I was so excited to go home this past week­end. Not only because I’d be there to cel­e­brate both my Mom’s and a good friend’s birth­day. Or just because I was *so* look­ing for­ward to sleep­ing in my big queen size bed with Hubby sleep­ing by my side. Nah … the biggest rea­son I was excited to go home (besides being with Hubby) was to see my Kozzy.

If you don’t remem­ber who Kozzy is, she’s our 11-​​year old “puppy-​​girl” who we joined our fam­ily on the day the Red Wings won their first Stan­ley Cup Cham­pi­onship in 42 years. Hence Kozzy’s real name: Kozlov Kon­stan­ti­nov. Kozzy for short.

Kozzy as an *actual* puppy

We adopted Kozzy from the “Meet Your Best Friend at the Zoo” Day at the Detroit Zoo. The moment we first laid eyes on her, we fell in love. She was the qui­etest, meek­est puppy we saw, and she appeared so docile. But, boy were we ever fooled.

The minute we got her home, Kozzy was all over our house and our back­yard. And in true puppy-​​fashion, she was in to every­thing. Although she lit­er­ally failed puppy school (she was labeled “socially aggres­sive”), Hubby and I can’t imag­ine life with­out her. And because I wasn’t going to be read­ily avail­able to care for Kozzy in my new digs, Hubby & I decided that she wouldn’t move until Hubby moved as well. So yeah, I was excited to see my puppy-​​girl.

When I finally saw her, Kozzy was just like that excited hyper­ac­tive puppy she was when we first took her home. Through­out the whole week­end, she didn’t want to leave my side … even if it was to go get the laun­dry in our base­ment. And because of that, I just felt totally loved; totally needed. So hav­ing to leave her once again, once the week­end was over proved to be pretty dif­fi­cult. Because not only was I say­ing good­bye to Hubby for the week, I was also say­ing bye to Kozzy until the next time I come back into town. I totally miss her and her silly antics …

Okay, so (kinda) switch­ing sub­jects … can any­one remem­ber which car­toon char­ac­ter used to shout out “Puppy Power!!”? Yep, it’s none other than Scooby Doo’s nephew, Scrappy Doo. And the rea­son I was brought up this par­tic­u­lar puppy in this post (other than to some­how tie the story of my Kozzy into this post) is because I recently received an award from one my IF blog­gie buddies.

So a great big Thank You! to Lori­Beth for award­ing me the Hon­est Scrap Award!

But with every great award, comes great respon­si­bil­ity … or is that with great power comes great respon­si­bil­ity? Regard­less, the rules of the Hon­est Scrap Award are as follows:

• Choose a min­i­mum of 7 blogs that you find bril­liant in con­tent or design.
• Show the 7 win­ners names and links on your blog, and leave a com­ment inform­ing them that they were prized with “Hon­est Scrap.” Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
• List at least 10 hon­est things about yourself.

So let’s begin. Hmm … 10 hon­est things about me:

1. I am def­i­nitely NOT a morn­ing per­son. I’m more apt to stay up late and wake up even later. BUT … if get­ting up early means I can get to work at an ear­lier time so I can leave work ear­lier, then I would drag my sorry tired a$$ to work.
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2. I love read­ing all kinds of books. But if given a choice between “War and Peace” and “Shopa­holic Takes Man­hat­tan”? I’d def­i­nitely choose the lat­ter … or even some trashy young adult book. Yeah … I have a thing for Chick Lit and Teen Romance. But what’s worse is that …
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3. Some­times when I’m done read­ing those books, I will return them to the local book­store and get credit towards buy­ing another book. (I feel like such a dork keep­ing copies of Meg Cabot teen books on my book shelves …) I guess you can say it’s “almost” like bor­row­ing books from the library. Except instead of a library card, it’s a Visa card.
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4. I con­sider myself pretty flex­i­ble and a go-​​with-​​the-​​flow type of per­son which, in nor­mal cir­cum­stances I am … but throw a major issue that requires an imme­di­ate deci­sion? I freeze up. I become par­a­lyzed with anx­i­ety and fear.
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5. Along the same “pretty flex­i­ble” line … I always thought I had the abil­ity to see things in shades of grey. Noth­ing could ever be just black or white. Except if some­one or some­thing pushes me too far. Then all I see is that I’m either ABSOLUTELY right (as in “stub­born”) or COMPLETELY wrong (as in “stupid”).
   

   Admit it … Kozzy’s adorable!

6. I have quite a wicked tem­per. I’ve got­ten bet­ter over the years … thanks, mostly in part of the incred­i­ble patience my Hubby has for me. But push my but­tons over and over and OVER again … well, just beware of my wrath.
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7. I appar­ently give off this vibe that I’m con­fi­dent and secure with myself. That I’m a smart and quite knowl­edge­able per­son. And that I’m arro­gant beyond belief. The truth is … most of the time I lack a whole lotta self-​​confidence and ques­tion every deci­sion I make. And I’ve pretty much been like that my whole life.
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8. While I usu­ally take pride in being unique and unusual indi­vid­ual, there are days I secretly wish I was just like every­one else.
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9. I have a dif­fi­cult time speak­ing up for myself or doing some­thing that I would want to do for myself. And when I do, I feel guilty … as if I’m being a very self­ish per­son. And finally …
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10. Even though I hate to admit it, my Mom was right. I never should have given up piano lessons in 9^th grade. Ten years of lessons, and the only song I can fully com­plete is “Heart and Soul.”

So there you go … 10 Hon­est Crap that you’ve always wanted to know about me, if you didn’t already.

Now hmmm … who to pass this award on to? Okay, here goes …

• Kate: I know how much she loves doing these memes and she always has such awe­some con­tent on her blog,
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• Kara: I love her writ­ings (and her, too!) even when the con­tent doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily fit the title to her blog.
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• Pam: My favorite Word­girl. I just love the way she writes, as if I was in the midst of read­ing one of those NON-​​trashy books I’m addicted to.
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• Veri­ance: She’s one of my HS friend. And well … I’m purely inter­ested in see­ing what her *hon­est* answers are. Also because I have ALWAYS loved read­ing her stuff … and am look­ing for­ward to read­ing more.
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• Beth: Sim­ply because read­ing her blog reminds me of being back home in the D.
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• KC: As every­thing I’ve read on her blog has always been com­pletely raw and hon­est. And besides … I’m SO excited for her in her new career path!And finally …
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• Shifty Shadow: There are days that I think she writes exactly how I feel. How much more hon­est can that get?

Thanks again, Lori­Beth … and thanks for all you read­ers out there that put up with my some­times inces­sant and grandiose dissertations.