I feel so down. I hardly get any sleep lately. mike and I feel tense more than usual. His work is not going as wel as he hoped to, and he's easily frustrated those days. And me, well, lets just say that this whole sleep arrangement is not working out. He wakes up in the middle of the night, and then it's like no no, I can't sleep anymore, I must go in another room. Which wouldn't be a big deal if he just quietly slipped out and that's that. But the dog must go with him, and since we installed wooden floors, the dog's claws (long ones, at that) make this horrible clanking noise which is absolutely impossible to avoid. As soon as dog starts clanking - there goes my sleep! and to fall back asleep after you've been woken up from the deep sleep is really hard, takes me hours.

Here's something I have to vent about - at least to my diary. I do not like his dog. I know it sounds horrible, and I realize the dog has been there way before me, and I know he loves it deeply, just like I love our kitty... but I cannot deny my feelings. Not that I could tell that to Mike, of course not - it's like saying hey I hate your child :) I understand that. But here's what annoys me. Number one, I have never lived around dogs - when I was a child we had a cat for a pet, so I never had a dog. I find dogs extremely annoying. Waffles is a beagle, which everyone always says oooooh how cuuute. Yes, her floppy ears are cute. Her IQ though is amazingly low. There are smart dogs, and there are dumb dog - she's definetely in a dumb category. She's a hound dog, which means her main perception is through sound and smell - so she's a loud barking dog, and every time she hears something she barks. Sometiems for quite a while. Every time we go out, when we come back she barks non-stop (I guess out of excitement), and demands immediate attention. Which is not so bad, actually, it's that other barking, for no reasons, that annoys the hell out of me. She is terrible about food - every time she sees someone eating she sits there, expecting you to give her something. sometiems I feel bad for her, she looks real sad too - but Mike said she's too old to digest people food, so she's really not allowed any. She's insane about her own food - if the cat is anywhere near the vicinity of her bowl, she runs towards it, and lays there "protecting" it. Cat couldn't care less for her food, and mostly goes places because she wants to. Her scratching post is on the wall across the dog bowl, so she often goes there, and the dog takes it as if the cat is about to eat her food, starts running (making clanking sounds), barking, and being a jerk. Sometiems it even tries to chase the cat out. She always tries to eat out of garbage can, and no matter how many times you tell her "no", she still attemps to knock it down. In the middle of the night, sometimes she starts just walking around the room, which again throws my sleep out of whack. When we went camping last summer, she did not let us sleep at all. We're laying in the tent, and she hears some branch cracking, and barks, and barks, and barks. We havent slept for 3 nights in a row, not more than couple hours.

I realize I'm being petty, but I do not get what's so enjoyable about having a dog. It is demanding (must walk her twise a day), it is stupid, loud, and obnoxious. It wouldn't crawl on your lap and purr and show affection - like a cat. It just lays there and sleeps when it's quiet, or it barks and growls when it feels her food is being threatened. She demands to be petted when you come home, but after she gets her pet, she just leaves and lays on the pillow. That's all.

Anyway, I realized that I'm being cranky lately because there's nothing to look forward to. Like, yes, I will graduate in the spring, but that's still a while, then my brother's wedding is in the summer which is cool too, but also far away. And for now, I see a long winter in front of me, without any real incentive to look forward to anything.

I just pray Mike's work gets better. I like it when he's happy, and the only way he can be happy is if his work is going well.