Dear Sammy,

I'm sure most people will probably think this is absolutely silly.  I mean, who writes a letter to their dog?  How pathetic of a person to you have to be to write words to something that can't even comprehend these words?

As I'm writing this, you are sitting on the couch tucked in the crease of cushions next to your Daddy.  A big thunderstorm is moving in and, as always, you are terrified and shaking and I truly think if he'd let you, you crawl up inside of him.  I sometimes wonder, at times like this, what you went through before you came to us to make you so absolutely terrified of a little thunder and lightning.  And then I realize that it breaks my heart to think about it and I force myself to move on.

One year ago today, your Daddy and I went out searching.  We knew we wanted to bring a dog into our lives and we had been searching for months for just the right one.  Daddy is allergic to most types of animals and we lived in apartment, so it wouldn't be very fair to bring a big dog into a 900 square foot space.  So to say we were limited was an understatement.

We ended up at the Doc Williams SPCA in Goose Creek.  I remember being led into the room where all the little dogs were in evenly spaced cages up against the wall and they all were whining and begging for attention.  That, truthfully, was the hardest part.  If I could have scooped every one of them up and taken them home, I would have.

I wasn't the one who saw your first - your Daddy was.  He walked right over to where you sat, all scruffy and wild looking in your cage, and knelt down and as soon as he did, you greeted him by standing on your back paws and licking the finger he stuck in the hole.  He immediately turned to me and said, "I want that one!".

And Sammy, my baby, my precious lovey-dog, I looked right at you and said, "Ewww! No, I want that one!" and pointed to a little Shih Tzu in the cage across from you.  And even to this day, your Daddy doesn't let me live it down but it doesn't matter because I now look at you, with your wild mane and big ears and scruffy "eyebrows", and I truly think that you are the cutest dog in the world.

We weren't sure at first.  We didn't know if we were ready.  We weren't sure if you were the right one.  The ladies at the shelter let us take you out and meet you.  We even got to take you for a walk, where you immediately peed on my foot.  We took that as a sign that you wanted to be ours and within an hour, you were on Daddy's lap in the car with your head out the window and your ears blown back, looking like you had just been released from death row. 

We immediately went to PetSmart and commenced the spoiling and even after a year, that hasn't stopped.  Everytime one of us goes to the store, we always end up coming home with something for you, be it a treat or a new toy.  You are one of the only dogs I know who has an entire doggy bed full of stuffed animals.  If I could just teach you to pick them up after you drag them out then we'd be rich and I'd buy you all the stuffed toys your heart desires.  Who am I kidding?  I already do!

It's been a rough year.  Your cuteness definitely disguised the fact that you were a bit rough around the edges.  We know someone must have treated you bad because you have your moments where you can be awfully mean.  We found out very quickly that you don't like your paws touched.  You don't like to be bothered when sleeping or eating.  And if you're scared, you have a tendency to lash out and snap at us.  This is a behavior we definitely don't like, as you have bitten both myself and your Daddy pretty good, but we are working on that.  We are trying to teach you to love and trust us again and to make you realize that we are there to keep you safe and take care of, not to hurt you.  And it is a long and tiring process but we have seen quite a bit of progress over the year and that gives us hope for the future.

But there are better moments that make me so very grateful we decided to bring you in our lives.  I don't have any babies but you are my baby at the moment.  My heart swells when I come home from a long day at work and you are there to greet me, shaking your tail so fast your butt moves with it and following me around the house until I finally pay attention to you.  Or when you jump up on the couch and snuggle yourself into my lap, staring up at me with those huge brown eyes that make me wonder why you always look so sad when at that very moment, you seem so very happy.  Or how, in the morning, you come out of your bed and climb in ours then find that little crook in my lower back or my belly and snuggle yourself in until you are comfortable and almost laying on top of me.  And if I move even the slightest away from you, you scoot yourself over until your body is touching mine again.

I love when I ask if you want to go "Bye-bye!" and you freak the HELL out, as if your little head is going to explode if we don't go now, right now, Mama, I want to go NOW!  And when you really want attention, you climb up on my chest after being invited and lay with your face in front of mine until I pet you.

You love giving kisses and will lick anyone's face off if they let you.  You will sit and speak for treats and have learned to go down when told.  You have learned so much in the past year and we are so very proud of you.

The greatest thing that has happened is you got your own backyard and boy, have you made it known that the yard is yours. There have been many weekend days where the sun is beating down on the grass and I've poked my head out of the sliding glass door to find you flat on your back, legs splayed and chin stretched out, soaking up the sun.  You'll lay like that for a good half an hour as if all you want to do in life is soak up the sun. 

You killed a mole the other day.  Your Daddy and I were pretty sure that's what had been plaguing our yard but we weren't positive.  You had been digging and digging for days and we will admit that we did yell at you as we had just spent about $200 planting new grass seed in most of the areas you dug in.  Then I came home one day and your Daddy said you were outside and I peeked out because no one had been watching you and lo and behold, I find you standing over something and gray.  From far away, it looked like a bird but as I got closer and you stared up at me panting and smiling, I realized it was a little grey mole, about eight inches long and it was as sure as dead.  And as I called for Daddy to come out and take care of it, you stood there looking at me expectedly, like you were so amazingly proud of what you had caught and I couldn't help but praise you for being such a good boy and getting rid of that pesky mole.

I couldn't be mad at you because, as a terrier, that is in your nature.  And to be painfully honest, that mole was starting to become a nuisance anyway.  And you were so very proud.  I just didn't want to clean it up so I made your Daddy do it and ever since, you've stopped digging and prefer to sun yourself, as if you'd slain the dragon and all was quiet in the kingdom.

Now the thunderstorm has passed and you're contently sprawled between your Daddy and I and as I look at you all curled up near us, close enough to be part of us but far enough away to feel like you have your own space, I can't help but think how grateful I am that your Daddy found you because I can't imagine my life without you!

I love you Sammy-Sam!  Happy Adoption Birthday!

Love,

Mama

(To those of you who read this without shaking your head and thinking I'm crazy dog lady - thank you!)

So I turned twenty-seven yesterday and the world did not end.  Little children did not point and whisper.  Teenagers did not roll their eyes back into their head.  But everyone - EVERYONE, asked me that one single question:

"Do you feel old?"

Or in my kind brother's words, "Happy birthday, old lady!"

Gee, thanks! 

No one asked me that when I turned twenty-six.  Or twenty-five. Trust me, twenty-five was a hard birthday.  I was no longer in my early-twenties, instead I was now a mid-twenties girl.  I had moved in with my boyfriend, I had my second "real world" job.  I couldn't go out and party until all hours every night - mostly because my body couldn't handle it but partly because I didn't want to be the "old chick" at the party.

But twenty-seven? Eh, twenty-seven was fairly easy for me.  I don't feel old but I guess now I'm in my "late-twenties" and on that downward slope to thirty.  I still look around at the house we bought and the dog we adopted and the career I've built and wonder what the hell I'm doing pretending I can handle all of this.  And I don't even have any children! Can you imagine?

But there are times that the years seem to have caught up to me.  I've caught myself wondering about kids these days and how they can do what they do, listen to what they listen to.  I just had a conversation yesterday with my little sister about heartbreak and boyfriends.  I've been out of college for five years.  If we have a ten-year high school reunion it'll be next year.  Friends that I remember staying out all night with and eating cold pizza in our dorms after a night of partying are married and have babies.  

This is not a bad thing, this growing up.  It's just a different thing.

With growing up, though, comes less of a birthday celebration.  In the years before this, I would celebrate the entire month if I could get away with it.  I was one of those annoying people with incessant reminders that went, "Guess what? My birthday is in 23 days!".  This year, not so much.

My (step)dad turned forty-one on April 15th, so last weekend, we decided to have a joint barbeque to celebrate.  Steve and I went over and hung out while they prepared bratwursts and burgers and hot dogs.  We had cake (which is definitely one of my favorite parts) and exchanged presents.  Thank god my dad is a fellow geek because all I had to do was hop on over to Think Geek and get him some kitsch from there.  My parents got me gardening supplies since I've mentioned that I was actually out many weekends in a row, weeding my front garden and was uber-proud of the fact that I actually got grass to grow in my backyard. 

But yesterday, we played it low key, and that's exactly what I wanted.  Birthday wishes started early, before I even rolled out of bed and continued throughout the day.  My coworkers bought me lunch and sang.  And I came home to find my loving, wonderful, amazing boyfriend elbow deep in yellow cake batter, whipping up his first ever homemade cake for me.  He then tossed a pair New York strips he'd had marinating for hours (in yummy Jack Daniel's BBQ marinade) on the grill and put some baked potatoes in the microwave.  Before I knew it, the house smelled amazing and my tummy was full and content.

I got tons of cards - the ones from my parents always make me cry - and Steve even broke from character and got me a mushy card, which made my day because he always leans towards the funny ones.  He also got me the Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro  lens that I desperately wanted.  And he bought Grand Theft Auto IV as well, which I didn't expect but was looking forward to getting.  Now I just have to wait until Tuesday to pick it up.

On Saturday, we're going to spend the day in Myrtle Beach with some friends.  I'm not sure exactly what we're doing yet but it'll just be a chance to get away and have some fun.  I told Steve that was my "big" birthday celebration.  LOL

So overall, it was a very good birthday, despite, you know, the whole getting old thing.  That, apparently, is a bigger deal than I thought. 

So February was a rough month.  Not so much "bad" and just "busy"!  I don't work well with busy because then my routine gets thrown completely off and I feel so out of sync for weeks and weeks afterwards.  What can I say, I'm a creature of habit.

I know I sort of fell off the face of the planet here and there's a lot of things to blame it on. Summer visitors, irresistable urges to redecorate my apartment stemming from watching way more TLC than I ever should, tax-free weekend, lightning strikes (yea, totally not kidding on that one), and being extremely busy at work. There's also the fact that it's been so incredibly hot here and combining that with how exhausted I am, well, my brain just freezes and refuses to be anywhere near creative.

I can be thankful for the holiday week. With the Fourth falling on a Wednesday, most people are on vacation and things have been relatively slow. I say relatively because it's like a tropical storm instead of a hurricane. Regardless, tomorrow is Friday and despite the fact that I do have to work all day tomorrow AND tomorrow night, I am grateful for that. I will make sure NOT to mess things up this weekend so that I do not have to spend all day Saturday working like I did last weekend.