Halloween Blog Switch

Happy Halloween Blog Lovies! 

Back when I thought this was totally appropriate and had brown hair....

Today in honor of Halloween I’m switching things up and hanging out over at Crumbs and Curls.  Kristin and I have switched blogs once before and had so much fun.  Kristin is my go to girl for all things food fashion, and crafts.   You have to go check out her pumpkins she decorated, they are adorable. AND I love following her on Instagram because I get to go back to the days of college and sorority life.  Those were the days and I always tell her to enjoy college as much as she can because they are some of the best times. Have fun reading about Kristin's Halloween must haves!  If you miss me find me hanging out at Crumbs and Curls! 

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Hey Meghan's readers it's good to write to you again!  You may remember me from last time Meghan & I switched blogs, my name is Kristin & I blog over at Crumbs and Curls.  

I love when Meghan & I switch blogs, it's so fun to share our thoughts with new readers!  Today I'm here to share my 'Halloween Must Haves' with you since Halloween crept up on us so fast.  My list includes everything I love about this crazy holiday!

1. Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops - These were huge when I was a kid, but then much to my dismay they disappeared for a while.  However thankfully they have been popping up a lot lately & I was able to get some in my local grocery store (the A&P), which made my Halloween!  They are so good! 2. Decorations - I love decorating my apartment for all holidays, but I really love having pumpkins everywhere.  It's so fun now that I have all my own decorations & get to decorate myself, it makes me feel so grown up! 3. Halloween Nail Art - I saw this on Instagram & it left me wishing I was talented enough to do something like this.  It's such a chic manicure & so festive for this time of year. 4. Halloween Movies -  There are so many great ones, but the "Halloweentown" series has been my favorite since I was a kid.  A few weeks back when my sister & I were home on a break there was a marathon on TV & we spent a good chunk of the day watching them! 5. Reese's Pumpkins - This just may be my favorite part of Halloween, any of Reese's holiday candies always have more peanut butter then the regular cups, which I am all for.  I may have even eaten some while writing this! 6. Costumes - I am in college so Halloween is super fun & dressing up is a must.  This year I am being a flapper girl & am obsessed with the fringe dress! 7. Halloween Makeup - This is the perfect chance to wear some crazy makeup or something you don't usually do.  Since I am being a flapper I will be rocking some red lipstick, nothing crazy, but it's also not something I do every day either. 8. Halloween Craft - This year I decided to paint pumpkins & then add glitter accents.  I had a blast doing it & you can find the tutorial here.  They came out so cute & I will be leaving them out long past Halloween.
So now that you know my 'Must Haves' for Halloween, what are yours?  Stop by Crumbs and Curls & let me know!   You can also find me on Bloglovin, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest & Polyvore, & you can learn more about me here!

My Current Life

I don't have any pictures to really go with this post so here ya go. This is me, Cape Girl.  Totally normal.

For the past two weeks I have been going to bed between 7:30 and 9:15 pm!  God I feel old.  Either that or my body is telling me to slow down.  Let me give you a little preview of my life lately. 

The boyfriends alarm goes off at 5:30am, which makes me go nutso.  I usually put the covers over my head and try to sleep for 20 more minutes.  When my alarm goes off,  I’ll  lay in bed for a good  10ish minutes flipping through all the social media apps including facebook, instagram, and twitter.  How else would I know what is going on in the world?  Then I look at my clock and say ahhhh I really have got to get going.  I usually take a big stretch and say “BABE I DON’T WANNA GET UP”! 

He usually responds with “You say that every morning”.  Which he’s right.  Who wants to get up that early?  It’s about this time that he leaves and he usually snuggles up next to me for a few and then we say our goodbyes and “hope you have a good day babe” thing. 

I shower, brush my teeth, get dressed.  Let the dogs back in.  I usually end up picking up trash all over the Kitchen because Dragon has once again gotten into the garbage.  Seriously it happens every morning.  Maybe one of these days I will actually get a trash can with a lid.  Who knows.  Maybe not. 

I usually am rushing at this point doing trying to do 10 different things like putting my make-up on, throwing my hair up, getting lunch together, making sure I have workout clothes, and trying to find something to eat for breakfast.  It would totally make sense to have most of this stuff done the night before but that would make way too much sense.

I run out the door to my car and turn on The Bert Show.  It’s the best morning radio show, which I swear is the only thing that gets me through the morning.   Sometimes I’ll call my dad like this morning because his schedule is different than most.  My commute to work is about 50 minutes.  And honestly I don’t mind the drive in the morning at all because it gives me a lot of time to think and relax before I start the day.  The drive home though is a whole other story.

I get to work around 8.  For those that don’t know, my official title is Project Administrator Assistant/Receptionist for an Architectural Firm.  Nothing related to my field at all but I made the decision that I needed a job that paid more as opposed to more of what I want to do which pays less (that’s a post for another day).  I answer phones, go through e-mails, file, type things up, do a few marketing things, drink about 4 cups of coffee, do a lil blog reading, you know the typical front office type stuff.

I’m famous for my car naps, which usually happens on my lunch break.  Yes, I snuggle up in the back seat and pass out for about 20 minutes.  I go back to my duties and at 5 o’clock I’m out the door.  I make my rounds of phone calls on my way home because I get really bored.  I call the bf, my mom, my brothers, and friends to make my drive home a lil bit easier.  I go right to the gym once I get into my town for a good hour.  I mix it up between boot camp class, boxing, and the gym. 

Once I’ve had enough and can’t possibly move I head home and the bf usually says “Babe I’m so hungry”.  My man cannot cook.  Sometimes he tries, which is super sweet/cute.  But usually it ends up being me.  By the time we are finished eating and all cleaned up from dinner and if I’m not already in my jammies then this is when I get into those.  I end up snuggling on the couch watching tv for a lil bit with the bf and puppies and find my eyes shutting.  This happens anytime between 7:30 and 9 pm and also the time that I realize I need to go to bed.  So it’s kisses for the man and time to brush the teeth.  I crawl into bed and Dragon usually follows to come snuggle with her mom. 

And Repeat. 

It’s exciting I know.  This is why I love the weekends so much. 

Does anybody else have just of an exciting life as I do?  Or maybe the opposite?  I would love to be able to stay up longer to do things like blog more.  Idk but lately I’m just fried out like an overcooked mozzarella stick.  Not even sure if that makes sense but I am going to go with it. 

Whelp,  good news is today is Friday and I get to leave early because I worked overtime last week.  And this is a good thing because I’ve had myself a tummy ache since yesterday and just want to get home and hang out with the 3 loves of my life. 

Happy Friday.  

That Time I Went To The Best Concert Ever

I really don’t know why I don’t go to concerts more often.  It’s a good thing I made this 101Things List to get my lil ass to some more shows.  About a month ago the bf discovered this new band on Alt Nation, called Twenty One Pilots.  I actually remember the day because the two of us were in a cleaning frenzy/mandatory cleaning session because the house was a mess and about 75 percent of the time we are home we are blasting music.  Anyways once he discovered the band I lost my cleaning pal.  It ended up being worth it because the two of us sat on the floor listening to this band over and over again and looking up there tour schedule.  The next thing you know we’re buying 4 tickets to go see them. 

Fast forward to October 21^st and its concert time!  We decided to head down to Indy early to get a late late lunch because for some reason I didn’t eat a damn thing all day and I even worked out.  I really don’t know what I was thinking because I ended up later getting a headache.  Headache + concert = disaster.  So we got some food in our system and headed to our favorite Hookah bar to relax, kick back, and drink some beers.

Before the concert we met up with Jess and Joey, which are two of Philly’s good friends from college and headed to the venue.  I actually work with Jess so we are all pretty good friends.  I seriously can’t get over how amazing the show was.  It was the best concert I have been to. Period.  They seriously know how to put on a good show.  They were able to connect with everyone in the audience and the energy from the crowd was contagious.  At one point the drummer was out crowd surfing with drum set and all during one of the songs.  It was fucking fantastic.  Excuse my sailor mouth but I just had to! There was a lot of jumping, singing, dancing, sweating and kissing involved! My kind of thing!  

I can’t quite describe the genre because they are very unique and super talented.  I suggest go looking them up.  Like right now.  Twenty One Pilots.  

Another item to cross off the list, damn it feels good!

The Weekend That I Didn't Want To End

I didn't want to have to write this post because it means that one of the best weekends I have had in a while has come to an end. Sad face.   Que the violins.  Okay yes I am being dramatic but seriously it was that good besides the whole cleaning the house and doing laundry on Friday night thing but that was mandatory. 

My Mom and her partner, Martha drove up on from Upstate New York to come visit.  Since I no longer live in Indy they were going to split time between my brother and I.  Philly had a golf tournament all day Saturday so I got my Mom and Martha all to myself, which who doesn't want to some q time with the mom?  

They arrived on Saturday Morning and I of course hugged them to death.  After all the hugging and jumping up and down I had them come inside and meet the pups and gave them a tour of the house!  It was existing to show them where I lived because facetime just doesn't do justice.  We we're all starving and I had three breakfast places I could take them to, IHOP, Bob Evans, or 9th Street Diner.  And the winner was...9th Street Diner.  Which was totally the right decision because Phil's sister and niece were there and they joined us for breakfast!

After we stuffed our faces because whelp I love food, we headed back to the house.  Mom and Martha gave me a house warming gift and it was in honor of my blog!!  So obviously it was an ELEPHANT! And if you don't already know this but when an elephant has it's trunk up, it's good luck!  Obsessed.

The best way to show the mom's around was to take a walk.  So we took the gang, aka the pups and walked around the neighborhood and then went and walked along the river.  It was a perfect fall day, sun was shining but there was still a slight chill in the air.  Since that pretty much sums up my town I suggested we head to Wabash, a town that's about 20 minutes away that I have meaning to check out.  I heard they had a cute lil down town area.

We thought this sign was humorous.  Do not remove the rocks or else...

One of my favorite places was this cute Elephant Coffee shop.  I don't know what it was but apparently Elephants were in the air.  We hid up a few shops including a Wine and Cheese Bar, Candy Store, and a few antique stores.  Again we were hungry so we decided to head back to my neck of the woods and get a bunch of cheese and crackers to snack on before dinner.  We made a quick pit stop at Kohl's where we ran into Philly's sister again!  There was a mishap in the packing dept and Martha basically had no clothes to wear for the weekend so we got her a pair of paints and my mom a few shirts.  I even lucked out with TWO new pairs of flats!

By the time we got back Phil was home and it was time for the most exciting part, Pumpkin Beer Tasting. The Mom's had brought a bunch of local pumpkin beers from Upstate New York.  Plus we had a bunch of cheese and crackers, it was official.  We made a fun lil game out of it and by taking a shoe box, obviously from the new shoes I was wearing and writing down all the beers.  We wrote down our comments from the different beers and we matched the bottle cap with the beer.  Then at the end we numbered the beers from best to worst!  

Helliva lot of cheese!  :)

First place was the Shipyard Pumpkin Head.  Disclaimer:  We are not professional beer tasters! Our comments included light, not hoppy, apple, pumpkin, and citrusy.  We got real creative with our words...NOT.  We played them some of our favorite music, we reminisced and shared a lot of laughs.  Of course afterwards it was time to eat AGAIN.  We took them to one of the nicer restaurants that our town has to offer, Casa Brava.  We all got humongo margaritas and of course laughed some more.  

Saturday Morning, we met for breakfast at Bob Evans, which is the bf's and I's Sunday morning spot.  We like to get there around 9 before the church crowd.  After talking a lot about what we need to do to fix up the house they wanted to take us to Lowe's to get us a few things.  Apparently you are supposed to clean the dryer duct that goes from the dryer to the outside...Who knew?  Cause I sure didn't.  So we got a new tube thing incase our's was really clogged.  Yea I'm not sure what that thing is called.  We picked out a bush and some mums to spruce up the outside! And got a few other odds and ends.  

My Mom, being my mom, she found a singing dancing chihuahua and decided to dance around.  Typical.

Before                                                            After

Now here comes the sad part.  They had to leave.  It was time for them to go spend time with my brother and the grand babies.  This is when the water works started but thank god I have an amazing bf to give me a hug and wipe away my tears! Phil and I did a few things around the house like plant a bush and then spent the remainder of the day lounging with our pups!  Does planting a bush count as planting a tree? I'm going to go with a no.  One of the items on my 101 Things in 1001 Day's List is to plant a tree, so I guess I can't check that one off the list.  

I can't help it that they are so cute!

Monday I drove an hour to work and spent 45 minutes at work and then decided nah, this isn't going to happen today, so I drove down to Indy so I could spend one more day with the family!  We spent the day in Brown County, it's a great area down in Southern Indiana.  There's a state park and lots and lots of lil shops and boutiques.  But I was busy having goofing off with the niece, nephew, and moms.  We all got dinner in Indy and they I needed to head back home to take care of the pups.

      

How can you not laugh at this? Love my family! 

I cherish every moment spent with my family.  As you get older you realize how meaningful family is and it's the little moments that you remember.  Whelp thank goodness is Friday and I am writing this or else I would still be really sad.  But I've got lots of fun things on the agenda this weekend including a much needed girls night with my friend Lindsay and a concert on Saturday with the bf and friends!  

Happy Friday!  

   

My Dog From Hell

I often talk about my pup from hell. Read here and/or here to catch up. I’ve come home on many occasions to her at the front door when she should be in her kennel.  I don’t know how she does it but several times she has broken out of it.  My house has often looked like either a tornado hit or someone broke into the house and decided to rip up a bunch of shit. But no it’s just my dog Dragon who has severe separation anxiety and just cannot be alone and resorts to chewing EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING. 

It was a huge problem for a while because she has ruined so many of our things, some of it defiantly needed to go but still.  Here is a list of things that she has chewed.  Living room couch (just a tiny hole), computer power cord, iPhone charger, cable/internet cord (outside), AC cord (outside), vs bras, heels, mouse’s thunder coat, leashes, plastic floor mat in her kennel, front room couch, ottoman, table, kitchen chairs, bourbon (she apparently has acquired a taste for it, just like her dad), belts, books, boxes, hats, pillows, shower cap, legos, I’m sure there is more I just can’t think anymore.  I am honestly shocked that she hasn’t been hurt from the things she has consumed. 

Not only has she ruined our furniture/house but it has also led to many fights with the bf.  He was ready to get rid of her months ago and I wasn’t going to have it.  A friend had suggested doggy daycare so I said lets give that a try? I found a place 5 minutes from my work.  It is not cheap it’s about 17 bucks a day.  So we were fighting about money.  It adds up fast.  For a couple weeks she was doing great and all the staff loved her and said she got along well with the others pups.  She seemed to love going there and it was nice to have a buddy with me on the commute.  On the way home she would just pass out from exhaustion from playing all day. 

My favorite!  She was so tired we made the bed around her and she didn't move!  

Randomly, she started going after other dogs and at home she was getting out of control.  We would have to separate both dogs, one dog outside one dog inside, or lock Mouse in the bedroom and keep Dragon in the living room.  When people came over she would become super hyper, jump up on people, and would literally start to go insane.  I would have to chase her around the house for a good 5-10 minutes to try to get her in her kennel.  She became territorial outside and if I would go out there she would jump and nip at my arms and damn are her teeth sharp.  She stayed at the bf’s parents for a while because they have a lot of land so she could run around and let out some energy.  She started going after Phil’s Mom.

I was losing faith in her.  She wasn’t all bad but it was getting worse.  I couldn’t stand to send a dog back to the kennel because we couldn’t handle her.  I’m sure she would be put down and I was not ready to give up.  I felt like I had failed.  My dogs are my family, if I can’t raise a dog how the hell am I going to be a mom?  I said Phil lets please try one more thing.  I give him so much credit that he stood by me with all of this because I mean this dog was more than a handful.  So I found a guy who specializes in animal behavior.  Originally I had contacted him about the separation anxiety and her not being left alone.  His words: “that sounds like one of the most severe cases I’ve seen”.   Oh great.  So the morning of our Anniversary we had an appointment to go meet with him. 

We started explaining to Mike (Trainer) that this was our last resort because we really had tried all of our resources.  For the first 25 minutes we just talked to him about everything, her chewing, her hyper, her daycare incidences, her aggression, you get the point.  He said wowww this is a lot worse than I thought.  He actually said that he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do or that could be done.  I was heartbroken.  Dragon was dropped off at the kennel when she was 7 months, so we aren’t sure of her history.  He said from his experience with Pitbulls many of them are bread to fight and kill and I’m sure you heard that there is a lot of interbreeding going on.  Well he was afraid that this was the case with her.  Around 8months to a year is when their behavior starts changing, it’s like a switch.  They could be the most perfect dog and then something in them just changes like that.

He did a few tests with her and by just watching noticed that she obsesses over things.  And that’s exactly what she does!!  So he put a shock collar on her and wanted to see if she would “break” as they call it in dog world.  Her task was to stop locking eyes with the trainer’s dog because since we were there she spotted this dog in her kennel and was just staring and obsessing over this dog.  Phil did most of the brunt work I kind of sat, listened, and watched.  Basically the trainer shocked the shit out of Dragon, she was whimpering and I was crying.  Pitbulls who are interbreed, when they get hurt or feel threatened go harder, they are meant to kill.  But to all of our surprise she finally looked away and tucked her head into Phil and hid behind him. 

This was a good sign.  There was hope for everyone.  Mike even thought that she actually might be ably to change and be a good dog.  The conclusion of the appointment was to take the shock collar home with us for a week and start working with her.  Our plan was to take it day by day.  We weren’t sure how she would do.  We didn’t know if we would keep her but we had to think about the future.  Down the road we want lil bittles running around and from what we had seen it wouldn’t be safe. Per Mike's recommendation we pulled her out of Daycare and now she stays home in her kennel.  

It’s been a month since that first meeting and we STILL have Dragon.  J  It’s been a roller coaster full of up and down emotions.  It’s unbelievable that in a month she has become such a different dog.  She listens, she’s calmed down, and she’s just a big o’l love.   You say kennel, she stops what she is doing and runs into the kennel and just sits there.  We don’t have to separate both dogs AND they actually cuddle together now.  People came over last weekend and she wasn't a pain in the ass!  There is still more to be done but I know that she is the dog that I picture being the right fit for our “family”.  I’m so glad that I stuck by her and gave it all I got because I love that dog so much.  Dragon has so much love and good in her and whoever had her before tried to make her mean and they suck and don't deserve to have any animals!

Phil's been out of town for work and she has become lil Miss. Watchdog.  She know's that Philly's gone and someone need's to protect me and she has stepped in.  It's really cute because she'll walk around the house look outside through all the windows, bark if she see's something like get the hell away people, and then come sit by me.  :)

And wowww this post was a whole lot longer than I planned on. 

I get to head out of the office early today because I have got some major cleaning to do before Mom and Martha get here tomorrow!  Life is good.  

Happy Friday!  

Litte Bit of This and A Lot of This

Last weekend involved a little of this:  

A lot of this:

And a lot more of this:

1.  Fixing up the house:  For a while Phil and I were up in the air about moving to a new house and for a short time we even had our house up on the market.  We decided that we love our lil starter home and most importantly we love the area so now we can finally get to fixing up the house and make it our own.  Though the bachelor pad he had was suitable for his needs it’s now time to make it ours and more functional.  Last weekend was the start of it, we moved the TV Room next to the Kitchen, which I’ve been nagging asking him to do for a while.  Our project last weekend we wanted to repaint the built in cabinets and add the doors that once were on them, back on.  I spent a good 45 minutes taping the windows and the bf painted them.  On Sunday we went to hang the doors and whelp, the paint was a little too thick from all the previous paint jobs that they didn’t fit.  So now we have to sand all the edges and then repaint it with one coat.  Just call us home owner armatures because we aren’t really sure what we are doing but hey we are figuring it out along the way together.  Pictures to come when we get it finished! While Philly went around touching up the trim I did a major closet clean out.  My closet, which is technically the hallway closet is full of junk that does not belong and I have a hard time getting to my things.  So I put all the junk in the attic and reorganized all of my clothes and shoes.  One thing you should now is that I’m super organized and neat but I’ll leave a sink full of dirty dishes for days.  

This is After.  Totally forget to take a before!

2.  Drinking:  After all the cleaning/organizing/painting the bf and I went to Bdubs for drinks with friends.  Side Note:  Asian Zinger Sauce is HOTTTT!  My mouth was not happy with me.  So anyways I drank way too much Cider Beer but it is so good and its Fall so its the perfect time to drink it.  We are so old tired from being busy all day we didn't fee like going out after dinner/drinks so we had everyone come over to our place were I continued to drink more Cider Beer.  We haven't really had people over since we started really working with Dragon. Read this to find out why.  Anyways I was so surprised to see how well she was interacting with everyone aka not being totally annoying and up on everyone's sh*t.  When people come over she gets really excited and hyper but she just chilled on the couch with everyone and kicked back.  I love it! 

   

Fav picture of the night!

 

3.  Lounging with the pups:  It was so nice to spend time hanging with my Man and our babies pups.  The pups are finally getting along with one another so now we can all enjoy being snuggled on the couch!  Sunday we watched movies and snacked on appetizers all day.  The only thing that was missing was making a fort.  We will have to save that for another day.  Nothing crazy or adventures happened but it sure was a really great weekend spent with Philly, the pups, and friends.