Penny for your thoughts

This is our dog Penny and she is our forever dog. Things to know about Penny: she is a mini-pinchser/dauschound mix (no I cannot spell either of those words). She LOVES other dogs, they are all her best friend and she must play with them. She also loves children. She isn't interested in toys unless other dogs or children are playing with them and she won't eat unless someone is home with her. 

In short she is a bit strange and is the first dog I have ever met that isn't motivated by food. In fact she will turn her head to food. We love our crazy ninja/food despising dog and so do the people in our building. They think she's adorable and that it's great she doesn't bark...ever...seriously....and when she does it sounds like she's afraid she's making too much noise. Instead she does these little whiny noises when she's sad because the toothless wonder chihuahua down the hall won't play with her. Imagine a tiny chihuahua with no teeth and a tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. Did I mention Penny loves ALL dogs. I think that dog is creepy and weird. But not Penny. That could be her new BEST FRIEND!!! AHHHH!!!!

Poor rejected Penny is now sitting next to me on the couch all sleepy like because that's another thing she won't do without someone around, sleep.

I should say that work is going a whole lot better, especially since I've been able to incorporate social media into my job. I am now the twitter master. Never thought I would be the ultimate authority on twitter but here I am. Of course it's not that hard in an organization who works with people who get annoyed by email. Not all of them are like that, but some, some think they are allergic to electricity. I kid you not. This donor gives us lots of money, but they are a little crazy. If they found out we had wifi they would disown us.

Ryan seems to still like his job. He said he had fun working on Indiana stuff today. I like how his projects always involve states. Because I was a scorer for a little while, I understand a lot of what goes on at his work. Therefore we sometimes get in these weird conversations where I'm pretty sure people are confused as to why, "New York is a pain" and "we hope we get Wyoming." States suddenly become a single entity that his company must interact with.

Because of Ryan's work, I am especially interested in NCLB (no child left behind) and what is going to happen with it. His work has literally changed my perspective on education. I thought I knew.....I really knew nothing. Testing is now a love/hate relationship for me, because now I have seen why it's good, but I also know why it's bad. So many necessary things are this way. Some states (and I know this for a fact) really could care less whether their kids are as smart as others. They don't want to compare, they just want their kids to be good enough for them. And sometimes, that means setting a painfully low bar for expectations. If they keep getting away with this, we are going to get nowhere. And that's my rant for the day.

Until next time. Keep calm, carry on.

Not So Lucky

You can't tell from this picture, but our foster dog Lucky had an issue with guys. 

Lucky would be fine when I was home. Below  is a picture of him all curled up in my lap. We knew he was much more cuddly with me, and we knew there was probably issues because when he had come in to the shelter he had bb gun pellets stuck in his leg. Now we, and the shelter, are guessing that a guy hit him with those pellets. Hence the freak out session when I stayed at an event at work, and Ryan was left alone with him for the first time. 

So we said goodbye to Lucky. We are fairly sure that we are going to wait on the dog issue until we have a house. We are too heartbroken and we are enjoying our freedom too much to attempt to get another dog. I would like to thank our friend Autumn for helping to give us some advice and help us make the right decision. You are our official dog guru. 

So how are we doing? Based on today I would give the following ratings to these 2 different areas in my life:

Love: 10

Work: 5

Work is not fun for me right now. As of today I am incredibly frustrated, and we'll see what happens. I am praying to Krishna that things get better. 

Ryan rates it this way:

Love:10

Work: 8

Work is going much better for Ryan. So even though I'm frustrated, the lesson is here is that love conquers all. I think....either way we are enjoying our life and feeling blessed to have what we do. I am honestly probably giving work a low rating based on a singular event and am therefore being unfair. We all have good days and bad days, and today just wasn't that great. 

I wish my writing was better. Take that last sentence. That is pitiful and wrong. However I am too tired to fix this entry and make it better. Hopefully as the year progresses, I will be able to make the steps towards being a better writer. It's my unofficial new years resolution. 

In the meantime. 

Keep calm, carry on.