Plastic Eyes
Then the doctor came in and used the machine to get rid of Mr Guy’s over grown eye weeds webs..
It only took about 45 seconds and he said that it did not hurt. I’m happy that the doctor did not hurt Mr. Guy. That would have made me feel sad. I hope that his blurry eyes are fixed.
The people at the eye doctor’s office were very nice to Mr. Guy, and that is what is important for today. I don’t think that they have ever had a blue and orange monster with great big plastic eyes in their office before. They weren’t sure how to treat me. I had hoped that one of them might want to have a picture taken with me and join my 100 People project, but nope. They were very serious about their work, which I guess is a good thing if you are there to have your eyes fixed.
Decision Day!
2/100 My 100 People Project
A Big Surprise!
Yesterday I shared about how I helped to make Mr. Guy’s birthday cake. Today when I woke up The Lady and Mr. Guy told me that today was a special day; it is my birthday! Well, sort of…
The Lady said that birthdays are the day that you come into the world. I don’t know the exact day that I came into the world; neither do The Lady and Mr. Guy. So we are celebrating the day that I came into their world. It was one year ago today that Mr. Guy and The Lady walked into Kid’s Ketch toy store in Lewes, Delaware and decided that they wanted me to become part of their family. That made me one very happy blue and orange furry monster! I have been a lot of places and learned many things over the last year.
The Lady likes to take pictures so that she can remember her adventures. I like to collect T-shirts from all the places that I visit. They are kind of like pictures to me, but I can wear them. Every time I put one on it reminds me of special place, or person, or both.
For my birthday, Mr. Guy gave me these funny white things that look like triangles with a crooked horn. I said, “Thank you.” but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them. He told me that they are called “hangers.” They are used to hold clothes so that they stay neat and you can easily find the ones that you want. Before I got the hangers, all my shirts were in a basket that I had to dig through to find the one I wanted; then they all got unfolded. That was not good because my monster paws don’t fold clothes very well. Now that I know what they are for, I am very happy with my new hangers! And, I have some unused ones so I guess Mr. Guy thinks I will get some new shirts this year! I am doing a happy monster dance!
Speaking of new shirts, I also got one of those for my birthday.
It says “THE BEST IS YET TO COME!” That is exciting!
Even though I was adopted in Delaware, I actually live in Texas. During the past year I have made several trips back and forth between Texas and Delaware because we were visiting The Captain, The Lady’s father. He was sick during that time and died back in October. Though I am usually a happy monster, that was a sad time. I am glad that I got to go see The Captain several times. We liked to watch baseball games together. The Captain always cheered for the Philadelphia Phillies. I have a Phillies T-shirt that reminds me of The Captain.
On our trips to Delaware, I also got to meet some of The Lady’s picture taking friends, Ms. Michele and Ms. Peggy. I got to go some neat places with them while they took pictures. Ms. Michele sent me my very first package in the mail, a University of Delaware T-shirt! Every time I wear it I think about Ms. Michele, Delaware, mail, and, most importantly, friends. Ms. Michele also gave me another shirt on one of our visits. It is my “dirt shirt.” It makes me think about Ms. Michele, playing outside, and chocolate. Dirt and chocolate are the same color.
In between our trips to Delaware, I also visited San Diego, California; Phoenix and Tuscon, Arizona; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That is a lot of traveling for such a young monster! I have been on lots and lots of airplanes. Sometimes the other people on the airplanes look at me funny. Well actually, I think they are looking at Mister Guy and the Lady funny because they are flying with a furry blue and orange monster. It doesn’t seem to bother them, though. Mr. Guy always carries me and holds me and keeps me safe. I am called a “lap monster” on the airplanes so I don’t get my own seat; I have to sit in Mr. Guy’s lap when we fly.
My people said that we will adventures on airplanes this year too, but that we won’t go back to Delaware any time soon. That makes me kind of sad because I have friends there, but I am excited to visit some new places too.
After I opened my birthday presents this morning (the shirt and hangers), we went out for lunch at Taco Cabana.
I had chips and queso something new, street tacos.
I liked them because they were little and easy for me to hold. The people there were really nice! They wished me a happy birthday. One of them was so nice that he got me thinking…I thought about this the whole time I was eating my tacos and decided “yep,” this is a good idea. I told The Lady about me idea and she thought it might be fun, too. So here it is. I am going to try to have my picture taken with 100 new friends this year. We’ll see how it goes.
Travis at Taco Cabana was #1. When Mr. Guy ordered, Travis wanted to hear my story. I told him that I was adopted one year ago today in Delaware and we were out celebrating my special day. He smiled and said that his grandmother had lived in Delaware. Like The Captain, his grandmother has passed away too. After I ate my lunch and had thought about my idea, I went and asked Travis if would mind having his picture taken with me. He smiled again and said, “Sure. I would love to.”
He joked around with me for a few minutes. That was a nice birthday present. The Lady was not comfortable taking a picture of a stranger so this is not her best. Hopefully with 99 more to go, she will get better!
When we got home, I got to have a special treat too, something that the Lady called a “cupcake.” That sounded a little strange to me. I thought I was going to have to drink my cake. The lady said that that was not what “cupcake” meant. She showed me that a cupcake was a cake that was the size of a cup, not a great big cake like the one I made for Mr. Guy. Actually, my cupcake came from the grocery store. I don’t think The Lady has recovered from our adventure making Mr. Guy’s cake yet. That is OK. It was a yummy cupcake.
Other than cake we didn’t do anything else special for Mr. Guy’s birthday. For me, my people got things that they called decorations. I had a funny hat that was shaped just like my horns so it fit on my head.
They put this fire thing in my cupcake that kind of scared me. I thought it might melt my fur so The Lady made the fire go away. And, there were these big things that looked liked colored eggs that floated in the sky. They were kind of fun.
The Mr. Guy doesn’t like them. He told me that they are fragile like the eggs but if they break, they make a loud scary noise. The only loud scary noise when real eggs break is from The Lady.
After all this excitement, I thought that my birthday celebration was over, but The Lady said that there was one more surprise. She told me that there is someone who wants to be my pen-pal. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. I know that a pal is another name for friends and I like friends. I know that a pen is something that you draw with, but only on paper. (I learned that the hard way.) But, I wasn’t sure how those two things go together.
The Lady told me that she has a new picture taking friend who lives way far away in Scotland. Way far away was explained as ten hours on an airplane. I understand airplane time! Anyway, this picture taking friend also adopted someone like me and they too share adventures together. My pen-pal’s name is “Stobbsie.” Like me, he has a blog where he writes about his adventures. Now we can write to each other and talk about all the things we do, places we go, and people we meet! I am super excited! Friends, old and new, are my favorite thing…except for maybe T-shirts. No, friends. Well, maybe T-shirts…Friends…Oh, I am having a monster conundrum I am going to have to think about this! Anyway, The Lady is going to show me all of the blog posts that my new friend, Stobbsie, has written and then I am going to write to him! I am such a happy and lucky little blue and orange monster!
Cupcakes!
T-shirts!
The Lady and Mr. Guy!
Friends all over the world!
What more could a monster want?
Thank you all who have made my first year so special. I am looking forward to “THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
Blueper B. and the Birthday Boy’s Cake
Hi! It’s me, Blueper B., and I’m back!!!
Finally The Lady and Mister Guy have finished their school year and we can do stuff together. I miss them when they are teaching, but I know that they need to do that to make money so that they can take care of me, their furry blue and orange monster.
We started off our summer vacation together by celebrating Mister Guy’s birthday. I learned that on your birthday people make you special treats. You can have anything you want. Mister Guy wanted a Citrus Angel Food Cake. The Lady said that she would make it for him. I asked if I could help because I have never made a cake before and I was ready to learn something new. I’m not sure that The Lady really wanted my help, but I made her feel guilty when I said that she had spent the last nine months teaching her students at school new stuff and I had waited patiently. Now it was my turn for her to teach me. It worked! 🙂 I got to help make the cake. It was a lot of work!!!
The Lady said that some people make their cakes by buying a box of mixed up stuff at the grocery store and then all they have to do is add one or two things and they had a cake. We didn’t make ours that way. She said we were going to make it from scratch. Scratch? I thought scratch was what you did when something made your fur feel funny. The Lady explained to me that making a cake from scratch means that you don’t buy a box of mix from the store; you collect all of your ingredients yourself. I asked her how you knew what ingredients you need and she showed me a piece of paper called a receipt…no, a recipe. It tells you all of the ingredients that you need and then exactly what you are supposed to do with them. The cake that Mister Guy wanted had a lot of ingredients, more than I could count on my orange fingers. The Lady said that we had to get all of our ingredients out and measured and ready to go because this cake was kind of temperamental…whatever that means. I didn’t ask because I was more interested in learning how to make a cake than learning new words that day. Some day I’ll find out what temperamental means.
The Lady said that we would start by zesting an orange. I didn’t know what “zesting” meant either. This time I asked because it had something to do with making the cake. The Lady showed me how to use a special tool, a “zester.”
A zester is used to scrape the the outer skin from the orange into tiny little pieces. I don’t know why you want to take off the pretty bright orange skin, but I am a good monster and I followed The Lady’s instructions.
She told me that the the zest would eventually go into the cake and make it taste “orangy.”
I was surprised that we did not use the inside of the orange. I ate it. This monster needed a little nourishment to get him through this adventure.
Next we had to juice a lemon.
Just kidding. This is not how it’s done. Juicing a lemon took a special tool too…a juicer. Haha.
Juicing the lemon was easy. Again, we did not use the inside of the lemon.
Next we had to separate the eggs. I asked if there was a special cooking tool for that too. The Lady said that there was, but that she did not have one so we would separate our eggs without one. The Lady said that the eggs are the most important part if this angel food cake that Mister Guy wants. She said that eggs are fragile and that I was going to have to be very careful if I was going to help with this part.
(I know what fragile means. The Lady taught me that word early because she was worried that I would break something in the stores when we go shopping. Sometimes I am not aware of how big my monster hands and horns are and I don’t control them very well.)
The Lady explained that we had to crack the eggs and put the white part in one bowl and the yellow part in another bowl. I wasn’t so sure that I could do that all by myself so I asked Mister Guy to help me.
Bad idea! Either he can’t tell the difference between white and yellow or his hands are less controllable than my monster hands. He kept dropping the yellow part in the white bowl. Finally we got twelve eggs cracked and separated. We only needed the white bowl for the cake.
We were finally ready to start mixing all of the ingredients together. Here came another kitchen tool. This one was great big! It was blue and had weird pieces attached to it and it had to be plugged in.
I thought that we would just use a big spoon and stir everything in a big bowl. I was such a wrong blue and orange furry monster! First we had to whip the eggs in this big blue machine.
The Lady talked about foam and soft peaks and stiff peaks. I wasn’t really interested in all of that. This was taking a long time. Little by little we got all of the ingredients in the bowl and finally it was time to put the cake in the pan and bake it. The Lady asked me to get the pan for her.
This is the strangest looking pan I have ever seen! First of all, it fell apart when I picked it up. I thought it would make better armor for a monster in case he had to do battle with that big blue kitchen machine.
The Lady was not amused. She suggested that perhaps this was taking so long because I was not giving my full attention to the task at hand. Possibly, but I was bored with the cake by this point.
We got the cake in the pan and in the oven. Woohoo! Playtime! Again I was wrong. The Lady told me that now we had to clean up all the mess that we had made in the kitchen. This cake making thing is a whole lot less fun than I thought it would be. Because I am a good monster, I helped The Lady wash all the stuff that we got dirty making this cake.
The only good part of this cleaning up part was that I got to lick the the bowl.
The uncooked batter tasted good so I figured the cake would too!
When the cake came out of the oven, we had to let it cool. Then The Lady took the pan apart and there was the cake…with a hole in the middle. That is how it was supposed to be. It looked light and fluffy. Mister Guy said is really good. When I saw how much he liked it, I was glad that The Lady and I had gone to the trouble to make the special cake that he wanted.
I makes me happy when I can make other people happy!
If you want to know exactly how The Lady and I made Mister Guy’s birthday cake, The Lady wrote more about it here.
I’m Still Here! And It’s Snowing!
Today we had a talk at our house about time management. I was feeling a little bit ignored. Even though I spend most of my time in our office with The Lady and Mr Guy while they’re doing stuff, they haven’t really taken me many places (actually, they haven’t really gone anywhere) or helped me post to my blog. Big orange fingers don’t work too well on the computer keyboard, so I need their help. I was feeling left out. I think they understand how I am feeling. They told me that they felt badly too.
I know The Lady and Mr Guy are busy. The Lady does her pictures everyday for Capture Your 365 and has started a new blog with her friend Ms. Tracey. You can see it at Plates, Pixels, and LOLS’s. (Ms, Tracey is another of the Lady’s photography friends. I hope that I get to meet her some day like I did Ms. Michele and Ms. Peggy. So far all of those people with cameras have been fun people.) The Lady also has a lot to do for the school where she teaches. They haven’t given her an office so she does a lot of her stuff at home. That is not nice of them. Her school stuff is taking over my T-shirt shelf!
Mr Guy does stuff for his school too. He doesn’t take pictures, though. That’s why you see him and me in most of the pictures. The Lady has to take them. Mr Guy does help me to do some of the writing and The Lady fixes up what we say.
And lately they have been dealing with the things from the Captain’s life. I am so glad I got to meet the Captain last year. It makes me sad to think he is gone and I will not get to see him again. But he was a good man and he had lots of friends who will make sure he is not forgotten. He and I will always have Lewes in common.
So whenever I feel left out I remember that there are lots of things going on and that orange and blue furry monsters sometimes need to be patient. But, Mr. Guy and The Lady also told me that it is OK to tell them when I am feeling sad and unhappy.
Earlier in the week it was icy and I was glad not to go outside. We all stayed home and rested. It was very nice. Only the dogs went outside. I guess their fur keeps them warm. But yesterday it started to snow and snowed all day long! This morning, after our talk, we went out to see it. I got to wear The Captain’s beanie to keep my orange horns warm. I had never seen snow so I did not know what it was like.
It was kind of weird looking! Snow is cold! And it is white! I looked through the tree and all I could see was lots of white everywhere.
It was hard to believe this all came down from the sky! Mr Guy said it does not happen that often here, but in other parts of the country, they have lots and lots of snow…way more than we have here in Texas. He said we get a lot of ice here Snow is way more fun than ice.
While we were out playing, I looked at the house I saw Frankie the cat sitting in the window. I went over to say “hello.”
I know that she would have been very cold if she had come outside. The Mister Guy said that she is an indoor monster cat. She doens’t come outside unless she is sitting in someone’s lap. I couldnt tell if she was sad about being inside while we were playing in the snow.
I made a “snow angel,” sort of.
I also made a snowball, with a little help.
Mr Guy and The Lady said that you can throw them like a baseball, whatever that is, and that people sometimes have snowball fights. They throw snowballs at each other for fun. I am not so sure about that. I don’t like anything that sounds like a fight. I really don’t like fighting. The Lady and Mr Guy said it doesn’t hurt when it is just snowballs. I tried to throw my snowball, but I wasn’t very good at it and I didn’t hit anything.
Our snow had a crackly layer of ice on it. I think that might hurt someone.
The Lady said that sometimes people make snowmen out of the snow, but that here has to be a lot of snow for that, more than we have. She described a snowman as three different sized balls made from snow stacked on top of each other with the biggest one on the bottom and the smallest one on the top. She said that you can give your snowman eyes with something like buttons and a nose with a carrot. He can even have a hat and scarf. When she described a snowman, I remembered something from last December.
Back at Christmas time, The Lady took a whole bunch of pictures of me in my fancy clothes. I got this weird thing with no sleeves that The Lady called “a vest.” She told me it was for special occaisions, when my T-shirts were “not appropriate.” I can’t really think of such an occaisions, but she assured me that they do exist. I don’t think that I like them.
Anyway, The Lady and Mister Guy felt really bad that they never helped me post my Christmas pictures. They told me that even though it is past Christmas and past Valentine’s Day and is almost spring, we could still post them. So we are having Christmas in February…almost March.
And, we are going to be better at sharing more family time together and documenting and writing about it as we go! Mister Guy and I started this morning by having a warm cup of coffee after we came in from playing in the snow. We talked about all the things we want to do and see this spring and all the places that we can go.
I am now an excited, rather than a sad, furry blue and orange monster!
Friends, Dirt, and Chocolate Chips
Saturday In The Park
The ducks started to come closer to us, but when they realized that we did not have any food, they moved in the opposite direction. The Lady told me that the water in the park is called a lake. That is where the ducks swim.
I had seen water before; that was a big ocean in Delaware. The Lady said lakes are not as big as oceans. She said that not only do lakes have ducks, but they can have lots of fish and turtles in them. I have never seen a fish or a turtle. Maybe someday.
I like that there is a playground close to our home. There were not too many people in the park tonight. The library nearby was showing a movie outside on a big screen so people seemed to be there instead of in the park. That’s ok. I like to meet new people, but I also like being able to do things with just Mister Guy and The Lady.
The grasshopper was too small for The Lady or Mister Guy to get on so they could not ride with me, but there was a smaller thing that I could ride all by myself!. It looked like a horse. I could stay on it if I hugged it’s neck!
I had fun riding the horse. It really did not go anywhere. It just rocked back and forth, but it was fun to pretend that I was riding off into the sunset! It really was sunset, at least.
He said long ago, the Native Americans, who many people call Indians lived right here in teepees. He said they had to fight for their homes because some people wanted to take their land. The people who wanted the Native Peoples’ lands would sometimes kill them for it. So there was fighting. Why is there so much fighting?
It was fun to pretend that I was the engineer who gets drive the train.
I like trains. I hope I get to ride the real one again sometime soon. The Lady said that we would probably go to the Texas State Fair in a few weeks. When we do, I will get to ride the DART train again!
I’ve Got Friends…and Mail!
Today was a fantastic day for this furry blue and orange monster. Something happened that has never happened to me before. I know, I am little and lots of things have never happened to me before. I like to have new experiences!
I learned about friends! Mister Guy and the Lady told me that friends are people who are not part of your family but are special people in your life. They said that friends are people who do things for you and with you because they really like you and care about you. I asked how I could get some friends. They told me that I already had lots of friends. I was surprised when the Lady and Mister Guy told me that. How did I get friends?
The Lady and Mister Guy said that there are people who read my blog and though I have not actually met them, they are still my friends. I learned that people can decide to be your friend based just on what you write in a blog or on your Facebook page. That is kind of scary and kind of cool at the same time. The lady and Mister Guy have some friends that they have met on Facebook and through Capture Your 365, the community of people who like to take pictures like the Lady. Some of these people they have just met online and some they have met in person.
One of the picture taking people that Mister Guy and the Lady have met in person but I have not is Ms. Michele. I have seen her photographs and I have read about her on Facebook. She also sent me some messages on my Facebook page. While we were in Delaware in August, Mr. Guy and the Lady met Ms. Michele and another picture taking friend, Ms. Peggy at Fort Delaware. I did not go tthat day because it was threatening to rain. Blue and Orange furry monsters should not get wet.
Last week Ms. Michele posted on my Facebook page that she was going to send me a package. I wasnt sure what that meant, but Mr. Guy said that was a good thing, something that friends do. Ms. Michele told Mister Guy and the Lady what she was sending, but they did not tell me. They wanted me to be surprised.
The Lady and Mister Guy knew the package was supposed to come today. So when they went out to get the mail, they took me along. They told me to look in the mailbox. Mailbox?
They explained to me that when people send you things, this person called the mail carrier leaves the sent things in this box on the curb. The whole thing seems very mysterious to me, but I did what Mister Guy told me to do;
I looked in the mailbox and saw that there was a white package with my name on it! To Blueper B. That’s me!
I wasnt sure what to do with this white rectangle. Mr. Guy said that there was a gift on the inside. I secretly hoped that it might be a T-shirt, but it seemed an odd shape for a shirt. The Lady explained that the enevelope was just to protect the special present that Ms. Michele sent me. I felt better. It could still be a shirt.
By this time, I was getting very excited! I had never opened a package with something special for me inside. Well, really I had never opened any kind of package.
I was so surprised!. Ms. Michele send me a t-shirt from the University of Delaware.
That is where her sons go to school. (There is that school thing again. I need to get to school.) But there was more! She sent a card…
…with lots of happy faces on it and wrote a note especially for me!!
Ms. Michele said she is looking forward to meeting me next time my family and I are in Delaware. She also said she hoped I liked the t-shirt and the other things.
Other things??? Oh yes, she also sent me a University of Delaware button. They have the Blue Hens for a mascot. I think that is great. Mr Guy said that people who are my friends know that I like blue.
Yep, blue and orange are my favorite colors. And guess what!! Ms. Michele sent me some stickers with orange and blue (and a few other colored) monsters on them. They are very cool. The Lady said that now that I know about the mail carrier and the mailbox and packages and cards that maybe I can send a card or a package to a friend. She told me that I could decorate the letter or package with my new monster stickers that way my friends will know that they are getting something from me. Getting a package today from Ms. Michele made me so happy. She sent things that she knew I would like. Now I understand a little more about friends and what they do for each other. I would like to send some packagaes to people and make them as happy as Ms. Michele made me today.
I am one excited blue and orange furry monster. Here are pictures of me in my new t-shirt and button, with my new stickers, and my card.
I am going to wear my new t-shirt tonight to sleep in. But not the button, I might get stuck with the pin if I roll over.
Thank you Ms. Michelle. You are a really good friend!