One Sick Puppy

Someday when I have children I will remember this time. I spent a few hours last night in the Pet ER. My sweet puppy has gotten some sort of trachea infection and kennel cough. Needless to say he just about scared me to death waking me up in the middle of the night with a hacking cough. It started yesterday when I got home from work. He started coughing and I thought maybe he had swallowed something. After a few minutes I started to worry and considered how I would be able to administer CPR or the Heimlich maneuver to him. After about 15 minutes he stopped and seemed ok. So I figured that whatever it was had been swallowed. Flash forward to 2:30 AM - he starts coughing uncontrollably. I decide that it's now serious enough to warrant a visit to the ER. $250 later they tell me he's fine. OUCH!!!

All I can say is...unless you are going to actually get shots, never go to the pet store when it's "low-cost vaccination day." We didn't know anything about it and wandered in last week to buy a new toy. So there were all kinds of unvaccinated dogs all waiting to make my sweet vaccinated puppy sick. Such is the risk we take ~ however if I ever see that sign in the window again I'm going to turn around and go home.

The other man in my life

Not only do I have the most wonderful husband-to-be, I also have a pretty awesome dog. His name is Peyton and he's almost 8 months old. He's a handful!

And here's a pic of both of my men.

Another favorite thing

This past summer two of my best friends both announced they were getting married. I was trying to think of a unique wedding gift. So I came up with the idea of making them quilts. I've never quilted a day in my life but I figured it would be a good creative outlet. My grandmother used to quilt and my boss makes quilts for coworkers when they have babies.

Here are some pics of my first attempt at quilting.

The colors in the pictures are not great. The idea was to use the favorite color of both the bride and the groom. For this quilt, the bride's favorite color is purple and the groom's favorite color is black. At first I was hesitant to use black but I think it turned out quite nicely.

On the back I had their names embroidered along with the wedding date. As a first quilt I'm happy with the result and it only took me about 3 weeks of working on it in the evenings after work and some on the weekend. I learned a lot of lessons along the way and hope to put my skills to work. I've already started working on the quilt for the other wedding but got sidetracked. The next wedding is in less than 6 weeks and I'm not sure it's going to be finished in time.

I took time to make The General his Christmas present. I LOVE the way it turned out. We decided it would be best if he didn't take it to Iraq with him so I have it with me until he returns in April. If I could take it with me to work I would - but that might be strange. I love having it with me though.

My favorite soldier

I never would have thought that I would want to marry into the Army. But here we are - thinking about rings and planning a wedding. Honestly, there have been times in the last couple of years that I thought that I would never marry (military or otherwise). Then the General came back into my life. Then things got complicated. The General was married to a work colleague of mine (they've been divorced now for a couple of years). While they were married, we would occasionally hang out as couples (me with my then boyfriend). It was difficult getting to know much about him because he was deployed right after they got married. Shortly before their divorce, they moved a few hours away. After the divorce, I remained in contact with the girl and occasionally would get an email from The General. Flash forward a couple years....The General is once again deployed to Iraq. I start getting emails from him and we start talking more and more. Then his birthday comes up and I decide to send him a care package (probably the best thing I could have ever done). 

From there we started emailing each other non-stop. It's definitely a non-conventional courtship, but it works for us. Without the luxury of phone calls or in-person visits, we have to rely on emails and letters. It's amazing how personal they can be.  The General was able to come home for leave during the beginning of January for 15 days. Those were the happiest days of my life. We were able to spend some quality time together and I am so grateful. Of course it made it harder to put him on a plane back to Iraq but I know he will be back in the states sometime in the beginning of April. That's when we can make it all official. I'm so excited.

Let the journey begin ...