Thankful

Mark's street has a lot of families and kids living on it. A few days ago, he came home and found this little letter taped to his front door. It reads:

Happy Thanksgiving
Dear This Family,
Yall are a great family and yall are great nabers. Then again it is almost Thanksgiving and you no it.

Ha! Isn't that the best thing you've ever seen? He left it hanging up for a Thanksgiving decoration. Kids are so cute. We are heading to Austin tonight to see half of my family, then off to Ballinger on Friday to see the other half. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Miss(ter) Independant

Gus has been at home for almost one week now. He's quite the social kitty and always wants to be in the center of the fun. Take a look for yourself. I guess it won't be as hard to hide him from my apartment's leasing office as I thought. Pet deposit? What pet deposit??

She'll never find me here!

Can you see my little nose?

Under the bed, always.

My new favorite hiding spot

So Very Illegal

Following are some pictures that I completely stole off of Meredith's wedding photographer's website and I'm pretty sure I have zero right to be posting them. Instead I should be shelling out ten bucks a pop for a 4x6 print but, seeing as how I can barely afford Snapfish's 12 cent prints, I am choosing instead to illegally save and post my select favorites from the wedding. I figure since this blog has such a small handful of readers that the ehh... four of you will not turn me in to the big guys. Thanks and enjoy.

My very best friends, never looking happier.

Love my expression in this one. DG's unite.

Bride is getting beautiful for her groom.

Ready for showtime.

Best wedding date I've ever had!

Gus

This weekend was a busy one.. like always! Friday night I met some friends at the Gingerman, Saturday we went to SMU Homecoming for some tailgating and to watch the UT game, Saturday night we watched the OSU game, and then today it was church and cleaning up the apartment. But! In between all that... I got a cat! He is a four month old gray tabby and he's the cutest little kitten you've ever seen! His name is Gus.

The quest to find Gus wasn't easy. There are tons of homeless kitties out there that need owners, right? All I have to do is show up at a shelter and they will hand one over, right? Wrong! Friday night I had an actual appointment to meet with a lady who fosters cats. She had a cat named Tulsa who I found on PetFinder and thought would be a good cat for me. This lady was the epitome of a Cat Lady. She had nineteen cats living in her house. Nineteen. She informed me that they travel in packs, just like wild cats. The two packs do not get along and therefore must be fed and kept in separate rooms. Needless to say, I opted not to adopt one of her gang member cats.

Saturday morning, before heading to SMU, Mark and I swung by Petsmart to check out their adoption fair. That's where I found Gus. I saw him sitting in his cage and knew he was the guy for me. Even when I held him at the fair, he was so calm and so sweet and would just let me pet him forever. So I filled out the paperwork, bought a litterbox and some food and less than one hour later, I was walking out with Gus in a cardboard box and a car full of supplies! He's been home for almost two days now. So out of those 40 hours, he has spent 39.5 of them under my bed. The poor little guy is terrified and won't come out unless I reach under there and drag him. Once he is out though, he's just as happy as can be and will sit on my lap and even roll over for a belly rub. I've just got to get him used to his new home and I'm sure we'll be the best of friends!

This is where I hide all day!

Meow?

Ask anyone who knows me, I like cats. I've even been accused of being a cat (thank you, Mary). For the past several months, I've considered adopting a little kitty to live with me in my apartment. I want a little guy who will curl up with me when I watch TV and snuggle with me in bed. After a few months of halfway looking for a new friend to adopt, I am now in full Find-A-Cat mode. My first place to look was at the SPCA of McKinney, where I met this little guy, Parker:

Correction, Parker is not a little guy. He's actually a little on the heavy side. But he was the sweetest cat of the bunch, and they had close to 50 cats wandering around in one big glass room. He followed me everywhere, let me pet him and even rolled over for a belly rub. And he looks at you with those eyes that say "Why am I here? I want to go home. Please take me home." So Parker's in the running.

Tonight I go to meet our second candidate, Tulsa. Tulsa is a little guy who lives in a foster home with all the other little orphan kitties. I have to pass a screening process and impress Tulsa's foster mom Katie in order to be deemed a Good Cat Mother. It's quite the rigorous process; you'd think I was adopting a small child from Africa. But really, what kitty wouldn't love me?!

sfd

Finally Looking Forward

This past Saturday I turned 25. Whoa. 25! Halfway to 50! A quarter of a century! My past few birthdays have been more of a let-down than a celebration. I didn't like this sinking into my 20's. It makes me feel old. I know I'm not, but I wanted to turn nineteen again and anxiously look forward to my 21st birthday. Have my college years still stretched out in front of me. Not know what I would do yet when I got to the grown-up world. But this year, it was different. The thought of getting older never even entered my mind. I don't want to go backwards anymore. I really like where I am now.

My 24th year was a really good one. I made a lot of big changes in my life. I got a new job, a new apartment and a new boyfriend. Two of my best friends got married, two more got engaged. I took trips to New York City, Las Vegas, Charleston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Austin and Tulsa. I had some of the best times with the best friends. I started to actually think about my finances and attempted to save more money (hard to do with all the previously mentioned trips and weddings). I met the most wonderful boy who will actually drive back to McDonald's after we get home and realize they put cheese on my hamburger. And he doesn't care that I start to cry when I open the hamburger and realize it is in fact a cheese burger.

This year as I blew out the 25 candles on my Snickers ice cream cake (yum), I didn't even think to make a wish. I feel like I have it all now. For the first time since graduating, I wasn't sad to see another year go by; another year further away from the good days, another year to slowly grow up. I'm ready for the future now and I can't wait to see what twenty five has in store for me.

Boo!

So I am a little behind on my postings, so the Halloween post is a good six days late. Mark and I carved our pumpkins on Halloween afternoon, out on his driveway. We passed out candy while we carved, since the trick-or-treaters on his street start pretty early! We did manage to turn these guys:

Into these spooky creations:

The cat on the moon is mine and the grinning lion-ish face is Mark's. We got all kinds of compliments on them and one guy even offered to bring us his pumpkin next year to carve for him! The best part was that Mark did all the dirty work and scraped out the gross pumpkin guts while I watched. Happy (way late) Halloween!