it's ruining everything!

not only is law school ruining my social life, figure, and brain (it's so full of a semester's worth of information normal stuff escapes me daily)....it's now ruining OUR SHEETS!

no, nothing gross, i just pulled back the comforter the other day to find an extremely curious looking blue mark on our white sheets, and pulled it back even further to reveal a blue un-capped pen left in bed. yes, i was underlining criminal procedure and must have dozed off...

i feel so defeated.

and geeky.

woops.

nothing better than a real christmas tree

best little study break last night.
i put on a whole shoe. (explanation: during the school week i am too lazy to do this. instead, i slip on either a) my birkenstocks i got for my 14th birthday or b) moccasin slippers that pass for shoes when under jeans from target. sweet.)

after i put on said shoes, we used our edokko groupon for dinner. it's a really great sushi place up on 87th and quivira-ish. then we got a double bottle of wine (no, we did not even come close to finishing it - i've got five finals to study for) to enjoy while we decorated our christmas tree. (why the double bottle? it's the easiest way to fill up your tree with water! so go out and get yourself a big chugger - even if you already have an empty one laying around to use as your tree pitcher, each holiday season begs for a new one. :)
and here she is!

wide shot:

we love it! the house smells so great, and it feels so wonderful here.

i'm not one for themed christmas trees, i am more of a smorgasbord of random stuff accumulated over the years (ok, my whole three years of christmas trees other than my parents.)
i just have an obsession with christmas ornaments and limiting myself to a certain color or style just don't work! i gotta have them all!!
my favorites are personalized ones, i.e. this adorable guy from my mom:

i am also partial towards angels (because they're angels, who doesn't love angels of the lord? and because of pi phizzle. hehe) and any cute picture frame ones...and any from pottery barn. or anywhere, really.
last year i gave my fellow pi phi sister squared (sister in real life as well as in the bonds of wine and blue) an angel ornament for christmas and she looked at me as if i had aged 20 years in one. i told her she'd appreciate it later. oh, amy.

anyways, after our decorating to the tunes of the season via pandora, we watched an episode of dexter before taylor left to go watch the cats game at brewster's place (juhn's house) and i went back to studying/off to bed.

what an awesome night! sushi, wine, christmas tree, dexter. (we're on season 3, it's amazing....we're a tad obsessed.) and shamus hasn't eaten any ornaments! just unraveled the tree skirt a bit, but i think he got his fix.

happy holidays!

complaining cathy

oh the dreaded finals.
the only grades you get in law school.
one test, testing the entire semester, usually in the form of a 3 hour essay. five times, for the five classes you take. joy.
oh and did i mention the horrible mandatory curves? so no matter how good you think you did it doesn't really matter....it just depends how good you did compared to everyone else?

what can ya do. this was my decision! :) smile smile.

see everyone on december 15th!!

thankful for: family.

i am so lucky to have such a sweet family. normally, thanksgiving is the only time of year where we all get together in the same city. my brother sam, sister-in-law jennifer, niece fiona, and nephew liam come in from california, and my sister lisa and brother-in-law todd come in from minneapolis. we do all the normal thanksgiving stuff; eat a ton, laugh, play, concern ourselves over my parent's dog's weight. this year though, a certain hartley wedding in july substituted our family get together for 2010. i am sad that we can't spend this thanksgiving together, but am thankful for all of the thanksgivings we have had and all that are to come!

last year, we had family pictures taken at loose park over thanksgiving, and it was fuh-reezing, unlike this year's eerie warmth.
they're pretty cute.

fiona and liam, picture posers extraordinaire.

all the girls! jennifer, lisa, mom, fiona, amy, moi.

hot tay-lah and chubbs mccue.

another of liam and fiona, they're so cute!!!!

my sisters and i.

my mom in her cute sweater and my dad in his posh turtleneck. (oh wait, it's a mock turtleneck.)

the guys! taylor, sam, liam, dad, todd.

aaand scene. everyone.

my second bui

i have to apologize for my previous post. it's pretty annoying and bossy. the chiefs game was on when i was writing it, and why wouldn't i partake in a brewsky or two during the game?  and then why wouldn't i get bored and decide to blog? this is turning into a dangerous trend. blogging under the influence. sorry....

Cesar's Way

Ok, so I got a dog, and I'm obsessed. exhibit a:

(yes, i look disgusting, and yes, he's allowed on the couch now, but he sleeps on me like that!! how could i say no??)

Anyways, for those of you who are like I used to be, and don't have a dog, or like dogs but are just not crazy crazy about them, you can skip this... because I'll admit, I've turned into a crazy dog lady.

So my dad got me this book:

And I read it in 2 days. Oh.my.goodness. Talk about an EDUCATION. If there were ever to be Cesar Millan flavored kool-aid, I would be chugging it. I will admit, I ate every syllable of this book right up. And learned so, so much. I know there are professionals out there that don't agree with him, but after reading this, that seems a bit dificil. The bottom line is we all love our dogs, and want them to be happy. And this book helps you to do that.

"Cesar's Way" isn't what you would call a "dog training" book. It doesn't give you any specific steps, per se, but instead focuses on broad concepts and generally changing American dog-owning thought. To me, it was all completely logical, but pretty much the opposite (sorta) of how I and most dog owners view our dogs and the relationship we have with them. It starts out with Cesar Millan's own personal history, which is an absolutely amazing story. (Did you know that one of biggest reasons he became so well known and successful was due to Jada Pinkett Smith?) It then moves on to describe his day to day life as the owner of the Dog Psychology Center in L.A., with tons of anecdotes about the rescued dogs he has rehabilitated. The last half of the book tackles common dog problems (agression, fear, phobias, fixations - i.e. going nuts over squirrels and people on walks) and how they are pretty much human created. Dogs live in the moment, and aren't obsessing/dreaming/flipping out about negative past experiences like humans do. So these problems we attribute to their "personalities" really aren't so. We encourage them, and we can also change them.

Ok, it's really obvious that this book had a huge effect on me. I can't stop talking or thinking about it. And I can attest to the fact that Shamus is literally a different dog on our "cesar calm-assertive" walks now. He walks right next to me, doesn't chase squirrels, leaves, or people.

READ this book! Anyone who has a dog or wants to get a dog, it's a perspective that I don't think many of us have, but should. Es magnifico. $8.99 at Costco.

Problems?

I can't get my posts to format normally. Exhibit A : my previous post. (huge space before the post starts, then the font size is all messed up) Blogger just kinda does whatever it wants. Anyone else have this problem?