oh may

well, i've got lots to say about life right now. life has been busy and eventful, but i'm not sure how much is necessary to share. but i'll try to give a nice summary of things.

owen has gotten huge. at least huge in the eyes of a havanese. he's already almost 11 lbs, which is pretty substantial for a 4 month old. most adult havanese only reach 8-12 lbs. i'm hoping he just had an early growth spurt. i like him small because he's so teddy bearish. but i'll love him the same if he becomes grizzly bearish.

i'd like to certify him as potty trained at 11 weeks. i think he's only had maybe 3 accidents inside since then, which i think are excusable for a puppy. he's extremely reliable and has been on the "bell system" for about a week and a half now. the bell system simply involves a nail 2.5 ft above the floor and hanging a bell on a string from it. every time owen wants to go outside to go potty, he rings it to let us know. at least thats how it should work. he picked it up the first day we introduced it, but he abuses the system by ringing it to go play outside when he's bored. sometimes he's pretty demanding and i just picture that scene from the old disney classic, cinderella, where the stepsisters are ringing and ringing their bells screaming "cinderella! cinderella!". he gets pretty persistant too.

on another note, i was playing with owen the other day and he ended up loosing his two bottom front teeth. puppy teeth, of course. i'm hoping i just helped the process along and didn't accidentally pull them out before nature took its course. they're itty bitty and i fortunately was able to find both teeth buried in the carpet. no doggy tooth fairy. i tried to see if we could get some extra cash by sticking it under the pillow. no such luck ;).

speaking of pillows, we've broken down and allowed owen to sleep on the bed with us. its been a really easy transition. he just sleeps down at our feet all night, occasionally wandering around to snuggle closer. when my alarm goes off in the morning, he waddles over to me and rests his head on my arm as if to ask me to sleep a little longer. he's really adorable.

since he's gotten his final round of shots we've been taking owen to try out the local dog parks. he's been three times now. he was really timid the first time, very snarly to dogs that he felt like were getting to playful too fast. last time we took him there weren't a whole lot of dogs to play with, so we went accross the street to take him for a nice long walk. but we didn't even get a step away from the car because we ran into a nice young couple with a blue doberman pincher, who owen ended up becoming quite fond of and wrestled around with for an hour and a half while we chatted. it was great running into a couple about our age in about the same stage in life...married, no kids yet. we're hoping to get together with them again tomorrow to hang out.

so that sums up owen. a lot to say about a dog, but he's a lot of fun to talk about.

as for life, my job is going great. i'm wishing a few more people would just sign their contracts already. i've redrawn at least 3 floorplans and drawn up 5 quotes it seems for 9 of my potential clients. i guess with the economy, people don't have a problem thinking about spending money and seeing how much it would be, but they're too afraid to commit to spending their money. the problem for me is a lot of wasted time. but at least i enjoy doing it. i've organized the showroom nicely (with two men running the place, it was quite a mess) so its easier to find things. i think i did a lovely job. they've built me a "cubicle" if you will. its a knee wall that wraps around my desk so i can greet the homeowners who come in and be the first point of contact. i'm also pretty official now that i've gotten my business cards today. its a shame they turned out to have my boss' cell phone number on it rather than mine. i have to wait for them to get reprinted, but the ones i have will work for now because it has my email and the office number. they're really nice, though.

jonathan and i have had many camping excursions already this year. we went with betsy and jon in april, scott and adrianne in early may, camped out in my parents lakehouse on an air mattress a couple weeks ago, and last week camped out last weekend with robert and melissa. jonathan has sworn he is camped out for the year, but i'm sure we've got more camping not too far off.

we're coming up on our first anniversary and jonathan has big plans for us to go up to where he proposed to me at lookout mountain, ga for that weekend. apparently we're going somewhere nice, but i'm in the dark on that one :).

i finally used one of my birthday gift certificates this evening for a massage. it was lovely and wasn't as ticklish as i had assumed it would be. he's sweet to think of something like that for me. i've still got another one to look forward to.

i'm rethinking the whole paper scrapbooking thing. when it comes down to it, i'm just poor. i can't afford all the frills and cuteness i'd love to have. plus i don't have the space to organize all that stuff. i do have stickers and another birthday gift certificate from jonathan to a scrapbooking store, so i'll be using those, but when that all runs out, i've decided i'm going to have to do digital scrapbooking.

it sounds perfect for me....i love photoshop and they have kits and stuff i can download (i'm most likely going to do all the free stuff) and put details on like ribbons, buttons, stitches, decals, etc. on that i couldn't before. plus, i can get everything to look exactly how i'd like and most likely, save time! when i've completed a book, i can get it published through an online company in a hardback book. another nice bonus is that i can make more than one! yay!

the major issue i have right now is the oldness of my computer. its been a fabulous blue dell, but its more than 5 years old now and in computer years, its over the hill. i've resolved to save up my money and purchase a shiney new machine with at least 2.4 ghz processing speed, large amount of ram, and a more than passable video card. of course, this will probably be the most expensive type computer out there, but i'm going to start looking around. its on the wishlist, but may take some months to come into fruition.

and thats about all i have to say about life at the moment. time flies.

a year after graduating, i'm a kitchen designer!

i mentioned a few posts back that new doors were opening for job opportunities. it turned out the smaller company that i had been talking to continued to pursue me and offered me a great opportunity to work exclusively with them. i started in mid-april and just finished my 3rd week there.

i'm finally working at a real job, doing what i had in mind when i graduated. the guys i'm working with are giving me all of their homeowner remodels and in just the few weeks i've been there i already have 5 of my own clients and had somebody sign a contract last week. i get to work with the clients through the whole process...measure their kitchen space, draw up a new plan, consult them on their door selection, and so forth. i've been loving it so far. i had thought it would only be a part time position, but it turns out i've been working at least 9-5 everyday.

yay! i'm finally a kitchen designer!