Every vacation I have ever been on always ends on a bittersweet note.  On one hand, because I'm a creature of habit, I long to return home, to my routine and things familair.  On the other, I usually have such a good time that I don't want to leave wherever I am.

Hawaii was no exception.  As a matter of fact, Hawaii was the utmost example of this.  Despite a few bumps in the road, I had the most amazing time.  It is such a beautiful, beautiful place and as I was on the airplane Sunday night, watching the lights of Oahu recede behind me, I almost teared up.

I would never live in there, in Honolulu at least, but I will certainly visit again.  Even now, thinking about the things I saw, takes my breath away.

But now I'm home, after a long ten days away, and I got to cuddle with my boys (Steve and the dog) last night.  I did miss them terribly (and my bed - what can I say? I didn't spend over a grand on a mattress to hate it!). 

Initially, I thought I would be able to return to work today, after getting in at 4:30 Eastern time yesterday.  After the flight out there (the second leg was an almost unbearable seven hours - don't know how people do International flights) and hearing that jet lag is actually worse when you go forward in time, I decided against going to work today.  Instead, I laid around while trying to tell my mind that I needed to pick the house up and unpack and clean and get this place prepared for the in-laws visit on Saturday.

But I took a three hour nap instead.  Because my body's internal clock is so fucked up - I was exhausted at 9:30pm last night after having pretty much airport and plane hopped since 9pm Hawaii time the night before.  I was wide awake at 2am then again at 6am and pretty much got decided to get up.  Then around 2pm, I sat down to eat lunch and passed out, not waking up until 5pm, shortly before Steve got home from work.

Note: ME = FAILED HOUSEWIFE

Now, I'm hungry, because it's 3pm in Hawaii and my body is saying it's close to dinnertime.  They say for every hour you go forward it takes a day to recover from jet lag.  I went forward six hours - I don't know if I have six days.  I have to drag myself to work tomorrow.

So there's so much I want to tell you and about 1000 pictures I have to go through.  I will update in the following days.  The past month was spent getting ready for this trip and now that's it's over, I don't have anything to fixate on.  Except the in-laws visit this weekend, four days after my return.  And some friends visit exactly a week after the in-laws leave.

On second thought, I better start making lists!

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!)

I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday and had no motivation to write an entry.  That would require forming a clear thought and I had none of those.

I really just loafed around this weekend.  Friday night I had to work, so I cracked open a bottle of wine, started up the laptop and hung out while Steve and a friend played Grand Theft Auto IV (did I mention that game was kinda awesome?).

I also see that I wrote an entries on bathrooms.  That, my friends, is what wine will do to you.  I am apparently awesome as well.

But yesterday - well, yesterday was a whole other story.  Steve worked then had plans to go on the boat and fish with some of his coworkers.  I was really looking forward to a whole day by myself.  A WHOLE day meaning him NOT coming home at 3pm.  Sometimes when he works on Saturdays, that looms ahead of me like a deadline because if I'm cleaning, I get into a groove and I usually end having to work around him or stop completely when he gets home because we have sudden plans or he wants to go do something.  And I really don't blame him because after cleaning all day, I want to go do something too but at the same time, I want to finish what I've started.

So back to having a day to myself.  I was excited, y'all!  Like, dance in my underwear Risky Business style excited.  I had a ton of my shows (i.e. ones that even I feel bad forcing him to watch, like America's Next Top Model) backlogged on the TiVo.  I had some shopping I wanted to do.  I had a house to clean and a pile of laundry that has been sitting on the couch waiting to be folded for the past two weeks, at least.  I had books to read and interweb sites to surf.

And I had over 12 hours to do all of this in, without snide remarks from him about what I was watching or loud sighs because I was taking up the laptop AND the TV.

And I could turn the A/C down as low as I needed it.

(Side note: yes, these are the things we fight over!  Part of me finds them ridiculously stupid but part of me gets so angry because I want to be selfish and it's wrong for me to be.  I want to watch TV and surf the web but he says it's not fair to take up two of the main forms of entertainment.  I want the air down to 68 degrees but he thinks that's a ridiculous temperature and constantly turns it up.  He has a point, at least on the TV/laptop thing but I don't want to be fair.  I had to be fair my whole life.  I want to be stubborn and selfish and mean.  Sometimes.)

(One more side note: I totally acted like a twelve-year-old when we fought over the A/C this morning.  I turned it down to 68 last night and when we got up he had turned it back up to 72.  It was hot and humid in the house and my sinuses were bothering me like crazy so I turned it back down.  I'm not doing this to be irrational - if it's hot in the house, it gets stuffy and my sinuses are sensitive to temperature change and air pressure and that gives me migraines.  And he doesn't get it and I try to say, you know how we don't stay at places long where there are cats because you're allergic?  That's what this is like.  So I turned it back down and he came right behind me, bitching and turning it back up as I walking down the hall.  I yelled back and was so mad that I actually slammed our bedroom door then threw myself on our bed.  I haven't done that since I was a teenager but damn did it feel good.  Totally didn't make a point though because he's even more stubborn than I am because SOMEONE turned it up to 78.  He vehemently denied doing it but I didn't touch it.  So we either have ghosts or the dog figured out how to do.  Or, he was being vindictive, something we both are unfortunately very good at.)

But after being off tangent, let me see if I can figure out where I was.  Ah yes, a day at home.

The dog woke me up at 8:30am which was not cool.  I let him out, had a small breakfast, then sat on the couch to check my email.  From then on, I realized I was just so physically and mentally tired and couldn't motivate myself to do anything.  I watched two weeks worth of Grey's Anatomy, stared at the mess in my house, contemplated taking Sammy to the dog park and then just wandered around aimlessly trying to figure out something.

I did end up going out to return some clothes to Old Navy.  By the time I got on the road, I was realized I was so hungry I was shaking, which makes me feel just "not right", so I stopped by Chick-Fil-A and scarfed some food.  I hate eating like that because I usually feel sick right after.  But I sucked it up and returned the clothes then went to the mall to buy some books I had been waiting for.  I bought six!  Three by Jodi Picoult (The Pact, Salem Falls, and Plain Truth), Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner, Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella and Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster.  The latter three were going to be beach reads for my Hawaii trip but since Kinsella and Weiner's books were only available in hardcover, I'll probably read them first and bring the paperbacks with me (I don't feel like lugging hardcovers on the plane).

From there, I came home and felt so drained that I just laid in the bed and read The Pact all day.  I had it finished before I went to bed last night - it was that good.  Steve actually ended up coming home around 7pm and he and his friend hung out while I laid in bed and read.  It was just one of those days where I felt like only part of me was here and coherant.  But I think I needed it.

This morning, the dog woke us up around 7:30 am (seriously, WTF dog?).  I let him out then laid on the couch and feel asleep until around 9am.  Woke up to find Steve playing GTA IV again! Then we hung around until about 2 when we met up with some friends to see Baby Mama, have dinner at O'Charley's then go to this exclusive after-hours even our local Best Buy was having with all sorts of sales and specials.

I have to say Baby Mama had it's moments but I think Fey and Poehler really held back.  It could have been a lot funnier than it was.  O'Charley's was good, as always (they have these amazing cinammon-sugar donuts and this awesome Strawberry Skyy Lemonade drink) and we found quite a few good deals at Best Buy.

It was a much busier day than yesterday but it was nice and productive.  Now we just have to prepare for May and the summer.  Sometimes it's nice to not have anything planned or anything to do. 

My theory is that if we're busy enough to be relieved to have a weekend where we can sit around playing video games and not get dressed then we must be doing something right.

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. 

I find it rather ironic that a day that tends to be a metaphor for impending doom precedes a day that we have come to fill with drunken debauchery and rousing good times.

Of course, one could argue that they are completely unrelated, particularly when you look at which came first.

Even so, it's something to be aware of.

Have a safe weekend (we're under a tornado warning now and the storm is starting to pick up) and a Happy (but safe) St. Patrick's Day.