Training my dogs

One of my favorite things to do is to teach my dogs new tricks. The other day I decided to try and video tape them doing their tricks. Of course, once the camera was on, they didn't really want to cooperate. OR so I thought! This is a video of me trying to get Brownie (our brown dog who is still a puppy) to do the few tricks she knows. I about died when I saw this video on the computer and noticed the obedient dog in the background...

My real birthday

I bought my birthday presents ahead of time, so yesterday was my real-life birthday. It was really nice! Anthony and I happened to be up late Sunday night so we got to enjoy my time and date birthday at 12:16 am. Unfortunately I still had to go to school (On my birthday!!!). I had my community counseling and case management class and the day's topic was insurance. I know, real interesting. Luckily, I brought chocolate for everyone so the class was pretty enjoyable. After class my family and I went out to dinner and had fun talking and visiting. Of course, the staff sung happy birthday to me and I got to eat a FREE ice cream sundae. Doesn't it taste better when its free?
I discovered that buying birthday presents ahead of time really isn't the best idea for me. I think that it will be great, but then when my actual day comes, I want a present then too! So, after dinner Anthony and I went to wal-mart and bought Dance Dance Revolution. (I've been thinking about getting it for awhile). It is a video game where you coordinate your "dance moves" with music and directions on the video screen. It even has a workout mode, so its good for me right? All in all, this has been one of the best birthdays I've had.

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me!

Anthony has never been the best present-picker-outer, so I went shopping for my birthday present today and had great success!! I wanted a nice necklace that I could wear all of the time and after looking at all of the stores at the mall I found this aquamarine one that I liked. By chance there happened to be a beautiful aquamarine ring on sale, so I just had to get it. You only turn 22 once right? These are the best pictures I could find online that looks like them.

Happy Parents

Our good friends Laura and Stephen had their first baby last Friday and we got to visit them today! (See baby shower post...same baby:) Their baby is soooooooo cute and I got lots of cuddling time with him. Hopefully Auntie Virginia will get to spoil him rotten every chance I get.

They are one of the first of my friends my age to have a baby and I can't believe how grown up it makes me feel. All of a sudden having children is not just something older people do, and frankly that idea blows my mind. I guess I always imagined that being a parent automatically made you mature and all-knowing and truly realizing that it is a learning process for all involved gives me hope for the future. Maybe one day I can do this parent thing and it won't be as terrifying as I always thought it would be.

Mrs. Grumpypants

Have ever had just one of those days? Today was one of those days for me. It started out innocent enough, but in the morning when I got the dogs out of the kennel I realized that Brownie has diarrhea and it was all over her! (Anthony had already gotten up and gone to work, but never takes care of the dogs in the morning...) SO, I put the puppies right into the bath. In addition to that mess, Brownie also needed her anal glands expressed. Enough said.

After that, I just couldn't shake that irritated feeling. The laundry needed to be done and put away and the dishes needed to be done as well. I finally just said that I didn't care and left for school. Of course, it was raining all day today. A lot. And I left my umbrella at home. When I got to class I wanted to strangle some of my classmates. Sometimes they can be pretty inconsiderate for counselors-in-training. Coming home from class I got stuck in rainy traffic and had to really suppress the urge to just put on the gas and run straight into the back of a car. Who puts on their brake so much!!? So now I am at home stewing, trying to think of what can make me feel better. Maybe shoe shopping?

Why do I have dogs again?

Tonight I was at my parents' house and Anthony came home from work to find this.... Now, the dogs are usually in their kennels, but I wanted to give them a little bit of room to play in so I put up a baby gate by our front door. There is a baby gate in front of our guest bathroom but apparently Brownie learned how to knock it down (Brownie is ALWAYS the instigator and Bitsy is the follower). Luckily I got out of cleaning this one up, usually that is my job. Still, I don't know if I have seen them be so destructive before. Anyone want a dog?

Food for Thought

Yesterday I stayed behind class with a classmate of mine to talk to one of our professors. My classmate, Laura, was talking to her about what a hard time she was having doing substance- abuse counseling. She said that it was really difficult not to tell her clients to "just stop being stupid!" In my head I was agreeing with her, and honestly I really don't know if I would ever want to do substance-abuse counseling. My professor gave us some good advice that I thought was pretty profound.

First, she said that you can't get away from substance-abuse counseling because it affects so many different populations and is a factor in so many different mental health issues. Then she said that no one chooses to be addicted. No one chooses to lead dangerous and miserable lives. The deep down true reasons that they have for doing what they do may seem ridiculous to us, but to them in the here and now they are very real. If we take the "Dr. Phil" stance and just tell them they are wrong and need to straighten up, in their mind we will automatically be put in the category of everyone else who has told them what they already know. Until we as counselors can put aside our own mindset and viewpoint and truly understand their reality, we will be 100% ineffective. I just thought that that was great advice and I wanted to make sure that I would remember it.