things have been good

I've got an upcoming family wedding (last one this year I promise!) and my best friend Annie is coming to visit soon!!  I am so very excited to skip home for a quick weekend to see my family for another beautiful celebration, with dancing of course, and to show Annie my life in Denver.  She hasn't even met Oliver yet, and I can't wait to see what she thinks of my wild child.  If only she could bring her sweet pup as a carry on, they would have so much fun together... or just terrorize each other, but either way it would be amusing!  In any case, this picture is mostly for my parents, so they can see I'm doing well even though the semester has been a tough one so far.  I'm doing my best to keep on smiling!
 

 

Yin, Oliver and I just took a long walk and watched the sunset to end my weekend before heading back to work tomorrow.

did I forget to mention

that I APPLIED TO PA SCHOOL?!  Phew.  Seriously, that deserved an all caps scream at you and I'm not one to enter into those lightly.  This application process has been knock down and drag out, and I think I've run into just about every road bump that was in the road.  I am so, so glad that that portion of my life is over for the time being.  Now comes another hard part which is the wait.  Ohhh the wait, because for some reason this whole process is about a year long venture and just about the time you find out if you didn't get in anywhere it's time to start applying again!  But that is a long way away, and will be worried about when it comes and not a moment sooner.  I've gotten confirmations from all my schools that they have everything and are reviewing my application, and I am waiting patiently to hopefully get called for interviews near the end of the year.  Even though the odds are really long, and who knows what will happen, I am extremely proud of myself for getting this far, and I will continue on even if I need to go in another round next year because I have learned so much already and doing it again would just be old hat.

chai tea study time

Yesterday was a beautiful warm sunny day with a crisp cool fall late afternoon.  JP and I drank chai and sat outside reading and studying to enjoy the perfect weather.  What a lovely way to end the weekend.

family wedding time: take 1

please don't eat that thing that I love

The list is growing, folks.  Remember when I was so blessed and my brand new pup came home with me practically potty trained?  He was so sweet and never chewed on things he wasn’t supposed to, never tore things up.  Well, it seems as though slowly and then all at once my puppy has realized that he is a boisterous pup and as such he should try out his pearl whites on some of my beloved things.  Back when I was trying to be a gardener, I loving planted this herb garden:

and when I went inside to get water to wet their roots my dear Oliver CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMPED my spinach into oblivion.  This was followed a while later by the complete destruction of my budding raspberry plant (which is kind of impressive because those suckers are pretty pokey!)

 The list is indeed growing, and at last count includes: numerous pairs of socks, new sunglasses, an entire bottle of hand sanitizer, a water bottle, a pen that turned our white comforter into one with blue splotches and drips, the christmas present I bought for my parents when I was in Haiti, and the better part of a new pair of pants.  

Oh yeah, he also ate my only surviving plant jut a few days ago, which was the blueberry plant that had a magnificent two berry yield for us so far this summer.  ARGH!!! 

Being a people person in general and an inexperienced pet owner in specific, I’m not sure how to proceed!  If Oliver was a toddler I’d have a number of tricks and techniques in my bag of discipline/re-direction that I could fire right off, but I don’t think any of those apply when it comes to small puppies.  To date I’ve mostly just done a miss moshed approach which involves a combination of all of these things: bugging my eyes out, banishing him to his kennel (I know, I too read that the kennel should be a “place of happiness” where the dog feels safe and homey, but banishment to the playground of the backyard hardly seems appropriate..), dragging him to the scene of the crime to force him into confrontation of the disastrous event, and in general glaring at him while shaking my head sometimes adding a little wagging of my finger.  Not surprisingly this “approach” is not entirely effective, ok it’s not effective at all.  Thus, I am writing this post to ask advice on the issue of puppy discipline.  My personal opinion is not that he’s being bad, or anxiously destroying things cause we are gone and he is worried, but more that he has discovered the joy of tearing things apart willy-nilly style and while I think he realizes that he’s in the dog house (wha whaa) with us, the benefits of tomfoolery and destructive revelry are far outweighing the drawbacks at this juncture!  That or he likes to find the things I love and destroy them so he will be the only one left..