...You can take a dog for a walk...

"This is my after-walk happy face."

...but you can't tell her how far to go!!!  Jaz is doing super, but she definitely wants to determine the pace and distance of our outings!  When we first get going she'll run with me for a while, and she looks like a blur next to me...today, however, we rounded the corner that leads back to the apartment, and she proceeded to sit down in the street and look at me like she was saying, "This is as far as I go."  I had to pick her up to get her out of the road!!  We usually go about a mile and a half.  And she has a 'boyfriend' we see every night - Rowdy, a Wheaten terrier who looks like a teddy bear and is so soft I just want to snuggle with him.  He's only 9 months old - so apparently she likes younger men ;)  (No comments from the peanut gallery, please - you know who you are!)  We get to make lots of new friends and always get compliments on how sweet and cute she is...but who can resist that face!?!  And it's hard to miss the dog with the flashing LED light on her collar in the dog...which is the point of having it in the first place!  We're going to try out the dog park in Nassau Bay and on Bay Area soon.

...I'm spent...

Financial Peace University is going well...I am learning that I spend way too much money on food.  So I'm hoping my budget will force me to eat less and slim down - I think I'll call it the Dave Ramsey diet :)  But if I stick to it, I will have the first of my student loans paid off in about 8 months.  Which I'm technically supposed to do before I attempt to buy a house...again...  It's such a tough choice.  Maybe I'll just find the Boardwalk Monopoly piece at lunch tomorrow and win $1 million so I don't have to worry about it...there goes that whole spending too much money on food again...

My New Personal Trainer

Jazi is heartworm free!!!  Dr. Marcoux gave us the all-clear yesterday morning, and I can't remember a time when I was more thrilled!  She told us she was glad Jaz was healthy, but she was going to miss seeing Jaz so often - she doesn't have many patients who enjoy having their chest listened to so much that they fall asleep on the exam table :)

We went to Petco after the appointment to get Jaz a present for being heartworm free.  She got a new sweater and a blinking LED light for her collar when we walk, and it's dark outside.  She was shivering this weekend with the semi-cold weather so I figured I better get her something to keep her warm while they're on sale :)

After a long nap, we then went for her very first official walk about halfway around our lake.  Then she took another long nap.  Being a real dog is apparently very exhausting!  She got to see Hilary and Belle for a little while and sleep through her first Texans game (and I napped with her during the 3rd quarter).

I also spoiled her with two new toys I bought months ago on sale at Petco - and her favorite toy that she now carries everywhere is her neon pink hedgehog.  She still won't play with the real one she lives with though!  She also has a personalized toy box courtesy of Aunt Hil and Thirty-One :)

This evening when I got home she had a very clear agenda:

1. Water
2. Potty
3. Pull every new toy out of my toy box to make sure they are still there.



a very exhausted baby with her new hedgie and toy box

4. Eat

So we both ate and then went for a run.  And she LOVES to run!  She looked like a little rabbit hopping and zipping all over.  I had to run to keep up with her, but we actually kept pretty close to the same pace the whole walk.  She stuck with me for about a mile (when she wasn't stopping quickly to sniff something incredibly amazing) before she slowed down to a good cool down pace.  We went just over a mile and a half.

 Once she made it up the stairs, she went straight to her water bowl and then crashed on the ottoman before I even had my shoes off!  She napped for about 20 minutes, but then it was necessary to pull all her toys back out.  She is now running around the living room from toy to toy.  It really is like a kid at FAO Schwartz for the first time.

Her favorite is still hedgie!  I think we will make a pretty good team!!  She is my little survivor, and I know God gave us each other for a very special reason.  I think we rescued each other.  I'm not glad she had to end up at a shelter, but I am glad God put us in the same place at the same time so I could bring her home.  Now that she's healthy, it's going to be even more fun watching how God uses her in my life, and us in the paths we cross!