A Month of Me - Day 31

I did it!  I did it!  I did it!  

Back on the first of May I set a goal to write a post every day.  I wasn't sure that I could do it, but The Lady told me that it was important to have goals.  She said that sometimes you achieve your goals and sometimes you don't, but you can't achieve them if you don't have them.  I am a very lucky little monster because Mr. Guy and The Lady will do all that they can to help me.

We had lots of little adventures and lots of quiet time together at home.   It makes me happy to be able to go back and look at the stories I wrote and all of our pictures from A Month of Me so I can remember these times.  I don't know that I can continue to write every single day, but having done so for a whole month makes me realize how much I enjoy sharing my life with all of you.

Lots of people are graduating from school right now.  They are celebrating years and years of studying and working hard to earn diplomas and degrees.  I am not graduating because I don't go to school, but Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that they are just as proud of my writing accomplishments, that I worked hard for a whole month.  They said that we should take a special picture of me in honor of me reaching my goal.  I don't have special rigamarole like The Lady and those people who are graduating from school,  but I did put on my fancy clothes!

I have a bow tie.  I like it better than Mr. Guy's big fat red string that he wore around his neck!  And I have a vest, which is really just a shirt with no arms.  I wouldn't want to wear these fancy clothes all the time, but I suppose they are OK when it is a special occasion.

Mr. Guy had one last surprise May surprise for me.  He has been full of surprises this month.  Most of them are good!  He found a hat for me, one that is just the right size for my head!

He said that it is a hat sort of like one that he has.  It's not a yellow rain hat and it's not a hat to keep my head warm in the winter.  It is a fancy hat to go with my fancy clothes.  This hat does not have holes for my horns so I wasn't sure exactly how I should wear it.

Should I wear it over just one horn?

Or should I wear it over both of them?

I think that wearing it over both of my horns makes me look too serious and grown up. I am not a serious and grown up monster.  I am just a fun-loving happy-go-lucky little blue and orange furry monster who enjoys life!  

Which style do you prefer?

Thank you again for following me during the month of May.  June and July are going to be busy months for me and my family.  I am going on a trip this weekend to meet some of The Lady's picture taking friends. Then it is Mr. Guy's birthday, and my adoption day, and our trip to Pittsburgh, and our trip to England.  I am going to have a lot to tell you about!  I hope you will check back here every now and then and see what I am up to!

Farewell Month of Me!  I will miss you.

Welcome June!  Let's have some fun!

A Month of Me Day 30

Most of the time I like holidays when Mr. Guy and The Lady get to stay home.  I'm happy that we were all at home today, but the reason that we have the Memorial Day holiday is sad.

Tonight Mr. Guy built a fire in his fire bowl.  I liked all of the orange colors in the fire, but it was a little scary at first.  Those orange flames jumped way high and it got really hot.  I was afraid my fur might melt!  Mr. Guy said that everything would be fine and that my fur would not melt.  He is very careful when he makes the fires.

We sat outside on the patio and watched the sun set and the fire burn.  It was nice and relaxing.  Even the four-legged monsters seemed relaxed.

My Month of Me is almost over.  I only have one more day.  It sure has been fun writing something every single day.  I hope I can keep writing when it's not the Month of Me anymore and becomes the month of June.

A Month of Me - Day 29

Mr. Guy is home again tomorrow! Yay! He tells me that it is a holiday called Memorial Day. It is the day we remember all the people who have died in wars fighting to protect our country and our freedom. 

I don’t like the idea of fighting and dying. But Mr Guy says sometimes bad people attack people and the people attacked have to fight to defend themselves. And sometimes people die fighting. I think it would be better if we all just lived peacefully. But I understand what Mr Guy means. I know I would fight if someone attacked The Lady, Mr Guy, Offspring 1 or Offspring 2. 

The Lady and Mr Guy took me to Liberty Plaza today. Liberty Plaza is a big park that is near where we live. 

It is a place to created especially to remember all those people who died, or who fought and did not die, protecting our country's freedom. Mr Guy told me there are people still serving and fighting in places all over the world. We should always remember them too and keep them in our prayers. 

Liberty Plaza is a pretty  place. There is a big American flag... 

...and a couple of special statues. 

One of the statues made me a little sad.  My eyes got blurry because of the rain on the outside and maybe a little because of rain that was coming from my eyes.

The statue was of a little boy holding and American flag perfectly folded in a triangle with the stars on the outside.  I recognized that flag.  When The Captain died, The Lady got a flag just like that so I knew that it meant that that little boy's father or mother was killed in a war.  

We have two folded flags at our house - The Captain's and Mr. Guy's father's.  I'm glad that we have them.  They remind me every day to say a special prayer for all of our armed services men and women.

The other statue is of a veteran from World War I.

He has poppies in his hand.   These help him to remember all of his comrades with whom he served, but did not come home.  When we got home, The Lady and Mr. Guy read this poem to me; it tells the story of the poppies.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly.

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

- Colonel John McCrae

That is a lot for a little blue and orange furry monster to think about.

Mostly Liberty Plaza is a quiet place where we can go to think about and say "thank you" to all those people who have given  their lives in the service of our country. 

It was raining today, so we did not get to spend much time just sitting, but I'm glad that we went.

A Month of Me - Day 28

Tonight was another night that Mr. Guy and The lady weren't home.  They went to hear some sinfully music.  That didn't sound like a good idea to me.  Why would they want to listen to that kind of music?  I was a little worried about them, but I know that they will go to church tomorrow so they can repent for their evening of listening to sinfully music.

I stayed home and watched HGTV and ate patriotic candy that our friend Mr. Jim brought us from his trip to Philadelphia.  I've been to Philadelphia, but I didn't get and red, white, and blue candy when I was there.  I was not watching sinfully TV or eating sinfully candy.  I was being a very good blue and orange furry monster!  I even kept The Lady and Mr. Guy's spot on the bed warm while they were gone.

When The Lady and Mr. Guy got home, they seemed all happy.  They didn't seem ashamed at all to have spent their evening corrupting their ears with sinfully music.  I asked them if they weren't just a little bit remorseful (I learned that word in the dictionary the other day.) for how they had spent their evening.  They looked at me strangely, like all of the sudden I had turned pink and had no horns.  The Lady asked me what I was talking about.  I told her that I thought she should be sorry for leaving me at home with the other furry monsters at home all night and going out to listen to sinfully music.  She started laughing at me and said, "Symphony!  Not sinfully."  

Oh!  I was so relieved!   I will sleep much better tonight.

A Month of Me - Day 27

Mr. Guy did not have school today because it was a bad weather day.  It sure was!  It was pouring rain this morning.  It was raining so hard that it stayed dark until almost lunchtime. With no sun, we didn't know what time it was so we all slept late.  Oh, that is not the right kind of bad weather day.  Well, it did rain all morning!  Today was an extra school day in case Mr. Guy missed school for snow back in the winter.  Since he didn't, today was a free day.  Yay!

The Lady and Mr. Guy wanted to take me to the Dallas Arboretum, but we had to use a bad weather day and stay home because of the rain.  I didn't know what the arboretum was, but I always have fun when The Lady and Mr. Guy take me places so it was OK that I didn't know what it was.  I was disappointed that we didn't get to go.  The Lady told me that I shouldn't be too upset because we would have chances to go,  And, she also told me that next weekend we are going on a trip, and airplane trip to meet some of her picture taking friends and we are going to a place that is like the arboretum here.  I am excited!  I need to think about packing my shirts!  An airplane, new friends, and new places!  This trip will also help us celebrate Mr. Guy's retirement!  We are leaving on his last day of school forever.

This afternoon all of the rain went away at our house.  It turned out to be a beautiful evening.  Since we didn't get to have our whole day adventure, Mr. Guy and The Lady decided we could have a mini adventure tonight.  We went to the rose garden that our city has.  The Lady explained that this is like a little tiny arboretum, a place where there are pretty plants and flowers in lots of different colors.  I like colors!  This sounded like fun to me.

I wore my new peace sign t-shirt that came yesterday.  On our way to the garden, I decided that I was going to look for a flower to match every color of peace sign on my shirt.  That would make our adventure even more fun!

The weather was perfect to be outside - not too hot and not too cold for this blue and orange furry monster.

I decided that I would search for the colors in the order of the colors in the rainbow.

Red was first.

Then pink...

There were some flowers that were sort of pink and sort of orange, but not really either.  The Lady called them a salmon color.  Salmon?  That is a strange name for a color.  I thought salmon was a fish.   The Lady said that it is the name of a fish too, a fish whose insides are this color.  It is a pretty color, but I don't want to think about fish insides every time a see a salmon colored flower!

The Lady said that if I don't want to call this color "salmon, " I can call it coral.  I think I like that better.

Then ORANGE! I love ORANGE! The orange flower looked and smelled pretty!

Even though orange is a color and a fruit, Id' rather think about fruit when I see a color than the insides of that fish!

Next was yellow, the color of sunshine...and lots of flowers.

I wasn't so sure about yellow a few weeks ago, but I have decided that yellow is a happy color.  It makes me smile.  I would have been very happy to have had a yellow hat and raincoat this morning!!!

There was green everywhere!

I pretended that I was a blue and orange flower.

The next color that I looked for was violet.

Then indigo.  The Lady said that indigo is kind of like salmon coral because it is in between two colors.  It is between the violet and blue.

This in between color didn't bother me like the other one did.  In fact, I hardly noticed the color because there was bumblebee on the flower.  It wasn't scared of me and I didn't know until after we left those flowers that maybe I should have been scared of it because it could sting me and that might hurt.  I thought it was a kind of cute tiny little black and yellow furry monster.

The last, but certainly not least, color that I had to find was blue!

There was a big patch of blue flowers right behind the fountain.  And, Mr. Guy and I both had on blue shirts.  I can always find lots of blue.  I think my monster eyes see blue best!

I did it!  I found all of the colors in my shirt.  When you put them all together, they sure are beautiful!  It is like looking at my big box of crayons!

I had a happy day after all!  And, I am looking forward to my trip next week when I get to see more beautiful flowers!

A Month of Me - Day 26

Usually the first thing that Mr. Guy does when he gets home from school is checks for the mail.  The second thing he does is put the mail in the recycling bin.  This happens every day.   I don't know why the mailman keeps bringing the recycling back after Mr. Guy puts it in the big blue bin.  Maybe Mr. Guy needs to color over his address on his recycling so the mailman doesn't know where to deliver it.

Today Mr. Guy asked if I wanted to go with him to check the mail.  I opened the mailbox and there it was again...all of that recycling.  Mr. guy said that I should look carefully before I just put everything in the big blue bin.  

On the bottom of the stack was a puffy white plastic envelope with green letters.

It said, "It's here!"  I asked Mr. Guy what was here.  He told me to look at the name on the envelope.  It was for me!  I got mail!  I had no idea what it was.  Then I remembered that a few days ago Mr. Guy told me that he had ordered me a present.  I had already forgotten that so I was super surprised that the envelope was a present for me!

I asked Mr. Guy if it was OK to open it right now.  He said, "Sure!"  I stood right there at the mail box and tore open the envelope.  

"It's a brand new shirt!!!  And it's blue!  And it has lots of other colors too!"

Mr. Guy said that he ordered it for me last week after The Lady had frosted my claws and then the colors crashed with my fur and my shirts.  He thought this one would match almost any color that my claws might be.  I like all of the different colors, but I wasn't sure about the design.  It has all those different colors of pizza where the pieces are not cut evenly.  Someone is going to get a great big piece and someone else is going to get a little tiny piece.  They seemed like very unfair pizzas to me.  

Mr. Guy explained that they are not unfair pizzas, but rather, they are peace signs.  I know what peace is, sort of, but I don't think I have seen a peace sign.  I have only seen Stop signs and Stop signs are fair signs.  All of their pieces are equal.  I would think that a peace sign would have equal pieces.  Hey...those two peace/piece words sound the same but their letters are different.   I am glad that The Lady helped me use the right letters in the right words.

Mr. Guy and The Lady tried to explain to me why this shape is called a peace sign.  It involved a lot of history going back to 1958.  That is a long time ago!!!  Mr. Guy said it was not THAT long ago, only 58 years.  He told me that he has one more year of history than the peace sign.  Anyway, I didn't understand most of the history stuff they were telling me.  All I need to know is that this sign is now a symbol of piece peace.  It means good things.

A Month of Me - Day 25

Today was a special day for a couple of reasons.  First,  Mr. Guy said that he and lots of people other than me were wearing orange shirts today for a special reason.  He told me that there are many places in the world where women and girls are treated very badly. Sometimes they are even beaten! I told him that I think treating women and girls like this is terrible! I can't believe it. I can never see Mr Guy hitting The Lady, or Offspring 1 or 2, or the girl four-legged monsters at our house, or any other girls.  And if he ever wanted to hurt any of them,  I wouldn’t let him!  I know that that would never happen in our family, but that is not true in other places.

Mr Guy explained to me that the United Nations set up a group called “Just Say NO” where people could get information about how to help  stop these terrible things from happening. (http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/take-action/say-no)

As part of what they do they set aside one day each month as “Wear Orange Day”. http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/take-action?utm_source=Say+NO+%E2%80%93+UNiTE+to+End+Violence+against+Women&utm_campaign=f0374f1cdc-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_713f7be9fc-f0374f1cdc-71144005

On that day everyone wears orange to show that they do not like violence against women and girls. So Mr Guy and I wore our orange shirts all day long to show that we do not think anyone should be violent with women, or anyone else for that matter. I don't understand why anyone wants to hurt someone else.  We should all be kind to each other!

The second reason that today was special is because I got to go visit Mr. Guy at school.  He usually teaches about computers, but now he is a school librarian until he retires.  I like his old classroom with all of the computers, but I like the library better.  It has lots and lots of books!

Mr. Guy showed me the great big dictionary.  It is a book that has lots and lots of words but it doesn't tell a whole story.  It just tells the story of all the words.  Sometimes I get my words confused.  Mr. Guy said that the dictionary will help me to figure out how to use words correctly and it will also help me to learn new words.  

A dictionary is advantageous if an individual wishes to ameliorate and optimize his proficiencies regarding the avoidance of improper and erroneous locutions.

Using the dictionary is a lot of work for a blue and orange furry monster!

Mr. Guy also showed me another big book called an atlas.  It didn't have as many words as the dictionary.  It had pictures of places all over the world.  Mr. Guy told me that there are seven continents in the world.  I asked what a continent was.  He told me to go look it up in the dictionary.

"A continent is any of the world's main continuous expanses of land (Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America)."

We live in North America.  Mr. Guy told me today that this summer we are going to visit another continent.  We are going to England, which is on the continent called Europe.  

This is all too much for my little monster brain.  No wonder Mr. Guy and The Lady are always so tired when they get home from school.  All of this learning stuff overburdens my the capacity of my cerebral function.

After all of this new stuff, I just wanted to find a comfortable cathedra in which to read a gratuitous periodical.

Get me away from this dictionary!!!

Finally I had to just go sit in Mr. Guy's lap and let my brain rest.  I always like it best when Mr. Guy holds me and I can be his little monster and he can be the smart one.

A Month of Me - Day 24

Tonight I matched the sunset sky.  It was many beautiful shades of blue and orange!

A Month of Me - Day 23

Mr. Guy and The Lady were not home for dinner tonight because they had to go to a special dinner.  Mr. Guy told me that he is retiring from school and it was a celebration dinner.  Why are they celebrating Mr. Guy being tired again?  The Lady and Mr. Guy are always talking about how tired they are like it is a bad thing.  And just when summer is coming and they will get some rest Mr. Guy is going to get retired?  Sometimes grown-ups just don't make any sense!

When Mr. Guy got home I noticed that he had a big fat red string around his neck.  

No wonder he is tired!  He is not getting any air with that string tied around his neck.  Oh wait!  Maybe he said retied, not retired.  They were celebrating that he was having a big fat red string tied on his neck.  Hmmm...that doesn't sound like any reason to celebrate either.  I was still confused!  Finally I just asked Mr. Guy what was going on.

Mr. Guy explained that retired means that he is not going to go to school anymore after two more weeks.  He is going to stay at home with me and the four-legged monsters and take care of us while The Lady goes to school.  He told me that he is going to be a stay at home monster dad.  Suddenly everything started sounding better!  Mr. Guy said that we would read books together and work in the garden and go to the park and go shopping and maybe even sleep late.  He said that The Lady would probably want us to do some things that weren't so fun, like laundry and dusting, but that there should still be lots of time for us to do fun stuff together.  He said that there may also be days that we might even get to go have lunch with The Lady at school.   Now I get it.  The Lady will still go to school and she will be tired, not retired.

That still didn't explain the fat string around his neck.  Mr. Guy said that it is called a neck tie and that it is kind of like a decoration that makes men look fancy and grown up.  Mr. Guy usually wears t-shirts like me and I think they look just fine.  I don't think I want to look fancy and grown up if it means I have to wear a fat string neck tie.  I want to be able to breathe the fresh air!  Mr. Guy said it wasn't so bad; he let me try on his tie. 

The red clashes with my fur!  Mr. Guy said that he has an orange and blue tie that would match my fur if I ever need to wear a neck tie.  I hope I don't ever have to be that grown up!  Mr. Guy said that one of the best things about being retired is that he can wear his t-shirts every single day!  I think I might like to skip working a just go from being a little blue and orange furry monster right to be a retired monster!

A Month of Me - Day 22

Sundays are usually uneventful days at our house, at least for me.  The Lady usually sings at church and then when Mr. Guy and The Lady get home they get ready for the next week by going grocery shopping and getting ready for school.  Now that The Lady is done with school for the summer, things are a little different.  The grocery shopping doesn't have to be done on Sunday and Mr. Guy and The Lady can do other stuff after church.  Today Mr. Guy went shopping, but not for food.  He decided that he needed a new chair for his desk.  He is going to give his old one to The Lady for her office at school.

Mr. Guy went to the office supply store to get his chair.  I thought they would give him a chair that was all ready for him to sit in.  Nope!  They gave him a chair kit.  

It was kind of like Lego.  If you followed all of the directions you'd end up with a chair.  If you don't follow the directions, you'd end up with a wheelbarrow, or a windmill, or a piece of yard art.  I was kind of worried that Mr. Guy would end up with something other than the chair that he needed.  He's not the best at putting things together; so, I decided that I should help him.  Mr. Guy thought that he should put his chair together outside so that we didn't have to carry the big box in to the house.  I thought that was good decision because if we put it together inside and then ended up with a wheelbarrow or a windmill or a piece of yard art, we'd just have to carry it back outside.  

We opened the box and found the instructions.  I got a little worried.  We really don't need any yard art!

This chair kit came with its own tools.  

And wheels.

And finally something that looked like part of a chair, or maybe a wheelbarrow.

The Lady did not stay outside with us.  She knows that Mr. Guy gets grouchy when he has to put stuff together.  He never plays with us when we play with Lego!  Just in case Mr. Guy's windmill wheelbarrow chair spun out of control, I had a nice safe place to seek cover.

The first piece that Mr. Guy needed was the propeller.  I don't know why his chair has a propeller.

Maybe it is so you can have a wind powered wheelbarrow.  That would make the yard work much easier!

So far, so good...

---until Mr. Guy started snacking on the parts of his kit.  If he eats that screw, the propeller is going to fall off of the wheelbarrow or his chair is going to collapse.  Either way, things will not be good!  I decided that I needed to help keep track of all of the pieces.

I quickly learned to be a quiet little blue and orange furry monster and stay out of the way and not say too much to Mr. Guy while he was concentrating on putting together his kit.  

I am very happy to report that in the end, perhaps with some divine intervention, Mr. Guy ended up with a chair...not a windmill or yard art or a wheelbarrow.  I was very brave and I sat in his new chair with him...and double checked the instructions to make sure that Mr. Guy didn't have any screws missing.  All is well.

We rolled his chair inside to his desk and we all lived happily ever after.

The end.