If pets were children...

I got out of the shower the other morning to this....



Note: That was a new roll of toilet paper and if you look really close you can see a trail of toilet paper leading into my bedroom.

There I was dripping wet, toilet paper was in drool covered torn up piles everywhere, and the first thing I think to do is take a picture to send to my husband.

Yes people, I am going to be one of THOSE parents.

Christmas is all about the gifts... right?!

Wrong, but gifts are nice!  Except I am the worst gift giver in the entire world.  Besides the fact that "Gifts" on my love language scale is practically non-existent, I simply can't keep a secret.

I am pretty proud of myself this year though.  I thought long and hard for what to get my husband for Christmas and finally decided on getting him a laptop.  He had mentioned wanting one in passing, and my old laptop finally threw in the towel and won't execute the most simplest of tasks (like the internet).  So Thursday, on my way home from work, I thought up the best excuse to be late from work... traffic.  It was raining pretty hard, and it was only a half truth because the traffic was terrible.  So I simply took a break from the traffic, ran into Fry's Electronic Store (every nerd's dream... I could be lost in there for HOURS), purchased my husband's sleek new laptop, and was only half an hour late getting home.  I still got home before him, so I promptly wrapped the gift and hid it in my half of the closet to chase away any temptation from giving it to him early and ruining the whole surprise.

The other thing that makes me a terrible gift giver is I just can't wait.  I can't keep the secret and I just get too excited to give the present away that I can't wait until the appropriate day aka Christmas.

Two days later.... finishing up Christmas shopping with my husband, because I refused to do it alone.  We were in Best Buy purchasing a gift when my husband says "I'm really sorry hunny, but I have no time to go shopping for your gift without you.  I was planning on buying you a laptop."  INSTANT burst of laughter that I had to keep inside.  He took my goofy grin as oober excitement for a new laptop, which I was excited about too, I mean who wouldn't be?!  Side note, it is painful and almost a near death experience to try and hold histerical laughter in.  It should never be done. 

Later that day, Christmas shopping is done, Jessie whips out my new present to set it up.  Now wait one hot minute!  That's mine!  I scold him and tell him to sit tight and wait. This is where I should've exercised patience.  This is where I should've let him help me set up my laptop and made him wait until Christmas for his.  But I just couldn't.  I was bubbling with giddy excitement.  I dashed out of the room, into my closet, and grabbed the wrapped present that I was going to wait to give him.

It was worth it.  The look on his face when he opened that present was priceless and a memory that I will keep with me for the rest of my life.  So we ended our day, sitting next to each other, with our new laptops. 

The moral of that story.  I may not be so great at patience, but I waited just long enough for it to have the desired effect. 

It Snowed.

On a normal day I commute 30 miles one way.  This little treck includes backroads, the interstate, and a park and ride bus.  On average that's about an hour to two hours one way = one long day.  I love my job and I love where I live, so this is the only compromise until I can convince management that I should work from home. 

Last night the temperature dropped into the teens, iced everything over, and even snowed a bit.  A few years ago I would've been excited and loved this sort of weather, I even went as far as to believe that winter was my favorite season... that was before I became a commuter.  I don't like not being able to open my car door because it is frozen shut and I really don't like driving 35mph on icy roads when I usually drive the speed limit a bit over the speed limit.

Last December it snowed during the day, actually it was more like a freak blizzard.  My work let me leave at 2:45pm, I caught the last bus (with no chains).  My normally 20 minute bus ride was extended to an hour.  We passed cars stuck in the middle and the side of the road, cars were slipping and sliding everywhere.  We even passed one guy who had just finished putting chains on his car, that was stuck in the middle of the road, but put the chains on the back tires instead of the front and was spinning out.  By the time I got the the transit center the snow was really COMING DOWN.  I slowly slid my car onto the highway going a whopping 2mph.  I made it half a mile down when I slid into a parked semi and bumped into its tire.  When I tried to straighten myself out, still only going 2mph, I proceeded to slide into the median on the other side of the highway.  I was so frazzled that I just sat there and prayed for a good 15 minutes before there was enough fresh snow for my tires to get enough traction to get moving.  I only made it another 3 miles down the road when I hit gridlock traffic.  Everyone was stopped.  The heat from our exhaust was melting the snow, then when we would move a foot or so the melted snow would freeze into an ice slick.  By the time I got home, FOUR HOURS LATER, I decided that I hated the snow during a work day.  Oh yea, there was no snow at my house.  With that being said, I called in sick the next day so I could take my car to the shop and get the allignment fixed since my steering wheel was almost upsidedown.

Today it's not supposed to get over 31 degrees... I pray that it stays dry and non-icy.  If it does decide to snow I would really appreciate if it waited until I got home.

I may learn to love the snow once again if it would only treat me right.

My little family...

Today I just want to share with you my two new favorite pictures.  I have a pretty large family, but today I'm focusing on my little family which consists of my husband and two pets.


Jessie and Duke




Evil little Garbage

Duke is almost six months old and adores Jessie.  He doesn't like to listen to me very well.  Garbage is all teeth and claws, as you can tell in the picture; she loves to lick and snuggle with my neck when she is feeling cuddly.  Which is weird because I can't stand having something on my neck, she must know...

Did you just call that dog your baby?!

I've always thought it weird when people, with no kids, aquire a new dog or cat and treat it as if it were their child.  Until recently when I got a new puppy...

Now, before I tell you my full opinion I do feel as if I need to give you some background info to provide some credibility to my statements.

When I was thirteen my littlest sister, Sierra, was born.  I was thrilled and convinced that she was my baby.  I packed her around, I changed her, I bathed her, I fed her, I loved her.  When she was fussy I'd play with her or walk her around until she was calm or fell asleep.  When we would go shopping with mom, I'd pack little Sierra around and everyone thought that she was my baby.  Granted the only thing that I did not do, besides nursing, was wake up in the middle of the night to care for her.  My excuse is I slept too hard to hear her, I honestly did not know that she woke up in the middle of the night until I heard mom talking to someone about it (and her bedroom is right across from mine!).  I also have years and years of babysitting experience to go along with my baby sister.

Presently my husband and I got a new puppy, Duke, he's half yellow lab half golden retreiver.  We've had him for about two months now and I'm convinced that he's just like a child.  I pack him around, I clean up his nasty little messes, I bathe him, I feed him, I love him.  Plus, I wake up in the middle of the night when he whines and barks to take care of whatever pressing matter has him up at those ungodly hours of the night. 

Another thing to add, my husband and I don't have kids just yet.  We are still young and enjoying ourselves and each other.

I caught myself calling Duke my baby the other day and telling him to go see daddy.  WHAT?!  I stopped to remind myself that he is, in fact, not my child, but that niggling little voice in the back of my mind was arguing that although he's not my baby he's more like an adopted baby.  I'm not convinced either way, but the matter does stand;  Sierra was MUCH easier to take care of than my baby puppy.

What's in a name?

My name is Breal (pronounced Bree-Al, but sometimes I like to mix things up and pronounce it like Brielle). 

The story of how I got my name:  My parents, Brenda and Alan, upon discovering that they are newly expecting parents they did what any normal excited parents would do and started discussing baby names.  My mom's vote was for Jodi.  Jo from her mom's name Joan and Di from her dad's name Dick.  My dad refused and said "I will not name my baby after a divorced couple".  I'm convinced of the following scenario: Mom "But I love the name Jodi!  I've wanted to name my daughter that for years!"  Dad, in a joking yet exasperated tone, "Still not going with the name... why don't we just call her Albre or Breal or something with our names?!"  My mom, being the unique and wonderful woman that she is, fell in love with the name Breal.

When I was pretty small my Uncle Rick came to visit and started calling me Be Real (Breal, B-real, get it?).  So from now on whenever I spell my name for someone it goes like this, "B like bravo. R like Romeo. E like Echo.  A like Alpha. L like Lima.  Looks like B-real."

As a young teenager I was promptly sucked into the wonderful world of myspace.  The craze about that time was to put your name in the Google search and see what you came up with.  Intrigued I went to Google and typed in Breal Ross.  Nothing.  I shortened it to just Breal.  Besides that "Did you mean Bread?" or "Did you mean Breast?" all I could find was one hit with the actual word Breal in it.  It was some weird math theory or something.  I was not impressed.  It wasn't until I discovered facebook that I got the grand idea of searching for other people with the name Breal.  I was shocked at what I found.  Besides me being one of the first Breal's there the list mainly consisted of African American men.  Pause.  MEN?!  Humph.  I guess I'm unique, I'm the only white female Breal I can find.

There is one instance though....  My sister, Andi, and I were shopping in our favorite store Buckle.  Dazzled by the XX long jeans (37 and a half inch inseam thank you!) and their fabulous styles we were constantly calling each other over to come look at our findings.  One time, when Andi hollered "Breal!  Come look at this sweater!" this young blonde lady looked up and glared at her.  We both took note of the weird look and brushed it off.  When Andi called me over once again, and we got the same result from the blonde, by then we were just giggling about the whole thing.  The blonde then timidly walked over to us, looked straight at me, and said "Is your name Breal?"
"Yes"
"Mine TOO!"
Besides the tiny difference of how we spell our names: Breal vs Brielle.  We had never personally met another Breal/Brielle before and chatted for a few minutes before continuing on our shopping quest.

Don't get me wrong.  I love having a unique and different name.  I'm used to people always mispronouncing or just mumbling my name and I have given up on correcting them or repeating my name for thier sake.  With that being said, my husband (Jessie) and I will not be naming our daughter Bessie or any other mixture that you can think of.  This is not a tradition I plan on continuing....

Fall: My Favorite Season!

I love fall for many reasons:
Colorful crunchy leaves
Chilly weather that encourages cuddle time
Hot coffee
Fires in the fireplace
NO ALLERGIES

For all of you summer lovers, don't hate.  I simply don't like summer.  The heat, if over 75 degrees, is miserable and the allergies are unbearable.  I spend most of my summer in tank tops, wishing my work would allow me the pleasure of wearing flip flops, while doped up on allergy medicine and sudafed and sitting at my cubicle looking out at the fabulous sunshine while huddled up in a blanket because the AC in the building is on full blast.  I would much prefer looking outside at the miserable rainy darkness knowing that I'm nice and warm in my cubicle with a hot cup of coffee (Peppermint Mocha Creamer= Bliss!!).... makes me feel lucky. 

Also, during summer the grass is brown and dead.  I much prefer the green supple grass that just asks you to strip of your shoes and enjoy bare feet.  Scratchy, dry, dead grass does not have the same effect. 

The only problem with Fall that I have is the lack of tanning, but that is easily remedied with a tanning bed :)  20 minutes later you have a much better tan than if you were to have laid outside in the Oregon summer sun for two hours!  It's like magic.