Happy Monday, all! When thinking about what to greet you all with this morning, I decided to put together a fun inspiration board for the Love Shoot that I’m dreaming of doing with my guy Jordan and our puppy Wyatt sometime this fall/early winter.
Check out my inspiration board below, which I created on Style Me Pretty, a lovely wedding blog that showcases creative and fun photography sessions! [All images via Style Me Pretty; for individual image credits, see this link]
As I daydream with Jordan about our future someday family, I often find myself reflecting on my own upbringing. When I think about my childhood, my favorite memories involve reading Golden Books with my family, rollerblading in the unfinished basement with my brother Brian, and playing Barbies with my cousin. I remember riding bikes with Brian inside the warehouse that my Dad worked in. I remember fighting with my brother about which one of us deserved or was assigned the “better” side of the Christmas tree to hang our ornaments on. I remember traveling ten long hours from Missouri to Sioux Falls every Christmas to spend time with our grandparents and our cousins. I remember crying whenever we had to leave Grandma and Grandpa’s house to head back to Missouri, but always feeling excited to see my friends as soon as we arrived home.
These memories, still potent and redolent with child-like joyful emotion, make me think about how simple memory-making is. As a child, all it took for me to make a lasting memory was an empty basement and some rollerblades, or a warehouse with high shelves and forklifts and trophies and pallets and long, geometric alleyways perfect for bike-riding. And now, as an adult, when I’m examining my life honestly, I’m finding that the same is true – I still delight in the simple opportunity of taking a walk with my husband and our dog to explore a little more of our town. I still feel energized whenever I head home for a weekend.
It’s memories like these that make me motivated to start traditions with my own children someday. I can’t wait to leave cookies for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph with my little ones. like we did as children. I am anxious to see what memories my children make with something simple like an empty basement, a Barbie, or a book. Or, maybe my children’s memories will involve something else entirely, like a river, or a camera, or a dog. But whatever object or occurrence catalyzes the memory-making of my future children, I know one thing for sure: I’ve found throughout my life that in simplicity, memories can be made. For my brother and I, it was never in grand vacations to far away places or in expensive toys that memories are made (though I won’t doubt that memories are in fact made in these instances). We never embarked on any fancy vacations as a family, but what we did do (rent a boat and a tube in Okoboji for a few hours, or go to Sioux Falls at Christmas, or play kickball with our neighbors in our cul de sac) was memorable enough for me. For me, for my childhood, and for my future children, I know that memories can and will be made from anything and nothing at all – even from a seemingly boring warehouse full of shelves.
Oh, the joys of house-training a puppy. To sum up our adventure with trying to potty-train Wyatt the dog, all I can say is this: we had NO IDEA what we were getting into.
We purchased Wyatt the dog from a breeder in rural South Dakota. Upon bringing him home, we quickly learned that while the breeder said that he was “relatively potty-trained,” apparently the key word in that explanation was “relatively.” The pee on my in-laws’ kitchen floor would beg to differ with “relatively.”
Thus began the efforts to house-train Wyatt. We began by sequestering Wyatt in the first floor bathroom of our home when we were gone. We would give him food and water, and we would lay down “potty papers” in the bathroom for him to go on. Why didn’t we put Wyatt the dog in a kennel when we were gone? He was scared of the kennel, and me, being the marshmallow Momma that I was in the early stages of Wyatt’s life, didn’t want him to be scared.
After a few days of that plan, we realized that A) Wyatt always found a way to pee not on the paper, but in the shower, on the floor where there wasn’t paper, etc., and B) that Wyatt was teething. How did we know that Wyatt was teething? He chewed the floorboard molding in our bathroom. In the bathroom of our RENTED apartment. Yup. Paid for that one.
After that plan failed, we began to see the error of our ways. Out when the “potty papers,” and in came the kennel. We were big, bad doggy parents by that point, so we didn’t care if Wyatt was scared. That solved the potty issue while we were at work or out and about in town, but when we were at the apartment and Wyatt was running around and playing, he had no idea how to control his bladder.
So we tried everything. Treats, taking him out every half hour, praise, punishment – you name it, we probably tried it. Before long, Wyatt just ignored our desires to house-train, and would just run upstairs in our apartment (we rented a two-level townhome) to do his business. Soon enough, one of us (either Jordan or I) would notice that he was gone, and, carpet cleaner and paper towel in hand, we would run upstairs to see A) where Wyatt had decided to make his presence known, and B) clean it up to the best of our abilities. We became steam-cleaning and vacuuming experts.
After a year in our townhome, Jordan accepted a job in another city, which meant that I moved back in with my parents for the six months that we had left before our wedding. Wyatt the dog moved with me, and it was finally when we were living with my parents that Wyatt and I got down to business with potty-training. I took him out ALL THE TIME. I’m serious – whenever he would sniff something, we would go outside. Whenever he would run away from me, I would chase him, and we would go outside. With my parents to help praise Wyatt, he was literally bathed in praise. He got treats, he was petted, he was treated like a King whenever he did his business. By this time, he was also one year old, so he was no longer a tiny 3-lb puppy. He was 5 or 6 pounds by now, and he was learning what was allowed and what wasn’t. He caught on so quickly, and the accidents went from one to two per DAY to one per month (or never!) in about two weeks.
Now that Jordan and I are living in a new apartment together as a married couple with Wyatt, we’ve worked hard to ensure that Wyatt still knows that he must do his business outside. We take him out every 2-3 hours now (it’s wonderful – as he’s gotten older, he’s able to control his bladder for quite some time), and he diligently does his business whenever we prompt him to. We’ve made sure to stay consistent (ever since we were living with my parents) to use the phrase “Do Your Business,” coupled with the words “Potty” and “Poop.” We always took him to the same spot in my parents’ yard, and we always take him to the same spot near our complex. We also always ask if he needs to go outside using the same voice inflection and the same question phrasing (“Do You Need to Go Outside?” in an excited voice) every single time.
What I’ve learned about house-training a puppy is that sometimes, it isn’t possible until the dog is ready. And sometimes, you as the doggy parent have to lay down the law. Finally, consistency is the key – consistency in word choice, in the spot in the yard where you take the dog, and in praise. Good luck!
I’m a Momma to our little canine boy, Wyatt the dog. He’s our two-year-old Yorkie, and he’s our rambunctious, cuddly puppy that keeps us busy each and every day. We purchased our puppy before we were married (before we were even engaged!) from a breeder outside of Brookings, a small town in South Dakota, and we chose Wyatt from a picture of him and his brothers and sisters on the breeder’s website. While I was a bit nervous about picking a dog based on a picture, instead of meeting him first and then bringing him home, something just felt so right when we chose Wyatt. There’s just nothing that I can compare to picking Wyatt and then meeting him and realizing that he was perfect – our little Wyatt just fits perfectly into our family. He’s just the right amount of cuddly for me, and plus – he hates being alone and, therefore, has a penchant for following me, his Momma, everywhere I go (which delights me to no end!). My husband Jordan loves to play ball with Wyatt, and the puppy is just one of the best things in our lives.
As silly as it may sound, Wyatt has also given me a wonderful dose of what it means to be a Momma. While I have no idea how mothering a child will change me and my priorities (though I know that I can count on the fact that being a Momma to a baby certainly will be a life-altering, blessed, difficult experience), I feel so fortunate that I’ve had Wyatt the dog to “prep” me for what it means to tend to another being’s needs before satisfying my own, most of the time. After we brought Wyatt home for the first time, we learned that while our breeder had led us to believe that he was potty-trained, Wyatt in fact was not even close to potty trained. After a few stressful days of cleaning up after Wyatt, I even said to Jordan that I was feeling a bit of what I imagine post-partum depression to look like. I don’t boast to know exactly how post-partum depression manifests itself for everyone, but when we brought Wyatt home, that’s sure what I felt that I was going through! I was so overwhelmed, so emotional that I cried all the time; I was disinterested in tending to Wyatt’s needs, and all I wanted to do was hide under a pillow. And this is just a puppy, not a baby! But, Jordan and I helped each other through those first few stressful weeks, and by the time Wyatt was home for a month or so, we felt like we were the ones who were finally in control, instead of Wyatt.
As an introduction to Wyatt the dog (who I imagine will show up on my blog every now and again), check out the video linked in the photo feature at the top of this post, which chronicles Wyatt’s homecoming. We couldn’t love Wyatt more!
“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
~Peter F. Drucker
Welcome to What About Sara, a space I plan to use to reflect on life’s blessings and other happenings. It is my hope that this space can be a platform for me to muse about a variety of things, including marriage, crafts and creations, motherhood (of the puppy variety – for now), education (my own, and my efforts to educate the youth of America), recommendations of must-read literature, our home, my adventures into the world of photography, blogging, creating a sustainable life, searching for my authentic self, my dreams and goals, and other ventures and undertakings.
I’d love for you to join me on my adventure into marriage. I’ve been blessed to call my best friend my husband for seven months now. Jordan and I met about five years ago while we were both working for a nationally known bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We were married just seven months ago in Sioux Falls, a day that both Jordan and I were committed to handcrafting, so that our wedding day was reflective of us as individuals and as a couple. Click here to read about our wedding day over at my other blog, Eco-Vintage Weddings. I hope to add motherhood (of the human variety; I’m already a mother to our loving Yorkie pup named Wyatt) to the mix eventually in the future, and I can’t wait to utilize this space to chronicle my successes and foibles into the world of mothering a child someday.
Join me as I begin to navigate the world of teaching. As a teaching assistant and graduate student in English literature at a local university in South Dakota, I’m definitely learning how to teach while teaching. I graduated in 2009 from a local private college in South Dakota with a double major in English and journalism, but I’ve never had any formal education training. My forays into teaching college freshmen (I’m teaching English composition and introduction to literature) have meaningfully fostered within me a love for education, and I plan to pursue my teaching certification immediately following the completion of my master’s degree, and, later, possibly, I’d like to pursue doctoral studies in either rhetoric and composition or in education (possibly a policy-related degree track). I’d also love to use this space to recommend compelling, life-changing literature for others to read. I believe that writing plays such a pervasive role in our society, regardless of the advent of technology, which is precisely why I elected to pursue a master’s degree in literature.
I invite you to join me in my forays into the second quarter-century of my life. I’ll be 25 in November this year, and I can’t wait to see what the next 25 years (if I’m so blessed to endure that long) has in store for me. The first 25 (well, 24 plus a few months) have certainly been an adventure, full of family reunions, weddings, birthday parties, Barbies, moving from SD to Missouri as a child, and then back again, imagining, to-do lists, the excruciating loss of three grandparents, learning to drive, and then learning to drive again (this past summer: a manual vehicle), sleepy summer mornings spent watching reruns of “Dawson’s Creek,” music (particularly of the Backstreet Boys variety), pets, love that’s failed, and love that’s endured.
Join me as I try to navigate the worlds of making our house a home. We’re in the process of trying to make our small, kitchen pantry-less, one-bedroom apartment feel like home, so you may encounter some home decor posts along the way. Our aesthetic style shifts quite often, but my dream is to own a home (someday) built before the 1950s with the original woodwork still in tact. I’m a lover of all things old and vintage (see: our wedding), but for now, we’re (slowly) trying to navigate the intermediate (and hopefully rather temporary) world of apartment living with the things we currently have.
Join me as I attempt to learn how to snap beautiful photographs, and how to blog in a way that is fulfilling and meaningful to me (and, hopefully, in a way that’s interesting to you). I think that these two goals of mine operate in tandem with one another, meaning that through photos, I hope to find fulfillment and meaning in the everyday adventures of my life. Whether it’s snapping photos of our puppy Wyatt dressed in his yellow raincoat or taking pictures at a family birthday party, a reunion, or in an open field, I hope to learn to capture the joy and the beauty of everyday life, and to use these photos as fodder for this space. {NOTE: My camera is a Canon T1i.}
Finally, I hope that you’ll join me as I search to uncover the ways in which to lead a sustainable, authentic life. I’m a believer in (someday) using cloth diapers and making homemade baby food, in upcycling, and in reusing. I’m a lover of handmade and upcycled items (hello, my name is Sara, and I am an Etsy addict). I’m obsessed with the idea of growing and preserving food for my family; I’d love to try to do that someday – for now, our apartment is rather limiting to us in terms of the fact that our home is lacking entirely in garden space. I love the idea of intentional communities, and I am eager to learn more about educational opportunities that surpass the options of public and private school (including charter schools, Montessori schools, etc.).
I am eager to develop this space into a platform for reflection, conversation and fulfillment. I’d love it if you’d join me in my adventure to navigate life’s daily blessings and other happenings.
{Photo by Creative Kindling, our outstandingly talented wedding photographers}