And the world spins madly on.

I'm in my dark place [said in a loud whisper while glaring]. If you've never seen Stuart on Mad TV, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Regardless, you get the point.. I'm in one of my black moods. I've felt it coming on for a few days. It's been a rather hard week, and I've had way too many social interactions. I'm kind of a loner like that.. seeing too many people in one week makes me edgy. It's now Friday night and I'm grumpy and I've opted to have a night in, by myself. I was at the Anderson's earlier today helping with fire clean-up (THAT was pretty depressing.. the work is so pain-staking and time consuming that even after cleaning for three hours, it barely looked like I had done anything!) and brought like 10 loads of laundry home to do for them. So my plan is to do laundry (it actually relaxes me), eat cookies and sunflower seeds, drink champagne, take a bath, and go to bed early. And I refuse to answer my cell phone, so nobody better die tonight. That's an order.

My little brother, Max (one of three), got into a GNARLY car accident this week. The car is totalled. How he walked away without getting killed is beyond me.. especially since his airbag didn't deploy. The details of the accident are still a little sketchy, but it's my understanding that both Max and the other car ran red lights and the other car didn't have lights on so Max couldn't see him.. they hit each other head on. Max was in his little Chevy Aveo, and the other car was a van. The van won. Max is ok though.

Dan and I could use a LOT of prayer right now. We're in the process of making the biggest decision we've ever made as a couple (other than deciding to get married), and while I can't go into details right now, it has the potential to change our entire lives. We really just want to follow God's lead wherever it may take us, and remain faithful to Him regardless of the consequences. But we're stressed, and tired, and Satan is very good at exploiting our weaknesses. So please pray that God grants us strength, wisdom, and patience to wait on His command.

Grey's Anatomy last night was rather unsatisfying. Next week a school bus full of children crashes, and some kid comes in with a pencil stuck through his eye from the debris flying around. Hopefully it's a little more gratifying.

When in doubt, call Mom and Dad.

Ok, so technically it's my dad and step-mom, but you get the point (my real mom lives too far away for me to run to her house when things get hard). Yesterday, my 7-month-old, 51 pound puppy got sick. REALLY SICK. She had crazy amounts of crap coming out both ends. She woke me up SUPER early to go out, and it was all down hill from there. By late evening, I was practically in tears not knowing what to do and completely overwhelmed. I've never owned a big dog, so dealing with one alone was especially hard. SO, I loaded Nandi and Madeleine into the car (Nandi puked in the garage on the way to the car) and drove like a bat out of hell to my dad's house (Nandi also pooped in the car on the way there). Debbie, my step-mom, met me outside to deal with Nandi as I was ready to have a nervous break down. Lucky for me (and my brothers) my dad and Debbie are GREAT at handling whatever we throw at them (and often times we throw more than any normal parents could handle at them.. we seriously tell them EVERYTHING). Debbie put Nandi in their backyard AND cleaned my car out for me. My dad made dinner for us, and I didn't even have to fix my own plate. By the time I went home, I felt like I was in one piece again, and Nandi's stomach had finally settled down. I would probably die during this deployment if I weren't so close to so much family.

What did Nandi get sick from you ask? Let me explain. Nandi is part rhodesian ridgeback, part boxer.. but mostly rhodesian ridgeback. She looks just like one except she's actually missing the ridge down her back. Way back in the day, ridgebacks were bread in Africa to be lion hunters and killers. They are the only dog in the world strong enough to kill a lion.. their name actually means "king of the lions." This means she extremely strong.. at 50 pounds, she can already over power me when she wants to (thank God for puppy school). I gave her this bone that would take a normal dog a couple of months to chew up. It took Nandi three hours. Though she was strong enough to eat it that fast, her digestive system isn't built to eat that much bone in one sitting.. so things didn't go over so well in her digestive track. Normally, she's smarter than the average dog.. but apparently not when it comes to her stomach.

Today, my dad and Debbie came over and helped me get my house in order. Everything is almost completely put away, thank God. It was really starting to overwhelm me and stress me out. With three of us working on it, things went really quickly. Things should totally come together tomorrow INCLUDING all of the stuff that belongs on the walls. Woot!

To close, I dyed my hair so that's it's closer to my original color. For those of you who don't know, I was born with bright red hair. The red has darkened a little bit over the years, but I'm still a red head. Somewhere along the line of getting it highlighted, it started to look rather blond.. and I got tired of it, and the upkeep it required. So we're back to red. I actually missed it.

Happy Halloween!

Just so we're clear, Halloween is by far my least favorite holiday of the year. I'm not sure what caused my aversion to it, but most of the time I'd rather just skip it all together. However, this year, I opted to dress the dogs up and take them to the Harvest Festival at RBBC. Nandi was a pumpkin and Madeleine was a dinosaur with a little caveman riding on her back. SO CUTE. Anna went with me so I didn't struggle the whole night trying to control both dogs. Nandi did a WHOLE lot better than we expected her to, so that was a relief. The festival was pretty crowded.. we actually managed to fill up the parking lot so people had to start parking on the street. And for the record, Anna was dressed like an 80's chick, not a hoochie. :) Enjoy the pictures below.

I just finished watching the Invisible and Captivity. The latter I don't recommend at all, but the first one was ok (although fairly predictable). I got to talk to Dan on the phone last night at like 2:30am. It was good to hear his voice, but sometimes the phone calls actually make being away from him worse. Sad day.

I'm excited it's finally November! BRING ON THE TURKEY!