Life Lessons from a Bird Dog

For those of your who are new to the blog and/or my life, allow me to introduce you to my bird dog, Sadie. She is a German Shorthair Pointer (aka: hunting dog) and she is quite the crazy adventurous little nugget. I realize that her adventurous bird dog tendencies are pretty standard since these dogs were bred for hunting in the field, not chillin' in a fenced-in backyard in suburbia. Jared and I got Sadie when we were in college about 6 years ago. Over the years, I have learned a lot from her (considering she can't talk to me) and I must say that she is a pretty wise little creature. Allow me to share some of her wisdom with you.

Here are some lessons that I have learned from Sadie that we can all apply to our everyday lives. Side note: I seriously considered writing this post from Sadie's point of view, but then I decided that would be super weird and probably confusing. Plus, I'm not really sure how to portray Sadie's voice in writing. I'm pretty sure that since she is always hyper and barking, the entire thing would need to be in all caps. So anyways, here are some lessons about life brought to you by my bird dog. Enjoy.

1. Live your life full speed ahead.
Most dogs spend their time outside frolicking leisurely in the yard, not Sadie. She treats our backyard like the track at Daytona International Speedway. I don't think I have ever seen Sadie lay down, or even sit, in our backyard. She is always on a mission, investigating and discovering every corner and crevasse of the yard. So instead of sitting on your butt being lazy, go out there and discover something new, even if it is in your own backyard.

2. Don't be afraid to charge though any obstacle that life throws at you.
When Sadie is out in the field hunting, she comes in contact with a lot of difficult obstacles that separate her from the birds. But no matter what, she always charges directly into the obstacle ready to over take it. So many times we try to go over or around the challenges we face to avoid them, and sometimes we even stop altogether. However, we are more likely to defeat the obstacles we fear if we charge directly at them and force our way through.

3. Protect the people (or things) that you love. 
I feel like Sadie should have her own "Protect this House" UnderArmour commercial. I don't think that anyone and I mean anyone makes it within 10 yards of our house without Sadie knowing about it, and doing something about it. Any time someone comes to our front door, they hear Sadie and take off. She is loud and proud. Whenever I'm home alone, she sticks to me like glue and follows me around. When I'm in the shower, she sits in the doorway of our bathroom and stands guard facing the front door. If someone she is not familiar with is close to me (especially touching me), she freaks out. I guarantee that Sadie would sacrifice herself and put herself in harms way 100% of the time to protect me. How many people are you willing to do that for?

4. Create your own "no fly" zone.
Don't allow bad people, fears or temptations into your safe environment and if they try to make their way in, get rid of them as soon as possible. We refer to my backyard as a "no fly" zone thanks to Sadie. Not a single living creature dares to enter our backyard or even attempts to fly over it. Any animals that have ever come into our backyard while Sadie was outside, never made it back to the other side of that fence. Sadie rules that backyard and does not let any unwanted visitors get past her guard. In life, there are so many unwanted people, fears, negativity or temptations that try to make their way into our lives. But like Sadie, we have to stand guard and not let any of these bad things enter our "no fly" zone.

5. The challenge is what makes life worth living.
You might think that being a dog does not come with its own set of challenges, well being a hunting dog is different. Bird dogs don't just lay around the house doing nothing, they have a craft that they are very serious about. Sadie is passionate about hunting and will do absolutely whatever it takes to to perfect her craft. She endures all types of terrain, weather and injuries without ever giving up on finding, pointing and retrieving those birds. So instead of whining and complaining when things get tough, take on those challenges with that same drive and determination as Sadie does. I'm going to borrow a quote from Tom Hanks for this one..."It's supposed to be hard! If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard...is what makes it great!" Thank you A League of Their Own for that little mantra.

6. Nothing in life is more satisfying than companionship. 
At the end of the day, love and companionship are the only things that will get us through this life. Dogs exemplify this greatly. All they want is companionship from their owners. They don't need anything else. No matter how many times I yell at Sadie or want to beat her behind for puking on the carpet, she never holds it against me. I can punish her for doing something bad and 2 minutes later, she still wants to snuggle with me. No one gives unconditional love like dogs do. No matter how many times you let them down, they still love you. Just think about that the next time you are unwilling to forgive someone.

7. Don't do drugs. (This one is really a joke...but seriously)
One time Sadie ate a mushroom from the backyard when we were in college. She started acting crazy and getting really sick. We had to take her to the emergency vet. She obviously survived, but was a little out of whack for a while afterwards. Moral of the story...don't eat shrooms. Drugs are bad for you, kids. Consider this your public service announcement for the week.

Those are just a few valuable life lessons we can learn from old, wise Sadie. Bet you never knew you could learn so much from a hunting dog, did you?

In closing, here is a picture of me with Sadie when she was a puppy...because everyone likes to look at pictures of cute puppies. Oh goodie, and it's a blonde hair Jacki flashback too.

New Camera

I have always loved taking pictures. I take pictures of everything. If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I take an obscene amount of pictures. In college, my sorority sisters and I lived by the mantra, "if there isn't photographic evidence, then it didn't really happen". As my friend, MaryAnn, would say...I am a "documentor". She loves to take pictures just like me...of everyone, everything and at the most inappropriate times. I'm sure our husbands get sick of us making them pose as we say, "document!!" and take their photo. Everyone in my family and all of my friends depend on me to take pictures where ever we go. They know that I am going to take pictures of everything, edit them and post them on Facebook in a timely manner. What can I say, I just love taking pictures.

Up until now, I have always had a basic point and shoot camera. Nothing fancy, just a small camera that fits in my purse/pocket and takes pretty decent photos (even better than the cameras on the new iPhones). I refuse to substitute my actual camera with the iPhone cameras, the quality is just not the same. Nevermind that though, that is a topic for a completely separate blog post.

Anyways, I am always telling Jared how much I want a "fancy" camera. Not necessarily one with all those crazy detachable lenses and such...I mean I'm not trying to photograph the curvature of the Earth or anything. I have always wanted one of the nice Nikon cameras, and by nice I mean the ones that you actually have to put in a special camera bag, not in your purse. I refer to it as a "legit" camera and he knows exactly what I mean by that.

Well, my moment finally came last week. A package arrived in the mail for me...a surprise from Jared. I was so excited about my fancy new camera! I couldn't wait to start using it.        

My beautiful new camera...Nikon P510 

I'm in love :) 

Desperate to put my new camera to use, I had to find a subject to satisfy my photography itch. Naturally, I chose the two prettiest ladies in my house...our fur babies, Sadie and Lola.

I must say the pups were pretty good sports about posing for me. They'll do anything for some treats :) Maybe next time, I can bribe an actual human into posing for me. I might have to talk my sister-in-law, Erika, into being my next model. Just sayin'. Oh, and we'll have to find a more exciting location than my backyard.

I tried to get the puppies to pose for a picture with the Christmas tree. This was the best I could do with the photography nightmare trifecta...dogs who can't sit still, Christmas tree lights, and reflections on the wood floors. Either way, Lola and Sadie wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Who wants to be my next photography subject? I promise I'll make you look pretty :)

Christmas Decor

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here...meaning, I have finally finished decorating my house for Christmas! There is no reason for me to blab on and on about my decorations, when I'm sure you'd rather just look at pictures anyways.

I needed somewhere to display all our holiday cards, so I made this out of a cork board

Our Christmas Tree!

Wine cork reindeer ornament!

My favorite ornament :)

Our Christmas lights!

Even Sadie and Lola are excited for Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Summer Bucket List

At the beginning of my summer break, June 15th to be exact, I created a Summer Bucket List. Well today is the last day of my summer vacation, so let's see how I did.

Here is my original list...

The reason I'm doing this post is to prove exactly how terrible I am at following through on my goals and projects...see, finishing that scrapbooking project was a really big deal.

Here we go...

1. Get together with the girls more often. - uh kinda. Well a couple times, more than usual, but still not as much as I would like. We really need to stop going to happy hour with the boys and start our own happy hour.

2. Learn to play tennis. - Fail. Jared and I played tennis ONCE this entire summer. Sorry, but it is really hot and buggy in the evenings here in Florida.

3. Master the art of couponing. - um, sort of I guess. I wouldn't say that I "mastered" it, but at least now I actually look to see if there is a coupon for something that I need before going to the grocery store. That's definitely some improvement.

4. Exercise regularly. - That's a big, giant FAIL. Why do I hate exercising so much? Oh right, because I can eat McDonald's everyday and still be a size 4. Sorry, but it's true. However, I'll probably have a heart attack at 30. I seriously need to exercise.

5. Complete my Summer Reading List. - I got 2 out of 5 done, that's not...terrible. Honestly, I put off reading some of my summer reading books until school gets started and opted to read some trashy, beach reads instead. At least I was still reading :)

6. Visit our friends in South Florida. - CHECK! At least I succeeded at something on this checklist. We spent 4th of July weekend with Mark and Christina in Ft. Lauderdale.

7. Spend more time with my pups. - Check! So maybe this time would have been better spent taking them on walks or something, but they do like to lay out on the back patio with me while I tan...they told me :) But seriously, we did do a lot of frolicking around in the yard together this summer.

8. Find a summer job. - Check! I did manage to finally get a sweet job this summer working in model homes for a builder. They even said that I can work for them again next summer. Score.

9. Find places in Jacksonville to go hiking. - Well I did find some places that have hiking trails, but I didn't actually go to any of them...so I guess that doesn't really count. But the goal does only say "find" after all :)

10. Be outside as much as possible. - Check! Unless I was at work or it was raining, I was outside this entire summer. Hence my rockin' tan.

11. Brush up on my Italian. - Fail. I say random phrases in Italian all the time, but I really wanted to practice speaking it again. Jared and I are thinking about doing a little vacay to Southern Italy sometime in the not-so-terribly-distant-future, so I can brush up on it then.

12. Be a real tourist in St. Augustine. - Kinda. Casey and I did go to a cool touristy bar the last time we were there, but I still want to go to the lighthouse and do the trolley tour.

See, I told you...I'm so bad about actually completing goals. This is why I don't do things like diets, New Year's Resolutions or Lent. It's ok, I'm not going to dwell on the fact that I didn't complete my Summer Bucket List. I did finish two whole scrapbooks though! I feel like I should be able to substitute that project for something on my list that I didn't complete.

Well it's back to my real job tomorrow. Unfortunately, this probably means that I won't be blogging as much as I have been over the summer...sad face. I'll do my best to update pretty regularly. However, since tomorrow means the start of a new season (back-to-school), I will have a new blog template yay! It will be all kinds of back-to-schooly goodness. Get excited :)

 

Sidekick Sunday

Today I'm linking up with Sarah at Scissors and a Whisk for her weekly post Sidekick Sunday. This post is designed to show off your favorite furry sidekick or sidekicks in my case. Enjoy!



Introducing my furry sidekicks...Sadie and Lola! Sadie is a German Shorthair Pointer and Lola is a Black Lab. Both specialize in our favorite Southern activity, bird hunting. 

Here are Sarah's Sidekick Sunday questions for this week...
1. Can your sidekick do tricks? Well, Sadie and Lola can do the normal sit, stay, come, lay down, and they go sit in their kennels when you say "kennel up", but I wouldn't exactly call those tricks...just being obedient. They do have some pretty cool hunting skills though. They can go and find birds in the field, point them and then retrieve the dead ones. 
2. How was your experience teaching them? You'd have to ask my husband that, he trained them :) But a lot of the hunting skills are instinctual because they are breed specifically for bird hunting.
3. What tricks would you like for your sidekick to be able to do? Get me a beer from the fridge? Haha, no I'm joking. Actually, I would rather them get rid of some of their bad habits instead of learning a new trick.  
Here are some photos of my little angels...

 Sadie as a puppy :)

Lola as a puppy :)

Snuggle buddies

This is where Lola likes to lay while I straighten my hair...directly underneath me.


Sadie doing her thing in the quail field. 


Lola chillin' in the dove field.

Sadie with her daddy after a hunting trip.

The Time I Cried at Best Buy

Oh my, today has been quite the day. Before I get to my wonderful story there are some things you need to know about me...

#1 I am obsessed with taking pictures. I am that girl at every occasion who is like, "take our picture, take my picture, let's take a picture!" I seriously take pictures of everything and my pictures are my prized possession.

#2 I hardly ever cry, especially in public. I just don't usually get emotional, unless I'm drunk...then that's a different story.

#3 I love my dogs, seriously I do...but sometimes I feel like they cause me nothing but grief.

Ok, story time...this past Christmas we decided to get an external hard drive for our laptops because they were running really slow. Well, that's bound to happen when you have almost 3,000 pictures on your hard drive. So we bought a hard drive and I transferred everything from my laptop to it and magically my laptop starting running faster! I know big shocker. Everything was fine and the hard drive was wonderful. Anytime I needed something off it, I just plugged it into my laptop and presto there it was.

Well a couple of months ago, the dogs managed to knock it off the table but everything seemed fine. It was still running normally and nothing appeared to be wrong with it.

Pause story: Let's talk about the fur babies...

Sadie and Lola both weigh over 50 pounds and they run around this house like it's the Indy 500. They chase each other full speed and destroy anything that comes in their path. They slam into furniture and walls and just keep on running. Oh and they are really loud while they do it, barking and growling and such...it really pisses me off.

Back to the story...so a couple of days ago in the midst of their chaotic wrestling, the dogs manage to knock the hard drive off the table, but this time I can't get it to start working again. I noticed that the little piece where you plug the USB cable into the hard drive has broken off...crap. Well it was only the little plug in piece that broke off, so that should have nothing to do with the actual switchboard of the hard drive, right? Yeah, keep dreaming Jacki.

This morning I go up to Best Buy in hopes that the Geek Squad people can fix this or at least just get my data off of the hard drive. I could care less about walking out of there with a working hard drive, so long as I have my data. So that you can fully understand my panic mode, here is a breakdown of all the things that were saved onto this hard drive...all my documents from FSU, all my Phi Mu stuff, my resume, lesson plans and activities from two years of teaching, our wedding photos, and every photo I've taken from 2005-Jan. 2011.

The guy at Best Buy looks at my hard drive and tells me that I just need a new casing for it. He can remove the internal components, put them in a new outer shell case and send me on my way for 60 bucks, no big deal. Yippie! So he goes in the back to take my hard drive apart and comes back about 15 minutes later. When he comes back I notice that it is all broken apart and not in a new casing like he said it was going to be. Initiate crazy Jacki panic mode now.

Apparently, when he tried to plug it my hard drive components to a computer, it would not work. Meaning that the entire hard drive, switchboard and everything, is dead. As I feel the emotional tidal wave about to crash over me and I ask him if my data can be retrieved from the hard drive...his answer: probably, but it will cost you. A sigh of relief, but then we get to the prices and I feel like I'm going to vomit all over that ugly blue Best Buy carpet. He tells me that they have to send the pieces of my hard drive off to a data retrieval company which will cost me $250. If they are able to retrieve the data easily then it will simply cost me the $250. However, if it becomes more complex for them to retrieve the data then the price goes up from there, up to about $1,000. Seriously? Two-hundred fifty to a thousand dollars to get my pictures back?!!!! This is where the tears begin to well up inside my eyes.

I tell him I have to think about it and talk to my husband so I need to take the pieces of the hard drive with me and come back later. He tells me that is fine and doesn't charge me for taking my hard drive apart, thankfully. As he is bagging up my hard drive, the tears start coming...I keep thinking, "I'm never going to get my pictures back". Blue bag in hand, I literally run out of the store and manage to make it to the parking lot before the monsoon of sobs begins.

After crying it out in my car in the Best Buy parking lot, I drove over to Michael's for some retail therapy. If there is a possibility that I might lose all these pictures, then I am going to scrapbook all the ones I do have. Now that I'm home, I have absolutely no desire to do any of the other tasks that I set forth for myself to accomplish today. Instead, I'm drinking a beer. Yes, I know it's only 2:30 in the afternoon but I don't care, I'm having a beer. Because I know that if I called my mother-in-law right now and told her this story, she would tell me to calm down and drink a beer, so that is what I am doing.

I know that to most people I am probably being absolutely ridiculous about this, but you must know how completely obsessed I am with pictures in order understand. In an attempt to calm myself down, I just keep thinking about how if this was 10 years ago, we wouldn't have back-ups of our pictures. So if a box of photos or a photo album got destroyed, then that was the end of it. Luckily, a lot of my pictures are on Ofoto or on Facebook, and we have a back-up CD of all our wedding photos. Unfortunately, pictures off of Facebook aren't really quality enough for printing purposes. Hopefully, they will be able to retrieve our data for the $250 price or otherwise I'm afraid I'll just have to kiss it all goodbye.

Here is what remains of my external hard drive...

So keep your fingers crossed that they can retrieve my data for me for the cheapest price so that I can get my memories back. I think I'll spend the rest of the afternoon scrapbooking and drinking to make up for this crappy day I've been having.

             

The Simple Things

My sorority sister Anna writes a super awesome blog that you should follow: My Aiken Heart. In fact, she is such a master blogger that I always end up copying everything that she does. So once again, Anna has provided me with another fun post to do today.

I'm linking up with Jesslyn today to appreciate the simple things in life.

Here are the simple things I appreciated this week...

Sadie and Lola

My dogs are such a pain in the butt sometimes, but no matter what happens they are always excited to see me and love on me.

Rain

Usually I complain about a rainy day, but we have really been in dire need of rain lately so every drop of rain makes me excited.

Having a job

During the school year, I forget how lucky I am to have a job, until the summer rolls around and I don't have one.

Jared

My husband shows me that he loves me everyday, even though I probably fail to do the same because I am the least romantic person on the planet.

Phi Mu

As I was reading my Aglaia this week, I came to the full realization that my sisterhood reaches far beyond college. Phi Mu impacts my life every single day.

Home grown vegetables

I get to go into my backyard and pick fresh vegetables for my salad everyday. Something about them just tastes so much better.
Weddings
I just love going to weddings. It's like you're in a little bubble of happiness. While outside the world may be falling apart, everything inside that wedding is complete perfection. 

Those are the simple things that I am thankful for this week. What are the little things in life that you are thankful for? 

Summer Bucket List

I blog simply because I love writing. One of these days I will probably write a book, but today is not that day so until then I'll just stick to blogging. I don't usually follow other blogs unless they are written by my friends. However, every now and then I come across a blog by a random person I don't even know and I actually enjoy reading it. I wouldn't really consider myself part of the "blog world" because I don't meet people through blogging or really even read that many blogs, I just write my own.

Anyways, today I am linking up with the rest of the blog world through a "blogger link up" that I found while reading my sorority sister, Anna's blog. The link up involves posting your own Summer Bucket List and then linking it to the hosting blog. You can read all other bucket lists that were created for the link up by clicking here and going to Jillian's blog. Enjoy!

I'm kicking off my first day of summer vacation with my Summer 2011 Bucket List! Here are all the things I want to do this summer :) What's on your list?

  

When Skies are Gray

I hope that everyone had a marvelous Monday back at work! I had a glorious day not being at work, since I am on Spring Break...sorry, I don't mean to rub it in :) I am, however, a little irritated about this current weather situation in Florida. For weeks now, everyday that I am at work the weather is absolutely beautiful. Now that I am on Spring Break though, the weather is crap. Today was cloudy, gloomy and just overall yucky. Jared says that because I don't clean the house enough, God is punishing me by giving me gross weather on my Spring Break. While that might be true, what a meanie. So I decided to clean my house today and get on God's good side so that he might bless me with some sunshine this week :)

Other than cleaning my house, I spent this cloudy day inside doing what I do best...being crafty. It was finally time to take down my St. Patrick's Day decorations, and I was very sad about this. However, I was very excited to put up my Easter decorations because I love Easter for the following reasons:
#1 - I love pastels...that pretty much sums that up, I absolutely love everything involving pastel colors.
#2 - April is my birthday month; I was even born on Good Friday!
#3 - It's a good excuse for me to act like a kid and pretend that the Easter bunny still exists.
#4 - and the most important reason of course, I love Jesus :)

I spent about an hour in Michaels today, which is so deadly for my bank account. I got some Easter decorations and supplies for my latest art project. Whenever I get bored or want to procrastinate (I do love to avoid cleaning especially) I create a new craft project for myself. I must "toot my own horn" and say that I am pretty darn crafty. This probably explains why I used to have a line out my door during "big/little sister week" when I lived at Phi Mu. Nobody could stuff and cover those wooden hearts as fast or as beautifully as I could :) This also probably explains why every gift Casey gave her little sister Meredith while we were in Phi Mu was actually made by me.

While I was wondering around Michaels today, I spotted some plain foam koozies that were just dying to be decorated. My dear sister-in-law, Erika, and I are driving down to the Keys for Spring Break on Thursday. What could possibly make our Spring Break road-trip even more fabulous? Personalized koozies with foam critters on them of course!

The front of both of our koozies 

The back of Erika's koozie...dinos of course :)

The back of my koozie...lions :)

After my koozie decorating was finished, I had to take Lola to the vet for a check-up. She was definitely not pleased about this; she even jumped up onto the chair I was sitting on in the exam room and tried to hide behind me from the doctor. Her hiding efforts failed, as the vet still managed to give her the vaccines. The most difficult part of this outing was me trying to push my cart with two 30 pound bags on dog food in it around Petsmart while Lola was trying to run in every direction on the leash. I can't believe the store displays survived the tornado that was Lola and I with our cart crashing through the store. Even though Lola did not enjoy this experience, she was still looking like a pretty happy puppy on the car ride home :)