Alpo moved in with me shortly before his 3rd birthday and my life has not been the same. Who knew that a dog would change someone's life, but it did. Before he moved in with me, I would spend my evenings at activities, such as Finnish class, Toastmasters, Church activities, but after he moved in I didn't like seeing him alone so long while I was working and then leave him again, so I would come home and take him on long walks around the lake and other activities that included him. Anyway, one thing I've learned about his breed, Pumi, is that Pumik usually choose certain people that they absolutely love and then they just tolerate everyone else. I don't know whether I'm just tolerated or not, but I do know of two people that Alpo absolutely adores. He just lights up when he sees them. One person in Finland and one here in the USA. J is my mom's husband and Alpo would live with him if he could. J seems to appreciate his companionship as well. Alpo spends time with him while I'm working and it is working out really well. Another person that I know that Alpo misses very much is my good friend A. If A sees this post she will ask me to write this in Finnish, but I need to study again as I'm forgetting it. I digress. Anyway, A is a good friend of mine regardless of the fact that I have elementary level of Finnish and she is at a beginning level of English. Our friendship seemed to work and she was a huge help for me with Alpo. One time, she even took him on her winter vacation to her cottage and he had the time of his life. He would love it when A would come over or she would pick us up on weekends and take us to her cottage in the countryside. Anyway, these two people are who I believe are some of Alpo's favorite people!

I'm not sure why, but I've recently learned in the last year that I rarely smile. I didn't know that because it is far from how I'm feeling. I had a colleague even tell me that when I smile it is so small that people don't even realize. this surprised me because so much of the time, I feel joy and happiness. So, I would love to have this happen-->that people would be happy just by being around me. I wasn't sure just how much my colleagues were right until last week when I made a test video for a live online company and when I watched the video, I realized that they were very very right!

Today is my grandmother's birthday. She would be in her nineties by now and I'm sure she would really enjoy her birthday. I have so many good memories from my childhood because of her. Here are just a few: