#92 Done!

For a long time now we've wanted a dog, but knew that we weren't ready because of our busy schedule. The past year we've really settled down and felt like it was time to welcome a puppy into our family.

I'd like you to meet Finn. He is a 4 1/2 month old collie mix that we adopted from True Blue Rescue in Brenham, Texas. He was a part of a litter of 10 puppies that were left on the side of a highway in boxes!!! Luckily, a good samaritan picked them up and rescued them.


He's doing great with his new family. I'm so grateful that he's now learned to sleep through the night (mostly nights...) because the first week or so was killer on us and made us realize that we still aren't ready for kids. He's lucky he's so cute - I mean - look at that tail!!!


He is scared to death of our oldest cat. She chases him around the house and he cries and whimpers. I can't wait for the day that he realizes he's bigger than her. The other cats are doing better though - and Lola (the youngest) even cuddles with him.


We've taken him to the farm and he loves it there. He gets to run around to his heart's content (and then some as he learned on Saturday) and plays with Heidi and Fritz. He learned to bark when he met the donkey and goats for the first time and I think it scared him that he could make that noise.


He got to take a ride in the fire truck (yes, Chris' parents have their own real fire truck)...and he was fine until the alarm went off - he wasn't a fan of that. Chris said he wanted to jump out the window. haha.


I'll update photos of him as time goes on.

#19 Done!

We've been thinking about getting a new tree for our backyard ever since we moved in last year. Since spring is the best time to plant, we finally went and picked out a tree. To make sure we got the best tree possible we brought along Chris' dad - retired forestry professor from A&M (so he knows what he's talking about!). My brother said it was liking shoot off a bazooka when all you needed was a beebee gun. haha.

We picked out an oak from The Great Outdoors on S. Congress here in Austin and it was only $100!!! What a steal!

Chris digging the hole (luckily the ground was wet so it made it nice and easy - so easy he didn't even need my help! haha):

Here is the beatiful new addition to the backyard:

#18 Done!

The patio is finished and looks great. We love hanging out in the backyard now. Chris' parents also bought us an umbrella for our table!

The crowded BEFORE:

And spacious AFTER:

#15

We have made a few green changes in our household.


1. Recycling - We have started recycling more. Before we would sorta use the recycling bin when it was convenient. But now we're really using it. I realized that when this past weekend we were up at the lake house and I saved all the beer cans/bottles from the weekend to bring back to the house and the recycle bin. Plus our bin is full almost every week!

2. Reusable Bags - We got some reusable bags as a gift (the ones shown here). They aren't the prettiest bags, but man can they hold a lot! Today I used my reusable grocery bags for the first time. I take that back, I used them for the first time in the grocery store. In the past I've used them to move and to take on trips, but I always forget them when I walk into the grocery store. Lately its been driving me nuts when I check out at the grocery store and they put like two items in each plastic bag. I end up with sooooo many plastic bags at my house. So that is my motivation to keep bringing the bags into the grocery store with me.

3. GreenChoice - We just signed up for green energy through Austin Energy. When you sign up for it, it doesn't mean that the energy that you use necessarily only comes from green sources (like wind) - it could be coming from the coal plant - but it does give the energy company an opportunity to buy more green energy and not have to buy as much as that nasty coal energy. It is going to cost us a little more money right now than our normal energy, but it is a fixed rate for like 20 years, so hopefully it will even out one of these days (or years...). To curb the cost, we cut back a little on our cable bill, so it all works out and is better for our community.

#18 almost done!

We are finally getting our patio expanded! We've wanted to do this since we moved into our house last year, but have held out because I hate spending big bucks on things like this. But we got our tax refund in and I agreed to let Chris move forward with this project.

Since we live in a new neighborhood that is still building new houses, we contracted the concrete guys to come and expand the patio. They showed up this morning and Chris was there to get some of the action. He said it was a storm force of workers coming through and they did it at lightening speed. They are pouring the concrete later today and I hope to post pictures of the final project later this weekend.

Here are some progress photos - make sure to notice how small our current concrete patio is compared to the new gigantic size.

Today's the day!

I originally heard about the 101 in 1001 project months and months ago and have been procrastinating on starting my own list. But I found myself wanting to do projects and kept thinking "that would be great for my 101 list" so here I am finally getting this thing started. While I don't have my list completed yet, I wanted to get started on blogging because some of these projects I've been thinking about for months are starting to come to shape.

So here is to 1001 days from now (November 24, 2010) and all the new insight I'll have after this experience!