Category: Mr. Guy

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A Month of Me – Day 7

Today was much better than yesterday!  Mr. Guy and The Lady did not have to go anywhere until this evening.  We spent all morning sitting on the patio drinking coffee and watching the birds and the squirrels.  Some of those squirrels have as much fur as I do!  None of us needed fur today because it was eighty-five degrees at our house.  I was hot!  I told Mr. Guy that maybe he should take me to the fur cutting shop so that I won’t get so hot when summer really gets here.  He said that he didn’t that that was a good idea because my fur protects me from the sun.  If I got my fur cut off I would have to put sun cream all over me like The Lady does or I will become a red monster instead of a blue and orange monster.  I wouldn’t like that.  I would like to have a hat to protect me from the sun like Mr. Guy has, but my horns make it hard for me to find a hat that fits.  I guess I will just keep my fur.  

Since we were spending the day outside, I put on my “Dirt Shirt” that Ms. Michele gave me when we visited her in Delaware.  It is one of my favorite shirts!  Every time I wear it, I remember our visits.

This afternoon we checked on all of the plants and flowers in our yard.  I didn’t know that we had so many.  It felt like we were at the park.  Lots of our flowers are blue and orange! 

 It makes me happy to look around and see my favorite colors everywhere!  Blue and orange make The Lady happy too.

We also planted a new bluish purple flower.  One of The Lady’s students gave it to her.


Mr. Guy said that it needed to go in our butter flies garden.  I was confused.  I didn’t know that butter could fly!  The Lady had lots of butter out last night while she was making all that bread.  It didn’t fly.  It stayed right on the counter where she put it until it was time to go in the big whirly machine.  Maybe that’s when it flies.  The whirly machine makes it go round and round.  The Lady explained that we were not talking about flying butter, but insects that are called butterflies.  She said that they have pretty colors on their wings and that some of them are even blue and orange.  I hope that these butterfly things like our flowers and will come stay in our garden.  I would like to see one of them.

Mr. Guy picked me up to show me a pretty white flower.  I can’t remember its name…something about magazines and oil, I think.


It is on a big bush.  Mr. Guy also showed me all the baby flowers that have not been born yet.  He said that in a few days they will be born and the bush will have lots more of these pretty white flowers all over it.

After we were done investigating the garden, Mr. Guy and I had to rest!  Playing in the dirt is hard work!


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The Big D

It has been a long time since I have written a post.  I feel like a bear, a blue and orange bear, who went into hibernation for the winter.   Now that it springtime, I am venturing back into the world.  I think Mr. Guy and The Lady have been hibernating at school!  They always seem to be busy.

Last weekend, The Lady had to be in Chicago for a meeting.  Mr. Guy went along and he said that I could go too.  Yay!  It has been a long time since I have been on a trip.  When The Captain was sick, we went on trips a lot.  Now we don’t go as much.  Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I don’t.  Anyway, I was excited to get to go this time.  I thought Mr. Guy and I would have a great time doing stuff while The Lady was stuck in her meeting.  The weekend didn’t go quite as I had hoped.  I learned another one of those “life lessons” as Mr. Guy calls them.  I learned about disappointment.

Big D is not for Dallas, where we live.  It is for Big Disappointment.

Out flight was very early.  We got up at 2:30 am to be at the airport at 4.  Well, Mr. Guy and The Lady got up.  Not me.  They just scooped me out of my bed half awake to leavet.  I didn’t really wake up until it was time to go through security and Mr. Guy had to send me, all by myself, through that dark tunnel where those TSA guys take pictures of my insides.  I have had to do that lots of times, but it is still scary for a little blue and orange monster!  They saw that my insides were empty!  I had had no breakfast.  Mr. Guy said that we would have breakfast on the plane but he would get us some coffee to share while we waited in the airport.

Disappointment #1
At 4am, nothing is open in the Dallas airport.  Not even Starbucks!!  


Mr. Guy and I had to wait until we got on the plane for our coffee.  This made for two grouchy monsters!  Mr. Guy and I grumbled together in our chair until it was time to get on the airplane.  The Lady ignored us both.  She knows that is the best thing to do when we have been awake, well sort of awake, for over an hour and have not had any coffee.  Fortunately, we were not in gym class with the coaches on this flight, we were in the first grade class.  In first grade, you get coffee before the airplane leaves the ground.  Phew!  Mr. Guy and I were happy about that.


I was so not awake when we left my house, that I forgot to put a shirt on.  I was a little embarrassed, but Mr. Guy held me tight so no one would stare at my orange belly fur and he told me that we had some time when we landed in Chicago before we had to head to our hotel; we would find a Chicago shirt for me in the airport.

Disappointment #2
Mr. Guy and The Lady walked all over the terminal, into every store they saw, trying to find a new shirt for me.  There were no shirts sized for little blue and orange monsters anywhere.  This seemed strange to me.  I have gotten lots of my shirts in airport shops.  Oh well, we still had Saturday to find a new shirt somewhere.

Disappointment #3
As it turned out, we did not get to see anything the whole time that we were in Chicago except our hotel.  


The Lady was busy with her meeting, and Mr. Guy found out that he was being given a whole bunch of extra work at school so he had to stay in the hotel room and work, work, work all day long!!  I was sad that I wouldn’t get to see any new places, but I was happy to get to spend the whole day with Mr. Guy.  We got to have breakfast and lunch together and I got to help him make some videos for his monsters at school.  


The day could have been better, but it also could have been worse.  Mr. Guy explained to me that there are times when things don’t go like you want or hope they will.  He told me I just had to look for something positive.  He said that if you look for stuff to make you unhappy, you can always find it.  But, if you look for something to make you happy, you can always find that too.  


I was happy that I got to go with The Lady and Mr. Guy.  I was happy that Mr. Guy and I shared lots of coffee and breakfast and lunch.  And, I was happy that Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that when we went back to the airport to fly home, we could try again to find a new shirt for me.  Oh, and I was happy that I got to nap and watch HGTV while Mr. Guy worked!  


At least I got to look at pictures of Chicago in a book.


Disappointment #4
Still no shirt to be found at the airport.

While we tried again to fins a shirt for me, Mr. Guy found a coloring book for himself and The Lady got a bracelet.  It made me smile that we found something for them. They also got a nice blue bag that I got to ride in.  

I learned that I am just as happy when I help to find a nice surprise for other people as I am when they find them for me!  


While we were waiting for our flight, I saw this strange toy hanging on the wall.  I asked The Lady if we could go play with it.  She said that it was not a toy; it was a pay phone.  


Hmmm…it didn’t look like any phone I had ever seen.  Why did someone hang their phone on the wall?  Silly question.  Because that phone was too big to put in their pocket.  And, it had too many cords and buttons and couldn’t even take pictures!  It looked like some kind of science fiction thing to me!  That was the newest thing, at least to me, that I saw all weekend!!

Then it was time to get on the plane and come home.


Even though I tried to smile and be a big blue and orange furry monster, The Lady knew that I was disappointed.  To make me feel better, she told me that during the month of May, she would include me in all of her daily photos.  That means that we will get to do something fun every single day!    The Lady said that we can post her photos to my blog every day too.  Now I am one happy and excited little monster!  I will have to spend all month brushing my fur so that I look my very best.  Oh, and she said that maybe there will be a new shirt somewhere along the way!  

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The Blue Ridge Parkway

I did not get anything written yesterday because we had a big day and I was tired when we got back to our cabin. Now that I am nice and rested,  I want to tell you about my adventure yesterday. The Lady’s friend, Mr. Rusty came to visit. They went to college together at East Carolina University. Blue and orange furry monsters don’t go to school, so I was not sure what college really meant. The Lady said when humans are growing they go to school to learn stuff. I know The Lady and Mr. Guy both still go to school but now they teach school instead of learn stuff. So do Ms. Linda and Ms. Linda’s Guy! Mr. Rusty is a school librarian so he works in a school too!  He takes care of all the books and teaches the children to love those books! Wow, I guess I don’t need to go to school. I have all these teacher people around me to help me learn about all kinds of new things! 

Mr. Rusty said he would take us for a ride to see part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I didn’t know what that was, but since it was called the “Blue” Ridge Parkway, I was sure that I would like it.. He told me that it is a very long road that goes through North Carolina and into another state called Virginia. We were only going to see a little of it. Mr. Rusty promised me that I  would see real mountains! They are the Blue Ridge Mountains. That seemed like a good name to me. I had already seen some mountains from far away, but Mr. Rusty said we would go up into the mountains and maybe I would get to stand on a mountain!

We left in the morning after breakfast. Mr. Rusty drove. He has lived in North Carolina his whole life, so that seemed like a good idea since he probably knew where he was going. We went a little way from our cabin and then got on the parkway. At first there were lots of trees. I have never seen so many trees in one place! Mr. Rusty said as we went further, there would be places along the way where we could look at the mountains as well as the trees.

We drove a little more and then stopped.  Then I saw them! Great big mountains.  


Wow!  I was confused about one thing though.  There were signs everywhere that talked about how many feet the mountains had.  


Mountains have feet??  The Lady explained that these were not feet to walk on, but were a way to tell how tall the mountains are.  She told me that we could figure out how many feet tall I am too, but we need something to measure me.  That will have to wait until we get home to Dallas.

Anyway, the further we went, the more feet the mountains grew.  It is a good thing that they don’t need socks and shoes for all of their feet!  



The mountain with the most number of feet was Mt. Mitchell. It has 6684 feet and is the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi River.  We drove as far as we could…


…and then we walked the rest of the way to the very top.  Mr. Rusty and The Lady went all the way to the very top.  Mr. Guy stopped and said he could not make it that far. The Lady and Mr. Rusty took me to the top and took pictures.   Since Mr. Rusty is my new friend,  I figured the picture of us at the summit would be a good picture of him for my project.  


They were headed back down when Mr. Guy suddenly appeared.  

I also had my picture taken with Mr. Guy because, well, I always have my picture taken with Mr. Guy.  


He always carries me and holds me tight.  He makes me feel safe.




After all the walking, we were very hungry.  On the way down the mountain, we stopped at a place for lunch! The folks there were really nice. Greg took our order and brought us our food.  He had a great smile and seemed like such a happy person.  It makes me happy to see happy people.  He wanted to know all about me.  I then asked him if he would have his picture taken with me and become part of my 100 People Project.  He was excited about that!  


The Lady took my picture with him and then his friend Emily came over too.  She also wanted to be in the picture.  


She has a pretty smile too.  Greg and Emily look like they have fun working together and feeding all of the hungry people. So, I added two people to my project at lunch!

After we ate, Mr. Guy took me outside for a different look at the mountains, but all I saw was clouds.  We were sitting in the clouds!!


I also got another new shirt, one from Mt. Mitchell! YAY!!!  I was a very happy blue and orange furry monster.

After lunch we drove some more and saw some more mountains, but they didn’t have as many feet.  





We were headed to Linville Falls.   This is a place where water falls out of the rocks.  We had to hike to the place to see this falling water.  Mr. Guy went part of the way and then he waited while Mr. Rusty and The Lady went to the top of the falls.  It was kind of scary being up so high.  I found out that Mr. Rusty and The Lady were kind of scared up there too!    The Lady carried me and tried to take a picture of me and the falls.  It didn’t work so well.  I was smiling, but she was nervous.


We were all getting tired by the time we left the falls.  We took a different road, a faster one back to our cabin.  Mr. Rusty grilled some steaks for dinner and The Lady made some vegetables.  And then we all went to bed.  Well, I went to bed; I don’t really know what all of the grown-ups did.  I did get to sleep in my new shirt!


That’s all!
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Blueper B and The Paint Bug

Most days in the life of my family are about me seeing or learning something new, but today, it was about Mr. Guy trying something new.  It was fun for me to watch him try something he had never done before.  He has done lots of lots of things in his life, but he has never painted a picture before.

The Lady likes to do all kinds of creative things.  She plays and writes music; she knits; she writes; and of course, she takes pictures.  The Mr. Guy hasn’t ever found anything creative that he likes to do.  He says that he is not a creative person.  The Lady and I have tried to tell him that everybody is a creative person; he just has to find his means of expression.  I was surprised when Mr. Guy and The Lady said that we were going to go paint today.  Of all the creative things that Mr. Guy might have chosen to explore, painting is not the one that I thought that he would have chosen.  What do I know?  I’m just a little blue and orange furry monster.

After lunch, off we went to a place called the Bier Garden.  Mixing beer and painting didn’t sound like a good thing to me, but again, what do I know?  Mr. Guy said that the beer might help to get his creative juices flowing.

A nice girl named Abbi was the teacher for the class.  I don’t think she knew what she was getting into having Mr. Guy in her class.  She gave Mr. Guy and The Lady some paint and an empty piece of white board.

She said it was called a canvas and was made especially for artists to paint on.  Mr. Guy kind of stared at it like he was really scared.

I told him it would be OK.  He was a grown up and he could paint a pretty picture if he tried and if he didn’t drink too much beer.  (I have never had beer because I am too little, but The Lady says that if you have too much that it can make you feel funny and maybe say or do silly things.)

Before they started, Mr. Guy kept looking at his phone.

 I think maybe he was going to call 911 to come rescue him.  I did not get to paint a picture.  That was OK.  I didn’t want to get paint in my fur.  But, I did get to do something new today too.  The Lady let me use her camera to take pictures of them painting.  Unfortunately, I only took pictures of Mr. Guy because without photos, no one would ever believe that he painted.

Finally they got started working on their paintings.  Mr. Guy seemed to relax a little.  He did a great job painting the background of his picture.  Then it came time to paint a background layer of trees.  Mr. Guy didn’t like that part too much.  He kept saying that what he was painting did not look like trees.  The Lady told him that they were not really supposed to look like trees; they were just kind of texture in the background.  They would give his painting depth.  That was the wrong thing to say because Mr. Guy says that he can’t see depth in pictures.  He still had 911 ready to push on his phone, but he didn’t.  He kept painting…and drinking his beer.

He finished both.  The Lady and I were proud of him for finishing his painting.  He didn’t cry or say any bad words.  This was thanks to his teacher, Abbi.  She did a great job of talking everyone through how to paint a pretty picture.  Abbi was kind, cheerful, and patient.  She is very good at her job!  She is The Paint Bug. 

She does classes like the one we went to today at different places, but not in Texas so if Mr. Guy wants to keep painting, he will have to find a new teacher. Abi also paints custom “critter portraits,” paintings of people’s furry monsters pets.  Maybe Mr. Guy would like her to paint a picture of me; I am not a pet, but I am a critter. 🙂  You can see all the cool stuff that Abbi does by visiting her website: www.paint-bug.com.

The coolest thing that Abbi did, though, was to have her picture taken with me!  I am posting it here, but her friend also took one of us and posted it on her website!  That is exciting!  Abbi is 9 of 100 in my project

I am happy that we all got to try something new today.  I think that I may have played with too many of the buttons on The Lady’s camera.   I hope that she will teach me how to take some pretty photos rather than blurry ones.  Oh well…

Oh, and one more thing…

My friend Stobbsie from Scotland asked to see a picture of my new T-shirt from the Biltmore; you know, the pink one.  Here I am proudly wearing pink!