Category: A Month of Me

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A Month of Me: Day 8 – A Quiet Happy

Today was a quiet day…well, for me.  Mr. Guy did not feel well because of his allergies.  He said that stuff from the plants got in his nose and made his head all clogged up.  Maybe that stuff from the plants in his nose was zucchini seeds and his head is all stuffed up because there are more zucchini growing in there.  Zucchini seem to grow everywhere!

This is The Lady’s last week of school so she is very busy giving exams and grading papers.  She did not have any time to help me write today.  I told her that she should just not give her students all of these tests and then she wouldn’t have to grade them.  I think her students would be happy too if they did not have to take them!

Anyway, with all of that, we just went for a short walk together when everyone got home.  I was a quiet happy little blue and orange furry monster!

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A Month of Me: Day 7 – A New Word, Or Two

I learned a new word today.  Well, actually I learned two new words, but I only meant to learn one.  

Mr. Guy and The Lady made me use that big fat book of words called a dictionary to look up what the word texture means.

Texture – the visual and especially tactile quality of a surface

Tactile???  

Sometimes that dictionary book is not very helpful.  It uses more words that I don’t know to try to explain to me what the word that I didn’t know the meaning of in the first place means.

Tactile sounds like what you walk on when you spill the thumbtacks from The Lady and Mr. Guy’s bulletin board all over the floor.  So, Texture – the visual and especially painful feeling of a walking on a surface covered in thumbtacks.  Hmm…I don’t think that is right.  At least texture and  tactile both start with “t” so I only have to go back a few pages in this dictionary book to find out what tactile really means.

Tactile – pertaining to or affecting the sense of touch

Let me see if I understand this…Texture – the visual and especially the quality affecting the sense of touch of a surface.   Maybe I get it.  Walking on thumbtacks on the floor would definitely have a texture that affects my sense of the quality of touch on my monster feet.  I wonder if all texture is painful.  I had to ask The Lady about that.

The Lady told me that not all textures are painful.  She said that texture is just a general word used to group all the different words used to describe the way things feel.  Smooth, rough, prickly, scratchy, are all words that can be used to describe texture.  I asked her if thumbtacky was a texture word.  She and Mr. Guy said that maybe it could be if that was the best way to describe how something felt to me.

We went on a scavenger hunt for different kinds of textures.

My fur is soft.  My claws and my horns are hard.  Mr. Guy’s bald head is smooth but his face fur is prickly.  The sidewalk is rough.  The floor where I was playing is lego-y.

We went outside and looked at the bark on the trees in our yard.  My favorite one is the river birch tree.  It’s bark is shaggy.  In case you don’t know what shaggy means,  it means having long, thick, unkempt hair or fur.  Sometimes The Lady tells Mr. Guy and me that our fur looks shaggy.  When that happens, Mr. Guy gets his trimmed.  I tell The Lady that my shaggy fur is part of my character and I don’t want it to get trimmed.  I don’t even really want it to get brushed!   So far, that has worked!  I think that now I understand this whole idea of texture a little better.

I do have one more question, though.  How can we have a river birch tree in our front yard when we don’t have a river?  I want to know the answer to this question, but I’m afraid that if I ask, Mr. Guy will make me go get another big book with lots of words that I don’t know.  The brain of this little blue and orange furry monster is too full to hold anything else new today.  The answer to this question will have to wait until another day.

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A Month of Me: May 5 – Give Me Five

The Lady’s picture taking word for today was “five.”  Since she is taking a picture of me every single day this month because it A Month of Me…Me, Blueper B, I tried to help her think of something fun we could do together today.  I discovered that five is a very hard number for little blue and orange furry monsters.  I have one head and one mouth and one tongue and one  orange belly, I have two eyes and two horns and two teeths and two arms.  I have four claws on each of my two arms. 

I have one Mr. Guy and one The Lady.  I have one Offspring One and one Offspring Two. Well, technically, they are The Lady’s offsprings. Anyway, that makes Two Offsprings.  I live with two canine furry monsters and one feline furry monster 

 I don’t have five of anything!

The Lady and I thought some more.

The Lady got excited when she remembered a game called Yahtzee.  She said it would be perfect for today’s picture taking because it has lots of fives.  I asked her what kind of fives.  She told me that it is a game that is played with five dies.

FIVE DIES!!!!

This sounded worse than the wreck center to me.  I got very upset and told The Lady that I did not want to play her game!  She seemed surprised since I usually like to play games with her.  She asked me why I did not want to learn to play a new game.  She said that it was a game that she loved to play when she was very young and she thought that I would like it too.  I told her that she was wrong!  I did not want to play any game that meant that five humans or monsters would have to die.  The Lady starting laughing at me.  That made me mad and sad at the same time.  She said, “Not five dies, five dice.  D-I-C-E, not D-I-E-S!”   Well, I’m glad she didn’t mean five dies, but I had no idea what d-i-c-e were.

The Lady found the box with the game and showed me the things called dice.  To me, they looked kind of like square ladybugs without any antennas.  These dice things had black dots all over them.  The lady showed me that each one had six sides.  Each of the six sides had a different number of dots from one to six.  I bet that is so you can tell how old each square ladybug is.  Hmmm…I thought we were looking for fives.  Oh wait, there are five dice.  

The Lady explained that playing Yahtzee would help me to learn to count and to add and to multiply because I would have to count all of those dots of the ladybugs dies dice.  We went over the rules and then started to play the game.  The Lady said that we would stop and take a picture when I dumped the dice out of the cup and we could see lots of dice with five dots.

I think that I like this game especially because I get to play with The Lady.  Mr. Guy doesn’t;t like to play games, so Yahtzee will be something special that The Lady and I can do together.  Mr. Guy will keep reading stories to me.  I don’t have to count the letters or words or pages in the books when we read together, but he does make me read the words sometimes.

I had fun and I learned new things today.  It makes me happy to  be able to help The Lady with her projects!

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A Month of Me: May 3 – Life Is Good

Every now and then Mr. Guy and I get lucky.  Today was one of those days.  A few days ago Mr. Guy and I were looking at stuff on the computer.  We saw this t-shirt that we thought that The Lady would She enjoys making stuff with stuff with sticks and string.  She says it makes her happy and helps her relax.  T-shirts make me happy and giving a present of a t-shirt to someone else makes me really happy!  Mr. Guy told me the secret code for his plastic money and we ordered her one as a surprise.  We knew that The Lady would like the picture of sticks and string on the shirt and Mr. Guy and I like the words…Life is Good.  Most of the time I think life is really good.  Only when I have to spend time walking for an hour going nowhere on dread treadmill, or when we lose someone that we love, am I not sure life is that good.  Mr. Guy and The Lady try to remind me that even when I am sad, there are still lots of good things to be happy about if I just open my eyes and my heart.

Mr. Guy and I were happy that the shirt that we ordered for The Lady came in the mail today because today especially, The Lady needed to be reminded that life is good.  

The Lady is a professor at a college.  She likes her job teaching people about music, but lately she says that being at her school is not as safe as it used to be.  In Texas, people can have guns on college campuses.  That is scary to me!  I don’t even want to think about that!  Today, at a school just like the one where The Lady teaches, but thankfully not hers, someone brought a gun inside the school and killed someone and then killed himself.  I just don’t understand this.  Mr. Guy and The Lady can’t help me to understand because they don’t understand it either.  All I know is that I don’t want something like this to happen at The Lady’s school.  Mr. Guy says that maybe she should retire, like he did, and then he and I wouldn’t have to worry about her when she goes to work.  I don’t think she will do that, but I wish she would!

Mr. Guy and I hope that the new t-shirt that we got will make The Lady think about how happy playing with her sticks and string makes her.  Then maybe she won’t worry about guns and school.  She can think about what color string she can twist into knots to make a hat for me for next winter.  

Like The Lady and Mr. Guy remind me, life is good even when I think its not.

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A Month of Me: May 2 – The Treadmill

Remember yesterday when I said that I was looking forward to new adventures with Mr. Guy and The Lady this month?  I might have to change my mind and it is only the second day of May!  The Lady told me that we were going to the wreck center today.  I don’t know why we would want to go someplace that was all about wrecks.   Then Lady explained that wreck was short for wreck creation. That made it sound even worse!  We were going someplace to create wrecks?  This sounded very scary to this little blue and orange furry monster!  When I told The Lady that I did not want to go, she explained to me that it was not wreck, but rec, which was short for recreation.  She told me that a recreation center is a place where people go to play games and exercise.  Things were now sounding a little better now!  I like to play games.

And then we got there…we weren’t going to play games; we were going to exercise.  The Lady got on this funny machine called a treadmill.  To me, treadmill sounds like someplace where they make tires.  Or, maybe its where they take the old tires from the wreck center.  Whatever it is, it did not look like it was going to be a fun thing to me.  

We stepped on this thing. The Lady pushed a bunch of buttons and all of the sudden the floor started moving.  She told me to walk.  I have short little monster legs and they had to move very fast so I didn’t fall down.  Once I could walk without wobbling, I asked The Lady where we were going.  Usually when we walk, we go someplace where we see pretty things and she takes pictures of them.  I should have known that this was not going to be a fun walk because The Lady did not have her camera.  The Lady told me that we weren’t going anywhere.  We would stay in this one place and walk for an hour.  An hour?!? And we weren’t going anywhere?  What a crazy thing to do!

I had to ask why we were doing this.  The Lady explained that walking on the treadmill keeps your body healthy and burns calories.  I think my body is healthy and I don’t even know what calories are; but, if we have to burn them, I would much rather burn them over the fire pit in our backyard where we can have snores when we’re done!  The Lady explained that calories are energy that we get from food.  We need to make sure that our bodies use more calories than we eat so that our bodies don’t get too big.  She said her body was bigger than she wants it to be so she would be coming to the wreck rec center a lot to burn her calories.  This treadmill thing is one of the craziest things that The Lady and I have ever done together!  After about thirty minutes on this, I felt like one of those tiny brown furry monsters at the pet store; I think they are called hamsters.  I have watched the hamsters spin on wheels.  They run and run and run…and go nowhere.  I finally figured out that this treadmill machine is like a hamster wheel for people!  I don’t like it.  I wonder if the hamsters do.

Mr. Guy came to the rec center too, but he did not get on this people wheel thing called a treadmill.  He got on some other machine that was called a lip tickler, or something like that.  I don’t know why he needs a machine to tickle his lips.  I think his beard and mustache can do that…at home!  My fur sometimes tickles my lips.

I spent a whole hour on the treadmill with The Lady.  They had TVs to watch while you were walking to get nowhere.  It was kind of fun to watch the Food Network and decide what kind of calories I wanted to eat today so that I would have something to burn tomorrow when we come back to the rec center.

I think that I need some snores…even if I can’t burn my calories at home.  I was a very tired monster when this adventure was over.  In fact, I was a wreck!  Maybe that place really is a wreck center!

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A Month of Me: May 1 – It’s Me!

Wow!  It has been a long time since I have shared any of my adventures with my friends.  Well, the truth is, I haven’t had many adventures lately.  The Lady and Mr. Guy have been very busy with things and we have not  traveled anywhere near or far.  The Lady has been working hard at school and Mr. Guy spent most of the spring taking care of one of the other furry monsters at our house.  One of our dog monsters was old and sick.  Mr. Guy spent all day every day making sure that he was safe and comfortable.  Then it was sad at our house because the big black furry monster crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that even though we were all very sad, that losing furry monster family members and people that we love is a real part of life.  I asked if it was like when we lost The Captain.  Yep.  It was exactly like that.

Even though I haven’t been writing much, I have been thinking a lot, about all kinds of things.  I have used my crayons and written monster words on little pieces of paper so that I wouldn’t forget all of the things that I have been thinking about.  Since The Lady only has one more week of school, she promised me that we would get all of my thoughts out of my furry blue and orange head and off of all my little pieces of paper and make them into real words and sentences so that I can share them here on my blog.  I am excited about that!  I like thinking and writing, especially when Mr. Guy and The Lady help me!

You all know that The Lady likes to take pictures.  This month, she promised me that I will be in her pictures every single day!!  That is exciting!  I may need to get a new shirt or two if I am going to have my picture taken that many times.  And certainly if The Lady is going to take thirty-one pictures of me, I will get to go on some adventures somewhere!

I don’t know if any of you have missed me, but I can say with all of my monster heart that I have missed all of my friends.  I hope that you will follow me during my My Month of Me!


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A Month of Me – Day 31

I did it!  I did it!  I did it!  

Back on the first of May I set a goal to write a post every day.  I wasn’t sure that I could do it, but The Lady told me that it was important to have goals.  She said that sometimes you achieve your goals and sometimes you don’t, but you can’t achieve them if you don’t have them.  I am a very lucky little monster because Mr. Guy and The Lady will do all that they can to help me.

We had lots of little adventures and lots of quiet time together at home.   It makes me happy to be able to go back and look at the stories I wrote and all of our pictures from A Month of Me so I can remember these times.  I don’t know that I can continue to write every single day, but having done so for a whole month makes me realize how much I enjoy sharing my life with all of you.

Lots of people are graduating from school right now.  They are celebrating years and years of studying and working hard to earn diplomas and degrees.  I am not graduating because I don’t go to school, but Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that they are just as proud of my writing accomplishments, that I worked hard for a whole month.  They said that we should take a special picture of me in honor of me reaching my goal.  I don’t have special rigamarole like The Lady and those people who are graduating from school,  but I did put on my fancy clothes!


I have a bow tie.  I like it better than Mr. Guy’s big fat red string that he wore around his neck!  And I have a vest, which is really just a shirt with no arms.  I wouldn’t want to wear these fancy clothes all the time, but I suppose they are OK when it is a special occasion.

Mr. Guy had one last surprise May surprise for me.  He has been full of surprises this month.  Most of them are good!  He found a hat for me, one that is just the right size for my head!


He said that it is a hat sort of like one that he has.  It’s not a yellow rain hat and it’s not a hat to keep my head warm in the winter.  It is a fancy hat to go with my fancy clothes.  This hat does not have holes for my horns so I wasn’t sure exactly how I should wear it.

Should I wear it over just one horn?


Or should I wear it over both of them?


I think that wearing it over both of my horns makes me look too serious and grown up. I am not a serious and grown up monster.  I am just a fun-loving happy-go-lucky little blue and orange furry monster who enjoys life!  

Which style do you prefer?

Thank you again for following me during the month of May.  June and July are going to be busy months for me and my family.  I am going on a trip this weekend to meet some of The Lady’s picture taking friends. Then it is Mr. Guy’s birthday, and my adoption day, and our trip to Pittsburgh, and our trip to England.  I am going to have a lot to tell you about!  I hope you will check back here every now and then and see what I am up to!

Farewell Month of Me!  I will miss you.

Welcome June!  Let’s have some fun!

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A Month of Me Day 30

Most of the time I like holidays when Mr. Guy and The Lady get to stay home.  I’m happy that we were all at home today, but the reason that we have the Memorial Day holiday is sad.

Tonight Mr. Guy built a fire in his fire bowl.  I liked all of the orange colors in the fire, but it was a little scary at first.  Those orange flames jumped way high and it got really hot.  I was afraid my fur might melt!  Mr. Guy said that everything would be fine and that my fur would not melt.  He is very careful when he makes the fires.

We sat outside on the patio and watched the sun set and the fire burn.  It was nice and relaxing.  Even the four-legged monsters seemed relaxed.

My Month of Me is almost over.  I only have one more day.  It sure has been fun writing something every single day.  I hope I can keep writing when it’s not the Month of Me anymore and becomes the month of June.
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A Month of Me – Day 29

Mr. Guy is home again tomorrow! Yay! He tells me that it is a holiday called Memorial Day. It is the day we remember all the people who have died in wars fighting to protect our country and our freedom. 
I don’t like the idea of fighting and dying. But Mr Guy says sometimes bad people attack people and the people attacked have to fight to defend themselves. And sometimes people die fighting. I think it would be better if we all just lived peacefully. But I understand what Mr Guy means. I know I would fight if someone attacked The Lady, Mr Guy, Offspring 1 or Offspring 2. 
The Lady and Mr Guy took me to Liberty Plaza today. Liberty Plaza is a big park that is near where we live. 
It is a place to created especially to remember all those people who died, or who fought and did not die, protecting our country’s freedom. Mr Guy told me there are people still serving and fighting in places all over the world. We should always remember them too and keep them in our prayers. 
Liberty Plaza is a pretty  place. There is a big American flag… 


…and a couple of special statues. 
One of the statues made me a little sad.  My eyes got blurry because of the rain on the outside and maybe a little because of rain that was coming from my eyes.
The statue was of a little boy holding and American flag perfectly folded in a triangle with the stars on the outside.  I recognized that flag.  When The Captain died, The Lady got a flag just like that so I knew that it meant that that little boy’s father or mother was killed in a war.  
We have two folded flags at our house – The Captain’s and Mr. Guy’s father’s.  I’m glad that we have them.  They remind me every day to say a special prayer for all of our armed services men and women.
The other statue is of a veteran from World War I.
He has poppies in his hand.   These help him to remember all of his comrades with whom he served, but did not come home.  When we got home, The Lady and Mr. Guy read this poem to me; it tells the story of the poppies.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

– Colonel John McCrae

That is a lot for a little blue and orange furry monster to think about.

Mostly Liberty Plaza is a quiet place where we can go to think about and say “thank you” to all those people who have given  their lives in the service of our country. 

It was raining today, so we did not get to spend much time just sitting, but I’m glad that we went.