Countdown to Toby

One week from today, I am getting the first pet of my adult life. This is exciting and a little bit terrifying all at the same time. I’ve wanted a bulldog for as long as I can remember… but up until a few weeks ago is was just a far off fantasy. 

My family will tell you that I have been talking about “Toby” for years. When people first meet me, they read the tattoo on my foot, and then ask me what it is I plan to do with my one wild and precious life. The short answer is usually “write, and get a bulldog…. Named Toby” (I might not have all my goals and priorities lined up, but at least I know what my heart wants)  Where the name Toby came from, I’m really not sure, but somewhere in my heart, I knew that I was destined to have a bulldog son, and that his name would be Toby.  I’ve thought about him for quite some time, and have even carried around a Bulldog training book with me through 5 moves…(though along with the rest of my reference books, it was hardly ever picked up) When I moved into my current apartment I negotiated a Bulldog Clause into my lease (no Joke… I am allowed to have an English Bulldog but no other pets) just in case 2011 was the year Toby finally came into my life… and here he comes. I wasn’t even seriously looking for a dog, I just started toying around with the thought. Fall was fast approaching, and with it the end of wedding season, and I thought “hey this could be a good time to make this investment… I’ll have money saved up, and will be working less crazy hours” so I started looking around for litters that might be available in say October November. Naturally I found a litter that would be ready to come home on August 1^st, and my mind filled with panic and anxiety. “I am not ready for a Dog in August!” I told myself firmly. One look at my house, and it was confirmed, Tayler would not be anywhere near pet ready on August 1^st…. but for posterity sake, I put my name on a list for the breeder to contact me. (in my defense I thought there wouldn’t be dogs available anyway, and that she could put me in touch with other breeders, for a time down the road when my life was a little less chaotic and a little more dog proof)

And of course I didn’t hear from her, and didn’t hear from her but I wasn’t too concerned, because clearly I was in no place to get a dog anyway, and work was being hectic, and I was planning on going on two vacations, and things were not lining up, and I wasn’t even in the market for a dog really… etc etc. Until of course I got an e-mail with this picture,

and I was instantly smitten. Which of course I knew I would be. But it seemed like there was already a waiting list, and two of the puppies had some health issues, and it still didn’t seem like everything was falling into place, nor did I think I wanted it to fall into place.  Everyone I talked to said “whatever you do, don’t go visit, or you will come home with 2 puppies”  and I knew they were probably right, so instead I called the breeder, and talked asked her about 45 minutes worth of questions on the breed, on her dogs, on anything I could possibly need to know before even seriously considering making a commitment like this (meanwhile my trusty bulldog book came off the shelf, and I found myself reading chapter after chapter each night).

Needless to say, I met the puppies, and fell even more in love, and started contemplating what would need to happen for Toby to become a reality. I was still being cautious, because there was a waiting list, and a very real possibility that by the time it got to my name, there would be no dogs left…. And thus started my frantic budgeting, a rather long e-mail campaign to the breeder, a few awkward negotiations at work about pets in the office, some very long talks with my parents about some key work dates I might need a puppy-sitter… and the over-all getting my ducks in a row, just in case! I really was worried that it wouldn’t happen, that the dog I really wanted would be sold… and then I got the e-mail. 

Side note…. I totally feel like an expectant parent. I know that adopting a child is much more emotional… but I don’t want children… and Toby has been in my heart for YEARS. Ask anyone in my family, and they will tell you, I have been talking about Toby for a good long while, and of course no one really took me seriously.  I have a collage in my room of life goals… Toby is on there. So when I make references to becoming a single mom it is really because I feel like this is my dog child. And there is a very good chance that real children will not be in the picture. I also realize that if I ever want my current dating situation to change, I should probably not refer to myself as a single mom… but I kind of feel like one. I will not pretend that I know what it is like to have children, (however the Bulldog breeder has told me that getting a Bulldog is like having a perpetual two-year-old, and that raising a puppy is six times harder than raising a child…. I’m choosing not to believe that last fact… but some people might). I also know plenty of people who have opted not to have children, and really their pets fill that void. I’m not talking about the weird people who dress up their pets take them everywhere, and treat them like a member of the family  (please god, Toby will not wear clothes or costumes)… and I have every faith that I am not going to turn into a crazy pet lady, and I’m hopeful that Toby and I will have no familial resemblance. That being said, I cannot wait to wake up to his smudgy little face everyday.

Toby will be a work dog, and I have to say that though my boss might not be thrilled to share the office with another living creature (there is already a poodle in there as well) he is understanding about it, and everyone else in the office is pretty excited. I went to the office the other day, and my co-workers had printed out a picture of Toby, and put it on the bulletin board. This dog is loved, and he doesn’t even realize it yet!

Ok, ok, I’ll stop gushing/ being a crazy pet person. I honestly can’t help it… When your dreams become a reality, its hard not to shout it from the rooftops, do a little dance, post it on twitter etc. My heart is so full of love, I honestly cannot even describe it (also realize it might be a little sad that at the age of twenty-six I have never been in love, but damn it, I love this dog with every breath in my body… I’m choosing to look past that). I also realize that as of next week, my life is going to change dramatically. Gone are the late night’s in Portland, the impromptu nights spent crashed on friend’s couches. I’m headed into a reality that involves taking care of someone else’s needs, potty training, lining up baby-sitters, and always making sure I have enough time in the morning to pack a kennel, and lunch, and toys, and a leash, and get to work on time. I am entering into a reality that includes wrinkle cleaning, and shedding, and I’m sure more than one chewed up pair of shoes, and early mornings, and feeding schedules, and scooping poop. I am headed into the non-glamorous life of a pet, owner… which means money I was once spending on clothing and cocktails, will be spent on vet bills, and dog food (and probably some lint rollers) I’ll be the first to admit, “motherhood” is going to be a bit of an adjustment.  Did I mention that I get to wake up to this face everyday?

Here I am, living the dream. Just a single girl and her soon to be bulldog. 

(Seriously, quality men, get it together. I love baseball. I own a bulldog (who also happens to love the Red Sox). I’m a really good cook, I’ve been told that I’m funny, I’m a yoga teacher and I can shot gun a beer. I’m just sayin…. )

Thinking about what you eat

A friend & co-worker of mine is really involved with the local Slow Food movement, and recently started the 100 mile diet challenge. To be perfectly honest, I’m kind of in awe of the whole thing. I certainly don’t need convincing that fresh, local, in-season food is the absolute best… but I’m not ready to start making my own pasta and grinding my own flour either. I think I could absolutely eat only local produce, but when it gets down to the smaller ingredients, sourcing everything you eat from within 100 miles gets a little intense. I’m sure it will be a wonderful experiment, and I’m contemplating having 100 mile day, once a week, or 100 mile meals to help support the project. You do get to have some cheater items, and it is all self-policed, so really you only have to answer to your own conscience…. But how does one choose between coffee and salt? (the two obvious ones for me) Is life without either of them, or only with one of them really worth living? It just sounds like a bland, and grumpy existence to me. But I am in 100% support of the people who do make that choice!

When thinking about the 100 mile diet, I have also been thinking a lot about raw food. In the documentary Food Matters, one of the experts talks about how 51% of each meal should be made up of raw food, and our bodies aren’t meant to process more than that. During the winter, there are only so many salads you can eat… but now, during the summer months when my garden is finally producing, I feel as though raw food is making up a substantial part of my diet.  This is largely in-part to how beautiful fresh produce is. Take beans for example. I have a mix of purple beans, and rattlesnake beans planted, and the striking legumes are by far the most seductive thing in my garden right now. The deep eggplant purple, and the lightly speckled beans are absolutely gorgeous… show-stoppers for sure…. And yet if you cook them, all that amazing color fades to green, and you are left with run of the mill looking green beans. (nothing wrong with that… but when you start out with show-stoppers it seems a shame to turn them into standard). So rather than steaming or roasting the beans, I’ve been chopping them into salads, drizzling them with olive oil, eating them with croutons,  or just munching them off the vine. Because what could be better than fresh, local, beautiful produce? I’m sure I’ll end up cooking a few (it wouldn’t be summer without cooked green beans) but in the meantime I’m enjoying the showy looking salads with delicate flavors… and I’m enjoying not heating up my house with the stove. It’s a win win.

Tonight I chopped up the beans, added a roasted beet (also from my garden), an avocado, fresh basil, olive oil, and black salt. It wasn’t the most amazing salad I’ve ever made in my life, but it might have been the prettiest. And no, avocados aren’t local…. But maybe I can use the raw food rule…. If at least 51% of my meal is local…. Maybe I’ll still make a bit of a difference.

August: Getting Frugal

As of August 1^st, I am on a seriously tight budget. I’ve had budge months before, but this week when I sat down to balance my checkbook I realized that I have to pay rent, pay my car insurance, put a down-payment on a puppy, and go on two vacations in 1 pay period…. Oy vey. And throughout the month I’ll also have dental bills, vet bills, and I’ll probably have to eat some time…  So I’m pinching my pennies. This means, getting creative.

Thankfully, it’s the summer time, and my garden is actually starting to produce some things, so at least I know I won’t go hungry! I have beets, beans, peas, kale, cucumbers and carrots to supplement my diet… and if the weather keeps up the way it has been, I should have ripe tomatoes somewhere mid month! In the meantime, I decided that I had to kick my morning coffee routine, and start caffeinating at home. I usually get a large coffee (just drip) and a scone 4-5 times a week, and though I adore everything about my morning coffee stop (including a little time to be social) I figured I should be putting my daily $4.75 to better use. (not to mention the extra gas, since my coffee place is slightly out of my way…)  So instead, I took $10 bought a dozen bagels, a quart of milk, cream cheese, and some Cheerios, and now have breakfast items for nearly 2 weeks… all for the price of two days of my “norm.”  I’ve got a giant bag of stumptown coffee left over from an event… and there is really no reason why I shouldn’t be starting my day in my own kitchen. Plus with a new pet on the way, I’m sure my morning are going to become a little more chaotic… and I’ll need a little extra time in my own space, getting myself, and him ready for work (did I mention he gets to come with me?)  This morning I put fresh basil on my bagel… and it was pretty divine. 

I know that my extreme budgeting means that I will have fewer drinks with friends, and also that I will probably miss another month of Thai Country… But I also know that it will force me to be more creative, and will hopefully mean more home-cooked meals with friends! And really, a little frugality never hurt anyone…  Plus, I’ll get to come home everynight to this face! 

A few things I'm smitten with right now

My Typewriter… do I actually use it? No… but the space key is broken, and I’m trying to find a new screw for it. Will I use it? Occasionally. Do I love it? Yes

These Bulldog Twin Brothers…. Currently called Herbie & Eddie (and  that other one on the right is Bobby). They may or may not be available for sale next week. I may or may not be on a waiting list. No question I am slightly obsessed.

No secret, I cannot get enough of my garden. Hello, my tomato plants are over 6ft tall!(this picture is a few weeks old)

Pinterest…. OMG. My new obsession. I have practically given up all other social media… My co-workers and I often wish we could live in the ROOST catalog, and Pinterest is sort of like that… only now all the beautiful things/ ideas are in one place. It’s a visual list, and it is addicting. It's an organizational system for every beautiful blog, picture, idea you may have ever stumbled across! Get on it right now!

Cleaning ADD

This week I feel like I have cleaning ADD… Ok maybe it’s not just this week ( realistically it has probably been my whole life) but I feel like I self-diagnosed my cleaning ADD this week… so that is progress? I have good intentions… I want the dishes to be done, the floor to be mopped, things to be tidy…. But even when you have good intentions, execution is another matter.

I find my biggest hurdle, is that a large part of my job is cleaning up messes. I find myself at 10:30PM making sure floors are swept, trash is emptied, rentals stacked, dishes done…. And when I come home, the last thing I want to do is clean up my own messes. Maybe I need an event coordinator (or a house-keeper) to make sure my kitchen is ready to go for the next big thing. AKA dinner.

My good intentions always start out by saying “well if I can just get one room clean…” and then I start working on that one room, and find an out of place item, go to put it away, and then get sucked into another room, and start cleaning there…. Leaving my entire house, partially cleaned, but no one room completely organized and clutter free. Welcome to the chaos.

I have been trying to be better recently, though… once I started seriously looking for a dog, I began to realize that my house would need a serious cleaning overhaul/ puppy proofing… Though I’m still up in the air about getting a dog, I figure I really do need to start picking things up off the floor… the last thing I want is to be frantically picking up my entire house the night before I enter into “motherhood” (did I mention that if I get the dog, I will be picking him up the day after I get back from vacation, after I have worked a 12 hour event day? )

There are chores I don’t mind doing, like cleaning the bathroom, mopping the floor, weeding the garden. But when it comes to things like dishes, and folding laundry, I tend to do them begrudgingly. And unless I plan on eating take-out everyday, and buying new underwear every three weeks, I really don’t see a way around these two chores. There will always be dishes to do, and laundry to fold… and I doubt my bulldog is going to be of much help.

My mother’s house is very tidy, as is my brother’s (but that is all his wife’s doing). I just don’t have the personality. Yes, I like things to be clean, but if something comes up after I make dinner, and the dishes aren’t done, I have no problem leaving them until the next day, where-as my mother had this compulsion to do them immediately. She cannot/will not do anything else until the kitchen is back in it’s rightful state of cleanliness. I somehow didn’t get that gene, and I often wonder if the person I end up settling down with will have some of those qualities…. Or will we just be a messy disaster of a couple? I like to think not. I like to think that the universe will work out in such a way that I will end up with someone who loves doing dishes, and folding laundry (please!)

Of course, everyone has a point of no-return, and I find that I usually hit mine when I’m already running 10 minutes late, and yet feel as though I will not be able to function unless I stop what I’m doing and clean up whatever particular thing is bothering me…. I know, if I just did the dishes after EVERY meal, folded the laundry as soon as it came out of the dryer, put my clothes away after they were folded…. It wouldn’t pile up…. (seriously, I will fail as a house-wife… but I am a good cook, and I like baseball, and I will have a bulldog…. So I’m banking on the fact that my sparkling personality and these qualities will outshine the fact that I don’t have the domestic gene)

Speaking of which... there are 2 loads of laundry that need to be folded, and I should probably get on that...