"Another One Bites the Dust"

So, really, I have not been having the best week so far.  I will not bore you with the details because that would sound a lot like a whiny child, and, well, I can hear Barbara (my MIL) say in her sweet and truthful way "Well, you know, first world problems."

The main cause?  Yesterday, the Jeep received news that sounded a lot like a medical diagnosis, which included words like "structural damage" and "terminal."  To the Nervous Nelly's: no, we did not have a car wreck.  

My poor Jeep has finally bit the dust.  Quite literally, actually.  The body structure under the car is literally turning to rusty dust.  And there's really not much we can do about it.  :(  

Matt and I have had several friends who were able to pull off only having one car and I really applaud them.  I will just be truthful and say that, though I try to put on a better face, deep down I know that I am NOT one of those people and for various reasons: different work schedules, last-minute activities, running errands during lunch breaks... blah, blah, blah.

Really, I'm just that whiny child.  I wonder what interesting things might happen now that my 'freedom' is just a little more restricted.  I wonder how God will use this to teach me something.  It's probably patience, because let's face it, Matt got that in spades and I did not.

So, for your listening pleasure...Queen

Just try to keep that out of your head today, I dare ya!

With love and laughter,
Ashley

Congratulations, Grandpa!

From birth, I just had my mother's parents as grandparents.  My Grandma D (coming out "Grammaw," since it was pronounced with a southern twang) was an excellent grandmother who never forgot to send a card for every holiday, even the ones that Hallmark made up, like 'granddaughter's make-believe friend's birthday'...Day.

I really enjoyed those few years where my family lived close enough to visit every few weeks.  Grandma D loved playing gin rummy and cooking delicious southern food with all the fixin's, and by golly, you better wash up and take your hat off before you sat down to eat it!  She passed away several years ago and I still miss her sense of humor.

My grandfather was not really a man you could get close to, he loved all sorts of animals, but didn't really care for people very much.  

Fast forward to when Matt and I got married.  I get an awesome, loving, creative husband, and as the icing on the cake, I get an amazing family via a contractual agreement who treat me like I belong to their clan.

I still remember meeting Grandma and Grandpa Loen and breaking their coffee decanter, getting to celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary, and helping them pack up and move to Arizona.

After leaving each get-together, I always turned to Matt to say "Your grandfather is like those fairy tale grandfathers from a storybook!"  I say this because Grandpa Orie is the kindest, gentlest giant of a man that I have ever met.  Every time I get to see him, he greets me with that signature hug that envelopes you and a 100 megawatt grin that stretches from ear to ear.  I really treasure both him and Grandma Loen, the voice of sense and reason.

Today I read some great news - that Grandpa Orie is cancer free!  And I am so very glad.  It will make seeing the grandparents over the holidays that much sweeter.

Congratulations, Grandpa!

With love and laughter,
Ashley

Dogs Are Musical

As many of you probably know, I come from a musical family.  As a result, music is a big part of our family.  I enjoy finding new, cool songs to which I can dance around like a goof cool guy.  It is fortunate for me that I enjoy electronic music (specifically Nu Disco, these days), because the artists that produce electronic music also tend to have a lot of free songs for anyone to download.  It's a really generous and open community with lots of talented underdog musicians.  But I digress.

While searching for interesting songs, I will also occasionally find a neat music video.  Sometimes it's so neat that I want to share it with Ashley.  More often than not, it's only cool to me, but she is gracious enough to humor me anyway.  This brings me to last night.

We have a dog named Dash.  He's still technically a puppy, but he's a 45lb puppy, so I suppose calling him one or the other at this point is just semantics.  Like most young creatures, he LOVES to play, sometimes in spite of tiredness, reason, danger, and whether or not we want to.  I think the only things for him that stand above playing are food and the vacuum, the latter of which he is terrified.

Now, back to the music thing.  I found a really cool video by a group called Pentatonix.



Cool, huh?  Ashley thought so, too, until about halfway through the video.

When Dash started squeaking his ball.

Loudly.

Very loudly.

I imagine his thought process went something like this:

"Hey, you're playing with a loud toy!  I have one of those, too!  See?  I can even play along!"

And thus our little maestro played his own little overture and reduced us both to fits of laughter as we vainly tried to finish the video.

For all the difficulties of having a puppy in his "chewing phase," these moments when he disrupts our normal pattern in an unintended comical way (and they are frequent) make me glad we got him.  He's a pain sometimes, but he marches to the beat of his own drum.

Just like us.

Love and laughter,
Matt

Dash on the first day we got him.