Family | twodolla

Mar
26

june is 1 year old today

Category: Family, June, Photos, Riley Leave a Comment

A year ago today, a tiny runt of a mutt was born. We were not necessarily planning to add another animal to our family. And then about eight weeks later, we saw her brother and sister on Petfinder and we decided we needed one of those puppies! We met them all in person and loved this little tiny one the most. We were competing with another family to adopt her, but my persistence (or harassment – either way) paid off and, lo and behold, we wound up with June, the Boondog.

She’s a happy pup and seems to fit in just fine.

photo-3262013

Jan
14

By Wendy

mama got a brand new phone

Category: Family Leave a Comment

I gotta tell you the best gift I gave during the holidays, aside for the fart putty I get my grandpa every year, was the cell phone my ladyfriendfiance and I decided to get my mom. I tried to do the same thing last year, but my dad and brother put the kibosh on it. This year, we didn’t even tell them. My brother found out when we texted him from her phone when we got it and Dad found out right around the same time my mom did. SURPRISE.

For years, I’ve relied on email and then instant messenger and then Facebook to keep in touch with my mom, because the phone’s kind of difficult sometimes. In the past two or three weeks, I’ve texted my mom while she’s been out walking. I could text her when I got home from my road trip back from Missouri. I texted her a picture of something I saw at the store. She let me know when she and my dad landed in Florida and that Daytona Beach was particularly busy compared to the past few years they’ve been. And somehow, she figured out how to take and send a picture to me.

I never thought I’d say it, but I really wish we’d have hooked Mama B up with a cell phone much, much earlier on. I like random text messages from her.

Dec
4

By Wendy

every once in a while i remember i have a blog

Category: Family, Me, Wedding Leave a Comment

There are days when I’ll be halfway through doing something – some home project, raking leaves, driving to work, taking a shower, watching Sons of Anarchy (season finale! gah!), noticing the cat sleeping on top of the puppy – and I still think – OH MY GOD, I SHOULD BLOG THAT. And then I don’t, because, you know, boring and rambly and yadda, yadda, yadda. And then I realize it’s been weeks since I’ve updated anything at all. Lame.

Life is good and boring. I didn’t win Powerball, so I canceled my yacht trip around the world. I got a new haircut. Joe and Missy got married. We stayed here for Thanksgiving and had dinner with Ani, Shawn, Becky, Chris and Jake. Our 15 year old is almost in my shoe size, which leads me to think I shouldn’t lose any weight, so I can still be bigger than him in some aspect. And we’ve raked a hell of a lot of leaves.

Wedding stuff: Engagement pictures done. Amelia’s dress is sitting in a box on a chair in the living room. We’ve decided on favors. I almost have our music list done for the DJ. I still need to figure out one more person to have stand up with in our wedding AND MAN THAT IS HARD. I need a #2 probably sometime soon. Apparently there’s urgency when it comes to asking people to be in your wedding. Or so I’ve heard.

In sad news, my new laptop’s q key stopped working. How did I do that one, you might ask? By searching for words like “uality” and watching Google ask me if I was really searching for “quality” and then copying and pasting from there. It’s still under warranty, so I’ll get it taken care of… sometime before the warranty runs out!

Oct
28

By Wendy

my week can best be described with the following picture

Category: Family, Me Leave a Comment

The plague has reached us. After a solid week of complete fatigue for me and a solid week of hacking up various organs for my ladyfriendfiance, we may finally be on the upswing. We skipped our annual Halloween party. Cancelled our 2nd annual pumpkin carving party. Fed ourselves chocolate chip cookies. And I think we’re going to make it. Today, I finish my Christmas list before my mom drives here to get it and see what kind of damage I can do with our wedding website, including figuring out .htaccess crap the I’ve been battling/avoiding for months. But first, I need to talk my family into pancakes.

Sep
17

By Wendy

the causes and effects of my weekend

Category: Family, Friends, Lists, Misc. 2 Comments

Went shopping at Old Navy for myself, on the hunt for sweater vests, of course.
- Ended up buying The Kid jeans (when did my kid jump from wearing a size 14 to 32×20 MAN size) and a t-shirt (also he’s wearing large shirts). When did I start parenting a MAN?
Went to Petco to get Riley some organic treats. They’re just cookies made out of people food.
- THERE WERE CLEARANCE TOYS. We got Riley a spaceman and June a weird circus toy where there are animals inside a circus tent and she has to get them out. New goal in life: become a dog toy inventor.
We took June to a “featherweight” playgroup on Saturday, which means we paid $10 for her to run around with a bunch of tiny dogs that like they belong in a circus.
- She only spent 10 minutes hiding under the chair, but seemed to have a good time towards the end. We’re planning to take her back, because somehow she’s not scared of 80 pound dogs, but little ones freak her out.
Met Ani at the batting cages in Bloomington where I used to go over my lunch break at my last job: Clutch Hitters. I’m playing in a softball tournament in a couple of weeks.
- I hit 71 balls. I missed one. I’m only slightly sore this morning and I realized that I miss being somewhat athletic, which explains why I downloaded some weird cardio workout app and was doing jumping jacks and “bird dogs” in my office last night.
Checked out a new possible wedding location.
- It’s in Eden Prairie and I’m morally opposed to giving anyone in Eden Prairie any money at all.
  - But the building is gorgeous. It’s RIGHT on a beach. Hello, swimming reception! We’re investigating the $$ side of it now.
I like bullet points.

Sep
6

By Wendy

the dangers of having gay parents? really?

Category: Being the Mo, Family 3 Comments

“What about the kids?” is the big focus everyone’s looking at when it comes to whether or not the proposed marriage amendment will pass or fail in two months. That’s so incredibly hard for me to understand, because I live it ever day.

On an average day, this is what our 15 year old boy has to deal with since he lives 50% of the time with his mom (a little gay) and I (very gay):

He has to be reminded six or seven times to get out of bed, despite setting his cell phone alarm and leaving it underneath his pillow because he knows he’s hard to wake up.
He only has one kind of Eggo waffle to choose from for breakfast.
The three new pair of jeans we bought him this past weekend are too long and we had to poke more holes in his new luchador belt so it could go around his tiny waist.
He’s required to at least comb down his bedhead before leaving our house.
Homework has to be done before texting or movies or TV.
We don’t let him take unnecessary things to school that will interrupt his work day.
Our house rules all revolve around kindness and respect.
We don’t pay him an allowance; he has to earn it.
We watch HGTV shows as a family and share our opinions on how ridiculous people are.
Last night, he offered to make dinner and also served it to us, with beverages and dessert.

There you go – ten things that happened yesterday to our heterosexual son while he was in the care of his gay mom and stepmom.

If anyone in the world wants to see what it’s really like in a gay household that has a child, I’m inviting you over for dinner. It means we’ll have to pull the table away from the wall, so you can fit at our table but I’m more than happy to do that if it’s going to convince you that children raised by gay parents are going to be able to give their children just as much love as straight parents, and those kids are going to turn out just fine.

Jul
26

By Wendy

i don’t like being limited to 140 characters

Category: Family, June, Riley Leave a Comment

I do love some Twitter, very much so in fact. And I get the point is to be brief about your twat (you call them that, right?), but I’m a wordy son of a gun most of the time. So, I think up these tweets and I start pounding them out on my phone only to realize it’s over 140 characters and I refuse to shorten things into stupid text talk. Here are some things I’ve started to tweet about, but just ran out of room.

June is much more difficult to train than Riley. Riley is still the best dog in the world and no dog will ever compare. June is close, but, like I told her last night, she’s cruisin’ for a brusin’. And before you call ASPCA, my dad used to say the same thing to me and there was never any bruisin’ involved. The threat worked. It’s not working with June.
I’ve recently installed a Google Chrome extension where I can limit myself to so many minutes on a particular website each day. I’ve given myself 30 minutes to use Facebook each day during work. I don’t normally take a lunch or smoke breaks, etc. so I don’t feel bad about scattering that throughout my day. Yesterday, I only used 10 minutes of it.
Insomnia. Holy crap, that has been kicking my butt for a couple of months. Last night, I got six hours of sleep and it was the best thing that’s happened in my entire life. The night before was three hours. Prior to that it was two hours. I have no idea what’s going on with that, but I have a doctor’s appointment Monday and they better have some answers.
Step-parenting blows. I think it’s mainly sharing The Kid that I hate. He’s 15, so he’s not usually interested in spending time with his parents anyway, but I like knowing that he’s always in the basement and we can at least say good night to him. I notice it more in the summer for some reason, and this summer has been the hardest so far to not just have him around every day. I know he’s having fun at his dad’s, where they’re beach bums at a local lake and he loves that. I just miss him!
We took the dogs to the vet a few weeks ago. With the exception of his legs first dive through the window a year or so ago to try to murder the mailman, he hadn’t been to a doctor since his old one left our clinic. He had to have the full round of vaccines, blood work, full comprehensive, all that good stuff. Turns out my 7 year old boy is in excellent health. He has two lumps that the doctor wants to do aspirations to and check for cancer. They also suggested a gingivectomy (which means they cut down his gums) since his gums are coming up over my teeth. FOR MY DOG. Now, don’t get me wrong. If he needs it, I’ll do it. But he’s eating just fine, so I’m holding off. I was just thrilled he was in excellent health. Boxers aren’t known for their health, especially as they get up between 8-10 years, so I’m a little nervous every time we go to the doctor. OR HE SLEEPS WITH HIS EYES OPEN, BECAUSE I THINK HE’S DEAD.

Jul
13

By Wendy

we need a bigger piggy bank

Category: Family 1 Comment

We’ve been using a really old juice jar at home as a piggy bank. I snatched it up from my grandparents’ basement when they were moving a few years ago. I normally can’t stand that whole antique-y crap, but for whatever reason, I just really wanted to bring this gigantic jar home and use it for something. It’s been a catch-all for random change and the occasional bill we feel like throwing in it. It covered all of our gambling expenses in Vegas and then some, so I’d say we put that to good use.

To assist in our efforts to save money for about a billion things, we’ve been doing our fair share of coupon searching and deal finding without going to extremes like the crazy boxes on those TLC shows. I do not need 8081 toothbrushes or 1298 boxes of Fiber One cereal. We have nowhere to put it and I couldn’t even keep my folders straight in school, let alone to sort through each Sunday’s coupons to see how I can buy a week’s worth of groceries and somehow manage to get $3 billion back.

Enter Coupon Shack, which happens to be one of my many favorite find-me-a-coupon-for-everything-on-my-grocery-list sites. There are a hundred sites out there just like it, I know, but this is the one we’ve been using as of late (until our printer ran out of ink!) and it’s helped us out with things that have already been on our grocery list. We don’t get sucked into buying fish sticks just so we can save $4 for a 30 pound bag of them.

We’re slowly morphing into eating little to no processed foods anyway and there aren’t ever any coupons for fresh fruits or fresh veggies, but hey – we’ll take them where we can get them!

Jul
6

By Wendy

our zoo actually gets along

Category: Family, June, Marshall, Riley Leave a Comment

What do you get when you mix a seven year old 65 pound boxer, a 1.5 year old tomcat with an attitude, and a 15 week old puppy that eats her own tail regularly? THIS:

It took less than four weeks for them to get to this point. Marshall still jumps out from behind doors to scare June and she still tries to jump onto the couch to play with him, but they’ve figured out how to get along just fine. I mean, it’s not Riley/Marshall secret lover cuddle puddle, but I have a feeling it’s getting there.

Jul
5

By Wendy

how i celebrated america (with bullet points!)

Category: Family, Friends, June, Riley Leave a Comment

We had zero plans for the 4th of July and that was just fine with me. I like lazy ass days where my biggest concern is whether or not Petco is open, so I can get Riley some treats.

Tuesday night, after I stayed at work until 7pm (!!! – C’MON), we headed over to Case de Konrad for Tuesday Night Meats. In very, very short, it was a fantastic time and much needed for me right now. I’ve been missing my friends lately for whatever reason. They’re a bunch of jackasses anyway, so I’m not sure what’s to miss, but I sure do love spending quality time with them. I define quality time anytime the following is included:

Getting a text on the way there asking if I could pick up any color Gatorade that would mix well with champagne
Having Junebug passed around like she’s an infant (I’m surprised that puppy actually walks)
DELICIOUS CHEESEBURGERS
Two members of the National Guard laying on the ground feeding a 15 week old puppy bits of steak and holding her water dish up to her so she can get a drink (Side note: she is now a pro and sitting, but seems disappointed that her treats at home aren’t as fresh as a medium steak from the grill)
A full grown man making an emergency run to find fireworks at Walgreen’s #4America
Wedding talk with the most supportive friends in the world
Playing Cards of Humanity (which we need to own STAT) and watching everyone completely lose their shit at one point during that game
Calling it a night when the sleepy puppy was passing out at the table

Yesterday was Riley’s Special Day, because we’ve been taking June places and leaving him at home, which is not at all what he’s used to. Riley’s Special Day included: