We are now a family of four!

I was right when I said that once we got approval from our landlord to have a second dog, everything would move very quickly! A nice lady from APARN came round to do our home check at 7 p.m. on Friday, and she phoned the lady who was fostering Jessyka to let her know that everything was great. We went to collect her right after that!

Today is our second full day with her, and everything is going really well. Suzie (our first pug-pug) was so excited when we brought Jessyka home, she seemed to think it was the best present ever! Suzie hasn't been jealous much, so that's good. We're very conscious of making sure she doesn't feel at all excluded. She's doing so well. Jessyka didn't respond to her name at all, or any variations of it (Jess, Jessie). We've renamed her Gracie, and she responded to it pretty much immediately. I think it suits her a lot more and she seems to like it!

Right now Suzie and Gracie are playing - it's cute! I don't think Gracie is used to playing the way Suzie does, but every so often she'll try. I'm sure she'll get used to it. There hasn't been any nastiness between them yet, so hopefully it'll stay that way.

Gracie walks really nicely on the leash, which is great. She doesn't seem to know "sit" though so we're trying to teach her. She'll do it sometimes, but you have to say it lots of times first and even then she won't always do it. I'm sure as she gets more comfortable with us she'll come out of her shell and be more amenable to training. I'm so impressed by how she's settling in though, she's great!

The lady who was fostering her is so lovely, she gave us a zip-lock bag with some food in it (Gracie was eating a different type of food to what Suzie eats) and she gave us some treats for her too. She also gave us Gracie's favorite toy, a santa teddy. She didn't want her to go without that, it's so sweet of her (it wasn't Gracie's toy originally, it belonged to the foster mom's pugs but Gracie loves it). Gracie also had a little stripey purple and white shirt on which says "CUTE" on the back - too true! Foster mom wanted her to take that with her too, which is sweet. APARN people are so lovely and they do such good work.

Here's a pic of Gracie - she's such a pretty girl! And it looks like she's going to be a Mommy's girl, which suits me just fine (Suzie is most definitely a Daddy's girl!)

An Update :-)

Right now I'm just waiting to hear back from APARN regarding when they can do the home check. Hopefully they'll be able to come sometime today, that would be great! I don't know what the process will be for actually collecting Jessyka - we've met her already so I don't think we'd have to go visit her at her foster home, but I'm guessing we'll probably go and get her from her foster home when the time comes. :-)

Hubby went and got us some lunch, and the gourmet hot dog place he went to had some leaflets from Petco about how you can get a booklet of coupons if you adopt an animal. All you have to do is take the adoption paperwork with you and they give you the booklet - savings of $225 or more, cool huh? We will need to get Jessyka a collar and harness, a crate, a food bowl and possibly a bed. I say possibly a bed, because we have pug-pug's old bed which she can still fit into, and her 'new' bed too. Plus, now she sleeps on our bed anyway so Jessyka most likely will too. I kinda want to get Jessyka's food bowl from our veterinary office, because we got pug-pug's from them - they sell handmade ceramic bowls which are really cute and they're only $3 each, which is a bargain! Some local lady makes them. I'd rather do that than buy a bowl at Petco, really. I'm sure we'll make good use of the coupons for everything else, though!

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OK, now my friend T is really starting to drive me mad. She suggested that we talk on Skype today, she set the time as 1.00 p.m. in fact, and you guessed it - she's a no-show! Again! Bloody hell. It's now after 1.25. I'm giving her until 1.30 p.m. and then I'm logging off. What a time waster! Then I'll probably get an email in 5 days saying she's so sorry, she's such a terrible friend, blah blah blah. Yeah - I've heard it all before. Just stop wasting my time and don't make arrangements with me if you clearly have no intention to stick to them! How many times is she really expecting me to put up with her crappy behavior?

YAY!!!!!!!!

THE ANSWER IS YES!!!!!!!!

Wow! We're going to be adopting Jessyka! We're so very excited! :-) :-) :-)

omg... how long are they gonna make us wait?!

Hubby has emailed the property management company again to ask them if they've heard anything from the homeowner yet. No response so far. Jeez, this is so frustrating! I just hope we know by the end of the day, as I really would hate to have to wait until next week to find out - that would mean a second weekend of wondering.

I keep thinking how great it would be to be able to email APARN with good news, and organize the home visit etc. I guess that even if we do find out today, we probably won't be able to have Jessyka until early next week. That's alright though - at least if we get the go ahead, I can allow myself to get excited at last! I have been getting excited at times, but I have to keep stopping myself from getting too carried away as nothing is certain yet.

I guess the fact that the homeowner hasn't said no right away maybe is a good sign. She made us wait quite a while to hear if she would allow pug-pug, so maybe she's just mean like that! Or maybe it at least means she's considering it, rather than denying our request outright. Or, it could mean she hasn't got the voicemail or email yet. Surely though she would've checked at least one of those things by now - apparently the woman at the property management company sent the email and left the voicemail on Tuesday. Now it's Friday so surely she would have seen one of those things by this point...

Still waiting!!!!!

Still no news from our landlord... I really hope we'll get a decision before the weekend. The waiting is becoming unbearable! Basically, if we're not going to be able to adopt Jessyka then I guess the sooner we find that out the better. I don't exactly want that news to come, but if the answer's no then it's better to know that now rather than next week sometime. At least then I can get this out of my mind as much as possible, and stop dreaming!

I just hope all this waiting pays off and we get some good news - if we do it'll be good news for us, Jessyka and APARN too.

If the answer is no, then I'm sure APARN will find Jessyka another home pretty quickly and she won't know any different, but I want us to be the ones to give her the forever home she deserves. If we're unable to adopt her, then we'll definitely apply to adopt another pug when we buy our own house. That's without doubt - but also without doubt is the fact that I will never forget about Jessyka. I'll always wonder what happened to her if we can't adopt her.

So, here's hoping (yet again) that we'll get the news we want tomorrow! Or if not the news that we want, then the news that we don't want. I just want to know now, either way.

Still no news... and how can people be so lousy?!

OK, so hubby emailed the property management company yesterday and asked if there's any news from our landlord. The guy who came to see the house apparently isn't the one who will be asking the landlord - he said this other woman "will be asking her". Um, so let me get this straight - we asked you on Monday if we could have another dog, you came to see the house on Tuesday, and still nobody has even asked the landlord? Now it's Thursday, and we still know nothing. How are we going to get an answer if nobody even asks the landlord?! So hubby emailed this woman, and asked her if there's any news. He reiterated that the rescue agency are holding a dog for us, so time is of the essence. Not that it will probably make any difference whatsoever...

[OK, maybe I was a little bit hasty there... hubby just saw an email from that lady saying she's left the landlord a voicemail and sent her an email, so maybe we will hear something soon... watch this space!]

On the plus side, I emailed the lady at APARN again yesterday and explained that the inspection went well as expected, but we are still waiting for news. I got an email back saying not to worry, that they're all in agreement that we would provide a wonderful home for Jessyka and that they know the wait is harder for us than it is for them. She also said that Jessyka may be added to their website, but she won't be adopted to anybody else. So basically she's going to be ours unless we're not allowed to have her. That made me feel a bit better :-)

On the communication front, I was on Skype yesterday and my cousin logged on, and a message from him from January 31st came up saying something along the lines of "haven't seen you on here in a while" - well, that's absolute rubbish! He's been online at the same time as me multiple times, and I've typed messages to him multiple times, with no response whatsoever. Not to mention all the emails I've sent him which he's completely ignored - the last email I got from him was November 19th, I just checked my sent messages and I emailed him on December 9th and December 27th and got no replies. So now I've emailed him again, saying that I got his Skype message but that it's not a good way to get in touch if you send a message to someone who's offline, because it only appears when the person who sent it is online themselves - so it's hit and miss. I also said that I tried talking to him on there yesterday and got no response, and that I've emailed him a few times over the last couple of months asking when I could call him and haven't ever got a reply. I didn't word it nastily, but I think I made it clear that I was a bit annoyed. I also mentioned my Dad, and how he never bothers to call and I'm sick of it being me who makes all the effort - so yes, he can apply that to himself too. The message on Skype made out he hasn't heard from me in ages, which is a load of bollocks. I just don't get it. I wrote that I've been here exactly 5 months now (I arrived on September 3rd, now it's February 3rd) and I felt like writing "and it feels as though most people back home have forgotten about me completely" but I didn't. Maybe I should have!

Also, my friend who I'll refer to as T, is annoying me no end with her fickle arrangements to catch up with me. We were emailing back and forth last week, and she said she could do a Skype chat on Saturday or Sunday, so I said Sunday (evening in the UK, lunchtime here) would work for me, so let me know if it works for you. Nothing. So, Saturday I emailed her and asked if that was alright - she mailed me back and said it was fine, and she thought she'd let me know but hadn't. OK, fair enough. So Sunday I speak to my Mom on the phone for like 40 minutes, and the time for my chat with T comes around (12.30) so I tell my Mom I have to go speak to her. I open up my laptop and get an email from T, saying that she was sorry but she'd been invited to her brother's house for dinner so she would try and get home by 2pm our time. I replied something like this: "Don't worry about it! We have things to do though so I'll have to cancel, maybe we can talk during the week" - my reasons being that she's one who often cancels or just doesn't show, and I wasn't going to waste my whole afternoon hanging around to speak to her if and when she might get online. I could kind of imagine what the next excuse would be - "I got back late, I'm tired now, we'll have to talk some other time" - and no, I'm not being paranoid, she does that kind of thing all the time. I'd say for every 3 catch-ups that we arrange, we maybe actually do 1. I spoke to my other good friend, R, yesterday (all 3 of us have been friends since like the age of 4) and she said the whole thing is ridiculous - T is so unreliable! I can't disagree. She also said that T shouldn't be expecting me to chat to her on a weekend, because that's my time with my hubby. I agree to a point, but 12.30 would have worked OK for us. However, I wasn't about to wait around another couple of hours for her. I think she was a bit taken aback when I replied and said we'd have to talk another time, but I'm fed up of being messed around (not just by her, but lots of people). She then suggested she could maybe do Wednesday night (yesterday) but mentioned that she might be going to the movies but it's not confirmed yet - well, I'm not gonna make plans with you then, because you will most likely end up cancelling yet again! Also, R had already said she wanted to Skype with me then, and she's reliable so there was no way I was gonna cancel on her for someone who's totally unreliable!

Now don't get me wrong, I get it - an invitation to go out somewhere is probably more appealing than talking to a friend over Skype. But the thing is, those plans were already made and confirmed. It's like, "Oh, I got a better offer, forget you!" which I think is pretty rude really. You wouldn't do that if you were physically going to meet up, so there's not much difference really. She could have told her brother she already had plans. He knows I'm in the US, it's not like we talk all the time and it's not like we can actually meet up these days. I'm sure he's not that unreasonable! I'm glad I told her it would have to be another time, because I would've been all the more annoyed if I'd given in and hung around waiting for her. I bet she never would've showed up. The thing is, she's probably taken that email as being "off" - well, it wasn't, but I'm not the one who constantly cancels (or just doesn't show up). There comes a point where you have to stand your ground, and people need to stop assuming you'll just bend to their every whim. It's just not on, in my opinion. If someone repeatedly messes you around, how long are you really supposed to put up with it? My Dad is awful for keeping in touch too. I last spoke to him over 2 weeks ago and he said he would call me "in a week" - i.e. middle of last week. Now it's a whole week later and I'm still yet to hear anything at all. He probably assumes I'll call him, but guess what? It's not happening. I'm obviously not important enough in his life for him to bother picking up the damn phone and dialling our number. Yet, if he does ever call, he'll probably be like "I miss you loads" - well, the old saying actions speak louder than words is very true, isn't it? When hubby and I were in a (very) long distance relationship for 20 months, only seeing each other every 3-4 months, we both really missed each other. Guess what? We would talk on Skype every day, we would text and call all the time. We didn't leave it weeks with no contact - that's pathetic. It's like when my Dad says he "wishes he could've come to our wedding" - that pisses me off so much! Really? Because last I checked, you could have come to our wedding! You didn't bother to book the time off work, and then a college orchestra rehearsal (not even concert, for fuck's sake) was more important to you than your own daughter's wedding. What a friggin' joke! "I hope you don't resent me for it" - well get this: yes, I bloody well do! And I resent you for never bothering to call me when you say you will. Not even close to the time you say you will, either. It's not like it's a day after he was meant to, or even a couple of days after. We're talking over a week already - and it'll probably be another week before he calls, if he even calls then. Let's just say I'm not exactly holding my breath. Oh and when I've had my AOS interview next Thursday, I won't be calling him to tell him how it went. I'm sticking to my guns, again, and I will not call him. I want to see how long it'll be this time before he notices he hasn't spoken to me for ages. Every time he's supposed to call I do this, and it clearly doesn't make any difference, but other than have a go at him I don't know what else to do. And I don't want him to call me because he thinks I'll get mad at him if he doesn't - I want him to call because he actually cares about me.

I'm starting to think the only person he truly cares about is himself.