almost the weekend

:: I have to brag on Ocho...as a chihuahua, he is a fairly skittish dog, and not prone to warming up to strangers. At all. He will let them throw his ball (over and over and over) but he wants nothing to do with them beyond that. Outside of our immediate family here (me, Chris, Aspen and Mimi), my mom is the only person he goes willingly to and loves on. Well, last night I think he had a major breakthrough. Major!!! During bunko last night, with a house full of crazy loud women, he seemed a little overwhelmed and barky. Then during the prize round, as we were all sitting around in a circle of chairs/couch in the living room, I looked over and he was standing by the couch seemingly wanting to get up there. It had three women on it, two of which he has never met. The other was Kim, who has seen him many, many times and who still has not been allowed to get near him. Well, up he went onto the couch and right into the lap of Kristy, the newest member of our group!!!! I was flabbergasted! I sat there with my mouth wide open, saying Oh my goodness!! CHRIS!!!! Come see this!!!! He was nuzzling up with her and everything. I could not believe it. Then he moved on to Kim's lap for a few minutes, and the look on her face was priceless! She was so excited!!!! I am not sure what has come over this little dog, but he made me so proud last night!!!

:: I discovered today that the diamond in my engagement ring is loose! I am so so glad that I noticed that before the diamond fell out in some random location never to be found. I really lucked out with that. It looks like one of the four prongs is a little mashed and pushed out. I must've hit it on something without realizing it. The diamond definitely moves around in there. I will be taking it to a jeweler on Saturday. For now, I am ringless and feeling very naked. I never realized how often I turn it, I did it all day today only to find no ring...it is sad not to see it on my hand!!! Hopefully the jeweler can fix me right up...

:: Went and looked at a house this evening by the same builder as the one we are thinking of finishing out. There are quite a few features in the house that are the same and I wanted to see them in their finished state. Sometimes it's so hard to tell what something will look like when it's being built. I was impressed with it all, and Chris is going back with me at 9:30 to look too. Our realtor is a night owl, thankfully! Armed with these visuals, we can then meet with the builder Friday at noon to discuss everything. We're going to try to see the other house on Saturday hopefully, and then with all of that, we need to decide which direction we want to go.

:: SYTYCD...last night they had a show of the top 15 dances throughout the 5 seasons. That was so fun to watch! So many great dances that I had forgotten about. I'm going to lock that one for sure, don't want to delete it! :) And the fall season begins next week, so very excited for that!! I love that they are doing two seasons now!

:: I learned something new yesterday from Tosca's blog, and it is so blessedly simple that I feel a little silly sharing it here. However, maybe if I didn't know, you didn't know either. So here you go. Did you know that you can peel mushrooms? I never imagined!! You know how when you turn a mushroom over, surrounding the stem you see some fluffy edges of the cap? If you take your knife or finger and lift that up, it peels right away, exposing a beautiful dirt-free mushroom cap underneath. So simple. How did I not know that? And only took a second.

:: Well, I've gotten a bit wordy this evening, so...

LAYOUT OF THE DAY:

Marketing: every so often, our department takes a picture together. Actually, I really have quite a few of us and I really like that we do it. Our department has changed many times over the 7 years I have been there, and it is neat to see the progression. I absolutely LOVE these papers, and of course the little bird journaling tag. I'm all about birds and owls...who knows why!!! In the picture, we are modeling the Ralph Lauren shirts the company gave us all for Employee Appreciation Day...yes, I work for an amazing company!!