We took the plunge and got a Scout

meet Scout.

Our precious, troublemaking German Shorthaired Pointer whose job it is to cause equal amounts of adorable and chaotic moments. And we've only had her for 24 hours... She's sure to be a handful, but also a wonderful addition to our little fam. We can't wait for all the adventures we'll have introducing her to life in a city full of other cute puppies and lots of walking.

{And FYI, even picking up Scout was quite the adventure. It involved driving through the snowy mountains of West Virginia and trying to find a house in the middle of nowhere. But all of the my anxiety was worth it for one the cutest dogs I've ever seen.}

Wish us luck.

scenes from the cold month of january

So I promise we haven't intentionally gone quiet here on the blog, it's just that it is January. And with January always comes the quick disappearance of a month and a bit of a haze as to how that happened. There's always such a build up to Christmas and New Year's that once they're both over, it's like time keeps going on around us and we're all still standing still. Or at least that's how I feel about the month of January. It's too bad I feel that way, too, considering my birthday falls in January...

To make up for the lack of posts, here's a recap of all the things we were doing in our absence here. We strolled around the District the day before the inauguration and admired the long and plentiful line of porta-potties on the National Mall (we're talking thousands). We tried new places to eat around Old Town Alexandria and the District, like the Crumbs cupcake above (who can pass on a yummy red velvet cupcake? Not this girl). I've been making a lot of doodles trying out new fonts. We've taken lots of walks around our new neighborhood admiring all the old and pretty brownstones. Husmate joined the oxford-wearing-cool-kids party (another score for wifey and her influence!). I made my first pie by trying out this yummy Chocolate Chess Pie recipe from the delightful 1canoe2 blog to (quite randomly) celebrate National Pie Day (not to be confused with the ever important Pi Day on March 14... Nerds unite! 3.14159265359...). I mailed a fun little happy to my sweet nephew. And I celebrated my birthday with a delicious breakfast at Founding Farmers and pink tulips from the husmate (Side note: I will be reporting back on our second experience to FF for their red velvet pancakes. Yes, you read that correctly- red velvet pancakes).

And now you're all caught up on our whereabouts for January! Best wishes for better accountability for blogging next month (fingers crossed)!

bewildered by the rain and fog

So let me preface this post with a few facts:

1. My mother had a conference in DC this past weekend.

2. She asked for my advice on packing as far as weather goes.

3. Even though I consulted my Weather Channel app 3 times, I pretty much made my mother freeze by telling her all the wrong things to pack therefore resulting in a daughter fail.

So despite the weather being at least 15 degrees (or more) cooler than was forecasted, as well as it raining like every day since she landed (when the highest chance was 30% for maybe one day), it has also been incredibly foggy. As in where is the horizon in the picture above?? Love must be in the air for some hot and heavy dementors in the area...

In trying to make the best of things and show Mom something in all this fog and rain, we hit up Mt. Vernon this past weekend. Apparently hardly anyone goes there when it's 40 something degrees out and the sky resembles a white screen (I couldn't imagine why)... On the upside, the guides do offer more information when fewer people are shuffling through the house. 

So after our fun and chilly walk about Washington's plantation, we headed to the National Harbor to drop Mom off to register for her conference. And while we were trying to avoid paying for parking driving around aimlessly killing time waiting on her, we decided to be all spontaneous and hit up some open houses. What are we... 30?? Ha, it was pretty fun I must say. Well, except for looking at some of the asking prices (especially the $400/month HOA fees...). 

But I think my personal favorite from this weekend is the car in the last picture above. Please take as much joy fathoming whatever it is the owner was going for as we did Sunday morning. That van's roof had at least three solar panels, a propeller, and a chair covered in camo. Any thoughts??

And after braving the cold and wet weather for as long as we could, the Berry's finally caved and made our first fire in our new apartment. Now all we need are s'mores :)

Our sweet Riley

Comparison may be the thief of joy, but so are sick puppies. And our sweet pup, Riley, was a very sick puppy. Along with his adorable speckles and gentle spirit came his exhausting case of distemper, and with distemper came a lot of maladies and sadness. After showing the signs of dehydration, lack of appetite, a terrible sinus problem, and unforgiving neurological ticks that prevented him from holding his darling head up, we decided that it was best for our gentle Riley to be put to sleep.

But there is a silver lining to this story.

Riley was a shelter dog. One that apparently had been left to survive walking about south/west Montgomery and who entered the shelter life with a cocktail of problems. Not only did he have distemper, but also a case of bordetella, a gastrointestinal infection, and a respiratory infection. He was quite the pup to want to try everything apparently, but despite being laden down with what seems to be everything you could possibly get sick with, he still wagged his tail and fought his hardest to get better.

My sweet parents gave him the best home that a shelter dog could ever dream of for ten days of his life, and he soaked up every minute of it. From discovering what excitement toys and playing with other fun dogs could hold to putting his front paws on the sofa until someone picked him up and put him in his own spot, Riley had a wonderful adopted life. And even for the short period of ten days, he got to know what it feels like to have a master love and care for him, even when he got scared to sleep by himself or needed someone to wipe his nose.

Riley, who knew that in the space of two days of being around you, I could get so attached? Even in our brief meeting, you taught me so much about how fleeting this life is and how even in the bad, you can find the silver lining. You were a great pup. And I hope that wherever you are, you are experiencing an existence free of pain and your milk-dipped tail is able to wag all day.

doomsday birthday

check out the evolution of his wardrobe {my ongoing project}

Happy birthday to this dashing man! 

Lucky you, you get to celebrate life and death (according to the Mayans, not me) all in one day! What a stud. 

Just in case my cynicism is proven to be ridiculously unfair and the world does indeed stop spinning, happy birthday Handsome! I have had an incredible past 8 months (to the day! yes it was planned for future memory issues of our anniversary) being married to you, living in our new apartment for 5 whole days, and owning a sweet pup 800+ miles away from us that we've never personally met. You've given me a wonderful life serving as your co-conspirator, and I am constantly blessed and encouraged to be your wife. Plus, you have a last name that everyone can spell and is shorter than the standard cut off on applications of 12 characters. You rock husmate. And I can't wait to always be by your side in this life and the next.

Love, Kat

it's a mad world

We live in a broken world. It's almost as if someone has taken a hammer and smashed it into tiny little fractures that would make even Humpty Dumpty's situation look favorable. While that overview is bleak, it's really quite simple: since the fall of man, our world has been riddled in sin. Anger. Hate. Greed. Lust. Envy. Doubt. Cleverness. Fear. And pain. Lots of pain. This is what the world is made of, and we humans (or rather our flesh) inhabit it. 

The challenge of the world is not to outsmart it, but rather overcome it. Patching up our hearts with love and filling them with Hope. And having unwavering faith in that Hope which allows our spirit to overcome our flesh. 

Tragedy strikes and the first thing we ask is "why?" Why would someone do something so horrific? So sinister? What could possibly be their motive?  To put it simply it's pain, and it was never our burden to share until it was too late. 

I've never felt so heartbroken in my life until today. The wonder and innocence of so many children were stolen this morning and that's something we can never get back. I know this story will turn into a platform on gun control, but how terrible is it that it took the loss of almost 2 dozen children with tremendous potential to get that one going? Not even the shooting of a congresswoman could do that. Are we that desensitized? But the real takeaway from this situation should be love, not politics.

I've seen a lot of coverage on the issue of getting stricter gun laws (and I'm not totally against it), but the counterargument of if you take away guns, tragedy will still happen is quite true (reference Matthew 2 if you need proof from a relevant story). We live in a broken world. Perhaps the issue that is not so easily recognizable is that our culture has slowly over time kicked out God. We can hardly do anything anymore without worrying about stepping on people's toes or offending others, and I'm right there in the middle of it. I have never wanted to push an agenda on anyone. I'm a firm believer in listening to others and I generally play the moderator between sides, but it has become increasingly clear to me that we can't keep doing this. We also cannot shove scripture (especially fearful excerpts) down people's throats as a way to evangelize.

It's an uphill battle for sure, but we're called to love on ourselves and others. Love as God has loved us. He recognizes the utter pain and horror of having a child be bullied, threatened, and killed. He did that to himself for our atonement (1 John 4:8-10), and he still shows us grace everyday for the stupid things we do whether intentionally or not, and actually forgives us so long as we seek it.

So despite the fact that it is Christmas and I cannot possibly fathom the pain of losing a child, especially one who still believed in the wonder of Santa, remember that it is Christmas and God sent us his son as a sign for us of the Hope to come.

This is a time to come together. To pray. To hug your loved ones and be thankful for your blessings. Nothing is certain in this world. Not the weather, the economy, or the politics. Our world and even our country is so incredibly divided, but this is a time to close that divide. Love on each other, I beseech you!

we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to wish you a merry christmas

Let me start off by apologizing for being MIA for the past oh almost month on the blog... Thanksgiving came and went and with it my effort at being somewhat consistent on posting. However in my (limited) defense, we are moving this weekend into our new apartment, and things have been a little chaotic around here with packing and puppy shopping and Christmas shopping...

Did you catch that one? The phrase caught between the overwhelming packing process stress and the happy festive brainstorming of giving to others? Yes, we've been puppy shopping- and I'm quite excited to share that we (as in my sweet parents acting on our behalf) found one (like an hour and a half ago while I was typing this post). 

Meet our new pup and member of the Berry fam: he who shall not be named (you know I had to work in some HP somehow...). The fact is we aren't completely sure of his name, so when we figure it out we'll let you know! We do know however that he's a Catahoula Leopard mix and totally adorable. Now to get him home via a 13 hour drive... Plenty of stories to come I'm sure!

Back to what I was typing before I found out our family just became three: I must also credit some of my disappearance to the drawing and printing of our first Christmas cards and fitting them within some criteria: a) I really wanted to do something creative and not do the typical use your wedding picture as a card thing (but for those that did, we love seeing your pretty faces!) b) we were definitely on a budget, so not many cards ventured out this year and c) I had to make sure that people might take the extra time to notice our new address on the back, so I used that as an excuse to make the addressing festive. {Side story: we ran out of ink twice printing them, so some of the finished products aren't even blue! HA! To you people (cough parents and close relatives) who get ones in black ink, it's not that we love you less but rather we didn't have the time nor money to spend on buying ink again, and we felt that you would fully understand the situation and credit it to being a newlywed story/fiasco/accident to regale later in life.}

And as if we needed any more surprises around here, husband surprised me by purchasing our first (mini) Christmas tree, despite forgetting all the ornaments my mom and I have collected over the years in Alabama and the fact that we're moving in the middle of December! He's the greatest :) I know that a tree is normally a given around the holidays, but it wasn't necessarily for us and I'm pleased as punch* that he bought one for me to celebrate the coming advent season!

*Just looked up the origin of that phrase (I tend to after I realize I have no idea what it means) and it's kinda sketch, you guys. Apparently, Punch was a puppet character who was quite the comedic murderer...

All that to say, we wish you a Merry Christmas! Love, the Berrys