New Family Member

I didn't post one of these posts last week because I did my annual stats post which takes some time to set up but I did post. I just went back and looked at my posts in January each year and it's usually higher than most months. The last few years it's been almost half the posts that I put out for the year so I'm guessing I usually tell myself this year, I'm going to make sure I post and by the time February hits, I've stopped. Hopefully this year will be different.

One thing I have been doing so far this year, is using my Instagram account. I send out daily Snaps on Snapchat to my daughter and my mom (called streaks) so I said how hard would it be to take a daily photo on Instagram, so that's what I'm doing. I used to have a widget over there on the right side but it stopped working awhile ago. I tried updating it but apparently everybody wants money for it so screw them. I'll just post the content right here. I do encourage you to go to my Instagram and follow along. You can click the Instagram icon above this paragraph to go to it. So here's getting you caught up since the 1st, next week, I'll just do the past week.

January 1st we had freezing rain and the 2nd it all got covered with snow.

     

January 3rd is our cat in her princess pose, January 4th I had to go back to work.

January 5th was my first Tuesday morning Taco Bell breakfast, the 6th we brought home a new dog.

January 7th is our cat again, in her daily position on my recliner, the 8th I tried to visit my daughter at work.

Yesterday, the 9th, I wore my new hoodie.

As you can see, nothing really exciting but a little look into my life. I haven't taken a photo for today yet so I guess you'll see that next week or on Instagram later.

Milo, Duke, Kitty and Trevor

On Monday, we drove to Michigan City to see "Dude" at the local human society. We were looking for a companion for our dog Milo. We wanted someone that would play with him but also be a pretty chill dog as we have a pretty quiet household. On Tuesday morning, we got the call that we were selected to take him home so we drove out again to pick him up. We took Milo with us so they could meet and that went well but they really wanted us to bring 2 cars to take him home. Well, it's an hour drive and because of my wife's MS, she can't drive at night because her eyes don't react quick enough to the lights coming at her. So we took my son and told them we'll be good, we brought the teenager to separate them if we need to so we eventually talked them into letting us bring him home. They both pretty much laid on each side of him all the way home. You wouldn't have even known there were dogs in the car.

He's a German Shepherd/Lab mix. He is a pretty sweet guy, he likes to cuddle more than Milo. Although we did have to change his name, we didn't want to because if he's used to a name, it would be cruel to change it but we couldn't leave it Dude because my wife uses that word so we change it to Duke so it sounded the same and he wouldn't be confused. 

My wife has occasional doubts on whether it was the right decision or not. She's a very clean person, likes things orderly and in their place and Milo was pretty good about that, Duke, not so much. When he drinks he walks away from his bowl and drops water all over the place. He licks himself on the couch and leaves big wet spots so stuff like that just drive her nuts. We moved all the squeaky toys downstairs and kept the noise free, rope ones up here because they like to tug against each other.

They've been good for each other though and Milo is definitely playing a lot more than he was which is good for him. 

Ignore my wife's meds.

That's what has consumed our week so far, it's starting to get into a normal routine more and more each day and than we won't even think about it.

Random Catch-Up Post

I was going to post today, but I don't really have much to talk about it so I'm just gonna start typing and see what comes out. It'll probably end up being a random type post but it's better than nothing.

We've been binging on some shows this weekend. Yesterday and this morning we knocked off what was left on the DVR and we watched the whole season of Bonding on Netflix, that sounds like a lot but all 7 episodes were under 20 minutes a piece. I didn't know that when we started it but oh well, it wasn't bad. It had it's funny moments, and raunchy moments, glad the kids weren't home. Now we're watched Dead To Me, also on Netflix. It's listed as a comedy but it's much more of a drama, but either way it's still good. Lots of twists for such a small story. When we're done with that, we'll watch the new Game of Thrones tonight.

Things are going pretty good at work. I just got enrolled for a few classes this summer as well as a class in September to prep me for a huge test that could get me some certifications, which will hopefully come with a big raise. I just hope that's the way my job sees it. It would save the company money, quite a bit so I would think that would be raise worthy. The first class is in less than 2 weeks and I have to travel an hour and a half one way. All 3 of the classes are there (the other 2 are in June) and the test prep class is in Indianapolis which is just under 3 hours from here. It's overnight as well so they'll have to put me up in a hotel. So like I said, I think my job is going well.

We've felt bad that we haven't been taking the dog to the dog park, our oldest always did and said he had a blast so we finally got around to taking him. He pretty much just smelled around everywhere and barely interacted with any other dogs. So now we don't feel bad for not taking him so often. He sniffs and runs around in our back yard, do I really need to take him somewhere else to do that?

I got tickets to my first White Sox game in awhile, I think the last one I went to I took my kids to their first game in 2013. I'm taking my brother and his wife (who hate baseball) and my mom and stepdad (she hates baseball, he doesn't, but he also never watches it). They've been begging me to take them. They said "I don't know why you've never invited us?" Um, because you hate baseball. They'll enjoy it though because they'll like the atmosphere. It's also in a couple of weeks.

I'll post about my walking again in the near future. I've been going from Coors Field in Denver to T Mobile Park in Seattle so there has been a whole lot of nothing to post about. I am in Washington so I'm closing in on Seattle.

If you're confused about this paragraph, go click on the Walking label.

I guess that's it for now with my exciting life.

Dog Sitting

I don't know if I mentioned this or not but we are dog sitting again, although, it sounds like it's going to be for 5 months so I don't know if that's considered dog sitting or getting a dog. Our daughter, who is in college and works a part time job, got a chance at a paid internship on her off days from school. She was thinking about turning it down because the dog would be home alone all the time so we offered to take him in because it was a good opportunity for her.

We've watched him a few times. Sometimes for a weekend, sometimes a week or more so he's used to the house. We think he loves it here for 2 main reasons. We have a good sized fenced in back yard (our daughter has an apartment) and there is almost always someone home (he doesn't like being left alone). We watched him for a couple of weeks at Christmas and the only time he had to go to his kennel was on Christmas day for a few hours.

He kept coming in from outside yesterday and he would be filthy. It looked like dirt all over his feet and nose and sometimes on his fur. We figured he must be digging somewhere so Cheri watched him for a bit and he wasn't digging, or at least we don't think he was, but it was where he was going. He was jumping in the firepit so it wasn't dirt we were washing off, it was ash. Like I said, he's been here a number of times and had never gotten in it but apparently this time he decided he was going to. We grabbed a piece of wood that was in the garage when we moved in and laid it over the pit to keep him out.

He also likes to sleep between us in bed so what we had to learn to do last time he was here is we both sleep with separate quilts because when we use one, he plops down in the middle and it pulls up on the sides so we end up with body parts sticking out which isn't good because we turn the heat down at night and those body parts get chilly.

Day 24, Portage, IN (66 miles)

I had a good day at work yesterday so I ended up with over 10,000 steps which equals out to a little more than 5.1 miles. It got me all the way to portage but once again, there isn't really anything around, unless you count the train tracks from the South Shore that travels from South Bend to Chicago. That's all it is though, is the tracks. I did however, see this while I was plotting the route.

What the hell is that? I Googled it and apparently it's listed as one of the scariest haunted place in Indiana. The write-ups I see about it make it seem really scary but they also sound like they were written to be scary so I don't know if it's real or not.