To round off all of my guest posts, I’m thrilled to introduce one of my bff’s and one of my bridesmaids, Jess! She’s been staying at our house watching the dogs while we’ve been gone and will take up residency with her fiance, Chris in our home while we live in Spain. We’re so grateful to them for watching Wrigley and Zoe for three weeks, and it’s so funny to read this post about her experiences living in our home! We can’t wait to come back home tomorrow!
Hola! I’m Jess, Mandy and Mike’s friend, current dog-sitter extraordinaire, and future tenant. Thanks to a lot of help from Mandy, I’m also the Lazy Gourmet on my food blog: Lazy Kitchenette-and now, also thanks to Mandy, I’m blogging over at Fearlessly Free about life, love, laughs, and trying new things.
As Mandy has mentioned, we’ll be moving in to their house while they’re away for the year. So these last few weeks have been a sort of test-run, where we got a feel for the house and were able to ask questions, meet the neighbors, and explore the area.
I would say that Mandy and I are really close friends, but I didn’t realize how much more there was about her that I could learn from stepping into her shoes for a little while.
For instance, it never occurred to us that Mandy and Mike only have one TV in their home. Well, two if you count the one in the basement, which we don’t because we never go down there. I think that having one TV for the whole house is really applause worthy. It’s a sign of a healthy, active couple who, when they want to relax, make sure that they do it together. I’m not saying that Chris and I are unhealthy, but our relationship is, expectedly, different from Mike and Mandy’s. While I love Chris, I really don’t love watching the Discovery Channel all day long, nor does he enjoy my penchant for awesomely bad TV. Occasionally, we like to do our own thing, and usually it involves Chris playing video games and me watching a musical. This requires two televisions. While having only one TV hasn’t been a problem for us yet, we know that eventually an extra TV will have to be brought in.
Call me when the Discovery Channel looks more like this ^. Is it awful that I would totally watch this show?
Next thing I learned is that Mandy and I are opposite drawer people. Never heard of this rare phenomenon? Let me explain it to you: Have you ever been in someone’s kitchen and you had to guess where things are kept, and so you think, “Well if this were my kitchen, I’d put the water glasses in this cabinet!” and you swing open the door and find….tupperware. That’s how I feel in Mandy’s kitchen. Mandy is a “utensils in the right drawer, cooking tools in the left” while I’m the exact opposite. It’s frustrating, and I’ve found that it has a lot to do with where your mom put stuff. If your mom kept utensils in the left drawer when you were growing up, then that’s where you’ll put them in your kitchen too. So now I’ve also probably learned where Mandy’s mom keeps things in her house. If I ever go there looking for a fork, I’ll probably know which drawer to find it in: the right drawer. Am I right, Mandy?! lol (Note from Mandy: actually, in the house I grew up in, silverware was on the left!! In my mom’s house NOW though, silverware is on the right. I guess my mom and I are just “whatever suits this specific kitchen people” though I never thought about it until now!)
Maybe I just need labels on the outsides of the cabinets
Here’s something we learned about ourselves while we were here: While dog-sitting Wrigley and Zoe, we’ve gotten our first real attempt at having dogs. I have always wanted a dog. Always. Wrigley and Zoe are really high energy dogs, which is a great fit for Mandy and Mike, because they’re super active. But let’s face it. Our fat asses are not active. The change in our lifestyle has been drastic, and almost all of the changes are for the better. We’ve made a real effort to keep the dogs entertained, and it has really helped me get out of the house more and walk them regularly-which gives me a reason to exercise. I also spend a lot of time in the back yard with them, which has definitely helped my vitamin D intake, even if my supply of Cortizone10 is now fearfully low (Jersey in the warm evenings anyone?). I’ve been begging Chris for a dog for-ever, and after a lot of discussion about our experiences with Wrigley and Zoe, we’re realizing that our moms were right: A dog is a LOT of responsibility. It really is like having a child.
After an extremely late night involving Wrigley, a shit-ton of jalapeno peppers, a bath, a thorough cleaning of the entire house, and an hour of blow drying a sick dog….we realized there’s no way we could commit to having a dog at this point in our lives.
I want to make it clear that Wrigley and Zoe are wonderful dogs, and they’ve been fantastic, and it’s nothing that they did. It’s a combination of two things: The first is that I just finished an intensive training for a promotion to a new position at work that will have me traveling 60% of the time. As much as we love the companionship, hilarity, and health benefits that Wrigley and Zoe offer, it just wouldn’t be fair to a dog to have me gone so much of the time, and it wouldn’t be fair to leave Chris as a single dad (puppy-dad anyway) for more than half the time. The second thing is that possibly for the first time ever, I’ve realized that having a dog isn’t all about belly rubs, cuddle buddies, and doing tricks. It’s a lot of work, and no matter how hard you try, things will happen. Dogs get sick just like people do, and it’s your responsibility as the puppy parents to take care of them. Ooooh, but the belly rubbing and cuddling and playing is sooooo fun! *Le Sigh* Someday. Just not for us right now.
I’m going to miss the pups like whoa when they’re off to Spain though, which is why I’ll keep this video around for a long time:
Zoe whips her hair back and forth
I love how Wrigley just sits in the forefront staring at us. What you miss is that at the end of this video is that Zoe drops the ball and Wrigley decides he’s had enough of us laughing at Zoe, so he takes the ball away from her and they play tug of war with it for a solid 7 minutes. We’ve nicknamed them Pebbles and Bam-Bam. They’re such a tag team. They’re completely different dogs when they’re together as compared to when they’re apart.
So I guess in this instance, the thing I learned about Mandy is that she is a phenomenal puppy mommy. You can tell the dogs really miss their parents, and for good reason: Their parents happen to be two awesome people, and together, the four are an adorable family.
Don’t you agree?
Too Cute!
We can’t wait for Mandy and Mike to get back so we can share our experiences and see all the pictures of their incredible vacation in Spain…hopefully over a bottle of wine they’ve brought back with them (oh, don’t even try to hide it guys. We know you don’t go anywhere without bringing back some wine).
Break out the cava, people! Let’s wish Mike and Mandy a warm and safe homecoming!
Have you ever house-sat, babysat, or dogsat? Was it as much of an eye opening experience for you as it was for me?
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