The Nifty Foodie's Life

It’s crazy how quickly the past few weeks have flown for us. We’ve moved almost everything from our fairly cramped 1300 square foot home to our new house with a lot more wiggle room.

After the closing date was set, I remember telling myself to do 2 boxes a day. Totally feasible, right? Well, the procrastinator in me didn’t really get into packing boxes until a couple of weeks prior to closing. Last minute, much?

It was so weird sorting through everything, filling up boxes for moving and boxes for the garage sale. There were so many things that I forgot I owned, so the garage sale stack is a pretty good size. Note to self…don’t buy crap. Seriously, stop buying crap.

I also found a few things that brought back memories.

Were any of y’all a girl scout back in the day?

Before we knew it, we closed on the house. The keys were in our hands and our cars were filled to the brim with boxes and cleaning items. It was time to make this house feel like a home.

We took a good week to clean, bring some of the packed items to the house, and paint the master bedroom. The next weekend, we hired movers to bring the bulk of our belongings to the new house.

I HIGHLY recommend hiring  movers. For the Baton Rouge people who read my blog, we used Two Men and a Truck. Again, HIGHLY recommend them.

Why did we hire movers? Well, the furniture we would have had to move on our own was just insane, not to mention padding it all, and making sure it stays in place on a truck. The peace of mind was well worth the $600 we spent. It made moving day much less stressful for us, and not to mention, much more efficient. Nothing got scratched or broken during the move and everything was unloaded in the new house in less than 5 hours!

Lately, we’re still unpacking our house a little at a time, because as crazy as it was to pack, unpacking is a different animal. Unpacking means finding a whole new place for everything. While we have much more space in the new house, it’s taking us a while to find just the right place for everything. Thankfully, we’re almost done with the house..just a few more boxes and bags to unpack!

I’m sure you’re wondering how Millie is doing with all of this. As you might know, our dog is pretty easy to scare or make nervous, sadly. Since we adopted her, we really don’t know what caused her to be so scared and nervous, but I will say that this was hard on her.

When I let her walk around the old, empty house, you could just see that she was very nervous and scared. She basically walked around the room, would sniff and softly whine. It was really sad to watch her act unfamiliar with the place that was once our home.

When I brought her to the new house, she whined anytime we put her in her crate. (We had to crate her at some points, because she will put everything in her mouth, and well, with tools and tiny screws all over the floor, it just wasn’t worth taking a chance.)

After about a week, though, she relaxed a good bit and got back to her favorite spot: lying on the floor next to the sofa.

 It has been quite an adjustment for us, but I love our new neighborhood. We’ve already met quite a few of our neighbors and Millie is already making new puppy friends. Stay tuned…I promise I will be posting more house pictures very soon!

I was checking my Google Reader today, trying to catch up after the holiday season, and saw that Jenny of Geek in Heels wrote a post about her dog, Comang, for a contest sponsored by Trupanion Pet Insurance called “Pawliday Blog Contest“. Y’all know I love writing about Millie, so I thought it would be fun to enter! The topic is “How My Pet’s Love is My Holiday Gift”, which is a wonderful subject since this was our first holiday season with Millie.

Millie actually was a holiday gift. My grandmother gifted the hubs and I with a check last Christmas,  and that check went towards Millie’s adoption costs, as well as a donation to help our local shelter.

I remember when we saw Millie’s picture on Facebook. The shelter has a non-profit to help adopt out the dogs (called Yelp! Baton Rouge) and that’s where all of the adoptable pets’ pictures were posted. The hubs and I instantly fell in love with Millie’s cute playful picture, so we inquired about her before the adoption day.

I remember rushing to put away the Christmas decorations one afternoon before we brought her home, because we wanted the house as puppy proof as possible. Little did we know what we were in for.

That very first night, she woke us up every hour. She seemed so sad and scared of her life without her siblings. After cleaning up multiple accidents in our house and dealing with puppy pads for the first week, the hubs and I were exhausted. It was very trying for us, because it was just the hubs and I before this. We weren’t sure how we were going to do this at all! However, we were definitely falling head over heels in love with this little fur ball.

Slowly, but surely, things started to get better for us. I remember thinking the first month with Millie was the longest month ever, because our lives were so different with this new puppy in our lives. After that first month, though, Millie’s care became much less daunting (no more accidents!) and this new little puppy in our lives was easily a part of our daily routine now!

Now that we’ve almost had her in our lives for a year now, it’s wonderful to look back on how positively our lives have changed because of her.

Millie is very sweet. Whenever we get home, she’s so SO happy to see us….EVERYTIME! Sometimes I wonder how that little tail of hers stays attached! It’s so wonderful to see how much she loves us. She always has to be around one of us, too. Whether it’s jumping on our bed to cuddle with the hubs or snuggling under my legs begging me to pet her, we just know that she loves us. Whenever one of us has a bad day, she just seems to know. Her cute little face will just make us forget the day we’ve had, even if only for a minute.

While the holiday season surely is a hectic one, it was so great to see that she was pretty much the same ol’ loving dog. During the panic of last minute baking and gifting, she still would snuggle with my feet and lick my ankles. The holidays never affected her, and I loved it, because it made me realize that the holiday season should truly be happier than I was making it out to be!

Two days ago, when Christmas Day came, I dumped out her stocking. Her reaction to $15 worth of chew toys and treats was just so awesomely cute. It’s still like Christmas Day when I give her a surprise from her stocking! Even right now, she is laying against my feet, as usual, chewing on a rope toy and every few minutes, she looks up and licks me (a little loving reminder, no?).

I can’t help but think of Millie’s love as the ultimate gift to us. She’s has such a simple, beautiful little soul and reminds me everyday that there is more to life than the stresses of the everyday.

As much as I rave about our cute dog, Millie, there has always been a bit of a problem with her when it comes to me/her. She likes to nip/bite me…a lot.

For example, she nips my leg if she wants me to get up or bites my hand if she wants to play. It used to be no big deal as a puppy, and I thought she’d outgrow it, but now, its starting to actually hurt!

She really doesn’t do this to the hubs either.

Has anyone ever dealt with this? I love her to pieces, but the biting needs to stop.

I decided to spend the majority of this weekend at my family’s house. My sister is performing in Urinetown (weird musical name, eh?), and I try not to miss her performances when she has a key role.

Also, I brought Millie with me to see her bestie, Dixie. I took the opportunity the try a large Nifty Woof on her (made her a duplicate of this one), for sizing. She’s 85 lbs. and I think the large looks nice on her.

Dixie is such a good sport, haha! I had to take it off of her immediately after because her and Millie were playing, and I didn’t want Millie to rip it to shreds.

What are you up to this weekend?

This little girl warms my heart. She does the cutest things, especially when she’s around the hubs. Just wanted to share!