this is a lot of traveling for a homebody

Last Thursday I went down the shore.  

I was there until Sunday, when I stopped at home to unpack and repack my suitcase for a work trip on Monday morning.  The work trip took me to the Pocono Mountains, and I took advantage of some beautiful hiking trails before and after my seminars.

  The scenery was quite the juxtaposition from the conference, which was at an African themed resort.

I got home on Friday night, and tomorrow morning I leave for a girls trip to Washington D.C. with my mom and sister.  We get back on Thursday and then I round out the month of travel with one more long weekend down the shore.

And then I will come home and never leave again because I am a girl who likes to be home, and after this month, I've almost forgotten my address.

Although I'll admit these trips have been pretty fun, and I've covered all the bases.  Beach, mountains, city, and African safari.  

If only I could arrange to have these views and that gorilla statue at my house.

i've learned my lesson

Due to a surplus of vacation days that have to be used by the end of the month, I had off on Thursday and Friday, so I took advantage of the long weekend and my in-laws' empty beach house and took off Thursday morning for a few days down the shore. 

It was glorious.  I read five books, took a million walks, and ate cheese and crackers for every meal.  

The beach was so breezy that I wore my sweatshirt three out of four days, and on Saturday I even traded in my shorts for a pair of capris.

And that's where I went wrong.

Like a total beach novice, I did not put sunscreen on my lower legs, ankles, and feet because I foolishly figured since 80% of them were covered, I'd be fine.

I was not fine.

After I finished my book, I took a little snooze, and when I woke up my lower legs were burning with the heat of a thousand suns.

I could almost see the heat emanating from them.

I am not kidding when I say I think you could've cracked an egg on my shin and fried it.

When I got back to the house I put on a generous application of aloe and some cold compresses, which is a routine I've repeated regularly over the last 24 hours.  The pain is decreasing but I still can't really get a shoe on, so that's going to make my fancy work conference tomorrow very interesting.

My sister has a twitter account where she posts songs that correspond to her current situation.  

They always make me laugh, so I figured I'd give it a try for my current situation.

Maybe Rod could send me some aloe.

at least my hair looks fantastic

After a full weekend, I went to bed at 11:00 on Sunday night and slept the sleep of angels until I was awakened by an unbelievable noise at 1:14 a.m.  My startled brain obviously jumped to the worst conclusion.  My eyes blinked wide open and I laid there in complete fear for three seconds before I said to Matt, “Did you hear that?”

“Yes, I did,” he said.

Since he’s never one to volunteer any extra information or thoughts, even in the face of a middle-of-the-night terror, I pressed him, “Well, what do you think it sounded like?”

“I think it sounded like someone breaking into our house,” he said very matter of factly.

Let me pause and say I don’t know why someone would break into a house where the owner has an NRA – LIFETIME MEMBER bumper sticker on his F-150 in the driveway, but I don't pretend to understand the thoughts of a burglar.

With that, Matt slid out of bed and prepared to canvas the house, while naturally I stayed under the covers with the numbers 9-1-1 typed into my phone so I could hit the call button immediately if I heard a ruckus.

Matt tiptoed around the second floor, and then I heard the stairs creak as he went downstairs.

He returned a few minutes later and said, “Well, I didn’t see anything.”

“Nothing?!” I said.  “You checked all the doors and windows?  You’re sure?  I can’t just go back to sleep now.  Something made that noise and I have to know what it was.”

“I really don’t know what it could’ve been,” Matt said, “Unless it was your shower thing again.”

He opened the bathroom door, and lo and behold, it was the indeed my shower thing again. 

On the positive side, at least I know Matt is man who doesn’t balk in fear at checking on things that go bump in the night.

However, the heavy duty shower shelf I bought after the April "incident" apparently isn't all that heavy duty after all.  I either need to find some industrial suction cups or an alternate plan to contain my beauty products, because if I don't, that shower caddy is going to get even heavier when I add the hair dye I'm going to need to cover the grays I'm getting from all of these imagined break ins!

keep up the good work, june

Well, the only thing that could've made this weekend better is if it was three days.

Oh wait, thanks to an excess of vacation days that have to be used by the end of the month, it was.

On Friday my sister, my aunt, my cousin, and her baby came over for lunch.  After lunch my sister and I got pedicures and then wandered Target.  I got home just in time to find Matt in the kitchen making homemade pizza, so all in all Saturday and Sunday had a tough act to follow.

On Saturday morning I drank my coffee on the back porch and then we spent the day doing chores and running errands.  Then Matt and I settled in to enjoy the gorgeous evening on the back patio and ended up sitting there for SIX HOURS.  We sat down at 5:00 and didn't come in until 11, and I am not kidding when I say I came incredibly close to bringing my pillow outside and sleeping there.

However, we'd spent the better part of the day finishing our backyard chicken coop and moving a fake hawk statue around the yard to keep the bunnies away from eating the plants in our gardens and I didn't want the neighbors to think we'd completely lost our minds.

Sunday was rainy, but I got to visit Annabelle and made it back home before the worst of the storms arrived.

We sat on the back porch (are you sensing a theme here?) and watched the rain.  There's something you have to love about a summer thunderstorm, and the skies cleared up just in time for a Sunday night walk.

June, so far, so good.

time to buy stock in centrum silver

Matt leaves for the office every morning at 6:30 and typically gets home around 6:00 in the evening. He walks in that door at 6:00 looking every bit as spiffy and pressed and put together as he did when he walked out eleven and a half hours earlier.

I, on the other hand, leave for the office around 8 and by 11:30 my hair is flat, my makeup doesn't look nearly as good as I thought it did when I applied it three hours earlier, and I've gotten a run in my stockings.

I'm very conflicted about the issue of stockings because I know they're so 1993, but I cannot bring myself to put my bare feet in my high heels.

However, when Matt came home from work on Thursday night he didn't look like his normal spiffy self and I could immediately tell that something was wrong.

He walked into the kitchen and solemnly announced his hardship.

He had a stiff neck.

Dinner was just about ready so he VERY GINGERLY took his seat at the table.  He went to great lengths to bring fork all the way up his mouth so as to not bend his neck even a tiny bit, and even had to drink out of a straw.  Halfway through his pork chop there was a noise in the backyard and he turned slowly at his waist and looked off into the yard and said, "What's all that ruckus out there?"

And just like that I felt like my life fast forward about 60 years.

I was sympathetic to Matt's neck pain but when he started dramatically singing an original piece entitled "The Pain, The Suffering, The Agony" his histrionics made me laugh and even he could not keep a straight face.  He threw in a few musical terms and then we started talking about our musical pasts.

He played the saxophone for a few years and I was in the grade school choir.

And believe it or not I remembered quite a few songs from those grade school years, including but not limited to "One Small Step" and "Turn the Lights On!" COMPLETE WITH HAND MOTIONS.

I also remembered every word to a Latin song we sang in second grade at First Holy Communion, which is amazing to me because for the life of my I can't remember to buy milk at the store or the password to my email account, but I know every word to Jubilate Deo Omnis Terra Servite Domino in Laetitia from 20 years ago.

I performed a few grade school choir classics as we loaded the dishwasher.  The motions to One Small Step involved some foot stomping, and I think I stomped a bit too enthusiastically because I'm sorry to say my left foot has not been the same since Thursday night.

On the upside, my internal stockings conflict may be resolved because I think there might be an orthopedic boot in my future.

this is for the birds

Well, last weekend we visited Hell, but on Friday we felt like we were actually living there because it was a zillion degrees in our house.

It's one thing to buy a house in December and say, "No air conditioning? No problem!  We love the fresh air!" and it's quite another to try to sleep on May 27th when it was 94 degrees all day with 74% humidity and your bedroom will not cool down past 86 degrees.

I was yearning for the days of yore when we were dealing with the opposite problem of dry heat and subarctic temperatures.

Our house has one air conditioning wall unit in the family room and a very old one in the kitchen.  And by very old I mean it was manufactured during the first Regan administration.  

And it has wood paneling on the front.

However, it still works like a charm so obviously the GE engineers of 1984 were doing something right even if the decor and style were questionable.

Matt and I went to Wal Mart on Saturday to buy an air conditioner for our bedroom because we are weak and high maintenance and I'm a bear if I don't get 8 hours of solid sleep, but they only had one model left and it cost $400.00.  That's a high price to pay for a cool bedroom.

A Wal Mart employee told us that they restocked 260 air conditioners on Friday night and all but 4 were gone by Saturday morning.

We went next door to Lowe's and they had a plethora of appropriately priced air conditioners.  We bought one and also breezed through the lumber department for some more chicken coop supplies.

When we bought our chickens someone told us that our first dozen eggs will cost us a thousand dollars, and she was right.  This chicken coop is quickly approaching the short but prestigious list of valuable items we own, including my pearl necklace and our wedding rings.  I think we need to add a line item in our will for this chicken coop.

Luckily it's almost finished, because the girls are still in a box in the garage, but they're getting big. 

 

We came home from running errands a few weeks ago and Daisy was standing outside her Rubbermaid container looking in.  

She had literally flown the coop.

I bet she was too hot and looking for the land of air conditioning.

michigan part 2

We drove our Nissan Rogue back to the hotel on Friday night.  Also, if we had a dollar for every time someone said, "You're driving a Nissan in GM country?"  we could have afforded to buy the nicest GM vehicle in Pinckney.

Matt and I woke up bright and early on Saturday because apparently when you turn 27 you can't sleep in anymore, and decided to go for a walk in the hopes of finding some picturesque Michigan scenery.

This was the best we could do.

However, we did find a Dunkin' Donuts where I ordered an iced caramel coffee, so all was not lost.

We got back to the hotel and prepared for the main event.  Let me just tell you, there was no humility in that hotel room.  Matt and I kept walking back and forth past the mirror and complimented ourselves every single time.  We did one last mirror check before we left and Matt sighed and said, "It's just a real bummer I couldn't dress like a Secret Service agent."

Yes, because that's an appropriate getup for a casual backyard wedding.

We arrived to the wedding a whopping 45 minutes early, but thanks to the google we were able to discover that in just 5 minutes, we could go to hell.

Hell, Michigan.

And so we did.

And now I can officially say I've been to hell and back.  And hell consists of a gift shop, a saloon, a a surly biker gang.

I'm not kidding.  We left the car running while we literally ran out and took this picture because those bikers didn't look thrilled to have a car full of out of towners descending on their space.

The wedding itself was lovely.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect and it was small and simple.  Once the sun went down we sat around the fire and had s'mores.

We headed home on Sunday, and everything was going swimmingly until the TSA agent flagged me because my driver's license had my maiden name, but my boarding pass had my married name.  I have the license update card that reflects my name change, but the agent said anyone can make a piece of paper with a different name and they had to verify my identify.

And let me tell you.  That process took every bit of 45 minutes and by the end of it I was questioning my own identity.  A supervisor came over and called some phone number and I had to answer crazy  questions about myself for the person on the other line.  I don't know who the heck was on the other end of that phone call but they sure had an awful lot of intel about me.

If it hadn't been a rather serious situation I would have asked if they'd called my mom.

After the phone call, I had to go through a private screening, got the major pat down, and then they went through every single item I had with a fine tooth comb.  They even turned every single page of the books I had with me.  My only regret is that I forgot Matt had thrown his diabetes supplies in my purse, because it doesn't exactly look good when you assure the TSA agent you don't have anything sharp in your purse and she pulls out a bag of needles.

Whoops.

I have to say that every TSA person that screened me and my belongings was super nice, but super not messing around.  Luckily I was finally cleared and we headed home to Philadelphia.

I just bet the whole screening process would've been a lot faster if only Matt had been wearing his secret service agent outfit.

Next time.

hello detroit

One of Matt's close college friends, Ron, got married in Michigan this weekend, and we made the trip out for the occasion.

We left bright and early on Friday morning, and were through security and eating breakfast  sandwiches and drinking Dunkin' iced coffee by 8:30.  We were traveling with two other friends, and our flight was on the prestigious and luxurious Spirit Airlines.  The seats were tight, but the plane was nice enough and I resisted the urge to ask the pilot the date of the last major engine inspection and if he was prepared to respond appropriately in the event of a bird strike.

I wouldn't say I hate the whole flying experience, because once we are at cruising altitude and the plane is level, I'm a happy camper.  But getting up there?  I cry REAL TEARS.  It is completely ridiculous but I cannot help my terrified self.

I've never liked roller coasters or amusement park rides for the very same reason.  The descent isn't the bad part, it's getting to the top that does me in.  The last time I rode the log flume I almost climbed out of my log halfway up.  I hate it.

Anyway, we survived the flight (no bird strikes!) and we landed in Detroit around 1:00.  We took a shuttle to the airport Enterprise location and as we pulled in, our shuttle bus driver proudly announced, "Welcome to Detroit! To thank you for coming to our wonderful city we are offering all Enterprise customers complimentary, one of a kind, Detroit hot dogs!" 

And she was right.  They were grilling right there in the parking lot.

I'm sure all that jet fuel and car exhaust gave the hot dogs some extra flavor, but we passed.

Instead we stopped at the CVS across from our hotel to pick up some snacks, but what to our wondering, Pennsylvania eyes should appear but liquor! And beer! And a whole aisle of wine ON SALE.

In Pennsylvania you can only buy alcohol at a state store, so seeing it in a CVS was like seeing a unicorn and obviously we indulged.

The bride and groom invited us to their house for pizza and wings on Friday night.  They have a beautiful piece of property in an itsy bitsy, teeny tiny town called Pinckney, Michigan.  It was about 40 minutes from the hotel, and for the first 35 minutes of our drive, we saw nothing.

Literally, nothing.

 No grocery store.  No gas station.  No police station.  No Target.

Just flat land and trees.

And the four of us pretty much talked about "Where does Ron buy food?  Where does Ron get gas? How does Ron get cold things home from the nearest grocery store?  What happens if Ron forgets a dinner ingredient? Do they even have police where Ron lives?"  By the time we got off the exit we were almost ready to stage an intervention and bring Ron back to civilization/suburban Philadelphia, but at that moment we drove past a Kroger, a gas station, a McDonald's, and a chiropractor, and what more could someone really need?

The wedding was happening AT THEIR HOUSE the next afternoon, so we ate our pizza and wings in the tent they had set up in the backyard.  I'll tell you what I wouldn't want to do at my house where I would be throwing my own wedding the next day.

Host a bunch of out-of-towners for pizza.

But the bride and groom were so laid back and we had so much fun and I mostly just laughed the whole time because there's not much funnier than a bunch of guys telling college stories.  I learned that Matt's buddies didn't believe that I existed at first.  They thought Matt made me up to impress them.  I also learned he scored a 42 on a Music Listening exam once and may or may not have illegally transported a construction barricade in the backseat of his 1996 Chevy Prism.

We left around 9 so we could navigate back through the Michigan wilderness to the hotel before it got too late.  We made it back safely even though the GPS was giving directions like, "In .2 miles, turn left on Plant Trucks."

Michigan is strange.

I'm going to continue this in a part 2, because evidently I have a lot to say about Michigan.

anyone have a good quiche recipe?

Well, tonight I'm coming to you live from Noah's Ark.

I am not kidding.  My laundry room is flooded and there are three chickens in my garage.

Let me back up.

From the beginning of time, Matt has been talking about how he wants to get some chickens to raise in the backyard for a hobby and eggs.  My long-standing counter argument was that we don't really eat eggs, but several months ago he launched a strong chicken campaign and started eating egg salad for lunch and making me eggs for breakfast on the weekends.  He has not let up on his egg consumption for MONTHS.  

In addition to eating eggs like crazy, he's been researching backyard chickens and even has a few books.  Last Saturday we went to a party at his aunt and uncle's house, and they just so happen to have some chickens.  

And on Wednesday I was driving to Moyer's Hatchery to pick up our very own chicks.  They are the prestigious (sarcasm) breed known as Brown Egg Layers and cost a whopping $2.70 a piece.  I know an elephant at any price isn't a bargain, but I'd say a Brown Egg Layer for two bucks MOST CERTAINLY IS.   

Since the chicks were only going to be one day old, I brought a nice basket, a towel, and some hand warmers to keep the delicate little things toasty warm on the drive home.  And then I walked into Moyer's Hatchery and was handed a brown paper bag with three chickens inside and sent on my way.

  

Either I'm high maintenance or this was going to be easier than I thought.

Once I got home I got the chickens all set up in their bed, or if you want to use the technical farm term, their "brooder." Which is actually a bright pink Rubbermaid container.  They settled right in and mostly cheep and eat and sleep, but they seem happy, as far as chickens go.  

We cleaned out their bed on Saturday and put them in a cardboard box temporarily.  I stayed in the garage with them and made sure they didn't fly away while Matt washed out their food and water dishes.

And then on Sunday evening I ran a load of laundry, and when I went to switch it to the dryer I walked into a pond of water on the laundry room floor.

Matt immediately jumped to the worst conclusion, and while he fiddled with hoses and pipes and started hypothetically comparing repair costs versus buying a new washer, I stood off to the side by the wash tub sharing positive sentiments like "It could be worse!  It doesn't seem to be leaking ALL the time!" and "Hey, at least I got that last load of undies done!"  

And it was then that I noticed that the drain of the wash tub was filled which pine shavings from the chickens' bed, and that the newspaper that was wrapped around the red maple tree sapling that has taken up residence in our washtub (don't ask) was completely soaked, leading me to believe that the pine shavings clogged the drain, causing the wash tub to fill up and overflow when the washing machine drained into it.

I ran my hypothesis past repairman Matt, and we did a little test run, and that's exactly what happened.        

Luckily it was an easy fix, and I've done two more loads since Sunday with no problems, but I'm here to tell you I won't be sad when the chickens graduate to their outdoor coop.

When I was at Penn State, there was an upperclassman called  "The Chicken Man" who wore a chicken costume every day.  He'd walk around campus and into classes with his pet chicken named Henderson and leave an egg for the professor, all without saying a word.

It was totally bizarre but he was famous on campus until he unfortunately received a disorderly conduct citation for bringing a farm animal into an academic building, and had to retire the Chicken Man persona.  

But now it's like I have my very own chicken man.

Or, Noah.

Now I just need an ark.

i'll never be able to hitch hike

Our big project this past weekend was getting the yard and patio in shape.

First up was our customary Saturday morning Hope Depot trip.  When we got home we power washed the patio, planted two rhododendron bushes and some raspberry plants, put together a patio set that my parents very generously got for us, and began to plant 120 flowers.

That's right.  One hundred and twenty flowers.  It's safe to say I grossly overestimated how many flowers it would take to fill our gardens.  Whoops.

We decided to quit around 5:00 on Sunday.  I had a vacation day on Monday, so I decided I'd finish the flowers then.  As we were putting away our tools, Matt said, "We can just leave the shovels in the garden center, since we'll use them again tomorrow."

I'm sorry, the garden center?

He was referring to the small fenced area on the side of the house where the previous owner kept his trashcan.  It made me laugh because my parents have a deck and an upper and a lower patio in their backyard, which they refer to as Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3.

We're just carrying on the outdoor area naming tradition.

Monday was 80 degrees and sunny and I was all hopped up on spring weather and decided to make a big pasta salad before I started gardening.  I threw in a bunch of veggies we had in the fridge, and decided at the last minute to toss in some red onion.  As I was cutting the onion, I thought to myself, "I should research how to cut an onion properly.  I always feel like I'm going to slice my thumb."

And two seconds later I SLICED MY THUMB.

To make matters worse, Matt had a bad run-in with a broken glass last weekend and had the band-aids with him in his work bag.  It was touch and go for a few minutes but I managed to stop the bleeding and get on with my gardening.

The thumb injury only hindered my progress a little bit.

I hope it heals.

And I hope it's green, because I have 120 flowers depending on that.

it's tough to pass up an AARP day bag

A few weeks ago my father in law came over to help fix a plumbing problem we were having, specifically replacing the broken outside spigot.  We bought The Pocket Hose, aka the hose that grows, and unfortunately one night we turned it on and then couldn't turn it off.

And that is not a hose problem you want to have.

Along with his plumbing tools, Matt's dad brought along a box of Matt's childhood belongings.  It's funny how when you buy your own house with storage aplenty, your parents expect you to get your stuff out of their basement.

(Mom and Dad, I'll be by for those last few boxes any day now...)

After dinner we went through the box, and found a lot of high school memorabilia, Matt's varsity letter, and an old piggy bank that counts your coins as you drop them in.  But the piece de resistance was Matt's coin collection.  Which we then organized AND vacuum sealed on a Saturday night because the excitement never ends.

A few days later, this showed up in the mail.

I think our house is bugged.

Also, tricky "free with payment" wording, AARP.  It's too bad we've just vacuum sealed all of our valuable coins or we might've taken you up on this tempting offer.

tomorrow we buy the oreos

Spring has officially sprung here and I am over the moon.  This past weekend was particularly beautiful and I walked around for 48 hours like I've never experienced spring before.

"Look at how BLUE that sky is!"

"Have you ever heard birds sing so melodiously?"

"The air smells like perfume from all of the blooming trees!"

I feel like a new person.

The warmer weather has also inspired me to prepare fresher, healthier meals, instead of meals whose main ingredient is cheese with a side of cheese.  I bought tons of fresh fruits and veggies this weekend and even made myself squash soup, which, looking back, may have been a little misguided. 

Tonight after dinner Matt said, "Do we have any snacks?" and all I could offer was a handful of roasted almonds or some tortilla chips made from only chickpeas and sesame seeds and some sort of magic.

"No thanks, I was hoping for something more...mainstream," he said.

In other news, we bought a chiminea last weekend, and we had our first fire Tuesday night.  Matt turned the Phillies game on the radio and I brought out my new book and we listened and read and talked and the whole thing was so relaxing.  We canceled our cable a few months ago, and the price we paid for the chiminea was what we'd pay for one month of cable.  In my opinion, we've already gotten a 100% return on investment.

It was nice to have such a lovely evening in the yard, because it had been the scene of a traumatic experience earlier this month.  

When we bought this house Matt proclaimed he needed a riding lawnmower because it would take him 3 hours to mow the yard with a push mower.

My counter-argument was that it takes me 3 hours to clean the house, so I need a maid.

We got the lawnmower.

I'm sure the maid will show up any day now.

We found the lawnmower on Craigslist and got a pretty good deal.  Matt fired that bad boy up last Friday.  He made his first lap up and back and was grinning from ear to ear.  Mowing his own yard.  It was the moment he'd been waiting 27 years for.

And then on lap 3, the lawnmower died.  Among other problems, the engine block was cracked, and in case you're not up to speed on the going rate for new lawnmower engine blocks, I can tell you they're about $800.   Which is more than we paid for the lawnmower to begin with.

Let's just say it was a bad night around here, because we were pretty convinced we were going to be out the money from the first lawnmower, which we couldn't sell to someone else since in the current condition, PLUS have to buy a second.  We ran some errands on Friday night but neither of us were in great moods, and when we got home Matt casually mentioned he was hungry and I casually mentioned that he better get used to that feeling because we're never going to be able to afford to eat again.

It wasn't one of my finer moments.

On Monday morning Matt decided to try to call the man we bought the lawnmower from to see if they could work things out.  And I'm here to tell you there are still good people in this world because the man felt terrible, apologized profusely, and gave us every cent of our money back.

So the good news is that we now have a new working lawnmower and our lawn will be the envy of the neighborhood in no time.

And the great news is that we will be able to afford to eat another day.

Maybe we can even splurge on some mainstream snacks.

you lucky dog

My family had a dog named Sandy when I was very little, but she died when I was six so I don't remember very much about her.  After that, my brother and I made half-hearted requests for a new dog every now and then, but the requests never resulted in a new puppy because did I mention half-hearted?

And then Emily came along.

And she was OBSESSED WITH DOGS.

When Emily was in first grade, my mom sewed felt patches all over a white sweatsuit for Halloween, but Em wore that puppy costume long after October 31st.

And then Emily took things to a whole new level when she started barking and crawling on all fours to the door when the doorbell rang.

And in February 2003, we got Rosie.

There was some family discord about what to name our new puppy, but when we found out that she was born on December 27th, Emily's birthday, we all agreed that we had to name her Rosie, after Em's middle name, Rose.

Rosie was an English Springer Spaniel, and we quickly learned they weren't kidding about the "spring" part.  A few weeks after we got her, my dad made himself a big, juicy sandwich for lunch, put it on the table, and went out to get a soda from the garage fridge.  When he came back inside, the sandwich was gone, and Rosie had crumbs on her mouth.  Let's just say Dad was less than thrilled with her display of agility and speed eating.

My brother and I were talking about The Notorious Sandwich Incident of 2003 this weekend.  We both thought that after Rosie's brazen act she wouldn't make it 13 more days in our house, let alone 13 more years.

But she defied the odds.

That's not to say she stopped eating forbidden treats.

There was the time she ate 30 lollipops intended to be Emily's class Valentines.  She gave herself away because she emerged from her candy binge with lollipop wrappers stuck in her long, floppy ears.

One time she ate a platter of gourmet chocolate covered pretzels my mom got from her students.

And when she was definitely old enough to know better, she ate the two layer heart shaped cake I made for my parents' 25th anniversary.  I came home from work on my lunch hour to ice the cake, and it was gone.

Just this past October, my mom and I returned from an afternoon of shopping, and Rosie was standing in the hallway surrounded by empty Halloween candy wrappers.

They say chocolate isn't good for dogs, but it never bothered Rosie.

Rose loved to be outside and in the water.  She went with us on vacations to the lake and for hikes in the woods.  She loved to be in the backyard, drinking from the pond and chasing squirrels and laying in the sunshine.

But mostly, she loved to be with her people.

She usually laid in the middle of the hallway, where she could see the kitchen and the family room, and keep an eye on the front door.

At night she'd drag her bed out to the family room to be with everyone.  She'd get all settled in and fall asleep, but when she heard the television click off, she'd jump right up and trot into her crate for bed.  

You could always count on Rosie to hear the garage and be waiting for you at the door when you came inside.

And if she was outside alone for too long, she'd come looking for a friend.

She wasn't allowed upstairs, but when someone went up, she'd wait patiently on the landing for them to come back down.

She was a dog, but for thirteen years, she was part of our family.

And she was Emily's best friend.

I don't think any of us appreciated Rosie's loyalty and unconditional love more than Emily did.

Over the last two weeks, Rosie's health declined.  On Friday, my parents knew it was time.  I went over to see her one last time after work, and I sat down next to her on the floor.  She was weak and tired, but she picked her head up and put it on my knee.  Up until the very end, she really loved her people.

And her people are really going to miss her.