One year later

Facebook's "memory" feature is usually great. Seeing pictures of the kids when they were younger, seeing pictures of various trips, and fun memories with friends is a great trip down memory lane. However, I knew that a tough memory was coming up soon once I started to see pictures of my time in Texas to help Hurricane Harvey survivors last year. I just wasn't totally prepared to see it today.  

One year ago today we had to put Buster down. Re-reading my post made me sob today and I really can't believe that it has already been a year. Yesterday as we shopped for Christmas decorations we saw a puppy Berner in the store and my heart felt so sad as I was petting the dog (his name was Bodie). I "liked" the place where we adopted the cats and every time I see a dog adoption picture on their page I get jealous. I know that a dog is not exactly conducive to our lifestyle right now, but man I miss having a dog. As frustrating as Buster was with his quirks, he was my quirky dog.

😢

My new BFFs- Michelle and Oprah

I'm so behind on updating the blog! I am going to try to put together short posts to get caught up.

Since it is already on my mind, last night I was seriously lucky enough to get tickets to Michelle Obama's first book tour event in Chicago. It was billed an "intimate conversation" which was pretty funny because the United Center holds 23,000+ people. 

Oprah hosted and interviewed the event which was pretty cool. She looks like she has been rocking her Weight Watchers plan.

The event started with a long video of Michelle- her upbringing, her time in the White House, different appearances on shows like Jimmy Fallon or Dave Letterman. Then Oprah came out to talk for a few minutes before introducing Mrs. Obama. Their conversation lasted about two hours and it was really interesting. I haven't really seen any interviews this past week because life has been crazy so she may have talked about some of these things already....

The stage was pretty far away so at times it was easier to watch on the large monitors

One of the more interesting things Michelle talked about was how it felt like she was the "mom" of the country and Barack was the "dad." So while she is happy to be open about IVF, going through marriage counseling, etc. now she didn't really think that it was appropriate to talk about it while she was in the White House. There were so many other things going on at the time, she didn't want to be a distraction.

She also spent a lot of time talking about her experience in being the only woman or the only minority in the room with powerful men. Basically she spoke about how women and minorities' voices are important so we need to make sure to speak up. Also, there were tons of powerful men in these rooms but they weren't necessarily smart. :-) I'm butchering what she was saying, but it was powerful and true.

Anyway, I'm super happy that I was able to snag tickets for this hot event! I NEVER seem to get the hot tickets so the fact that I was able to get three (my mom and sister went with me) is amazing. Now excuse me as I have to call my new BFFs Michelle and Oprah. :-)