Dog tired

I have owned a black lab-mutt mix since I entered college. He is 5 now and weighs maybe 50 pounds. He is well-mannered, allows Little Berry to pummel him without the slightest complaint. He turns his head when she shoves her crackers at him, and follows commands perfectly. I can tell him to leave a room and he will, to load into the car, sit, down, hop onto the tub: he is easier to bathe than the baby. But.
He is unhappy in this cramped apartment, his ears perk up only when we go out and it seems unjust to force this life upon him even though he means so much here to us. As sad as it makes me and will really be tough on the babe, I know he has spent enough time cooped up in the city..I think it's time to let him not be mine anymore just because it means he will have room to stretch his legs, he can go out and poop whenever he pleases, he can chase squirrels and bears and deer and raccoons and who knows what away at night, all night.
So we are beginning a journey of being non-pet owners, something I haven't been in a long long time.

What's the deal with hauling things around and putting
them in the same spot when you move? Tradition
around here dictates a refrigerator box: it's filled with magnets, photos, cards we got on birthdays past, receipts for appliances, even magnets for restaurants and hotels and doctors offices, delivery menus and emergency numbers that are long since far away.
My favorite forever has been a copy of a recipe for banana bread that I craved intensely when I was pregnant and would make about three loaves of it each week. It is my SIL's recipe and I swear by it.
This time when we moved, I couldn't find it. It was no where, just gone. I've asked her for the recipe probably twice now and I KNOW I have it somewhere...but it isn't where it always was...and now I am banana breadless.

So, do you have a good banana bread recipe? Perhaps it's time to try a new one...

New rooms

We struggled very hard for a long time this past year. Though we were both intelligent college grads, the market was inundated by people who were intelligent college grads AND who had years of experience. Our hopes for TFA were deflated after Pappa Starbucks spent months, literally almost 6 of them, on a wait list. We moved on finally and took our scholarship money and explored Europe. I had never been in an airplane, my reality was skewed highly by the idyllic American mantras I had been fed for years and years. It was very, very good for me. I fell in love with London and felt my pulse finally beat as though announcing my existence to the stars as we stood for an afternoon on the side of the world in beautiful, breathtaking Howth: a coastal fisher-man's town tucked into a seemingly eternal embrace with the sea, the waves curl around and whisper sweet songs, Ireland laughs at them ever heartily and lends her beautiful birds to keep company, harmony even, with those waves. That day I saw myself actually falling in love with the culture, the people, the history of that side of the Earth, and I hope to spend a more extensive amount of time there some day.
I am so, so glad we went.

Ps......

Happy birthday, Mr. President.

Little one

Today is a big day for us: little berry is one today.
This time last year we had been waiting for days and finally,
after employing every trick in
the book, we were on our way to the birthing center and ever-capable
hands of a caring midwife. Between you and I; it was the walking that did it.
We were walking and laughing still, Breathing through contractions and
I had 'crazy' by seal playing o er and over on my iPod.
That song was my birthing partner, my breathing pattern, my calm.
My midwife was tying a sheet around me, shifting her because she
was turned backwards, measuring time in centimeters and Oh! The showers saved my life.
I have, yet, incredible and pungent memories of labor, the hours
before this year began, and I am so happy to have what I do:
a bright, sweet, lovely daughter. To be her mother.