Going to the Twilight premier tonight

I am super excited because Rich and I (and probably every teenage girl in Charleston) are going to the midnight premier of Twilight tonight. If you've been living in a bubble lately, Twilight is the first book in a series of 4 written by Stephanie Meyer. I am a member of the CBBC, also known as the Crazy Ballatore Book Club, and we read Twilight as one of our selections. It is a love story full of all the usual teen angst, with the twist being that the boy love interest, Edward, is a vampire. It is absolutely cheesy but addicting. Everyone I know that has read the book has done so in like a day. You start and you just can't put it down. Books 2-4 go on to flesh out this relationship with quite a few twists, turns and supernatural events (I won't spoil anything for you) that will have you hooked til the last page, and then missing all the characters. It's one of those books/series that leave you feeling like something is missing in your life when you finish reading them, you find yourself wondering what Edward and Bella are up to...then you realize you're a big nerd for thinking about them in the first place! Anyway, this is definitely not Richard's number 1 choice for a movie, hello there is a Bond flick out, but since midnight officially begins my last ever birthday before the big three-0, he has kindly agreed to be my date...secretly I think he just wants to be a creepy old man and check out all the cute young girls that are sure to be up past their schoolnight bedtime for this movie, but whatever.

Last night's 3.5 mile run was excellent. Neither of us have a pedometer, altho I really really want a Garmin and am saving up for that one, so we sometimes drive our runs first to estimate distance, or we just quesstimate an amount of time and run that way. That's what we did last night, we decided on 39 minutes. It was dark and it was cold, so we were all bundled up in our warm gear. We walked a few minutes to warm up then started out nice and slow but gradually sped up to a pretty quick (for us, we're pokey) pace. The cold air felt great, we ran through some really nice neighborhoods so we lusted after all the houses, chatted and the time passed quickly. Before I knew it we were done and it was time for dinner. We had a delicious mixed green salad with lots of good toppings, grilled pork chops, lima beans and Velveeta shells & cheese. Then we caught up on a couple episodes of House and I proceeded to conk out pretty early.

Yesterday was a milestone with Emmy--it was her first day with NO ACCIDENTS! And she was crated for 8 hours!! I know these things tend to be 1 step forward, 2 steps back sometimes so I'm fully expecting extra messes today but at least yesterday she did great. I was so proud of her. She has learned to watch the other dogs to see what she is supposed to do, and she will now sit for all her treats and when it's time to put her leash on. She will *usually* do her business right away now when we go outside. She has learned down, and stay and to wait to take the treat dangling in front of her nose until I tell her "ok." We just started learning to shake yesterday, so she should have that one down in a day or so. I even let her get on the couch to cuddle with me and Rich and Fiona last night, she loved it! As I was in the shower this morning, and she stood right outside waiting on me, I was struck by the fact that we are the only people in the world who love this dog right now, her previous owners don't love her based on the fact they took her to the shelter to be killed, the rest of BRBR loves her just like they love all our rescues, but we are the only ones who really know and love her but one day she will have a person or family of her own that will love her for her whole life, just like we do ours. That is powerful to me. In a way fostering is like dog-sitting, altho you're dog sitting for a stranger you haven't met yet and who you likely will never know very well, teaching and loving their future dog until they come along to do it. People ask me, and I often ask myself, why I am involved with rescue and fostering, and that's why--to be the person to love and want an animal that nobody else in the world loved or wanted, until they get adopted and to see that throw-away dog become a treasured pet and member of the family they were always meant to be with. It is a lot of hard work, and we are ready for a long break from fostering, but I know we'll do it again in the future because it is so worth it.