Christmas Break Quantified

10: days spent at home in Ohio with family
455: miles traveled to get there
0: times Hank threw up in the car! yay Hank!
2: pills we gave him to ensure a puke-free ride each way (more drugs=better)
0.8: square inches of extra, unused space in our car
6: family Christmas celebrations we attended
37: pounds of bad-for-you food I ate (approximate)
143: frosted sugar cookies we decorated with red and green sugar, sprinkles, red hots
2: pizza subs I consumed
6: books from my wishlist which I received as gifts
1: shopping trips with my mom
9: high school/college friends I spent quality time with
3: games bowled on New Year's Eve
78: highest score I achieved out of all three games
12: minutes I stayed up past midnight on New Year's Eve (what can I say, I'm getting old)
4: actual snowflakes we saw up north
1: Savior whose birth, death and resurrection gives me a reason to celebrate

Hank is Not Very Photogenic

He's a wonderful dog in just about every way (except for that whole carsickness thing). And he's really a handsome dog. But he did not want to have his picture taken today. We thought it might be fun to have him in a picture with us to put in our Christmas cards...several tries this afternoon looked something like this:

He tends to be a "worrywart," as the shelter told us, and he just didn't know what was going on. Even the offer of treats wasn't tempting enough to keep him in the living room--he just wanted the heck out of there. I did get one cute picture of him with Steve (except that his eyes glow eerily when you use the flash)...

...but he wouldn't look anywhere near the direction of the camera when I was using the self-timer.

Blessings Upon Blessings

Home sweet home...after ten wonderful days at home sweet home. At what point in life do you stop calling both the place you're headed and the place you return to "home"?

It doesn't get much better than being paid hundreds of dollars to spend a week with friends and family. But that's exactly the gift God gave us last week. Steve had training to do for work and found out it was offered in Toledo. Some figuring showed his boss that although they'd have to pay a ridiculous amount of mileage, it would actually be cheaper than paying for a hotel room and every meal if he were to go to Louisville. So we packed our bags and headed for Ohio.

What a blessing it was to have a long visit. Usually when we go home (Steve's parents and mine live in the same town) we are so rushed to pack in time with both our families, let alone trying to see friends. This time we had many more opportunities for QT with family, and I got to visit several dear friends while Steve was in his seminars.

Good times were had by all...even Hank, who only puked in the car one time.

I have many posts with pictures forthcoming. (Not of the puke. Micah.)

Meet Our New Addition!

How could we resist that face?

The fact is, we couldn't! So this morning, we went and adopted Hank (a beagle/hound mix) from a local shelter. He's somewhere around 6-8 years old, and his owner surrendered him last spring when our area got hit really badly by tornadoes. I think maybe his home was destroyed/damaged enough that the owner couldn't keep him. So he's been at the shelter for several months, because most people would rather adopt a puppy than an older dog.

Everyone at the shelter has kept raving about what a wonderful dog he is--very calm and gentle. We haven't seen much of his personality yet because he's being shy and tentative--but we understand that it will take a while for him to realize that this is his home and we can be trusted. I can only imagine what he's been through and how uncertain/scared he might feel! As I type, he's finally napping in his crate--and we're hoping the storms that are headed our way won't end up to be too severe, because he's afraid of storms. Understandable, given that a storm caused him to lose his home.

I'll try to post more pictures soon (the one above is the one that the shelter posted on Petfinder--which is how we found him). He's really a beautiful dog--and we couldn't believe what a difference a bath made. He got all cleaned up before coming home with us today and looked a thousand percent better than when we first met him! I'm so excited to finally have a dog.

Pets in Heaven

A few months ago I read Randy Alcorn's excellent book Heaven. I highly recommend it. Anyway, the latter half of the book goes into lots of specific thoughts about what we might see/do/experience in Heaven. In light of my last post, I was remembering a couple of chapters on animals, including a brief section on pets.

Alcorn suggests that it's not at all silly to wonder whether we might see our beloved pets again. Of course we can't know for sure, and it goes without saying that Heaven will be no less Heaven if our pets aren't there. Nonetheless, Alcorn says, God is the Giver of all good gifts, and He created them. Think of how many ways He has used animals to touch human lives! We know there will be animals in Heaven, and it would be a simple matter for God to re-create certain ones we knew and loved on earth. He includes this quote from Joni Eareckson Tada:

"If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn't surprise me. It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His generous character. ...Exorbitant. Excessive. Extravagant in grace after grace. Of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy--utterly, joyfully, surprisingly superfluous. ...Heaven is going to be a place that will refract and reflect in as many ways as possible the goodness and joy of our great God, who delights in lavishing love on His children."
(quoted in Heaven by Randy Alcorn, Tyndale, 2004)

Molly

To say "she was more than just a pet" is to stamp a tired, overused cliche on a dog who was anything but ordinary. But she was.

It was twelve years ago this summer that we traveled to the pet store to get a new dog. Our miniature schnauzer had died of old age a while back, but she had been my dad's dog since before he married my mom. So this would be our first family dog. I don't remember how we decided that we wanted a cocker spaniel, but at the store, we were greeted by three adorable blond cocker puppies.

She was the runt of the litter--tiny next to her chubby sister and brother. I fell in love. She was undeniably the cutest of the three puppies, and I guess since I was the more vocal and bossy older child, my vote won out. We went home that afternoon with a new puppy, who I decided right away just looked like a Molly. It fit.

She cried when we left her in her room at night. She "piddled" every time she got excited; we got used to telling guests, "Don't talk to her! Just ignore her until she settles down"--because if they stooped to scratch her floppy ears or tell her hello, we'd be rushing to the kitchen for a paper towel.

Thankfully she grew out of that phase...eventually. But she still had a thousand endearing quirks. This dog had more personality than any dog I've ever met, no contest. She could sing--I kid you not. Any time my family started singing "Happy Birthday," she would start singing along with us. I have no idea why that song was a trigger, but it definitely was. Simply saying, "Sing! Can you sing?" would do it too, as well as various other words that were significant to her, in good or bad ways: "puppy hotel" (bad), "bath" (bad), "Eukanuba" (her dog food--good, I think, unless this was her way of protesting being fed the same thing three times a day for twelve years).

We often remarked that we needed to videotape her and send it to Iams--surely we'd get some sort of million-dollar endorsement deal for this brilliant dog who would not respond to "Do you want some Puppy Chow?" but would howl excitedly when asked, "Do you want some Eukanuba?" I kid you not.

If she was in the mood to sing, you could carry on a conversation with her. Dad would come home and ask, "Molly, what did they do to you today?" She'd howl. "Sissy did that?" he'd respond. "Isn't that sad! Why didn't you bite her?" Molly would howl some more. I'd argue, "You're telling stories." She would howl in protest. Her singing/"talking" was at various volumes and pitches, sometimes short, sometimes long. Hilarious. I swear I am not making this up. I so wish I had it on videotape.

She had a decent repertoire of tricks, including "dancing" (turning in a circle on her hind legs), and balancing a dog treat on her nose, then flipping it up and catching it in her mouth. She also knew how to spell popcorn. We resorted to spelling it, as you would in front of a little kid, because the mere mention of her favorite treat would send her into a frenzy. If someone said it, she wouldn't rest until they got up and made some. But eventually she figured out that "p-o-p-c-o-r-n" meant the same thing, and upon hearing the string of letters, she would run to the cupboard where we kept the precious food. Then she'd pace in front of the microwave while it popped, whining if it seemed to take too long. She would jump in the air to catch kernels we threw to her, and would inhale a pile of it off the floor like a vacuum cleaner, so fast there's no way she tasted it.

I've seen a lot of cocker spaniels, and a lot of pictures of cocker spaniels. It is no stretch to say Molly was the most adorable. I know that sounds ridiculously biased, but I really believe it's true. She had the most expressive eyes and enormous floppy, curly ears. I'd post a picture to back up my claim, but the only ones I have are from last week. In them she looks old, sad, worn out.

Molly was playful, full of energy, loyal through and through. She didn't really play favorites; she loved our whole family. After I moved out, it always made me smile to see how excited she would get every time I came home. She didn't have much of a tail to wag (it had been cropped before we got her) so she'd wiggle her whole backside; she'd run in circles, crying, until I'd sit down and she could jump up in my lap.

She won't be there to greet me the next time I go home. My parents had to do the unbelievably difficult and have her put to sleep on Tuesday. I realized earlier this year that all of a sudden she seemed to be getting old, but somehow I didn't really believe it. I'm really going to miss my dog.

And I Thought My Dog Was Cool...

This video is amazingly hilarious. Who knew Dalmatians could ride bicycles?

(HT: Nashville is Talking)