Tiff's Turn

Although Wednesday is usually my busiest day of the week, I couldn't let today go without a post. It is my "blog-a-versary": my 2 year anniversary of beginning this blog. Little did I know back then that in the next two years would I experience such highs and lows. One event I think of when it comes to the past two years is the death of our beloved pet and, truly, this girl's best friend, Gus. We still miss him every day. Another life-changer was obviously miracle baby Aria coming and changing our whole family for the better. What did we do without her before? We took an amazing trip to Mexico for our 5 year anniversary. You can imagine how glad we are that we did that instead of putting it off . :)  By the way, I highly recommend a trip away with just you and your spouse. The couple time was great for us to reconnect and fall even deeper in love than we already were.  Now that we are adding three more to our already family of four, I j...

I follow a blog called Running with Racheal . She always has fabulous ideas on ways to improve life. Her latest kick is participating in the # Elf4Health holiday challenge. Well, I love a good challenge, so I am on board! Here is the layout for the month: No Meat Monday was pretty easy, since I don't care if I have meat in my meals or not on most days. We had meatless chili that day. Yesterday was Unsubscribe Tuesday. There is a website called Unroll.me that helps you clean up your mailbox. Simply subscribe, then the website will look through your email and find the many different emails you receive every day, then you have the choice to roll them all into one simple email. For example, I get all kinds of emails from Kohl's, Old Navy, Gap, Victoria's Secret, etc. I like being made aware of all their sales, but it definitely does become sometimes overwhelming to get so many emails. Now, all of these emails have been rolled into one daily email. Nice, huh? Moving...

Dear Gus, I miss you so much it hurts Your barking at the squirrels outside used to drive me crazy Now I would give anything to hear your annoying bark again I'm sorry that sometimes I took your presence, always by my side, for granted Now those little moments are gone The moments like When I get ice from the freezer and you coming running, just hoping I will drop a piece for you The moments like When I drop a sock on the floor and you're there in a jiffy to pick it up for me The moments like When Aria throws a toy across the room and you're there to put your slobber on it The moments like Me getting up in the middle of the night with Aria and you're there in the hallway looking at me and telling me it's way too late at night for this nonsense The moments like When I get up on a Saturday morning and see you on the couch, even though you know you're not supposed to be there without your sheet The moments like Leaving the house a...

Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life. As I said Monday night, Gus started slowing down and feeling yucky Sunday. Aria and I cuddled on the floor with him. He was hurting, but I thought all he needed was a little TLC. Thinking back to that night, though, deep down I knew. I was just in denial. I even knew to ask Levi to take our picture- which would be the last picture we ever take of Gus. Monday night came, and Gus was a completely different dog. We let him out front to potty and he just stood there, back legs shaking, his nose against the spindles of the front porch. I asked Levi, " Why is he so weak off all the sudden?" "That's what cancer does to you," he said. That sentence threw me out of my denial. We were going to have to let Gus go. Tuesday, I came home and Gus seemed even worse. He barely lifted his head up off the floor when I walked up the stairs and greeted him with my usual, "Hi Gussy Wussy!" I called Le...