A new day!

So as my year is over, I have taken a few days off from pictures. I am deciding whether or not to do it for another year. I think I am because I have really enjoyed looking back over my last year in pictures. What a year it has been. There have been ups and downs.

By ups, I mean really amazing ups. Our trip to Bonnaroo, our trip to San Francisco, visiting LA and spending time with Chris, Andrea and Liz, seeing tons of live music, both locally and on our trips.

And by downs, I mean devastating downs. I lost my beautiful sister to a disease no one and no family should have to endure. Substance abuse is taboo subject. No one talks about it. Until I started telling people about my sister's struggle, I had no idea how many other people I knew had to deal with this same thing. People really opened up about their own families when they heard what mine had been through. My sister struggled for about 25 years. If anyone else is dealing with this, please know that I send you my love. It is not an easy fight. And it doesn't always have a happy ending, as I so abruptly found out.

Over the past year, I became a vegan after a few years of vegetarianism. A change which has brought me more happiness than you could imagine. I no longer just say "I love animals" as if that is enough. I am no longer contributing to their pain, suffering, death. I feel a sense of calm. I can't explain it. If you think to yourself, "I could never give up cheese (or milk or meat or whatever)", I am here to say oh yes you can. I don't think anyone was addicted to cheese as me. As I look back over my year of pictures, I am almost embarrassed by how many food pics i took! I eat better and more variety now than ever before in my whole life.

This year also saw Maggie with her broken hip and surgery. Such a tough time for such an awesome girl. So happy she is feeling better, but boy was it a long couple of months!

I also loved looking back at all the pictures of the fun I had with my friends. Love living in Frederick, love my friends!!

That all for now. Thanks for following along and stay tuned...

Day 365?!? Really?

So I looked back at my blog and realized that my first post was April 3rd, 2009. So I must have miscounted along the way and this is actually day 365. And I have some fun pictures from today. We took a road trip with Shelton, Steve, Bill, Anne, John, Steve and Amy Swack. Soo much fun. We started out at Dinosaur Land in Virginia. Then hit a gigantic flea market. Then went to a yummy italian restaurant for an early dinner. After that, we hit a nearby bowling alley and were the only ones there (for a while at least). Such a great day. Then the Final Four was on and Duke WON! A great day all around.

Days 354/365

Such a great night outside. We fired up the grill and grilled up some veggie burgers and tempeh bacon. So yummy!

Days 353/365

D'oh!! Guess who forgot to take a picture. One guess. Give up? Its:

Days 352/365

We tivo'd American Idol. When I pulled it up on the list, this was the description it gave. It made my night...

Days 351/365

Was having a normal day at work when I phone buzzed with a new text. It was Elin, asking if we'd like to go to Wilco at The Strathmore with Mike and John since she and Anne weren't going. Well, of course, we said YES, YES, YES!!! I love them soooo much! I drove down with Mike and John and met Steve at Black Market Bistro, which was really lovely. The show was beyond amazing!! I can't tell you how awesome it was!! Here is a pic before the show started. No pics of the show :(.

I like to think these tickets were Karma from our rescuing a lost puppy.

Days 350/365

So we usually walk the dogs after dinner. On day 350 though, I decided that we should walk them before dinner. Not sure why I switched it up, but I did. We've been walking them separately, since we are doing a lot of training with them. I headed over to Laboring Sons Park with Maggie and I see a small, black dog charging us. I freak out, because Maggie HATES this. I scream at the other dog, trying to hold Maggie back, but the dog keeps charging. Suddenly, he/she is jumping on Maggie and she is really upset. I see then that it is a small puppy! Off a leash, no collar or tags. Full of energy. Jumping on me and Mags. I can't keep it off Maggie. I manage to call Steve and tell him to leave Ty at home and run to the park. I can't leave this baby puppy alone in a park on a busy road. He gets there and we leash her up. Steve takes Tyler home and we head over to Rick's to see if he knows who this puppy is. He doesn't. So we walk her around the neighborhood for about an hour and a half to see if anyone is looking for her. They aren't. We bring her home and call animal control. They take a really long time to call back and our dogs are going crazy with a puppy in the yard. I call/text as many people as I can that might be able to take her for the night. No luck. Finally, the nicest animal control dude showed up around 10:30 and off she went. I pray she found her home again or a new, loving one.