Pepper

Itchy shorts

- Melody

cardigan: JCrew, blouse: Rue21, shorts: F21, tights: Target, flats: Target

Is it seriously November already?! Where the heck did October go?! It kind of makes me depressed that I have only marked off a couple of my fall goals. No worries! This Friday I’m marking off at least four of them with a family dinner. 🙂

These shorts are surprisingly itchy. I think it’s the metallic thread. Whatever it was I didn’t stop itching all day!

So I haven’t showed you guys any recent pictures of Pepper! She is getting SO. BIG. Look!

I love to try and hold her like this even though she’s nearly too big for my arms. 🙁 She’s teething a lot more now and she loves to play. I’ve been taking more video of her so I can remember her at this playful stage. Though I’m sure that will never change. 🙂

Layers

- Melody 1 Comment

cardi: F21, dress: F21, scarf: Walmart, jeans: Goodwill, boots: Goodwill, belt: thrifted

I tugged along my coat for class but it never served it’s purpose. It sadly sat next to me all day while I was warm enough in my cardigan. Sorry, coat.

Mondays are really kind of the worst, aren’t they? I mean there’s that giant hurricane hurling itself towards the east coast, Jason is out late playing ultimate frisbee, and I’m left home alone. Tired, hungry, and frustrated with taking care of the pets and house. When Jason finally gets home I realize how thankful I am for him and all he does with Pepper so I can relax. I’d make him dinner if I could 😉 I guess that’s what those five bags of candy are for!

Today marks the two-weeks-until date for my recital! Mom is picking up my dress Friday and we’ll start getting it cleaned and altered. I can’t wait to show you guys! 🙂

More pictures to prove that I really am obsessed with this dog.

- Melody 3 Comments

This is really getting out of hand.

1. Had to leave her home when I spent the night with my sister.
2. Feisty and wet because she jumped, literally, into the shower with me.
3. She really wants the tennis ball in my hand. It was the only way to keep her still for a picture.
4. Hanging out in the back seat with little sister Rudy.
5. Happy.
6. Waiting for me to let her out of the car.

I took her to the vet this morning for her second round of shots and she took it like a champ! Everyone absolutely fawned over her. We have the absolute best vet around and he took super care of her. She loved it too, if only because he gave her treats when it was all over. We should really get her some…

What I’ve learned about dogs.

- Melody

We’ve had Pepper for a week and a half today. Starting this journey, technically ten years ago,* didn’t prepare me much for what having a dog was actually like. I could dream about it, make plans and buy things but once we actually had her we didn’t know what we were getting into.*

Bringing her home was the weirdest most exciting car ride I’ve had so far. We tried keeping her in the back but she kept climbing out to get to us. I eventually just carried her in my lap and took pictures of her. In the beginning little things, like her panting, I was clueless about. (And still am!) We finally learned that she was panting excessively because she was nervous and anxious. Rightly so, the girl’s whole life was changing! She has since stopped and is completely healthy. 🙂

I’ve learned that getting a dog is not a decision to be made lightly, not that ours was. Deciding to adopt a dog required research and careful thought for us. The cost alone of owning a dog was enough to scare us away from it! Shots, food, toys, heartworm medication, grooming, teeth cleaning… All we did in the weeks leading up to adopting her was read all about puppies and what they need. Do we get a dog bed now even though she isn’t housebroken? What size collar do we need? How much will she weigh so we can buy flea treatments? How much does heartworm medication cost? What’s a puppy mill? I know this probably sounds overbearing and ridiculous, but I needed to know that we were fully prepared to take her on. I’d never had a puppy before and was absolutely clueless about how they operated!

I’ve learned that dogs are much, much different than cats. I can’t just keep Pepper on the couch next to me and expect her to sleep all day beside me and occasionally take her to the litter box. I have to feed her at certain intervals and immediately take her out and then clean up the inevitable accident she will have an hour later. We can’t leave her out when we go places because she will chew my antique quilt and eat the carpet. I’m not saying this remorsefully, I actually love all the planning! The planning means that I have a dog! We finally have a puppy that we adopted and named and are caring for.**

I’ve learned that having Pepper means consistency, patience, and dedication in training. The Dog Whisperer is a faithfully recorded series in this house. 😉 Just because we adopted a golden retriever doesn’t mean she’s going to turn into the perfect dog. Breed has little to do with how an adult dog acts. (Just ask Cesar! :P)

*(Times I had to get up and see what she was doing or take her outside. See what I mean? A handful. 😉

The day of.

- Melody

We left here on Saturday at 9am. I wanted to try and find some place fancy, which to us is somewhere not fast food since all Henderson has is fast food. Blech. We ended up going to Freebirds. I know, fancy, right?! 🙂 I was too nervous and excited to eat because I knew as soon as we left we were going to pick Pepper up! Eeek! So currently my burrito is sitting in the fridge. It’s really nice that Houston is just a three hour drive for us. It’s a huge city! Plus it’s the city that gave me my lifelong dream. 😛 We’re getting into a routine finally with Pepper. Her first night in the kennel was a disaster. She barked and whined all.night. So we moved the kennel further away from our room so we could at least get some sleep while she learned she needed to be alone. She ended up sleeping through the night! I got up this morning to a sleepy puppy clamoring to get to me. Once she calmed down, I let her out and we went for a little walk. I’m loving this new routine when at first, I didn’t think I would. She’s such a great addition to our little pet family. I just hope the cats warm up a little more to her soon!

Happy Monday!

The long awaited surprise…

- Melody 4 Comments

First of all, you guys are hilarious. Thanks for texting, posting, and generally being the best. It’s kind of neat to know you guys care enough to check back and see what all this hub-bub has been about. Thanks for sticking it out with me, Awkward McGee. Hope you guys are just as enamored as we are… 🙂

To say I’ve always wanted a dog is an understatement. Most all of my friends growing up had dogs. Beagles, terriers, labs, great danes… My family? We’re cat people. Always have been and always will be. Smoky, Freeway, Ally, Mittens, Buster, Sophie, Pippin, Izzy, Caroline, Penny, Ike, Rusty…

But no cat could fulfill the longing to rub my face in that fur and to scratch those velvety ears. And oh! Those sad, puppy eyes! Hearing claws tap tap tap on our wood floor before that wet nose is pressed to my hand, or to see that happy tail wag when those eyes meet mine! My heart!

We’ve talked about getting a dog since before we were married, so this decision wasn’t a light one. Plus, Jason didn’t initially like the idea of having three pets. (Like we were going to turn in to some crazy pet people. Ha!) So one day I was having a dog moment, and I launched us into the ‘Dog Talk.’ We talked about it again and decided now is as good a time as ever!

I’ve always, always wanted a golden retriever, literally since I was ten. So that’s what we looked for. And on a Tuesday evening, when I was coming really close to my wits end and starting to think it would never happen, I found her. I emailed Byron, the man who had posted the ad, and when I didn’t hear anything after waiting a whole five minutes, I called the number listed. (Type A? Who, me? Okay, yeah. Me.) I made an appointment for the next day to go down and check her out.

My drove down there and made it to the man’s house, but no one was home. My heart was pounding in my ears, my stomach was in knots. This is fake! I wasted all that gas! I didn’t even get Starbucks! Shelby talked me down and made me call the guy. I was semi-relieved when he said he’d be home soon, though I was still convinced he would show up, trap us in his house, and murder us.

When he got home, we took the plunge to walk inside armed with tasers and pepper spray. To our huge relief, there were twelve golden puppies scurrying to meet us. Look at these guys!


 Byron showed us the two girls left and Shel and I took turns holding them. As soon as I picked my girl up she licked all over my face!

Look at that hilariously goofy grin. The goofy grin of a girl in love, I tell ya!

I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I wanted to walk out with her right then and there. He snapped that snazzy green collar on her though and told me to wait.

Wait we did, and today we went back to finally bring her home. Pepper!

I’ll be posting a “day of” post next week along with several photo dumps/fawning posts. I can’t get enough of her!

And that is the end of my very long blog post full of italics and parentheses overuse. 🙂