The Carlisle's and Coda. We're so ready for this decade!

It's weird to think this is the last day of the year and it's even more strange to think it's the last day of a decade. At the beginning of the decade, I was still in high school celebrating the new year with a ton of friends at some ranch (with some snow if I remember right). I'll be ringing in the new decade at my house with my sweet dog and lovely husband while thinking about going back to my job after a much needed and wonderful break.

Yep. Some big and beautiful things happened for me this decade.

I'm looking forward to starting this new year out on the right foot. I know everyone is! That's what's so great about New Year's Eve - everyone has pretty cool plans for themselves. It's one of those days where it's absolutely okay to be totally selfish! You can make plans for you - your life, your job, your daydreams! It's the one day where nothing seems too impossible to accomplish. Man, if we could just live the other 364 days of our year that way. That would be really, really awesome.

Anyway... I'm going to continue introducing my cast o' characters.

This. Is. Coda.   

She's darling, but she's a pest. She looks too cute to be a pest!

About a week after we moved in to our totally rad house, Coda bolts out the doggie door, and there's a rustle. Oooooh...a rustle (that's for suspense). Brian thinks it's a cat, but he's worried it's a snake. Because our house is on the river, and we haven't fully explored, he really has no idea what it is. So, he comes in the house and wakes me up (never a good thing), and he wakes me up like this: "Sara, wake up! Your dog just attacked something." MY dog. Mine. Not his when she does something bad. Mine. Ugh. Love you. :)

Okay, so MY dog has attacked something. I get up and go outside. This wasn't just any something. It was a horrible, horrible something. The yard smells like nothing I have EVER smelled before. She attacked a skunk, a sometimes adorable from afar skunk, a stinky, smelly, not-sure-what-purpose-they-serve-in-this-world skunk, and apparently, it's MY problem. (Again, love you!)

So, I'm upset and grossed out (the smell, I tell you!), but I'm also really sad for Coda. She got hit right in the face. I think she can't see, she's rubbing her face in the ground, vomiting, foaming at the mouth, and looking so pitiful. We're not sure what to do, so we try to clean her face off as best we can and get her some water and food to get the taste out of her mouth. Then, we leave her outside. I felt like a terrible mom. What are you supposed to do, though? Brian assures me that she's a dog and can handle being outside, but I'm thinking, "she's going to think we're mad at her." Brian's right. So we do.

Pest.

You would think she's learned her lesson about attacking things in the night. She hasn't.