We heart Xcel!

Seriously, we love Xcel energy right now.  A few weeks ago, a nice young man stopped by our door to see if we were interested in partaking in having their Energy Squad come by our house to make our home a bit more energy efficient.  Normally, I am one to say "No thanks!" and shut the door in their faces before they can even finish trying to sell me anything, but I was feeling nice, so I let the guy tell me about it (it was also 90 degrees out with 80-something % humidity, so I felt a little bad for him).  Turns out, it was a good thing I didn't pretend to not be home, because it ended up being a great deal for us!

For $50, we were able to have the Home Energy Squad come in and have them install the following:

• Weatherstipping on our attic crawlspace door

• Programmable Thermostat

• Faucet aerators in both bathrooms and our kitchen

• A water-saving showerhead in the basement

• 8 decorative CFL lights in our kitchen/dining room

They also rated several appliances in our house, and let us know what the recommended rating was.  What I really liked about the whole thing was that they were no-pressure people.  They basically just said, "Here's what you got.  Here's what we recommend it be at.  Here's where you can find information to upgrade it if you like."

Since it was such a great deal, I want to give everyone else the opportunity to benefit from Xcel as we did.  If you want to schedule a visit with the Home Energy Squad, you can call them at:
(651) 328-6220

Officially Summer!

The school year ended rather uneventfully, with some teary goodbyes after our last day in the building.  I was all set to teach summer school, but earlier in June, the enrollment was down, so they were unable to keep me employed.  Oh shucks.  Now I actually have to enjoy a full summer break.  What a bummer :)  Instead, I got to focus on the first class of my Reading Licensure program at the U.  We crammed a 3 credit course into a 2 week window and yesterday was the last day of it.  I have been living/breathing/eating this class for the last 14 days, and now I don't really know what to do with myself!  I'll be subbing a couple of times in July for one of the night school English teachers, but other than that, I'm student free!  There are some projects around the house that I would like to get done (plant more hostas in the garden, find new curtains for the dining room, create a succulent terrarium like the one below)... but I'm sure a lot of my time will be dedicated to keeping Lucy happy and the house clean.

Yesterday, Lucy had her very first experience at the dog park and she made some pretty awesome new friends.  Humphrey is her new gorgeous boxer boyfriend, and he showed her the ropes of the park.  I was a nervous mama at first (not wanting to let Luce off her leash because it's not a fenced in park), so Lucy and I started on a walk around the trail by ourselves, while we adapted.  When we were on the return part of the trail, that's when we met Humphrey and his humans.  His mom asked if we wanted to keep walking, so I agreed, and allowed Lucy off her leash.  While I was silently panicking, I was reassured by Humphrey's mom that they would always come back- which fortunately they did!  I felt much more confident by the time we got back to the kiddie pool, and chatted with some of the other people who were with their dogs.

Now, I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but I was in a car accident on June 1st, during the last couple weeks of school.  The other day, we found out that the car has been deemed totaled, so I had to go clean it out.  I hadn't actually seen the damage on the car until last Friday when I went to the dealership.  To be perfectly honest, I kind of internally freaked out a bit when I actually saw what happened to my truck...

So now, we get to start the always fun process of buying a new car. We've got to figure out what we can afford, but hopefully we figure it out soon, because the last 4 weeks of driving Luke to work at 4am has been hell. Right now, all we know is that we'll need something bigger than Luke's 2 door hatchback Hyundai accent... So if you have any recs for crossovers/small suvs/wagons, I'd love to hear it!

Meet Grizzly Kleinberg!

My mom and dad FINALLY found themselves as proud new puppy parents last week! 

Griz is a chocolate lab vizsla mix, with the potential to be a very energetic dog.  Lucy had the opportunity last weekend to meet her Auntie Griz and they got along famously.  It was wonderful to be able to see Lucy be so gentle with such a tiny little puppy, since most of the time, we've only been able to see her interact with dogs older and larger than she is.  Even though Lucy could have kicked Griz's butt on many instances, she just let the little one climb and paw and chew all over her.  Even when Griz would start to whimper, Lucy would come running from where ever she was to check on her newest family member.  Since Griz is only about 4 months younger than Lucy, it will be great for them to have LOTS of puppy playdates to tire each other out, and to see them grow up with each other.

"Are you my mother?"

Griz = Auntie, Lucy = Niece

The look that tells us that she will be trouble!

Griz loves her human sister!

(Don't mind the dumb music in this video, Paige and I were having a conversation about dog poop that I didn't think everyone else wanted to hear!)

May Updates

So, at this point, we are only halfway through May, but there are all sorts of updates to be told!

Back in March, I was pink slipped from my teaching job.  Fortunately, they were still hiring for my position and two days ago, I re-interviewed for my job.  I was up against several highly qualified and amazing candidates with years of experience, but ultimately, my experience over the last year at Crossroads, the reading skills I implement into the English classroom, and my strong desire to come back won me back my job.  While it will go back down to the .67FTE, I was told by one of my APs that there is a very good chance that it could become full time before the school year starts!  While Luke and I can afford for me to continue the part time position, it would be awesome if they could bump it back to full time...  All I have to say though, is that I am SO glad to not have to fill out teaching job applications this summer.  Those are super time consuming.  In fact, if I could only use one phrase to describe my summer of 2010, it would be Applications!

Our school is getting a new principal (our current one is retiring at the end of this school year), and it was just announced yesterday that one of our current APs has been hired for that position!  I'm very happy with how the principal interviews resulted because Nancy has been in my corner all year and has been enthusiastic about my professional growth since September.

Lucy is now 4.5 months old and is growing like a weed!  Here she is a month ago in the Dwight chair (we call it the Dwight chair because for Easter, we purchased the IKEA chair for ourselves, and since Dwight was our little Easter bunny at the time, it became his gift to us):

And here she is this past week:

It's hard to believe that this little cuddle bug (who is currently curled up and sleeping on my lap right now) will become a giant dog in just a short amount of time.  We continue to take tons of pictures and videos of her, so feel free to visit http://lucylorenz.blogspot.com for more updates on her!

In other family news, Luke's sister graduated this week and got a job offer all in the same day!  Congrats to Becca!  Also, my sister, Lauren, graduates from UMD today with her degree in English (for being someone who never wanted to copy me, I find it highly entertaining that she has the same B.A. as me!).  Congrats to Lauren!

Only 18 more school days until summer :)

Walk for the Animals

This is plea from me as we go into the last week of fundraising for the Animal Humane Society's Walk for the Animals on April 30th.  My goal is to raise $250, and so far I've raised $110.  This will be Lucy's first Walk for the Animals and we appreciate any monetary support we can get (every little bit helps!)

This is an event that Luke and I have a very personal investment in.  Our little Dwight was adopted from the Golden Valley site, and want to be able to give back to them as much as Dwight gave to us during his time in our family.

Please Please Please consider donating (it is tax-deductible).  The animals appreciate it more than you can ever know.

To donate, click on the link below.  Then click on the blue star that says "Make a Donation in My Honor" at the top of the page, and then follow directions for a credit/debit card payment.


http://events.animalhumanesociety.org/site/TR/Walk/General?px=1503133&pg=personal&fr_id=1150

We Love Lucy!

To keep track of her growth, I'm taking as many pictures of Lucy as I possibly can, and can't wait to be able to compare them as she gets bigger!  Instead of completely filling up this blog with pictures of Lucy, I started another blog that is dedicated to her:  http://lucylorenz.blogspot.com/

Lucy's blog (We Love Lucy) is more for Luke and myself, so that we can sort and organize the evidence that our soon-to-be mini-horse was once the size of an average dog... but feel free to check it out from time to time!  My goal is to update it with at least weekly pictures of the crazy terror dog. 

P.S.  Lucy's link will always be located on the right side of this blog.  Just click "We Love Lucy" and you'll be there!

Miss Lucy

Dwight's passing has left a very huge hole in our lives.  A hole apparently big enough that only a Great Dane mix puppy can fill...

Meet the newest member of the Lorenz family- Lucy!  Lucy is almost 15 weeks old and is a Great Dane mix (we don't know what kind of dog her dad is).  While she's only been with us for a little over 24 hours, she already has us wrapped around her humongous paw!

Keep an eye out for her adoption story coming soon :)