Category: presents

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A Month of Me: Day 30 – Bedtime Buddy

The Lady spent a lot of today playing with her sticks and string.  It is amazing to me how all those sticks and string that looks jumbled like spaghetti noodles can come out to be a bear.  I kept asking The Lady what she was making and she kept telling me that it was a bear, but I didn’t believe her.  First it looked like a leg warmer.  Then it looked a sock for some hoofed animal.  Then it looked like a toe sock for someone with only two toes.  Then it got stuffed and looked like some knitted representation of bacteria.  Finally when it got a face and ears, the supposed bear really did look like a bear.  It was almost like magic.

The Lady told me that she would probably not finish the bear today.  That made me sad.  I wanted her to finish it so that I could sleep with it tonight.  She kept twisting her string around and around her needles trying to finish making the bear.  I even got to stay up and watch.  I did fall asleep while the news was on the TV.  It was nothing but yucky stories about guns and politics.  Neither of those things interests this little monster.  I woke up in time to watch Jimmy Fallon.  The Lady kept knitting.  Right before midnight, she finished the bear!!!

I hurried to write this so that I could cuddle up with it and go to sleep!

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A Month of Me: Day 18 – Boxes, Bags, and Suitcases

Today was a busy day t my house.  I just found out that we are going on a trip tomorrow!  We are going to Virginia to see The Lady’s picture raking friends.  This will be our third trip to see them and every time that we go we fly to a different place.  I will get to see lots of different parts of the state of Virginia if this keeps up.  The Lady also said that I will get to meet some new friends on this trip.  I am an excited furry little blue and orange monster!

This afternoon I had to find some shirts for the trip and find my monster hairbrush.  I don’t really use the brush much, but The Lady always makes me take it when we travel so that I don’t look like a shaggy monster.  I like looking like a shaggy monster!  I put my things in the suitcase.  Now I am all ready to go.

One thing is different about this trip.  The Lady got t-shirts for all of the picture taking people and their friends who aren’t picture takers but hang out with the picture takers, like Mr. Guy and Mr. Ray.  I helped The Lady put everyone’s shirt in a bag with their name on it so that when we get off of the airplane tomorrow, we can give everyone a shirt.  T-shirts are the best!  Maybe The Lady will let me push some buttons on her camera and maybe I can take a picture of all of the picture taking people not taking pictures!  Instead they could all be in the picture.

We have to get up very early tomorrow so I suppose I should go to bed so that I am well rested for our super fun weekend!

Tomorrow I will be writing from Virginia!

Good night, everyone.

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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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My B-Day

A few days ago I celebrated my b-day!  It wasn’t really my birthday since is was not the day that I was born (or made); it was the day that Mr. Guy and The Lady brought me home to live with them.  So, it is still my “b-day” but the “b” stands for “brought home” day rather than birthday.  I don’t know when I was born, but I do know that I was a very young and lonely little blue and orange furry monster when The Lady and Mr. Guy found me.  Now I am a grown up and loved very big blue and orange furry monster!


Because it was my b-day, we celebrated with lots of things that began with the letter “b”…

Like bubbles…

Mr. Guy blew the water from a magic jar and the bubbles floated all around me!  It was fun to look through them.  It made the world look all crazy and then they were gone!  Some floated way up in the sky.  I don’t know where they landed.  And some of them just disappeared.  The bubbles made me smile even though they didn’t stay close for very long.
The Lady also gave me a bag, another “b” word.  She said that the bag had a present for me because of this being my brought home day.  I hoped that it would be a new t-shirt,  but I didn’t say that out loud in case that there wasn’t a new shirt in the bag.  I didn’t want to hurt The Lady’s feelings.  I knew that even if it wasn’t a shirt, it would be something nice because The Lady knows what kinds of things I like and what kinds of things that I don’t like!
She told me to go ahead and open my present.
I was a little confused when I pulled my present from the bag.  It sort of looked like a t-shirt, but not quite.  Then I remembered that we were celebrating my b-day with things that began with the letter “b.”    That’s why I did not get a t-shirt.  T-shirt starts with “t.”  My new shirt had no sleeves.  It was a broken shirt.  Broken starts with “b!”  I thanked Mr. Guy and The Lady for the broken shirt.  They smiled and told me that it is not a broken shirt; it is a tank top.  It is not supposed to have sleeves.  I thought shirts without sleeves were called vests.  This clothing thing is getting very complicated!  The Lady explained that tank tops really are just t-shirts without sleeves.  She thought it might not be quite as hot for me to wear in the Texas summer since I have all this fur.  She also told me that she thought the words on the front were perfect for my b-day.  It says, “Have fun all day.”  I like to have fun all day every day!
And, my new not broken shirt has blue and orange on it!  I think maybe I might learn to like this shirt with no sleeves.  It shows my pretty orange arm stripes!
After I opened my present, we went inside for more fun.  I got balloons…blue and orange ones…and a brought home cake!
We had my brought home cake inside because there were bugs outside.  And even though bugs start with “b,” they were not a good thing that starts with “b.”
My cake had a “2” on it because of the two years that I have lived with Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I guess the longer you live with somebody, the bigger your cake gets.   It will take a big cake to hold F-O-R-E-V-E-R and that’s how long I am going to live with Mr. Guy and The Lady!
Mr. Guy told me that he would light the candle and I should make a wish and then blow it out.
I wanted to tell him that I wished that we would all live together forever and ever, but before I could say all the words, he told me that my wish had to be a secret or it won’t come true.  I hope he knows that I want to live with him and The Lady forever and ever!
I cut my cake into four pieces – one for me, one for The Lady, one for Mr. Guy, and one for me.  Did I say me twice?  It was too hard to cut the cake into three pieces.  Four was much easier because all I had to do was bisect the cake twice.  Bisect??  Why does that big book, that dictionary, keep coming back to haunt my words?
I cut my cake all by myself because Mr. Guy said that The Lady was not allowed to use knives because she used one to cut her finger.  That sounded to me like it would hurt!  I was very careful not to cut my claws.
I was glad to share my cake.  I don’t think The Lady and Mr. Guy noticed that I had two pieces!
My brought home day with bubbles and bags and balloons and broken shirts and bisected cake was a lot of fun and made me a happy monster.  Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that we are going on lots of trips in July and that would be part of my brought home celebration too.  We are going to Pittsburgh where I will get to see some old friends and meet some new ones and we are going to England.  I am excited about the adventures that I am going to have during my third year with Mr. Guy and The Lady.

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A Month of Me – Day 26

Usually the first thing that Mr. Guy does when he gets home from school is checks for the mail.  The second thing he does is put the mail in the recycling bin.  This happens every day.   I don’t know why the mailman keeps bringing the recycling back after Mr. Guy puts it in the big blue bin.  Maybe Mr. Guy needs to color over his address on his recycling so the mailman doesn’t know where to deliver it.

Today Mr. Guy asked if I wanted to go with him to check the mail.  I opened the mailbox and there it was again…all of that recycling.  Mr. guy said that I should look carefully before I just put everything in the big blue bin.  

On the bottom of the stack was a puffy white plastic envelope with green letters.

It said, “It’s here!”  I asked Mr. Guy what was here.  He told me to look at the name on the envelope.  It was for me!  I got mail!  I had no idea what it was.  Then I remembered that a few days ago Mr. Guy told me that he had ordered me a present.  I had already forgotten that so I was super surprised that the envelope was a present for me!


I asked Mr. Guy if it was OK to open it right now.  He said, “Sure!”  I stood right there at the mail box and tore open the envelope.  

“It’s a brand new shirt!!!  And it’s blue!  And it has lots of other colors too!”

Mr. Guy said that he ordered it for me last week after The Lady had frosted my claws and then the colors crashed with my fur and my shirts.  He thought this one would match almost any color that my claws might be.  I like all of the different colors, but I wasn’t sure about the design.  It has all those different colors of pizza where the pieces are not cut evenly.  Someone is going to get a great big piece and someone else is going to get a little tiny piece.  They seemed like very unfair pizzas to me.  

Mr. Guy explained that they are not unfair pizzas, but rather, they are peace signs.  I know what peace is, sort of, but I don’t think I have seen a peace sign.  I have only seen Stop signs and Stop signs are fair signs.  All of their pieces are equal.  I would think that a peace sign would have equal pieces.  Hey…those two peace/piece words sound the same but their letters are different.   I am glad that The Lady helped me use the right letters in the right words.

Mr. Guy and The Lady tried to explain to me why this shape is called a peace sign.  It involved a lot of history going back to 1958.  That is a long time ago!!!  Mr. Guy said it was not THAT long ago, only 58 years.  He told me that he has one more year of history than the peace sign.  Anyway, I didn’t understand most of the history stuff they were telling me.  All I need to know is that this sign is now a symbol of piece peace.  It means good things.

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A Month of Me – Day 20

When Mr. Guy got home from school today he told me that he had ordered a present for me and that it would come in the mail.  Before he could finish what he was saying, I went running out to the mailbox.  A long time ago I got a present in the mail from Ms. Michele.  It had lots of fun stuff in it!  And last summer I got a basket in the mail that a lady in North Carolina made for me.  I like to get mail!!!  

When I got to the mailbox, there was nothing there.  I was very disappointed.  Why would Mr. Guy tell me there was a present in the mail and there was nothing?  He came out to the mailbox too.  When he saw that I was sad because there was no present for me, he explained that he had not finished what he was saying.  He told me that he had ordered my present and it would come in the mail next week.  I didn’t hear that part.  Well really, I didn’t listen.  The Lady  always tells me that it is very important to listen to ALL the words.  I didn’t do that.  If I had listened to all of Mr. Guy’s words, I wouldn’t have run to the mailbox and been disappointed.

Mr. Guy has an app on his phone that will tell him exactly what day my present will be delivered.  And then he will tell me.  The next time I run to the mailbox, I will not be disappointed!

Oh, and I don’t have colored claws anymore.

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Digging

Today was a busy day for all of us. Since we came back from North Carolina, we have not done too many things.  The most exciting thing was going to see Avenue Q where I got to meet Nicky! 

Even though we haven’t gone places, The Lady and Mr. Guy seem to have been working on something though I was not too sure what it was. They have been talking to a lot of different people. Today I finally found out what is going on. Before I was adopted, they put a lot of time into remodeling the inside of our house. I did not realize how much they had done and how many changes they made. Apparently it was a completely different place.

Now they are ready to do work on the outside. When we had some serious plumbing work done earlier in the summer, the yard was all torn up. There is almost no grass left in the front yard. That is what got The Lady and Mr. Guy moving on remodeling the outside too. 

They talked to a man called a Landscape Architect. That is another thing I did not understand. But The Lady and Mr. Guy are teachers and they do not mind explaining things to this blue and orange furry monster. A Landscape Architect makes a plan for the whole yard. He figures out where all the plants and trees will go, what kind of grass to plant, and even builds sidewalks all to make the yard really pretty. The Landscape Architect that they called used to be a teacher. He and Mr. Guy worked at the same school a long time ago, but it took them awhile to recognize each other. 

Tomorrow someone is coming to clean up the yard. There are some trees that Mr. Guy says need to go away. Also we are getting a sprinkler system. I did not know what that is, but Mr. Guy told me it is a way to get water to the lawn without him having to run around with hoses and these little twirly things that spit water. That sounds like a good idea to me.

Even though there are people coming to work on the tress, there were things we needed to do before they come. We have some flowers called irises. They needed to be taken out of the ground because The Lady and Mr. Guy hope to save them to be replanted somewhere in the new yard. I saw them this year and they are very pretty. I am glad they are going to try to save them.

I got to help!.  Since I knew that I was going to be outside digging in the dirt, I put on my Dirt Shirt that Ms. Michele gave to me on one of our visits to Delaware.  That way I would not look dirty even if I was!

The first thing that we had to decide was which of the irises that we were going to dig up and save.  

There were lots of them and Mr. Guy said that there would not be room for all of them in the new yard.  We had to dig up only the irises that we wanted to keep,

Then they had to be trimmed, but I was not allowed to use the scissors so The Lady did most of that part. Finally they had to go in a box.



The box will go into a cool place until it is time to put them back into the ground. The last thing we had to do was throw away the parts that were cut off. 


While we were working the delivery man came! He had a Dirt Shirt on too!  At least it was brown like mine.  I don’t know why he needs a dirt shirt when he drives around in a truck all day. I was really excited because I like it when packages come to our house. Sometimes I even get surprises!   He gave us three boxes!  

One was for Mr. Guy. He got new shoes. One was for The Big Sister. She got shoes too. Boy these folks get lots of shoes!  I wonder why I never get new shoes. The last box was for The Lady. I thought she must have gotten new shoes too.  But nope; she didn’t.

The Lady let me open the box. 

Hmm…it was filled with funny plastic pillows.  


I tried to look grateful for the present, but these pillows seemed like they would be hot and sticky and make my fur all soggy.  

We usually have soft cloth pillows.  The Lady told me to keep looking in the box, that these were not pillows and they were not the surprise.  When I looked again, I saw our basket from Ms. Susan, the basket lady in North Carolina! I had forgotten that she was making us a basket! So this was a surprise for me. 


Ms. Susan was one of my 100 people project. I think today’s package surprised Mr. Guy and The Lady, too. They did not expect it to come so soon after we got home. 

So, we got all of our yard work done today and tomorrow I can stay inside where it is nice and cool and watch the professional tree guys cut down some of our trees and remove some bushes.  Maybe I will find a snack that I can put in our new basket!