There has been a new addition to my household as of a week ago and this little guy is wild!

I call him Le Petit Prince and love smooshing his face with lots of kisses.

He is like a white bullet just flying through my house nonstop until nap or bedtime. My husband and I are in love.

Our current bulldog, not so much.

But she is getting better with him.

Pierre is a French Bulldog and Addis is our English Bulldog, so the 8 pounds verses 60 pounds has been quite an adjustment.

I have been known to yell “she’s going to kill him” multiple times a day, though Addis is by no means aggressive with him, just a giant next to his little fat body. I am also just a walking panic attack anyways, so lets chuck it mostly up to that.

Needless to say, he is keeping me busy more so then I even remembered Addis. Even just trying to clean the kitchen counter top, I look down and have a piranha clinging to my pant leg. But he is learning, and we are learning and soon (every body part crossed) it will be like he was always part of the family.

Right Addis? RIGHT?

Why is there a picture of Ryan Seacrest on this blog post you ask?

Well, because apparently it is what my hairstylist thought I wanted my hair to look like.

I have the worst haircut I have ever had in my life.

Since moving, I had been looking for a new hairstylist and was tired of watching my hair grow and grow. I don’t like long hair on myself – I don’t think I ever have, and have always grown it out to just cut it all off again. I feel like myself in short hair. I realize short hair isn’t extremely popular, but am still always surprised at how many women would never cut their hair short.

There is always this attitude that men don’t like short hair, even the stylist that butchered my hair the other day asked me, “so your husband doesn’t mind you having short hair” and I replied, “I would not have married a man that minded if I had short or long hair.”

To me that is the most ridiculous question. I married a man that finds me beautiful no matter what my hair looks like and trust me, I definitely tested this when I arrived home on Friday looking like Ryan Seacrest.

I was looking for a new hairstylist and I did lots and lots and lots of research – I found a salon with a fantastic list of reviews and nearly 5 stars.

I met with my stylist, showed her the picture I wanted my hair to look like and she squealed with delight saying, “I never get to do interesting haircuts, this will be fun” and upon looking around at what appeared to be a cheerleader camp getting their hair bleached and straightened – I realized that I might have chosen the wrong salon. Seriously, hair down to their butts, high heels and short shorts walked passed me in every direction.

The most delightful part of the experience was all the elderly people sitting about with rollers in their hair. One woman had brought a lunchbox filled with bags of snacks – I wished later I had been sitting by her, since my stylist took 3 hours to cut my hair and I had skipped breakfast.

I thought that I might get some highlights – I hadn’t done highlights since high school, but working in my garden has lightened up my hair, and I haven’t dyed it dark brown in awhile – so I figured maybe it would be nice to have a change. I asked for light, subtle hints of blonde – “please very natural,” I said.

She assured me that the color she had chosen would be very natural.

I might as well skip to the end – you all already know the outcome.

3 hours later I looked back at myself and bit my lip to keep from crying. I have never cried over hair before, and I have had some bad haircuts but they were always fixable or grew out enough in two weeks that I ended up liking them, but this cut was different – it was so butchered that even the growing out process will be painful. There is nothing that makes a person realize their vanity more than a really really awful haircut.

And let me tell you – I AM VAIN because I have done nothing but cry every time I have looked at myself in the mirror. I have also laughed and laughed at the most ridiculous hairstyle I have ever had.

Of course it looks nothing like the picture, of course the highlights are chunky and gold blonde and of course it is longer in the back then on the sides – enough so that in two weeks instead of liking how it has grown out – I will be sporting a mullet.

I am not sure what I did to the universe to make it so angry or why my Irish roots seem to get me in so much trouble, but as I walked up to the cash register to pay for the worst haircut I have ever had – a man with lightning bolts shaved into the side of his head told me how adorable I looked, he seriously said it so loudly that the entire salon stopped and looked at me. I stood there with Ryan Seacrest hair looking back at them. I smiled. I said, “thank you” backed out slowly and ran to my car, drove away as fast as I could and will never be back.

Until my hair has somewhat improved – I will be wearing scarves, coloring it dark brown and grocery shopping at midnight.

There is a place in New York that if one is capable of visiting will surely love.

I love just visiting their website and seeing the classes they hold – even for adults! (that’s me!)

There is a Cafe too where children are encouraged to try new food – the Vegetable Patoh sounds delicious to me!!

I just love to see gorgeous ideas unfold into something so important. So many ideas are not nurtured, and they look that way, they sound that way and they feel that way. But Moomah has done it just right. So right that it is apparent just from a picture. You just want to live there – to eat and to play there. You would probably even be willing to eat spinach there.

If I had had a Moomah growing up as a child, I would not have felt at all pressured to go to an awful Summer Camp, where I was forced to where a red band around my wrist that stood for, “non-swimmer” or “super uncool” which seemed to be the feeling of those that could swim and wore green bracelets.

I cried every night I was there – miserably bored and miserably lonely. But there was a bit of light there – I had a favorite class, “the nature” class in which we got to make soup out of weeds, pet tree frogs, and jump into the darkest water I had ever seen under a beautiful waterfall. Non-swimmer be darned – I jumped in with the courage of a lion because it was simply just a good class.

That is what happens when something is really good.

Bravery has a way of jumping in and creativity has a way of coming to the surface.

It is amazing to me how displaced life can feel.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be your own life, but if the life of someone you love is displaced and hurting – your life doesn’t feel the same either.

I am a protector. I fiercely love those in my life, and I do not take kindly to those that are hurting them. To those that make them question their identity, and where they are in their life. To make the edges of their voice break while talking to me on the phone. I realize this is life. I realize this is simply a relationship breaking. But the heart you are breaking is a heart I have known my entire life. A heart that I hold in mine. This heart is a brilliant heart. A writers heart. A heart that deserves better.

I realize the faults of this heart too, but I am looking blindly now.

I am speaking softly now in the middle of the night.

I just wish I could fix it.

I just wish I could replace this moment with my own heart, I promise you I could endure it better. I know I am younger but I’d show you.

I’d  allow you to sleep all season and to awake to a soft light of change in a better place and a better understanding of where that heart is going to take you.

I know someday you’ll look down and barely be able to see the tips of your shoes you’ll be so high above us all. I’ll float up with a red balloon and whisper jokes to you, and we’ll both remember when you slept all season.

six months ago my husband started talking and talking about learning to play the piano again. he played when he was small, and then a little bit in college, but he had never put much effort into it, and it was a regret of his.

i encouraged him, because i come from a musical family. my mother sings and plays the piano beautifully. everyone talks about my grandfather sounding just like bing crosby when he would sing. i never got to hear him. i was just a baby and my parents were still in kenya when he passed suddenly of a heart attack. that is something i think of often. my father – though not as good of a singer as my mum, he loves music and because of him i grew up surrounded by mountain music and oldies.

needless to say, i was thrilled, but there was only one problem…we didn’t own a piano.

so my husband just started to teach himself, and we bought some apps on my iphone so he could take quizzes and learn as much as he could without actually having a piano.

he was loving it so much – as an early Christmas gift, we decided to buy him a piano that hooked right into his MAC.

he has been practicing every night, and though it is constant repetition – i really love listening to him practice. i am envious really, and started trying to teach myself, but realized quickly why i never finished when i was younger, and only went to my lessons because my mom promised me an icee after.

ah well, maybe i’ll just get that icee and watch him practice.

today i am dragging so badly.

i feel my body slowing down, and i keep telling it to stop, you still have 3 weeks to go before you get to go home for a couple of days!! but you know how you push and push and push yourself until you seriously aren’t sure if your socks match. i am at that point today.

i keep wishing i had some child here at the store, or someone that just talks a lot sitting next to me talking all day – telling me all their stories. like when i was little, and my family would go on a trip, but the car ride would be really long, so they would always put me in the front seat because they knew all my ramblings would keep my dad awake during the late hours of the night. and boy did it ever, that poor man learned more about middle school drama then he would have ever wanted to know.

i need a “me” of yesteryear, so that i can feel her energy, and possibly find mine again which is apparently taking a vacation today.

these are the days i wished i liked coffee, so that i could be apart of the tired but caffeinated group. instead i feel more like the tired, but i’ll take a milk and cookie group.

i am sure tomorrow i will feel better, but today is the kind of day where my bed and a good book sound better than anything else in the world.

today 3 years ago the weather looked like rain.

the wind was wild with October.

the leaves perfectly painted in golds, oranges and bits of fading green.

then the sun came out and we exhaled.

today 3 years ago i was 23.

you were 24.

today 3 years ago love was spoken, vows were taken, and just like that, the world never looked the same.

i love you.

happy anniversary.

over the years i have learned that growing up isn’t exactly what i thought it was all about.

growing up has been defined by going to college, drinking, bills, responsibility, success, marriage, and having children.

but as i actually do “grow up” i am learning that all those things have very little to do with growing up, and that growth has a lot more to do with how we embrace the loss in our lives. how we redefine our place when the definition has been taken from us.

when our memories become only those, and our traditions are forced to take on new backgrounds. we go from the large family gatherings, to the mini christmas tree and a husband and a wife. we see family members pass away, september 11 breaks through our skylines, war happens, marriages fall apart, and random acts of violence puncture our hearts.

it is the way we look at loss. it is the way we allow it to run deep through our bodies and completely absorb into us, until the sun starts feeling warm again. it is the way we face what we can not change. what we do when there is no one to tell us how.

growing up is to embrace the most painful parts of our lives and in the them, find ground to place our roots and slowly blossom into something we never imagined we could be.

i have loved bulldog’s as long as i can remember. the love started because of my father.

i grew up with english bulldog’s because of it, and have never wanted any other type of dog than a bulldog. i have weak moments when i see a boxer, mastiff, or pitbull, but bulldog’s consume me.

i bought my english bully dog (addis olivia) when i had just turned 22 years old.

i wasn’t married yet, just dating my future husband, and was living with my best buddy at an apartment that didn’t allow dog’s.

it was love at first sight with addis for me. she was all white with blonde spots all over her body and stomach. she looked like a cow. she even had white eye lashes. she had attitude, and looked more like a type of muppet than an animal. and when i saw she was born on halloween, my favorite holiday – i knew it was fate.

she was the best decision i ever made, and what she has added to my life is irreplaceable and deep.

she will be 5 years old this october and i am so sad. i want her to stop aging.

my husband and i have decided to get her a friend. we are going to get her a french bulldog friend.

we haven’t decided male or female yet, just what we fall in love with first.

she is best buddies with my parent’s english bully (aggie) and i hope all three of them will become fast friends.

i was just looking through past photo’s of addis today, and it just got me thinking and thus got me writing.

these animal’s in our lives. these angels that comfort us through loss, and through happiness. that are always there, and always ready to love us exactly as we are. are the greatest gift, and yes, i realize i don’t have children yet, but that will never change the way i feel about my bully dog’s.

sometimes i can’t decide if i want children or just loads of bulldog’s.

my husband is worried.

i have decided that asking the employee’s at mcdonald’s to leave the meat off of a sandwich is like asking a robot to love. it causes one heck of a malfunction.

so yesterday my husband and i were out pretty late, and ended up getting rather hungry, but the place we like to go to was closed. the options were quickly dwindling, and so we decided to go to mcdonald’s.

now being a vegetarian (since birth) you quickly learn that fast food restaurants are not your friends. unless you just want to eat french fries and some type of ice cream treat. therefore, my husband and i rarely eat fast food. and if we eat any fast food it is usually at taco bell, and even there i am not sure if it has officially been determined if they still use some kind of meat stock in their beans? i have always found conflicting reports on this one.

i love when people say to me, “well you can get a baked potato at Wendy’s” a baked potato that comes loaded with bacon, and no matter how many times i have asked for the bacon to be left off, it never happens. i remember just hoping that the dairy queen we ended up while traveling to some destination would at least make a grilled cheese sandwich, only a few still do. and even then, i am usually left to order off of the kids menu.

so when we pulled into the mcdonald’s i looked at their menu and said to andrew lets find the sandwich with the most condiments and just minus the meat. that shouldn’t be an issue. so we found the chicken club that had onions, tomato’s, lettuce and cheese on it.

so andrew ordered: 2 medium french fries 1 small sprite 1 small coke and 1 chicken club sandwich without the meat. i didn’t feel like a sandwich.

the drive-thru woman screeched, “NO MEAT” and we said, “yes, no meat.”

she said, “okay” and we thought, “great, that went well” until we got to the pick up window.

the manager (or what seemed like the manager) came to the window and said, “you want no meat” and we said, “correct” and then he turned to one of the woman working, and told her, “no meat” and she seriously started freaking out and just speaking crazy fast in spanish. the manager then returned to the window again and said, “so no chicken on your sandwich” and we said, “yes, no chicken” to then have him turn slowly around, and confirm this to the woman who then started to frantically speak in spanish again, she was even heavily gesturing with her hands.

so i turned to andrew and said, “i think we broke her.”

at that point a boy was walking by, and upon hearing her break down just turned holding a huge tray of mustard packets, and just stared out the pick up window at us almost like he was afraid to move. you would have thought andrew had asked if they served puppy meat.

what seemed like quite a while passed and i am not sure if that woman resigned, but we finally got our food.

we pulled over and parked, and upon opening the bag realized the only thing they had gotten right was the sandwich.

instead of a small sprite – i had a large lemonade, there was no small coke and only one medium french fry. it was pretty tragic.

andrew ate his meatless sandwich, and we both decided that we had single handedly broken mcdonald’s.

thus concluding a vegetarian’s adventure in fast food ordering.