Top 4 Amazon Pet Finds
Hello there! While I don’t have any exciting life updates to bore you with this week. I did want to share some of the few items that we have purchased from Amazon that have actually made a difference in our lives as dog owners.
You have seen this in most of Beau’s Tiktok’s. We were actually gifted this as Beau got older and it has been so useful! We will always recommend slow feeders to new dog parents. Not only are they great at assisting your dog in consuming food safely, they also Gove your dog a sense of enrichment as they have to navigate the puzzle to eat.
This is great for keeping your pet’s paws from cracking. Especially for us, as the weather gets colder and the air gets dryer, we need to give a little extra love to our fur babies.
This is so useful for when we have to leave Beau home, or when we have a lot of people over. It takes a decent amount of time for him to get his treats out depending on how many are in there. I typically just throw some of his kibble in here. Beau get so excited when I pull this ball out because he knows it means “TREATS!”. It is also another enrichment toy.
4. Rug Grippers
These have absolutely blown my mind. We have vinyl flooring and most rugs literally slide all over. We couldn’t even have our guests walk into our home without our entryway rug shifting 5 ft. We put these down in April of 2023 and they STILL (updated August 2024) have not even budged. I posted a video of Beau actually pouncing on the rug (which he does almost every day) without it moving. I couldn’t recommend these enough.
Rest, Party of Three
Here is the lowdown on how life has been the past week. I am officially 7 days post op from my wisdom teeth extraction, everything is healing well but I still can’t open my jaw 100% of the way. The pain has drop to a mere annoyance but desire to stuff my face with a deep dish pizza has grown astronomically. Nick is moving around more and more since his surgery 5 days ago. And Beau finally had enough energy to play 10 minutes of fetch this morning as he is recovering from Kennel Cough.
It’s Labor Day weekend and we would normally be enjoying time at lake. But this weekend is going to be full of rest. We’ve started watching the Star Wars movies and have scrolled through all of TikTok.
Beau has been the best companion the past week and half. My mom has visited a few times to walk him but for the most part, he knows we all need rest. It is great to see him with some more energy. He even has taken up his old antics of stealing for attention. He pranced up to me, just out of arms reach, holding one of my slippers. I haven’t worn slippers in a while and these ones were tucked in a basket of winter clothes in my closet, so how he even managed to target them and pull them out is impressive on its own. It’s hard not to laugh when Beau acts out. I know in this case he is specially asking for me to play with him, but I still don’t want my slipper in his mouth. So the chase begins. In order to give him the attention he wants, I have to give in to his trap. Or so he thinks. My smartest move so far is to reach out for the stolen item 2-3 times, then act like its okay that he has it. I will calmly sit down and act busy or preoccupied with something else. For Beau, when he realizes that his plan isn’t working and I am no longer going to chase him, he will usually bring the stolen object closer to me as he starts to gnaw on it. Then as soon as he is preoccupied with a ‘new toy’ I steal it back from him and give him an actual toy (which he usually has no interest in). Depending on the situation, I will typically play with him or take him outside/for walk. But sometimes I can’t in that moment, and he usually takes the opportunity to nap.
Right now, Beau is laying on a pile of laundry that is waiting to be folded, snoozing away while I type. Shortly, I will have to play nurse for my husband and Beau will sit patiently, waiting for either of us to turn our attention to him. I will tell him how adorably handsome he is and what a good, sweet boy he is. Then the doorbell on the TV will go off and he will lose his shit, I will take back everything I said earlier, and the cycle will repeat itself until 9:30pm when Beau gets sleepy for the night and becomes the heaviest lap dog that I’ve ever had.
So this weekend isn’t quite what we had originally planned for ourselves. But I am comforted knowing that we have each other, and our own little routine that keeps us grounded. We are making the most of the situation we are in and I am super proud of how we have mentally handled these curveballs that came our way. Life happens and all we can do is just keep living it.
Our Second Anniversary
This anniversary is going to be one for the books. At least I hope we never have an anniversary like this one again. On our first marriage anniversary, my face was recovering from a poor miscommunication at a golf outing that resulting in some barley noticeable but permeant scaring. This year, I am three days post op of extracting 4 wisdom teeth and my poor husband has been bed ridden with an infected cyst for the last few days. Needless to say, we are never too old to need our moms. I am so grateful that we are close enough to our parents and can rely on them when we need them, even in our adult life. My mom was there to take me to my surgery and stick around to help through the first changing of my gauze, while my dad helped rig up a beautiful ice pack accessory for me. Nick’s mom and step dad made devious soft food that we could easily reheat. And his dad came to mow our lawn while we healed and rested.
On our anniversary morning, we celebrated with a small kiss and then loaded Nick into the car to head to his surgical consultation where we learned he was going to prepped for surgery in a few short hours. It isn’t something I would chalk up to the most romantic anniversary but he did get to wear a cotton gown at the office so there was some tradition there (2nd Anniversary = Cotton). I still can’t really eat solid foods so I packed up my work computer and headed to the waiting room where I stress ate 3 pudding cups. It’s a time we will likely look back on and laugh about or use it to relate to others who are going through unexpected curveballs from life. But it does remind us a little bit of why we both chose to unite into marriage and life this life together.
In the past two years since we’ve said our “I dos”, we have gotten our perfect little puppy and bought our first home together. We seen each other through new jobs, raises, new responsibilities, and have grasped on to new opportunities that have presented themselves to us. We have also bickered, lost loved ones, disagreed with each other, leaned on each other, supported each other, and learned new things about ourselves that encourage us to continue to grow together. It isn’t always so easy. Sometimes I wish Nick was a mind reader. Sometimes I wish I knew exactly what I needed so that I could just tell him. Sometimes life is just a lot and we know we will get through it, but we don’t always know how.
And if I have learned anything about my marriage (and life in general) in the past two years, it’s that the “how” is never what I expect it to be. I can mentally prepare for any of life’s curveballs but when I am finally up to bat, I am just closing my eyes and taking a swing. We never know how things will truly affect us until we are forced to go through something. And while we have seen some dark days the past two years, the days of light are far more prevalent and come a lot more frequently knowing that I can trust my life partner. Knowing that each day we are both just trying our best to grow individually and with each other. I know life has a lot more in store for us, and I know we will continue to celebrate the little things - and that will get us through everything else we face.
So to anyone else out there celebrating love today, congratulations. May life always have a way of keeping you on your toes, then grounding you back to Earth. XOXO
My First Blog
Creating - for the uncreative. That is what I want to inspire.
I have never considered myself a writer by any means. I received average grades in my English and Writing classes all throughout my schooling. However, I have been wanting to this for a while.
I have been wanting to find a spot to share my thoughts, ideas, and experiences in with others in a way that didn’t require me to post to a social media platform. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy posting TikTok videos of Beau. But I spent time trying to come up with ideas and create content that didn’t speak to me (or to the TikTok algorithm) so I have decided to step back and only post videos that feel genuine and to only film when my dog is doing something organic. This does mean that drool videos will continue, just not every day.
Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with ADHD. After only one session with my therapist, I felt like I had my whole life explained to me. I know there are a lot of symptoms that feel like they pertain to anyone at any given time, but my therapist really broke down what was going on inside my head and the way that I think. Which inspired me to start writing my thoughts down again.
I do not know exactly what will come of this blog, or even how often I will write and post. I don’t even know if anyone will ever read this. But if I could conjure up the exact outcome of this, it would be that my readers feel connected and inspired to create something (especially if they view themselves as the not-so-creative type). Because truly there is nothing spectacular about me or my vision, if I even have one. I just want to create something for myself. So that is what this blog will be, something for me.