Dogs are a must

Of course you already know that Joe and I have two handsome and perfect dogs! I mean look at these babies, they're the cutest ever.

Most of our friends also have adorable dogs that they love, spoil, and treat like children...but my parents think treating dogs like human children is the craziest thing ever.  This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately because it seems to be a big generational shift. The baby boomers certainly have dogs, and many of them would say their dogs are family just like I would, but there are a lot that also think dogs are animals and shouldn't be treated like babies. But the reality is, our generation is doing a lot of things later in life.  We're getting married later and having children later then any generation thus far, sometimes by choice, but mostly by circumstance. College graduates have more debt at age 22 than generations before us could even imagine. That means we have to focus more on our careers because making money has to be our top priority to dig out of these debt holes we've dug ourselves into. Even if you do meet Mr. or Mrs. Right, you might not be able to afford a wedding. Even if you have a small affordable wedding, chances are it will take some time to afford a house.  If you're like Joe and I who were lucky enough to have a wedding and buy a house by 26...the next step everyone expects is kids.
Here's the thing, we just absolutely were not ready to have kids right after our wedding.  Not only were we not ready to commit to a lifetime of Friday nights at home, but there was absolutely no way we could afford a kid even if we wanted to.  Day care in CT costs $1200-1600/month, that's a third mortgage payment on top of our actual mortgage and student loans...we just didn't have it. There's a lot of love in the Martin house and we knew we had a little extra to go around but since babies weren't on our list we thought a dog was a great idea!  Plenty of our friends got dogs for, what I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming are similar reasons.  People are always asking you about what they assume should be your next life step.  Single? "How's your dating life?" Dating? "When are you going to get married?" Married? "When are you going to have kids?" Already have a kid? "When is number 2 coming?" People who ask these questions aren't trying to be rude, they're just trying to make conversation with you and assume your life is going to follow the path prescribed by society. A dog is a great alternative to ANY OF THESE STEPS.
Millennials get married later and have babies later than any generation that has preceded us, which I think is why we are so obsessed with our dogs. You have no control over when you meet Mr. or Mrs. Right, but that doesn't mean you don't want someone excited to see you at the end of a long workday...get a dog! Maybe you met the right person but you want to be really sure before you make that lifelong commitment to marriage...test things out by moving in together and getting a dog!  Of course we know dogs are also a great substitute/practice run for kids. Millennials are more likely to own dogs than any other generation, and of all the people Joe and I know our age, I can literally only think of 4 that don't have dogs...one of them has a cat and 2 of them would really like dogs but can't where they live. (Some people really do work such long hours or travel so much that dogs aren't possible for them...in which case it's responsible of them to continue playing with their friends dogs as much as possible.)
Dogs are the best because they are loyal and loving, always excited to see you when you get home, and always great for a cuddle on the couch.  But you can still leave them home alone for 12ish hours when you have something to do and they can pretty much take care of themselves.  They're really not that expensive (especially if you have little dogs like ours that don't eat very much) and their total annual cost is probably less than one month of daycare and diapers for a baby. So whether you need a little more love in your life, or you think you have a little extra love to give...dogs are always the solution and millennials prove that. We have the lowest rate of childbirth and the highest rate of pet ownership of any generation to date (source). We're changing the "normal" life progression steps to include pet ownership to be as much of a must as marriage or children...and the great thing about a dog is that life step can go anywhere in the order that you want it to.

No TV Update

It has been nearly two weeks since Joe and I cut back on our weeknight TV viewing. I have to say, it has been really good for our lives in general. I had gotten myself to a point where I was coming home, making dinner, and going straight to the couch to watch TV until bed time. Now, I come home, make dinner, and really think about what I want to do with my time. If I have something to do, I get it done right away and then I still unwind right before bed with my 2 episodes of Friends. Rather than thinking about all I didn't get done and should have when my head hits the pillow at night, I feel good about all I got done that day!  (But there is literally still so much more to do in hour house...this place is constantly getting dirty, just keeping it clean seems like a full time job!)

Last night, Joe and I started to tackle cleaning out our basement.  We actually have a little finished section down there that we never use because we just filled it with all the stuff we didn't know where to put when we moved in. We moved in more than 2 years ago so we decided it was time to go through all the stuff and decide what we could throw out because we'll never use again, what we can donate because we'll never wear again, and what we need to keep because someday we'll want it.  Falling into the keep pile was a huge bin of pictures from Joe's childhood that his mom gave him a couple years ago.  We ended up spending an hour going through old pictures of baby Joe and found some real gems in there (be on the lookout for TBT/FBF pics).  It was a lot of fun and something we probably wouldn't have gotten to form months (if at all) without our newfound mission to get more done and watch tv less.

Tonight we even tried...crossfit!  (No it is not possible to do crossfit without talking about it.) TBD if we'll stick with it, but I liked it a lot so I think the odds are pretty good for me (less so for Joe). The change in our life is not so much that we stopped watching TV, it's more that we're consciously choosing what to do with our free time.  I had gotten into a bad habit of just watching TV for 3 hours because it involved no thinking or planning. Now I really think to myself, "Ok, I have 3 hours before I want to go to bed.  How do I want to spend it? What is really going to make me feel the best when my head hits the pillow?" Maybe it is watching TV and unwinding if I had a long day or don't feel well, but 99% of days aren't so exhausting that I need to come home and zone out in front of the TV to recover.  I'm being way more productive and feeling a lot better about pretty much everything, I'm even feeling more energized! If you want to binge on "making a murderer" so you know what's up at the water cooler, I'm not saying it's the worst thing in the world, but I do think that if TV is a big part of your life, you should try just one week with an hour or less of TV a night to see how it goes!

The Martin Madhouse is a TV free zone

Ok, so TV-free may be an exaggeration but Joe and I both agreed we should cut back on our TV viewing so we are limiting TV time to 1 hour per day.  When I was a kid this would have been my worst nightmare, but on day 3 of cutting back TV as an adult I am feeling pretty good about it! Oddly enough, I was inspired to do this by my favorite TV show: fixer upper (it's on HGTV, even if you limit your TV you should watch this show I LOVE IT). Anyway, this couple makes a career of remodeling houses and staging them beautifully...and I noticed that there is NEVER A TV in any of their houses.  I started following JoJo from the show on Instagram and discovered that they don't have a TV in their own home...just 4 kids, a few dogs, cats, goats, chickens, and cows and a huge garden to keep busy. It got me thinking that I spend an awful lot of time watching other people live their lives on TV when I could be doing a little more with my own.
Now, I did finally get into the groove of grad school last semester and I will say that during the semester I really only watch TV one or two nights during the week because I have class 2 nights a week and a decent amount of homework the other nights if I want to enjoy my weekends. However, I'm in the middle of a 4 week break in between semesters and I knew the laws of physics would take over: a body in motion unless acted on by an outside force will stay in motion, and a body at rest unless acted upon by an outside force will stay at rest (or something like that? I was awful at science). Basically, when I am busy with stuff I am at my most productive. I get more done because I have to plan out my time so I seem to always be doing something.  When I don't have anything that I *have* to do, I don't do anything because I know I can just keep procrastinating...I get caught in the Netflix void and never pull myself out. Before I know it, 5 days have gone by where all I did was work, sleep, watch netflix, and eat...the laundry baskets are full, the floor needs to be cleaned, and I don't think to do any of it until something else comes along and then there's no time for any of it. In an effort to avoid this situation, I simply decided to enact a little self-control in my life.  I wanted to go completely TV-less for a week but Joe convinced me that one hour before bed was a good way to unwind and reward ourselves for an evening of completed chores.  Monday we tore apart our kitchen and cleaned it from top to bottom, even scrubbing the backsplash and the cabinet doors. Then we scrubbed the bathrooms...like washed the floors and toilets on my hands and knees with a scrub brush clean, not just hit everything with a clorox wipe like I usually do. Last night we gave Otto a little haircut/shave (much harder than you might think...mostly just trying to get him to stay still long enough to get an even cut) and then we vacuumed and mopped the entire main floor of the house.  Upstairs I vacuumed and dusted our bedroom, but like even dusted the ceiling fan blades and moved the bed out to get the dust behind the headboard.  We did some thorough cleaning...stuff that I always have in the back of my mind as something I should do, but am always just "too busy" to get to.
I gotta say, I'm feeling pretty good about actually using my free time instead of plopping down on the couch after a long hard day of sitting at a desk in front of yet another screen. We still caught 2 episodes of Friends both nights on Netflix before bed (Joe has literally never seen Friends...we're on episode 100 and he is always surprised by what happens next which cracks me up). Tonight we weren't really sure what to do with our time since the house is already clean and all our laundry is also clean, folded and put away. We practiced some tricks with the dogs and debated what else to do.  The problem with January is that once I am home, I don't want to go back out into the cold. I have a few errands I needed to run, but I didn't want to leave the comfort of my kitchen or wear anything other than my sweats.  I have a few projects I want to do that involve re-finishing furniture but I either need to do those either outside or in the garage and it's too cold for that! Instead, Joe and I made a nice dinner (salmon, twice baked potatoes and green beans if you were wondering) and then we actually looked at each other and talked for about an hour after the meal...it was great!  Now I'm writing this and Joe is reading a book...which I got him for his birthday a year ago and he's only on page 20 so far. (Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman...it's gotta be a good book, if he doesn't finish it I'll read it instead!)
While I don't subscribe to the new years resolution school of thought, I do believe in making little changes to improve your life.  If there's something you don't like, change it!  If you find yourself wishing your life was a little more like the people you watched on TV...stop watching and start doing. Maybe we'll keep this up, or maybe we'll just do it for a week. Either way, I'm glad we're getting out or our routine a little and feeling good about getting our life organized!

2015 Lessons Learned

2015 was a pretty good year for the Martins, no crazy big accomplishments but no low spots either...until right at the end. The best part of 2015 was the addition of Otto to our little family, and the worst part was this past week when Joe's grandfather passed away. Joe is part of a huge family, his mom is one of nine children and he is one of six with close to 30 first cousins. Grandpa was really the heart of this whole big family so even though he lived a good long 92 years and he's with his wife now, it's still really hard to lose him and it feels like the family has a big hole in the middle where Grandma and Grandpa used to be. Joe took me to meet his grandparents on our third date, because as he put it, "My grandparents are the most important people to me and if they don't like you there's really no point in continuing to date," ...no pressure.  Thankfully it went well and after a few games of pitch I won them over, but I knew then just how important Joe's grandparents were to him, so they were important to me too.

Despite our 2015 highs and lows being vastly different experiences, they both taught me the same important lesson: you can't plan for everything. We were not planning to get a puppy when Otto came into our lives.  It was something Joe and I had been toying with but I hadn't really gotten him on board and it seemed like there was never a good time. We had stuff scheduled every weekend of the summer, Not every trip is conducive to bringing a puppy, and you also can't necessarily leave your brand new puppy at a kennel. But, the last weekend in July, Otto just kind of fell into our laps and with about 12 hours notice we had a new puppy! We didn't know much about him and when we took him to the vet we found out he was only 3 weeks old. Not only did he need to be bottle fed every 4 hours, but that also meant it would be weeks before he could get his shots and go to any kind of boarding facility for an overnight. Thankfully we were able to bring the little pup with us on pretty much all of our planned weekend getaways for the rest of the summer, but it was funny how Otto became more important than plans that had been in our calendar for months pretty much overnight.

Anyone that knows Joe and I well knows that we live by our calendar. Ask us to do anything and we will immediately need to consult the calendar to see if we have anything planned (and if you're giving us less than 3 months notice chances are we're already booked). We also tend to average 5 weddings a year...and 5 bridal showers, 5 bachelorette parties, and 5 bachelor parties. Our families keep asking us when our wedding schedule will slow down, "Aren't all your friends married yet? You guys are constantly going to weddings!" But, I absolutely love weddings and each and every one we get invited to I feel honored that we get to be involved in the most important day of two of our friends' lives.  Our last wedding of 2015 fell on New Year's Eve, and Joe was a Groomsman in this wedding for his high school friend. We had it in the calendar for months and planned our whole holiday schedule around it, but we certainly couldn't foresee and didn't plan for Grandpa's passing. When someone important to you dies, everything else stops and everything else you had written in your schedule suddenly doesn't matter...unless the other thing you have in your calendar is a wedding that you can't cancel or reschedule. The wake and funeral were back to back on the 30th, so we had to go straight from the funeral to the rehearsal dinner.  At least we were able to make both but we knew we certainly wouldn't be in the most festive mood on our friends' rehearsal dinner...which is supposed to be a happy occasion. As if all this wasn't enough, the night before the funeral Joe got hit with a stomach bug and the poor guy was up sick all night.  On top of what was already a long day, he had maybe about 2 hours of sleep and the poor guy was sick as a dog. He's a trooper and he made it through the whole day.  By wedding day he was feeling better and we were thinking we were going to have a pretty good day at the wedding...then about halfway through the reception I started to feel sick so we left a little earlier than planned and by 11:00pm I was in full stomach bug mode myself.  Needless to say this was absolutely not how we planned on ringing in the new year, but this is life and at least we have each other to make it through. (Also...if you get sick...we are so sorry!)

No matter how much we plan and schedule, you can't control sickness or death and when those things happen, it really puts life into perspective. Often what seemed so important when you put it in your calendar, suddenly doesn't matter when something truly important happens. Plans can be re-scheduled and friends will understand, but also every single day of our lives doesn't need to be planned in a calendar. It's really OK to leave a day empty every now and then.  I really hate bailing on anything that I have committed to; once it's in the calendar I feel like I signed my name in blood that I will attend.  But life is unpredictable at times and maybe I need to learn to be more flexible in my own scheduling and more understanding of my friends when their schedules change as well. All in all, we had a very good 2015 and in 2016 I will only try to be less rigid with the schedule and more open to change.

Red Hen Down...

It's just 5 days before Christmas so Joe and I had a pretty laid back Sunday planned. We slept in, caught up on my fav TV show "Nashville" and then tuned into the Pats game. When we took the dogs out this morning we noticed that 2 of our hens had escaped!  We stopped letting them free range completely when we got the new chickens in October, and now we keep them confined to a run that we added onto the existing coop. The run is just some chicken wire held up with metal posts and has a tarp for a roof, but it's meant to give them more room than just the coop to roam while still keeping them safe and warm for the winter. Every night we peel back a corner of the tarp and shut the coop door with the ladies safely inside.  The runner is somewhat safe, but with no floor a predator could dig into it pretty easily so they sleep in the coop. Yesterday morning we noticed an entire wall of the run had been pushed in and a big hole was dug right in front of the coop door.  Nothing had gotten in, because we have a buried wall of bricks 1 foot deep all the way around the coop...but we knew we had a problem. We (by we I mean Joe with absolutely no help from me) re-built the run and reinforced the walls with extra ties to the posts to keep everything nice and tight.
Needless to say, when we saw that two hens had escaped this morning we were pretty surprised.  Joe picked them up, put them back in their runner and we looked the whole runner over to try to figure out how they got out.  We couldn't see any weak spots or gaps so we left them in there and went about our day. During the football game when we saw the chickens were out again we were like, screw it we'll just let them roam around the yard and tuck them into the coop later.
My friend came over so we could half watch the game and half bake Christmas cookies.  We were sitting in the kitchen talking and making my fav peanut butter cookies when she said, "Aw, there's a cute neighborhood dog in your yard...uh oh he's near a chicken...OH SHIT THAT'S A FOX! THAT FOX IS EATING YOUR CHICKEN!" In broad daylight nonetheless! (Normally we only worry about them at night since most predators, including foxes, are nocturnal.)  Joe kicked into protector mode and went charging out into the yard.  The fox ran off, but the damage had been done.  Thankfully two of the chickens that aren't escape artists were still peacefully in the coop unharmed, but the other two were not so lucky.  When Joe went charging outside, the fox left the chicken he had in his grasp but we could see that he had already gotten one of the hens and he retrieved her body as he left. Our other hen was pretty badly injured, but alive.  We couldn't see any blood and her neck was clearly intact so Joe picked her up gently and took her back to the coop...but she hasn't shut her mouth so we think her jaw is broken and she might be dead in the morning :(
Meanwhile, during this whole ordeal the fox never went far and we kept seeing him wandering the outskirts of the yard. I know he will try to break into the coop again tonight, and even thought I doubt he will get in it's a very stressful situation for the hens.  When we found the hole he made 2 nights ago we found all their eggs smashed in the coop no doubt because they were panicking and fluttering around in the coop while a predator was trying to get into their house. We have a motion sensor light out there meant to deter coyotes but evidently it doesn't work on foxes...
Being a chicken owner is definitely not for the faint of heart! This is the 5th and maybe 6th hens we have lost to predators in 6 months.  Hopefully we can keep the rest safe through the winter, and maybe in the spring we will have to build a giant fortress around the coop to keep the ladies in and the bad guys out.

If you don't have anything nice to say...

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all! My parents taught me that when I was a kid and sometimes I think I'm the only one.  Yes, this is America and you are free to speak your mind but that doesn't mean that you need to or should do so....especially when what you have to say is just plain rude.
I've noticed people tend to get REAL BRAVE with what they say on the internet and post things they probably wouldn't say in real life.  Think about what you post on your Facebook page....then think about all your 1000 or 200 or however many friends, and then think about saying the words you post to each person on your friend list individually.  They may not all agree with you, and they don't have to, but did you offend anyone?  Probably...and maybe you don't care...but that's kind of rude to your friend don't you think?
Now, I'm all for differing opinions. Maybe you're opposed to tax increases because you want to keep the money you make and you don't trust politicians to make good decisions with your money.  Maybe your friend makes enough money to be comfortable and is OK with paying 2% more in taxes if it means we feed a few more hungry kids. It's fine to express that you disagree with a tax hike (or agree with one). It's not really OK to say you disagree with a tax hike, without any justification, and say anyone who disagrees with you is a complete idiot and should just get the hell out of America.  That's not a cool thing to say.
I've also noticed that in casual face-to-face conversations a lot of people seem to assume that I have the same opinions or experiences as them.  (Because we look the same or because we work at the same place or live in the same town...we must be basically the same right?) They'll say really discriminatory or rude things about other people (or sometimes about my experiences or beliefs they are unaware of) and expect me to agree with them. I'll give you an example: I have 2 tattoos, but they're never visible at work.  Someone at work went on a rant to me about how tattoos are unprofessional and disgusting and why would anyone ever want to ruin their bodies like that and on and on. They assumed I didn't have tattoos...but I do. And like many things, it's OK for that person not to like tattoos but why do they feel the need to judge those that have them?  I'm not making you get one so how does something on my body affect you? Tattoos are just one small example, this has happened to me many times in other situations.
Sometimes I'm judgmental too; I'm not saying I'm a perfect person. But, I do try my best to be open-minded and understand what other people are going through. Another thing I heard a lot growing up was, "Don't judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes." I think that's something everyone should live by too. Let's all try to make the world a slightly nicer place by trying not to judge others, and if you really can't help it at least try to do so in silence.

2 Hens-a-laying

Farm fresh eggs are back at the Martin Madhouse! Those of you who know Joe & I well or are regular readers of the blog know that we set up a coop and got 4 hens last spring.  Sadly...they became a coyote's dinner in July. (Remember that crazy post?)  Fortunately, the same farmer in Ellington we got our chickens from in April did another sale in October so we were able to get 4 new 18 week old hens! In the colder months, hens don't always lay eggs so when late November rolled around and we still hadn't seen any we were getting antsy.
You can do things to encourage your chickens to keep up egg production all winter long, like putting a light in their coop to mimic daylight.  You want them to get about 12 hours of light, but you don't want to keep the light on all night because that might keep them awake and they won't get enough sleep. We rigged a little lightbulb up in the ceiling of the coop and put it on a timer so they get light from 5-8 am and 4-8 pm to help them out. You also need to make sure your chickens have constant access to water, regardless if they're laying or not. You can get a heated chicken waterer for about $80, or you can get a big heated dog bowl for about $18. Once we saw the water freeze overnight for the first time, we swapped in the heated bowl and it seems to be working out just fine.  We did all this prep work about a month ago and still the days went on eggless.
You might read this blog and think, hm...chickens are kind of cool and I like eggs...maybe I'll get some chickens! Well, fresh eggs are definitely cool but chickens really aren't.  They're super dirty birds and not necessarily the most friendly (although ours seem pretty docile so far). Having to go out in the freezing cold and clean up chicken poop and fill their food and water when you're not getting eggs out of the deal is NOT COOL. But finally, FINALLY last Friday there it was...an egg!  Saturday 2 eggs, Sunday back down to one, Monday and Tuesday back to 2!  I'm pretty confident that 2 out of our 4 little hens are happily laying eggs daily now. This makes me a very happy chicken farmer!
Hopefully we'll have all four laying within a week or so and we'll be back up to full egg production. When we are, if you're nice to us, there's a strong change that you will get some eggs laid with love by the Martin Hens!