Our Dog Lover

Dogs have been getting a bad rap lately in the media. So I'm going to show you 'World's Greatest Dog." On Tuesday nights, we have Bible study, but during the summer we just have a 'gathering'; kids play and adults hang out.

Chloe in her cover up. She wouldn't leave it on, the zipper was fascinating and tasty. I was too afraid she'd choke, so we took it off.

This is Chloe begging Katie for ice cream.
She was lining up the ducks on the edge of the pool and talking to them.
Now here is Chloe's bestest friend, Scout/Cout Dog. Sam, the little boy who lives at this house, wasn't home, so Chloe literally played with Scout the whole time. She'd walk around the yard, "where'd Cout dog go?" Scout, or Cout in Chloe jive, would just walk around the yard avoiding Chloe dumping water on her. Scout is the sweetest dog I have ever met. She lets Chloe hug her, kiss her, pull her tail, chase her and ride her.
Here's Scout eyeballing squirrels in the neighbor's yard. Chloe lined up the ducks in front of her, which is funny b/c Scout is a retriever and she's a pro at retrieving ducks for Clay, the home owner. Chloe would take them one a time to Scout and place them in front of her and tell her something I couldn't understand. I'm guessing she was telling Scout they were ducks.

Oh and to answer your question of "do you guys have a dog?" That would be a negative. We take Chloe to Sam's house to get her dog fix. "We should get her one." you say. "UMM, no. Not until she can help take care of it and we have a yard." Why buy the dog when you can play with it for free?

A Picture Post

Here are some pictures I've taken over the past few weeks that I have been too lazy to upload on my computer.

There are two sides to every story...

Side One: Awe, isn't he cute and content?

Side Two: The crack and no that isn't Matt's crack with a diaper. That is our, apparently hairy on his back, Cooper Matthew. (Sorry for the blue tint, I didn't have time to adjust the color temperature on my camera.) Can you see his hairy lower back?

Johnstone Park. I took Chloe to this park because it's shaded and the toy is really fun looking. I'll spare you the story, but we do not go to Johnstone Park anymore; and it's not because of the mosquitoes.

Chloe's BB's or binoculars to the lay person. (They're packaged batteries.)

Now for some of the not so hairy side of Cooper.

I lied, he does have hairy feet, but they are scrumptious.

Friends.

Let me tell you about my day today. I woke up this morning groggy because I couldn't get to sleep last night. My morning routine consists of brushing teeth, peeing, changing Cooper and going in the kitchen to get Chloe's breakfast ready. I then go in the living room and get all of my feeding Cooper things ready, drag Chloe's chair in there, turn on the TV to Sesame Street and go into her room. Upon her room I open her blinds, greet her, change her and take her into the living room and put her in her chair and give her her food. Then I go back to Coop's room, grab him, wake him back up b/c he has fallen back asleep, go back into the living room and feed him. When he's done I then pump the rest out. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh by the time Coop is done eating Chloe has finished and is tossing her stuff over board and is getting restless. I then get her out and we start our morning. I don't get to eat usually until her nap at noon.

About 11:00am on this particular morning, Chloe climbed up in my lap for no reason, and I was playing with her hair, singing a song and thinking; thinking about friends. In college I made my bestest friends ever. It's now years later, and all of us are married. I realized this very morning, that I don't have any 'good bestest' friends here. (If you are reading this and you are a friend of mine here in B'ville, please don't take offense. I believe we are good friends, but you have to admit, we are not best buds. I mean, I don't know many things about you; your struggles, fears, accomplishments. I've only known many of you for just a year there abouts. I am still in the 'getting to know you, still awkward conversations on the phone' stage of friend making.)

So I'm stroking Chloe's hair, getting sad, because I don't talk to the girl that was my very very best friend in college. I had two, and both I don't talk to anymore. (Very rarely) One is in Paris, as an Au Pair, the other is in Texas and is busy busy busy. It's partly my fault though, I met Matt in college and I quit hanging out with 'the gang' as much. See, I was dating a guy from outside the 'group' so Matt and I did our own thing. The 'gang' married within the 'gang,' if you will. When that happens those people stay in close contact. Like my best friend married, a guy in the group. Well, her husband is friends with everyone I was friends with, but since I married out, I lose touch. I get my info. through the grapevine.

Why am I sharing all of this? Well, because I am a bone head.

I was supposed to go to a friends house this morning. This girl friend and I are still on the 'getting to know you, getting to know all about you' stage. (You have to sing that part) So what do I go and do to possible ruin this 'work in progress' friendship?

I forget. Yep, I forgot about our play date this morning. (Curse me please! Boo and hiss!)

Let me explain this sweet girl that would be a good friend to me if I weren't a complete moron.

She is the gracious host, with a huge heart who loves her children and her husband with all she has. She raises her kids to love and be kind to everyone. (Hopefully that will include me.) She will have a pot of very tasty coffee ready upon your arrival and possible even a tasty treat. She'll tell her kids, "Chloe and Cooper are coming over today!" Her kids will be ready and waiting for you to come over and play. When you arrive they will greet you and be excited you are there.

So I am an idiot. I go and forget about this play date that we scheduled last week for this morning.

Do I have a reason? No. Lots of excuses as to why I would forget? Yeah. Are they worthy? No.

It's Like Riding a Bike...

Whistling. It's like riding a bike right? You never forget.

Well, one would think, but as of today, I can no longer whistle. I had a good whistler too and now it's gone! GONE I TELL YA!!!

My only guess is this: I am a teeth grinder. I wear a mouth guard, but haven't bought a new one in an embarrassingly amount of time. My teeth have really felt like they are moving around a lot lately, especially with all that is going on or lack there of. (moving, packing, searching, selling, buying, fixing, mowing, corralling etc.) Those things aren't directly causing my teeth to move. It's my thinking about those things, grinding my teeth and then they move and my gums recede.

If I place a finger just above the top of my lip, in the cleft part, and below my nose, the middle lower part that attaches to your upper lip and lift ever so slightly as to turn my upper lip slightly outward, I can whistle. As soon as I move my finger; no more whistle, just the sound of air leaving my body.

So either, my face has drooped in the past 3 days, I've had a stroke of the upper lip, I need a face lift, my teeth have shifted or my face forgot how to form into a whistler. I'm not sure, but one thing I know. I can no longer whistle.

The Last Lecture

I recently told you of some books I had read that I enjoyed. One of them was The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I just read on-line that he has passed away, so if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend. His website is saying "this account has been suspended." I don't know what that means, but I still recommend the book.

What Goes Around Comes Around...

I thought I had it bad my parents naming me Megan with a long E sound, but then they had to go and call me by my middle name. So every new semester, I would hear, "Jean?, Jean Anne?..." from the teacher. Then I'd say annoyed and embrassed, "It's Jeanne, but I go by Megan." The teacher would look at me like, "Why do you go by a completely different name?" He couldn't see my middle name on the roll sheet. Ohh, the horror, but this poor girl had it rough!! Read...


A family court judge in New Zealand has had enough with parents giving their children bizarre names here, and did something about it.
Just ask Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. He had her renamed.
Judge Rob Murfitt made the 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so that her name could be changed, he said in a ruling made public Thursday. The girl was involved in a custody battle, he said.
The new name was not made public to protect the girl's privacy.
"The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child's parents have shown in choosing this name," he wrote. "It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily."
The girl had been so embarrassed at the name that she had never told her closest friends what it was. She told people to call her "K" instead, the girl's lawyer, Colleen MacLeod, told the court.
In his ruling, Murfitt cited a list of the unfortunate names.
Registration officials blocked some names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, he said. But others were allowed, including Number 16 Bus Shelter "and tragically, Violence," he said.
New Zealand law does not allow names that would cause offense to a reasonable person, among other conditions, said Brian Clarke, the registrar general of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Clarke said officials usually talked to parents who proposed unusual names to convince them about the potential for embarrassment.

A Realization II

My mind has been working over time lately, which explains my nightly teeth grinding getting worse. I have been thinking about events, people & unanswered prayers. Anytime my journey goes through a little change, I have an inner nervousness, a queasiness if you will. Not in a bad way, just in a curious way. (We are moving, that is the current change.)

I haven't blogged much, if at all, about our experiences at the boys ranch Matt and I used to work at. The way it ended was awful to say the least. I'll just leave it at that.

When we move, and we've moved a bunch, I often think back to the very moment Matt called his brother and told him we needed help moving, that we were leaving the ranch. That moment in time sent me into a year and a half of questioning God, questioning my Salvation, questioning every single thing I knew and hoped for. That was in 2004.

It's 2008, and I still think back to that day. When I'm holding Cooper, looking at Chloe and doing dishes, (Not at the same time of course, I mean I am a mom, but not that kind of a mom.) my mind & heart wonders and becomes eerily thankful. (If you knew what we went through you would understand the adding of the word 'eerily'.)

I tried finding some of the boys from the ranch and was successful. When I found his myspace page, I became so so sad, and wondered if what I saw was partially my fault. He has become his surroundings, like most of us do, but our general surroundings don't require us to use our fingers to show who we stand for.

I'm over the knife in the back Matt and I both received, but I'm so sad of what has become of some of the boys that have left. When I told Matt I had located this particular boy, he didn't say much. I told him, "He looks like you would expect." Matt was silent, I know he was thinking, "Megan, why did you even look them up? You know what that is going to do to your emotions." He's right, even though he didn't say that.

Thankfully God was there that day the knife penetrated my heart. Even more thanks, because He never left when I thought I was spiritually going to die. I look at my life now, and like I said, "I am eerily thankful. Praise God for the valleys."