Pride? Me? Never!!!

Yesterday was a good day. Not only did I get to my doctors appointment on time, but I also met up with my friend Katie. Katie recently got back from a medical missions trip to South Africa, so I was excited to see pictures, and hear stories. The picture above was taken by one of Katie's teammates. I hope its okay that I use it!

We got talking about how Katie raised money for her trip. She told me that she had 72 people donate money for her to go on her trip. I love missionaries, and I love Katie, so when Katie told us she was going, Donnie and I were happy to give. All the money that Katie was given went through her church, so she got a list of the people that donated money for her trip, but not the amount of money that each person gave.

This fact really surprised me. And to be very honest I was upset. Donnie and I gave generously for Katie's trip. I thought that when she saw the amount that we donated she would be singing our praises forever. I thought she would say things like "Wowie wow wow, that Stacey and Donnie are good Christians" Needless to say none of this happened.

I was thinking a lot about this, and then the Holy Spirit brought to mind a passage in the Bible.

Matthew 6

Giving to the Needy

1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Wow....did I mess up. I was definitely looking to be honored by a person and not by God. I thank Katie for helping show me how pride can sneak up in my life!

But I still say if she goes on a trip again, I'm writing the check in Katie's name so she can see how great I am. hahaha Just Kidding.

Wow!

I have the bestest hubby in the world!!!! He cleaned the study and bathroom, and vacuumed the whole house!!!!! Wow!!!! I'm so blessed!!!! The best part about having a small house is the fact that we can plug the vacuum in the bathroom plug and vacuum the whole house!!!
Seeing that he did such a great job inside I thought I would head outside to do some weeding. Well..I'm not sure what got into me, but I found a saw and started sawing away!!!! A big part of the yard was overgrown with all this shrub like stuff, and I had enough of it!! I hacked it all down. I was so proud of myself!!!! Frankie was out with me to make sure I was doing a good job.
All the stuff that I cut I throw into our makeshift compost pile. Every time we work in the yard we have been throwing the waste into an empty flower bed. Donnie and I have named it our compost pile. At some point we will need to bag it all and take it to the curb.


Here is a picture of some sunflowers that I'm growing. They have gotten so tall!

Black?

Many a post back I made a comment that I was going to change my appearance. Well...today was the day! Today I dyed my hair black. However, here's the problem. I was so worried about getting the back of my hair that I sorta did not think about the front as much. Therefore, the back is much darker than the front. It sorta looks like I have black hair with a couple brown highlights in the front. Now I can't decide if I want to leave it like this, or redye it. When I see you folks in person I will have to get your input. Right now all I have for you is a picture.

Happy (Day After) Birthday to my Dad!

Yesterday was a big day. My dad turned the big 6-0!!!!! To celebrate this monumental occasion my mom cooked a fest, and had friends over. The food was great!!!! The Cold Stone ice cream cake (the only reason I really went hehehe) was even better!!!!!

I think at some point there was a new tradition in my family of a champagne toast for birthdays. My mom had bought a non alcoholic version for the kiddies. And with out even asking us, my mom gives both Donnie and I the kiddie drink. I feel so insulted. Yes, Donnie and I don't drink, but it would be nice to at least be offered the adult drink. :-)

While chatting with a fellow dog owner last night I was told that you are to never throw a Kong. Now the Kong is the ONLY toy that Frankie will play with. We have HOURS of fun with him by throwing the Kong, and he will chase it all around the house. So when we were told that you are not to throw the Kong I was very upset.

So today I went on their website to see for myself. Thankfully they were incorrect. I found this on the Kong website. All is well with the world now!

Perfect for Interactive Play
Interactive play strengthens the bond between you and your dog. Make this critical time special. Your dog will love getting out in the fresh air to play with you and everyone’s favorite training toy...KONG. Try a few of these exercises developed by top trainers or invent your own. Be creative! KONG Fetch: Use two KONG toys; ask your dog to sit before you throw the first KONG. When your dog brings the KONG toy back, show him the other KONG and ask him to “drop” the first. Then start all over again. KONG Hide and Seek: Stuff one or more KONG toys with any KONG Stuff’N treat and hide them around your house or yard.

Crazy

I had the most mixed up day yesterday. Seeing that I don't work on Wednesdays I try to do all my doctors appointments and meeting up with friends on this day. So I had a doctors appointment at 2, and then I was meeting my dear friend Katie at 4.

Seeing that I did not have to be anywhere till 2 I spent most of the day lounging around the house. I was setting up some other appointments when I looked at my calender and saw that my doctors appointment was at 8am, not 2pm! I had missed my doctors appointment! I was so upset with myself. So I promptly called and rescheduled.

Seeing that I did not go to the doctor, I called my friend Katie and we planned to meet at 2:30, not 4. We planned to meet at "our" Starbucks. Both of us do love Starbucks. So I went to "our" Starbucks and waited and waited...and waited for Katie. She never showed up. I thought that was so odd of her. I ended up talking to her (via voice mail) and there was another mix up. When I said "our" Starbucks I was talking about one that we meet at in Southfield. Katie took "our" Starbucks to be the one in Rochester. So we were both waiting for each other at different Starbucks, and neither of us had our cell phones with us. Too crazy.

Onto another crazy subject. Frankie is shedding like CRAZY! Here is a picture of my shirt after petting him for like 2 min.

To combat this shedding problem I recently bought a Furminator. This thing takes out SO much hair!! It works great, and Frankie loves it. Now I just have to remember to do it more often!

Must Have DQ!!!!!

Hi....I'm Stacey...and I'm addicted to Dairy Queen. It all started with a coupon. One coupon has led to this addiction. This coupon was buy one cone, get one free. I could not resist this great bargain seeing that DQ was so close to my house. At first Donnie, Frankie and I would all go together for a fun night out. But today I was caught eating it alone. I blame my addiction on the drive thru. It is way to easy to get my drug of choice. It has gotten so bad that today I was digging to the bottom of my purse to find change to buy my cone. The road to recovery happens one step at a time, and today marks my first step.

Happy News!

I have happy news. Today after church Donnie and I headed over to Best Buy and bought me a camera charger!!!!! I can't tell you how great it is to have my camera back!!!! Yeah!!!!
In honor of this great day Frankie had his first "real" photo shoot. I have never really tried to do a shoot with a dog before, and I have to say it was not the easiest thing in the world to do. However, it was great fun and I do like how some of the pictures turned out!

Sad, Sad, Sad

So I think I have officially lost the charger for my camera. This is very tragic. Me without a camera is like Donnie without his Transformers. Not a pretty sight. To make matters worse, it was my dear friend Courtney's birthday last night, and I have no pictures from it!

I think I will go hunting online to buy another one. sniff sniff sniff

To make up for this sad news I'm posting a video that I took (when my camera was working) of the kitten's at Donnie's Dad's house.

Flaw?

Donnie and I had a funny conversation last night. It went like this:

Donnie: Everyone has flaws

Stacey: I don't :-)

Donnie: Yes you do

Stacey: Name one

Donnie: Your selfish!

Can you believe that??? He called me selfish! How dare he! Just because I have a blog that I just talk all the time about ME does NOT make me selfish. Just because I have a birthday week does not make me selfish. Just because I make everyone celebrate my half birthday does not make me selfish. Maybe when he realizes that the world revolves around me he will change his mind. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I'm Back!

Now that I'm back from our trip to West Virgina I can get caught up on posting!!! Here's a recap of our trip

Day 1 Tuesday
We did not end up leaving here till about 8pm, so that put us in West Virgina around 4am. Needless to say I slept most of the way through Ohio, and West Virgina. Frankie did great in the car and slept just as much as I did! Once we got there I went straight to bed. Call me anti social, but I had to get to bed.

Day 2 Wednesday Happy 4th of July!
I was not sure how Frankie was going to react to being in a new house. However, early on he was walking around like he owned the place. No need to worry about Frankie!
I was also not sure about how Donnie's dad would react to Frankie. While Donnie was growing up they always had dogs, but his dad insisted that dogs stay outside. Little Frankie is definitely an indoor dog. As it turns out Donnie's dad LOVED Frankie! They ended up being best friends!

We bought some sparklers to celebrate the 4th of July with, but a huge storm rolled in so we had to hold off on the sparklers.

Day 3 Thursday
Today we got to spend time with the cats. Donnie's dad had two cat last time we were there, but this time there were the two cat, and 4 kittens!!! They are the cutest things ever!

On a sad note, they were not very found of Frankie. Every time they saw him they hissed at him. This made Frankie very sad. He kept asking us, "Why do my cousins hate me?"

So we ended up keeping Frankie inside when we wanted to play with the kittens. Donnie's dad wanted us to take one with us, but we were not up to having a kitten that hated our dog.
Later that night we played with the sparklers that we had bought the day before.
Day 4 Friday
Today tragedy struck. My camera's batteries went dead, so I went looking for the charger. Sadly I had forgotten the charger at home. This was very sad news for me! We spent most of the day at Wal-Mart because Donnie's dad was going to the eye doctor there. We looked and looked to buy a replacement charger, but we had no luck. How sad!

Day 5 Saturday
Today we got to spend more time with the cats! Here are some more cat pictures I took before my camera died.

We ended up leaving West Virgina around 5pm to head back home. Frankie was doing very well..until he got car sick. The roads around Donnie's dad's house are very turnie. They go up, down, and around and around. This took its toll on Frankie. Poor Guy.

So now its back to work and our normal routine. However, it has been SO hot that when I come home, I go straight for the bedroom (its air conditioned) and I don't leave. I keep telling Donnie we need to move the computer into the bedroom. So far it has not moved. hehehe

New Plan

Currently Donnie is laid off of work for two weeks. He thought he would use this time to go visit his dad in West Virgina. His plan was to leave last Saturday. However, plans have changed. Donnie came down with a bad tooth ache and wanted to go to the dentist before leaving. The dentist could not see him until yesterday, so he stuck around. Then I thought well...if Donnie waits till after I get done with work on Tuesday, then I could go with him.

So a new plan was born. Donnie and I are going down to visit his dad for the rest of the week. And yes, we are taking Frankie with us. He wants to meet his other grandpa! We are leaving the hammy and gerbils here. They already got to meet grandpa, so now its Frankie's turn! Frankie told us to make sure to pack his food bowl!!!!

I rock!!!

I got an award!!!! Yeah!!!! My dear friend Sherry awarded it to me!!!! Yeah!!! I feel so honored! Now I'm going to pass this award onto other rockin girl blogger!

I'm going to award this to my friend AnneMarie. She has a great blog this is always thought provoking. She has a love for the Lord that is incredible. She's a blessing to many people!

Grooming

Today was a big day for our little Frankie. We took him to get groomed for the first time. He had his nails trimmed, ears cleaned, teeth brushed, and he got a bath. And for being such a good pug he got a bandanna, and a charm!

He was at Petsmart for 2 hours to get all this done. I think that's a really long time! So we ended up leaving him there, and going out for dinner. Now this was the first time that I had left him with strangers, and I did not handle it well. The whole time we were at dinner I was asking Donnie if I could use his phone (I had left mine at home) to call and check on Frankie. He said no.
While I was teaching I hated the parents who thought that their child could do no wrong. But I think I'm turning into that parent! My little Frankie would never do anything bad, and I was sure to let the grooming people know this. They said he was a perfect angel the whole time. I would expect nothing less from our little Frankie!

Boy its Hot!

Today has been SO hot! Seeing that I do not work on Wednesdays, I got to spend the day in our sweltering house. At about noon the thermometer inside our house said it was 86 degrees. At one point I left the house to go run some errors, and I felt so guilty being in air conditioned car while Frankie was in the hot house. So I can home and we roasted together. Is it possible to melt?

Zoo!

After church today Donnie and I headed over to the Detroit Zoo for the afternoon. The zoo added a couple warthogs a while back so we had to go check them out. The bad news about our trip was that is was really hot, and when its really hot the animals don't do a whole lot. But we still had a great time.
One of our first stops was to see the polar bears. Donnie loves the polar bears. Because it was so hot I think they were all trying to get in the little shade that there was.
Another stop that we highly enjoy is the kangaroos. One of them was just posing so nicely for the camera.
Then we headed to the prairie dogs. They are one of my favorite things at the zoo. I think this is because they remind me of gerbils and hamsters. We were told that there are about 21 baby prairie dogs. They are SO cute! I wanted to take one home, but Donnie said no. :-(
We ended our trip with the warthogs. They were very hard to find, and not to entertaining once we did find them! Ohh well....not all the animals can be as fun as prairie dogs!

New Digs

Frankie wanted me to post this picture of him and his new bed. Donnie and I bought it for him last week, and we were not sure if he would like it or not. However, he has really taken to it. He is also very fond of his grandpa. My dad came over tonight and we went out to dinner. After dinner he got to see Frankie in all his Frankie glory. Frankie was very excited to have someone new petting him.

Bad Stacey......

Okay, once again I have been totally slacking with posting. Sorry. I'm trying to limit my Internet time to just the mornings before I go to work. That does not make a lot of time for blogging. Something will have to be done about this!
For you peeps that live in the Detroit area...have you all been to a Farmer Jack lately? For those of you that don't know, they are closing the stores, and everything is massively discounted! Its great! Donnie and I have been to two different ones in the past week. All greeting cards are 80% off! You can't beat that!
In other news...Donnie and I are addicted to the show NSIC. We watch every night online. Does anyone else love this show? Abby (pictured above) is my favorite person on the show. I love this girl! So in honor of her, I'm making a change in my appearance. Any guesses?

Happy (day after) Fathers Day!

Yesterday after church Donnie and I headed over to my parents to celebrate fathers day. Donnie and I made this is candy tree thing (pictured above) for his present. He thought it was great!

Now here's the story behind the tree. My mom calls me on Friday and tells me that Martha Steward made this tree on her show, and it would be great for me to make for my dad. So I go online, and watch a video of her making it. Looked easy enough. However, I was sadly mistaken. It took Donnie and I a VERY long time to figure out how we were going to do it. (Martha used a hot glue gun, and I did not have one) In the end we cut up paperclips and used them to attach the candy to a foam cone. Now that we know what we are doing, I think Donnie and I could whip one up in no time!

Wow!

I was a part of something yesterday that was truly amazing. As many of you know last year I worked for a non profit called City Mission. Yesterday the directors Nicole and Jamail had quite the celebration. They renewed their wedding vows in honor of their 10 year anniversary. Then 6 people got baptized! One of these people was my very own Caci. I was so proud of her! It was also very cool to see her mom and dad baptize her!

After the baptism everyone shared together in Communion. This was such a great thing! This was such a neat day because people that were all so different were all gathered together to celebrate something that they all have in common. God.

My Old Husband

So the other day Donnie and I were driving to go get dinner. And know what I found??? A gray hair on my dear husband!!!!! Of course I had to pull it out to show him. He claims it is just blond. But I think all would agree looking at the picture that it is gray! Of course I'm saving the hair for the rest of our lives. This proves that my husband is old!

Friday's with Frankie

Frankie here. I got such an overwhelming response from my last post, that mommy said I could post again! Today I'm posting a video that my mom took of me today. This shows just how much I love to go on walks! Enjoy!

Don't Worry

On my last post Katie commented that Frankie needed his own fan. No need to worry Katie, our dear Frankie already has his own fan, and he does spend most of his time in front of it. Everyone can sleep easy now!

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Once again it is really hot outside! Donnie and I bought a window air conditioner unit for our bedroom, so I have been spending almost all my time in the bedroom. This would explain my lack of blogging.

So Donnie and I were playing aggravation last night. I love to play games, and I was super excited when Donnie asked if I wanted to play aggravation. So things were going great, until Frankie joined the game. Recently Frankie's been into licking. Like A LOT. I don't let him lick me because I think it is gross. However, Donnie loves doggy kisses. So as we are playing Frankie starts licking Donnie. Then Donnie starts brushing Frankie, and not even paying attention to the game. I was very upset that I was not getting Donnie's full and undivided attention. I was the third wheel! yuck!

humm

Sorry about the long delay of a post. I will be better this next week I promise.

So tonight Donnie and I attended the dance recital of the two girls I nanny for. I have been dancing for the vast majority of my life, so I'm no stranger to dance recitals. However, this one was quiet the show.

Side Note (this will help in understanding the rest of the story): Donnie and I live not to far away from a certain "gentleman's club" named Chapeau Vert. Donnie and I make fun of this ALL the time. Okay back to the story

We came to the conclusion that this dance recital was sponsored by Chapeau Vert. It was THAT bad. The girls had barely any clothes on, and they were shaking things I did not know could shake! Donnie at times said he was feeling guilty watching it. We also concluded that this dance school is run by Chapeau Vert in order to train their future dancers. How sad.