pete's sake. My husband did so much research on our Mazda5 that he knew more about it than the salesman (an advantage which helped him get it at invoice). Right now he's been spending all his free time making intricate spreadsheets comparing different mortgages and the time value of our money to see how we can save $300 over the next five years. We're pretty intense people when it comes to Decisions That Affect Our Future, but heck, we even consult Consumer Reports to decide which dishwasher soap to buy. So while it might've seemed funny to the girls at Goodwill, those who know us aren't shocked that I bought pregnancy books for the baby we'll probably have in 2008.

Which is actually starting to freak me out a little. In Germany we always said that we'd wait until our next duty station. That was two PCSes away, so it seemed safe. But now we move in just over three months, and the reality of "we're buying the house where we'll have our first baby" is starting to freak me out. It's not going to be anywhere near Angie, and she's supposed to be my nanny!

I better start reading those books soon...

Posted by: Sarah at 04:42 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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I've heard that the best human sense for recall is not sight but smell. I got a new air freshener for the car today that was supposed to smell like "fresh cotton." Either I was misinformed as to what cotton smells like, or this air freshener should've been labeled "old timey bottle of Bayer." I instantly thought of my MuMu. She always kept aspirin and Mentholatum by her bed. What's interesting about the nose is that I didn't really remember that my grandma smelled like aspirin until I smelled that air freshener. And though Bayer is not the best smell for the car, I think I will keep it. And think of her when I drive.

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Oda Mae --
I don't know if my emails aren't reaching you. At least one got kicked back. Anyway, I need your address to send your bear to you. See if you can email it to me.

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Let me just say that I loathe myself for falling into that age-old trap of trying to lose weight a month before your high school reunion. I can't believe I'm playing that dumb game, but I am. I'd like to consider it Incentive, since I know I need to get better at exercising anyway, but I feel like it's more like Panic than Incentive. So I've been working out, probably my second least favorite thing to do behind getting a sonogram.

Don't you hate when you go to the gym and get on the machine next to SuperWoman? It's happened to me two weekends in a row. I'm not sure men care so much, but the first thing a woman will do is look at her neighbor's screen and compare. And the girl next to me goes harder, longer, and farther than me. By a long shot. I feel like Rocky Balboa if I can do 30 min, but this girl does an hour at a faster pace. And it's all I can think about the whole time I'm exercising: all the excuses for why I haven't decided to deal with the 20 lbs I've gained since high school until a month before it matters.

Plus I'm a liar. It's probably more like 25.
God, I hate exercising.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:01 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Yes, death penalty, please.
Hershel Morgan can rot in hell.
Jessica Curless was my brother's good friend.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Mom and brother are fine, of course.
More tomorrow; we have House to watch.

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My husband's family's cat passed away today. I am not a cat person at all, but I loved this little critter. She had spunk and major personality. They named her Wheezie because of the funny way she breathed, but no animal could ever have acted more of Wheezie Jefferson. This cat had attitude.

We'll miss you, Wheezie.
Best. Cat. Ever.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:50 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Conversation heard in our house this morning:

Husband: I'm gonna sip Bacardi like it's my birthday. Hey, do we have any Bacardi?
Me: I don't give a f*k; it's not my birthday.
[Much laughter]

The husband's now officially closer to 30 than to 20. We're celebrating at Dollar Hot Dog Night at the ballgame.

He's still as cute as he was at 19. Still fits in the same pants too. Jerk.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:59 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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My dad fishes every single day he can. Christmas too. But he got his biggest catch ever over the weekend: a 22-pounder!

Now he just has to catch one as big as Kelly's dad's fish.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Awww. Your pop is a cutie.

Posted by: Erin at July 26, 2006 09:07 PM (vJSTT)

2 Wow, nice fish.

Posted by: Bob at July 27, 2006 10:05 AM (WMa4u)

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Lileks attended his high school reunion this weekend; I recently bought a plane ticket to my own. It was really hard to fill out the survey about what you've been doing since. When you know you're moving two months after the reunion, what do you put for address and phone number? What do you say your job is, what you did before or what you hope to do next? And when they ask how many places you've lived since high school, it's surreal to write 9.

I'm excited to go see people I haven't seen in at least six years, but the impending reunion has made it hard to get high school off my mind; I keep replaying stuff from school and wondering how I'd do it differently. I wouldn't want my life to turn out any differently now, but sometimes I wish I'd taken a different path to get here.

My school even has a reunion website. You can see me dead center, my eyes peeking out over the word "going". The bearded guy directly below me is now a Special Forces soldier; my husband and I are going to Bragg to visit him next weekend before he deploys again. And the girl up in the far left corner surprised my brother by being his doctor last year. It will be interesting to find out what everyone else has been up to.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:37 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Let's have some pupblogging to get our minds off the news, shall we? Charlie has graduated to sleeping outside of his crate most nights. He dives under the bed while we're brushing our teeth and stays there until I get out of bed in the morning and coax him out into the world. There's nothing cuter than seeing him emerge yawning and stretching...except for when he doesn't quite make it all under the bed in the first place. Every once in a while, this is what we find peeking out from under the bed:

Posted by: Sarah at 05:44 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Dear Will,
OK, then by your definition, I'm old. I don't ever "pretend to get wild," and I honestly don't care whether the shows I watch or the music I listen to is cool. I have no intention of ever going to a club again in my life, and I can't ever remember what I liked about them in the first place. I'm far happier reading in bed at 9:30 than most club-goers and drug-takers are when they're out on the town. And it makes me snicker that you think I've let something "slip away": I am so looking forward to turning 30 that it'd make your skin crawl. But you have fun with your piggyback rides and drugs; I'll just sit here in my home with my maxed-out Roth and the teddy bear I'm knitting for charity and enjoy being old.

Oh, and I never drink Heineken, just Budweiser from the can.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:51 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Will, I'm an old friend of Sarah's from our hometown. Though I disagree with just about everything political she writes about here, it is somewhat entertaining to read your comments (most of which, I admit, I agree with). Maybe I haven't been following your comments closely enough (it would undoubtedly be easier if you got your own blog?), but what's with the recent low blows? To that end: who are you and why do you even care? For the record, the music on the link to myspace sucked. I know for certain that Sarah's eclectic music tastes run circles around your's. And just an FYI: Drugs are so 90's and Heineken is a poser beer. You aren't one of those flip-flop wearing White Sox fans who used to drink Heineken in the clubs in Wrigleyville until a couple of years ago are you? If you really want to pose, try a La Chouffe and enjoy a good beer as you pose.

Posted by: Curtis at July 15, 2006 04:32 AM (HLCUx)

2 "just Budweiser from the can." Not just old, but, an old redneck!!! lol I've been reading your blog for a couple of years now (linked from somewhere I forget). Welcome home. DMV, DFAS, late furniture....ahhh, the joys of modern life (whether military or civilian, sometimes the little annoyances drive us craziest.) Did you catch the Scientology episode of South Park? They are supposed to replay it 7/19 and Tom Cruise is (supposedly) livid. Hee, hee. Sorry for the haphazard post, but, I'm doing three things at one time.

Posted by: Pamela at July 15, 2006 06:56 AM (YM+tw)

3 Two points: 1. Older women are fine, fine creatures worthy of adulation and respect. And the occasional glance at the ass. (Look but don't touch - I know the rules). 2. Drinking Budweiser from the can is hot, and also worthy of adulation and respect. 3. Flip flops are just easier. I'll check out "La Chouffe." -- That's all. I'm not hating here. Really. I was just talking. I think Sarah is cool. Drugs are not cool. And the Foo Fighters on that link are just for fun. If you want to know, I'm currently into the Stars, Arcade Fire, Polyphonic Spree, Jack Johnson, Blue October and the occasional Killers. (even though he was a Mormon once.)

Posted by: Will at July 15, 2006 09:30 AM (eIQfa)

4 Will -- You should see my ass, you'd shit yourself. Pamela -- We've got the DVR already set for Wed's episode! Curtis -- Even though we don't agree on much, and it's unfathomable how we ever thought we might be able to date, it's nice to see you have my back nonetheless...

Posted by: Sarah at July 15, 2006 10:30 AM (YL5y0)

5 and don't forget, drinking Budweiser from a can while knitting at my house watching "four weddings and a funeral" all on a Sunday after noon when your husband was in Iraq for over a year...good times....HA HA HA! AND i was just wondering when NOT breaking the law by using drugs was turned into just being old? I think you're just a responsible and mature twenty-something Trust me, 30 IS great!

Posted by: Angie at July 16, 2006 06:04 PM (ec43W)

6 And don't forget, when you reach the lofty age of 31 you can have the dubious pleasure of saying to your friends "I was 4, a score and seven years ago." Or at least the pleasure of your friends is likely to be dubious...

Posted by: Piercello at July 16, 2006 06:35 PM (opE/O)

7 Come on Angie - you never smoked weed when you were younger. Please don't get all pretentious and pretend that it's about not "breaking the law."

Posted by: Will at July 18, 2006 03:44 PM (eIQfa)

8 Sarah- Can I see a picture of your ass in jeans? Just to see if I shit or not?

Posted by: Will at July 18, 2006 03:46 PM (eIQfa)

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One of our best friends from college is from India, and he's in Mumbai right now. I hope he's OK. I feel something special in my heart for India as a country, and I hate that this has happened.

And I guess I missed the memo that we were all going to start calling it Mumbai instead of Bombay. When did that happen? I guess at the same time we started calling Qatar "Cutter". Let me know when we're supposed to start calling Japan Nihon.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:26 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I've been making my way through boxes all day. I just can't stand to have the house like this, so I'm working myself to the bone trying to get it all organized. Before we left Germany, I was too overwhelmed to go through our closets and get rid of stuff that doesn't fit or that we've had for ten years. I started doing that today, and the more boxes I open, the worse I feel. I have so much junk. We lived for two months out of a suitcase; I had something like seven shirts and five pair of pants, and that clothed me every single day. Now that I have boxes and boxes of clothes, I just feel wasteful and ridiculous. Why on earth do I have 14 pairs of flip flops? I've already re-boxed four boxes of stuff to send to Goodwill, and I'm trying to figure out what else I can get rid of. And I also realized that I've knitted myself to a very full closet; I have more sweaters and scarves/hats than I know what to do with. I need to do some give-away knitting for a while...

Posted by: Sarah at 12:45 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Well, it's been one day and I've already got the CD cabinets alphabetized. The house is shaping up, sort of. There's still a lot to do, but at least we have the microwave out; leftovers have never felt so easy. We also spent a month watching a 14 inch TV, so now our 28 incher feels like the front row at the movie theater! And I am so looking forward to sleeping on a bed for the first time in a month...

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