A Day In the Life....

I saw Kate at Elephantitas Alegres do this a few months back and I thought it was such a great post idea, so I totally stole it.  Hope you enjoy mine as much as I enjoyed reading hers!  This is my life on Thursday....

My terrier alarm goes off at 5:30 AM.  Petey hops off the bed and starts running around the room like a madman, hoping the jingling of his collar is enough to wake Ginger who sleeps in the other room and has a talent for barking us out of bed.  We've gotten wise to their conspiracy and Ginger now sleeps on the opposite side of the house and has a white noise machine, so Petey's antics are useless.  I walk across the bedroom, pick him up, and put him back in bed with us for another 30 minutes.

At 6 AM my real alarm goes off, I hit the snooze button and then I get up, take the dogs out, feed them, and then hop back into bed and hit the snooze button continuously until 7 AM.  At 7:10 I hop into the shower.  At 7:20 I host a conference call in my kitchen.  I should have gotten up earlier, so I lead the conference call sans pants.  ::sigh:: 

While I'm on the call I pop in a pod to my Keurig and fill up my pink sparkle travel mug I got in Vegas.  By 8 AM my call is over, I put on pants and makeup and am out the door by 8:15.

I don't have a long commute, in fact I only have to drive 3 miles and I don't have to get on any major highway.  My.  Commute.  RULES!  The whole way I rock out to Ke$ha.

I roll into my cube around 8:30 AM.  Here is where the magic happens.  In case you are new to the blog, I'm a geologist/environmental consultant.  Note that the magic is very messy and full of post-it notes.  I scarf down a half a cup of low fat cottage cheese and a banana for breakfast while I work.

This owl lives in my cube over my computer monitor next to my very professionally framed PG certificate.  You'd think a document I worked so hard to get would warrant a proper frame, but no, it's in a pocket protector.  The owl used to hang out in a tree in front of my office to scare off birds so they wouldn't poop on our cars (by the number of car washes I had to get, I'd say that was a fail).  They cut the tree down and this guy ended up in my cube.  He wears a bow because he's fancy.  I am currently scheming all sorts of holiday appropriate attire for it.  Anyone know how to fashion a pilgrim hat for a fake owl?  

I spend the day fielding one million phone calls and doing all sorts of tasks.  My desk is covered in papers and folders.  I don't like to get too specific in what I do, but just know I was super duper busy.  At lunch a coworker and I go to Maria's for lunch.  We go to Maria's at least once a week, usually on Mondays, but we haven't gone out to lunch all week and our day is pretty crazy, so this is a welcome break.

I come back to a million messages.  I accidentally left my cell phone at my desk when I went to lunch, but am kind of glad to have had an hour of peace and quiet.

Three PM rolls around and it's time for some Chai tea in my Longhorn Tervis tumbler and an apple cinnamon rice cake.  I continue on like this until 6 PM, by which point they've already shut the overhead lights off on me and I am the last person to leave the office. 

I get home around 6:15 and am greeted by the terriers, here's Ginger, a blurry, squirmy ball of fur who is wiggling and wagging all over the foot of the bed until I pet her hello.  I kiss the hubs hello, I change clothes, I freshen up and Christine  picks me up to go to see a movie at the Alamo.

Here's my movie outfit.  Gap curvy jeans, sweater by Old Navy, ring by the Limited, not pictured, red patent flats by Steve Madden.

On the way to the movie, I field a couple work calls (never a dull moment with my job) and fire off a couple work related text messages.  Finally we get to the Alamo and enjoy a lovely dinner, Malbec, and see Morning Glory, which is a totally cute chick flick. 

After the movie Christine drives me home, I have some quality time with Darryl, he has gone to dinner with Christine's husband while we were out, and by 11 PM I am passed out with Petey's body pressed up against my legs, I don't even hear Darryl come to bed....

Miller Time

This is a cautionary tale, though slightly humorous. But I would like to preface this post with a disclaimer that animals should never be given alcohol on purpose, it is poisonous and cruel and anyone who intentionally inflicts this on their pet should have them taken away and should be arrested.  What happened here was a genuine accident and one we will never repeat and is only funny because we got lucky and our Ginger is healthy and fine, despite our mistake.  Even a small amount of alcohol can KILL YOUR PET.  Do not try this at home.

This is Ginger.  Our sweet little girl and Petey's partner in crime.  We are dog lovers.  My husband refers to me as a crazy dog lady.  I would never intentionally do anything to hurt my dogs, but sometimes the best of us make mistakes.

Ginger helps in the office.

Hiding in her crate

Edward Hippo Hands!

Ginger's got a new bag.

Last night we learned she had something in common with a certain famous redhead.  No not a cocaine problem (I'd have pictures of Paril Hilton for that, duh).  A drinking problem.

Something's been attacking my green beans in my garden and I suspected slugs, so I did what I've done since I was a little girl (who had a dog, HE never did this) to combat slugs, I set a beer trap.  You put a little dish of beer in the garden and the slugs drink the beer, get all drunk and drown in it.  My garden has a small fence around it, after setting my trap I tightened the fence up so our dogs couldn't get into it and I told my husband about it when he got home and how we needed to keep an eye on the dogs when they were in the yard for the next couple of days so they didn't mess with it or try to break into the garden.

Around 9 PM we both forgot and we let them into the yard.  Ginger came back in and hid under the bed, not unusual for her, it's like her little den.  About 30 minutes later she came bounding (actually slipping and staggering are more accurate) across our living room.  I looked at D and said, "I think the dog is drunk."  He looked at her and said she was fine and there was no way, but upon closer inspection she clearly had rolled in poop (a favorite past time) so he whisked her away for a bath while I strapped on my headlamp and garden clogs to inspect my trap.  Sure enough, most of the beer was gone.  I checked under the bed and as I suspected, dog beer vomit.

By this time Darryl comes out of the bathroom with her soaking wet.  She's shaking to dry off/falling over and he looks at me and says, "yeah she's drunk."  I took dog CPR and First Aid (yes I am certified to do CPR on a dog or cat, WHAT OF IT) so I knew I should call the ASPCA poison control hotline which I keep on our fridge.  As I'm sitting there a message comes on and says I'll be charged $65 TO TALK TO SOMEONE.  REALLY ASPCA?  REALLY?  One little voice in my head was screaming "THIS IS NO TIME TO BE FRUGAL" and it was a case of poisoning, but it wasn't like she drank a quart of motor oil.  I was not about to pay $65 for someone to tell me to give her bread and water and help her walk it off (that's what my freshman year of college was for, duh). 

So I called the local emergency vet, figured I could scam the receptionist into soliciting some free advice from the vets which totally worked.  We keep the map to the animal hospital stuck to the fridge.  We are the most prepared pet owners ever...except for when we accidentally leave dishes of beer in the back yard.  Dog owner, fail.

I talked to a vet, described her symptoms, the quantity ingested, weight, age, etc.  I was expecting them to tell me to bring her in for stomach pumping or charcoal or something dramatic, but they said all they could do is give her an IV of fluids.  Also not worth $60-$150 since her favorite snack is ice chips which she greedily gobbles up, so I kept the bowls of those coming to keep her well hydrated.  I know for a fact she was well hydrated because she peed all over our house, but by that point, we deserved it.  Meanwhile D had to disassemble our whole bed to clean the carpet where she'd thrown up (thank God she threw some of it up).

Petey didn't know what to do with the whole thing, he kept trying to play with her, pushing her with his paws so she fell over.  She was trying to run around the house and was slipping and stumbling.  I ended up keeping her snuggled up next to me, feeding her ice chips so she didn't hurt herself.  It may have been the fact that she was half wet from the bath and being pumped full of ice by me, but her whole body was shaking.  As funny as it was at first, you could tell she was really scared and that being drunk for a dog was NOT fun the way it it is for humans.  I ended up making her some white rice, I was hoping consuming a couple tablespoons of cooked rice would help boost her metabolism and process the alcohol faster.  Plus, I totally need a snack when I'm drunk, so I figured it wouldn't hurt.

We stayed up with her into the wee hours of the morning, pushing fluids, taking her out to pee, and keeping her awake (ah college memories, though I never took a roommate to the bathroom on a leash).  When she finally sobered up enough to the point I was comfortable going to bed (basically she was cognisent enough to scratch to ask to go outside rather than peeing wherever she happened to be standing at the moment) but we put her in our bedroom and took turns getting up every couple hours to check on her, take her out to pee, and give her more ice chips. 

The next morning she was clearly hung over.  A little snuggle time in the bed with me, followed by breakfast, followed by another big bowl of ice chips and she seemed okay.  I came home from work at noon to check on her and repeat the hydration drill and she was thankfully back to her normal self, saucy, running around the yard, tail wagging.

I think as more time passes I'll find this funnier, honestly I didn't know if I should laugh or film it or burst into  tears because I was so scared for her or maybe just have a beer myself.   Thankfully she is okay, remained conscious, frisky, and was openly taking on fluids which is why we didn't seek emergency medical attention, but if this does happen to your dog definately call a vet.  And let this be a lesson to pet owners out there to keep an eye on substances that could be toxic to pets, we were clearly very lucky and are so glad our pretty little girl is feeling like herself again.  In the meantime, we'll be signing Ginger up for AA.

Weekend Recap

Friday
Came home from work and gleefully packed my new gym bag, procured from the Vera Bradley's website half off sale.  Normally I think that stuff is grossly overpriced but I have a purse from there that I use to travel and I find the use of pockets and washability of them makes up for the fact that they look like my grandma's quilt.  Plus the whole 50% off thing putt them right at the price point that I think they should be to begin with.

So I opened the box and before stuffing it full of my gym goodies, I did what every normal pet owner does, stuffed Ginger in it and walked around the house with her.

Petey was not chosen for this mission because A) he's been known to pee himself ALL THE TIME for no good reason and B) he usually has poop stuck to his butt and we hadn't done a "clingon" inspection that day.  Ginger somehow manages to keep her pooper pristine, so in the bag she went.  Now I don't know where I'd go with either dog in a bag, but I'm sleeping easier knowing that I now have that option, however, for now, the bag is occupied by my swimming gear.

So Friday night we went to dinner with a coworker and his wife and then they came back to the house to see our fabulous new kitchen and have a few drinks. 

Saturday
The next morning I had an 8:30 hair appointment, which was lovely and relaxing.  I got to sit and sip my coffee while reading Such A Pretty Fat (Jen Lancaster is my new literary obsession, but that's for another post) while my hair processed.  Then I ran up to the jeweler to get my ring inspected and cleaned followed by a brief jaunt to a nearby farmers market.  It's so hot, there's not a lot interesting going on in the way of produce, but I was more interested in the meat.  I came away with a couple of steaks, some snapper fillets, and some vegan mushroom tamales which I ate for lunch.  After some chores around the house and a trip to the gym we headed to a friends housewarming party. 

Sunday
We slept in until 11, which is uncharacteristic for us, but felt so good because we've had to get up early most recent weekends.  I cooked us up some lunch and we went to Home Depot to grab a couple things for the house and get some gardening supplies.  We filled our afternoon with me turning over one of my garden beds (1 down, 2 to go) and planting it full of flower seeds.  I planted cornflowers, cosmos, zinnias, and baby's breath.  I'm hoping for a nice fall cutting garden.  I also ordered some stock and snapdragon seeds due to come in next week that I'll add to the mix.   I absolutely love having the ability to cut my own flowers and make my own bouquets just from things I have growing in my own back yard. 

Afterwards I helped Darryl groom Petey.  We decided to attempt to groom our dog ourselves.  Cairns are a tricky breed and while we may have saved ourselves $50, it was time consuming and he looks pretty stupid.  Especially since I cut one side of his face shorter than the other, now he looks like a goofy Picasso painting with a crooked face or something.  And to make matters worse, we nicked his ear, though I think I was more traumatized than him from the whole experience, plus we still have to pay someone to trim his nails.  I draw the line at cutting nails.  Anyways, I'm sure we'd get better with more practice and his fur grows out extremely fast, but I don't think we'll do that again.  Plus coming in soaked in sweat from working in the garden to grooming a dog was a recipe for dog fur stuck all over my sweaty legs. 

Sunday night I made a batch of my turkey artichoke stuffed shells with spicy marinara sauce and put them in the freezer to have on hand for nights where I didn't feel like cooking or hadn't been to the grocery store.  For dinner we grilled one of the steaks that I bought at the farmers market, it was a great steak, I highly recommend 6J ranch.

Edward Hippo Hands

I discovered a new toy at Bark N' Purr last weekend called Bite Meez which are basically plush hand puppets with a squeeker in them that you can use to torture your dog.  Petey seemed excited about it in the store, but hasn't given it a second look since (for a dog that likes to pounce on hands, it seemed like the perfect toy).  Surprisingly, Ginger effing LOVES it.  She never wants to play, I can never get her to do tug of war, but the pink hippo never fails.  Perhaps it's the squeeker, perhaps it the fact that she occasionally chomps down on my finger if I haven't stratigically placed it in the puppet, who knows.  All I know is playing "Edward Hippo Hands" is a huge hit in our house. 

Weekend Recap

Many apologies to my readers, I haven't done the best job keeping up and have miserably failed to recount our Washington DC trip. That will have to wait, as I cannot presently find our camera. See, we've been a bit busy around here. One weekend it was a jaunt to DC, the next, major home renovation, and we spent this weekend camping. Great blog fodder, yes? It would have been, had I done any kind of photojournalism, whatsoever. Blog FAIL. So I'll start to catch you up in baby steps. Step one, "How I spent the weekend".

Thursday Night-drove back from a tough week in the field, feeling thoroughly depressed. Decided to call Elizabeth, aka The Waspy Redhead while I was an hour south of San Antonio who miraculously was available for dinner. I got to see her delightful new abode and we walked over to the Liberty Bar for good food, wine and conversation.

Friday-Dragged myself to work to round out my 60 hour week. Felt achy and congested, was sure the Swine Flu was eminent. Turned out to be just allergies and post-field work aches and pains. Friday night we had dinner at this little Indian place where I first convinced Darryl to try Indian after a few at home recipes. We went to REI and I got a new sleeping pad for camping (Themarest Basecamp) and a new, brighter headlamp as well as collar lights for the pups.

Saturday-After a bit of sleeping in, we loaded up for camping out at Inks Lake with friends. We didn't do too much trail hiking, but the boys did a little fishing and I was content to watch with Kristen and the dogs. I think camping was probably more relaxing for me than anyone else. It was nice to just sit, relax, not have to lead or lecture or have major responsibility (other than two badly behaved terriers who are now plum tuckered out).

For dinner I used the dutch oven that my parents gave me last Christmas. I made a yummy Guinness Beef Stew, where I tried to interpret something Darryl had on vacation in Whistler last year. It's pretty hard to interpret something that you weren't there to see, but I gave it my best shot. When I first met Darryl, he was more of a "hot dog on a stick" camping food guy. But I take cooking on a campfire as a personal challenge to make a hot, gourmet, satisfying meal. Now that I think about it, the early days of my cooking abilities started on a Coleman gas powered stove on geology field camp. He told me I changed his mind about camping food because I made the point that, you're out there by the campfire, you don't have TV to watch, what else do you have to do but drink beer and cook a delightful meal with your friends?

Here's how I did it and ended up with rave reviews:

-Melt a stick of butter, add chopped onions, carrots, and potatoes to saute.
-Add a pack of stew meat (I was cooking for mostly Darryl and I, so I only used 1.3 lbs stew meat, you could add more meat or veggies depending on how many mouths you need to feed)
-Add 2 packs of dry onion soup mix
-add 8 oz sliced mushrooms
-season with seasoned salt (remember the onion soup mix has salt in it, so don't overdo it), thyme, oregano, and a bay leaf
-add about 1.5 cups Guinness Stout. Just eyeball it, everything should be covered, but remember this is a stew, not a soup. Better to under pour, you can add more later, or add beef stock later if you want to thin the gravy out.
-stir in tomato paste, one of those baby cans is fine, just scoop it in there.

I loaded about 15 coals on the bottom and 10 on top and let it do its thing for about 1.5 hrs. The sauce thickened a bit towards the end, but you could add some cornstarch if you wanted to thicken it up more. It came out nice and meaty and rich, though badly lacking some biscuits as a side. I'll have to figure out how to do that over a campfire for next time.

Finally, for dessert I made my dutch oven peach cobbler, which could have used more peaches. The hubs came home with two 15 oz cans of peaches, but I recommend twice that amount. Or you could use cherries or any other yummy canned fruit in syrup.

After all that food (plus or minus a few s'mores) and a few beers I was more than ready to crash. So tired in fact that I slept through Ginger standing on my back for the first half of the night so she could see out of the tent and bark at everyone walking to the bathroom by our campsite. Needless to say, the hubs finally broke down and locked her in her crate in the car for the rest of the night. At least one of us got a good night's sleep....

Ginger's First Ride in the New Car

We got her a little basket so she doesn't scratch up the leather interior. We took a ride to Sonic to get a cherry limeaide. All and all, I think it was a success, though I got a few "are you serious?" looks from her.

Dog Baby

I think my dog Ginger didn't get the memo that she's not a human baby. She wakes up during the night crying, I take her out to pee (she could totally hold it if she wanted to), put her back to bed, and 3 hours later it starts again. We're going to get a sound machine and put it in her bedroom (yes, she has her own room to sleep in). We figure maybe sounds outside are waking her up? I just want to seep through the night.

Petey's Haircut and Other Things

Here's Petey, fresh back from the groomer, she took a little but much off of the face. You can see by the fact that his ears are pushed back that he's mortified to be photographed in such a state.

And while we're on a public humiliation kick around here, I give you my attempt at water skiing. In my defense, this is the first time I've ever tried it. I'm much better at sitting on the boat and drinking.

Not in Kansas Anymore

Survived Tornadogate 2009 unscathed. We were supposed to babysit for a friend tonight, but they cancelled. Good thing because we would have been hunkered in an interior closet with the baby, because I'm from West Texas and that's how we do it. Instead the dogs and I just chilled out and listened for the freight train. We did lose power for 3 freaking hours (note that the houses across the street had power, I assume just to taunt me). Luckily I had about 45 pink honeysuckle scented votives left from the wedding that I used to light the house and several boxes of 4 ft sparklers which I contemplated lighting up on the porch, but then decided against it.

The dogs were freaking out, someone definitely tinkled in the living room. The hail looked pretty small, so I'm hoping my garden wasn't decimated, fingers crossed. So many beautiful little green tomatoes, noooooo. Anyways, I lit up the house, put on my headlamp, did some chores, and read a magazine. By the time the power came back the temperature was up to 80 degrees. Thank you air conditioning, I would be hot and sticky without you.

Also, FYI, never ever get out of your car and seek shelter under an overpass, the way the wind whips under those things, you're in a lot more danger. Get out of your car, lie in a ditch and cover your head. We were discussing this at work one day and I asked, "so if you can't hide under an overpass, what do you do?" My coworker responded, "find a pipe sticking out of the ground and tie you and your ex-husband to it with a strap, then ride through the tornado unharmed." Yeah, that's the ending of the movie Twister. Love that someone else remembers that.

Weekend Recap

Friday
After a tough day at the office (note I like my job and I LOVE my projects, but it was a demanding day) Darryl got to pick the restaurant since he's been slaving away until 3 AM in the morning all week. He picked the Texas Roadhouse, not my favorite, but they had 23 oz Lonestar Beers for $2 and you really can't go wrong with that. Then we brought Ginger over to a friend's house, watched some TV and fell asleep on our friend's couch after a couple more beers. It was a long week.

Saturday
I'm not going to lie, we worked really hard on Saturday. I spent hours giving the house a thorough cleaning (hubs made me fire the maid since the wedding is over, but at least he helped), did laundry, and then we borrowed our sister in law's truck for an Ikea expedition with Christine! Here's what we got:

No one got us our duvet cover off our registry, but this one was much cheaper and super comfy. I think I'm still going to keep the pillow sham, I think it'll go with the tan bedspread nicely. What do you think?

We also got this buffet to put in our kitchen (which the hubs is currently assembling, major hammering happening in the living room). Since we're running out of cabinet and counter space for our new swag, this will allow us additional storage and counter space. And I plan on stacking up my cooking books on the shelves. So excited! We also got the curtains hung in the study and the other furniture moved back in.After our trip, we feasted on curried chicken which I cooked in our crockpot while we were out shopping. After dinner I made an Academy run to get stuff for swimming. I'm going to start swimming laps on my lunch break with my coworkers 2x a week so I needed a new workout swimsuit, goggles, and a cap (dorky, yes, but I can't do my damn hair 2x a day). I was tempted to buy the Michael Phelps USA swim cap to be funny, but I figure I should focus on not drowning before I try adding comedy to my workout. Finally, Saturday night, Petey and I went over to bring Christine a diet cherry limeade from Sonic and hang out/give Darryl alone time.

Sunday

I totally scrapped my plans of having another super productive day and slept in then went to an early lunch with D at a Greek place nearby. We went to Crate & Barrel and finished off our registry, got all our dishes and silverware and ordered my stand mixer! I know it sounds bizarre, but I am planning on doing a lot of mixing as soon as that bad boy comes in. Sadly, it was on backorder.

One of the registry items we did pick up was this gem (see below):

It's like a mood ring for your wine bottles, helping you to figure out if your wine is at the optimal temperature, love it.

After that I treated myself to a pedicure since my feet were looking pretty scary. I'm not one to pamper myself this way too often, but lately Darryl has made some comments on the heinous condition of my feet and my callouses so I'm trying to go a little more often than, say, four times a year.

Afterwards D made me a Nalgene of frozen sugar free margarita and we met up with friends to grill and hang out by the pool. Afterwards, I went to the grocery store and returned to find a glass pane missing from our fire place door. Darryl had been flailing his hand around in an effort to get his wedding ring off for his buffet construction project, and the ring went flying into the fireplace door, shattering the glass. ::sigh:: And he thinks we can't just replace the glass pane and all the ones I saw online cost over $300 for a new set of doors. Another weekend project I guess, the look was a little outdated and they were hard to open and close, so I guess it's not a total waste.

That's all I've got for now, have a great week!

I Survived Memorial Day Weekend '09

I kicked off my weekend by leaving work at 2 PM and meeting up with Darryl to take me to get my Lasik. Thank God they pumped me full of Vallium, because when they cut your flaps with the laser, they have to attach this suction thing to your eyeball and I was clutching the teddy bear they gave me for dear life.

He then took me home where I promptly passed out, only to wake up to my fabulous friend and bridesmaid Christine's (see below) phone call to tell me that her boyfriend Parker had PROPOSED! I tried to sound excited, but I'd had 2 Valiums so it came out more like, (imagine Paris Hilton-esque monotone voice) "You're engaged? That's sooo great. I had Valium." Soooo yes, did not display the appropriate amount of enthusiasm, but I was pumped! I actually got it out of Darryl earlier that day while I was still at work and the general excitement of it all greatly inhibited my productivity. I told all my coworkers since I couldn't tell anyone else :).

The next day I woke up and drove myself to my follow up appointment. My eyes feel a little gritty, I have a few small hemorrhages in the whites, but my vision is 20/25 and will continue to improve. It's still a little hazy to read and see close up details, but I think it'll take another week or so to stabilize.

After my appointment and errands, Darryl and I took Home Depot by storm buying stuff for our home office project. Unfortunately, I didn't take a before picture, but one of the walls was such a bright yellow that I was constantly walking by wondering "Who the eff left the light on in here" only to realize that the lights were off, it was just the wall. It has been my junk room since I moved in here, in fact, most people were surprised to hear we HAD a third bedroom since we keep the door shut when we entertain.

Three gruelling days later, we scraped the popcorn ceiling down, reinstalled the joint tape at the ceiling wall joints, applied and sanded joint compound, sanded and repainted the walls and trim, recaulked the windows, replaced all doorknobs, power outlets, light switches, phone jacks and their respective faceplates, and installed a smoke detector. It was pretty challenging since I had to wear goggles to protect my eyes and I had to do a ton of taping which with my sketchy vision situation, basically required Darryl to come through and retape everything. AND we bought a new desk which we installed (I put it together wrong, once again, vision not really great for reading directions). The dogs expressed their dissatisfaction in our not paying attention to them by walking through the paint, pooping on our drop cloth, and running off with our paint brushes in their mouths.

Here is our finished product. We still have to install the ceiling fan, window treatments, and a few decorating details. After that we'll push the desk back into the corner and install a flat screen between the two windows so D can watch basketball while he's in working. This way he has a nice space to work from home rather than staying at the office until all hours of the night and I have space to set up my study materials for my upcoming PG exam.

Midway through rewiring the light switch I got hit by waves of nausea and had to go lay down and focus on not barfing all over our bedroom. Darryl's theory is I just got over exhausted, I spent most of the day half assing through the rest of the project and laying in bed with body aches (hard to tell if that's from all the crap I did this weekend or actual illness) and chills (but luckily no fever). So here I sit, continuing to watch the John and Kate plus 8 marathon, with the little doggies at the foot of the bed while Darryl works away in the study on actual work stuff. How he has the energy for it, I will never know. He was very patient and sweet nursing me back to health and was okay with my failed attempts to assist in the project. Best husband in the world.

Agony of Da Feet

Last night as I was sitting down to a lovely plate of shrimp with peanut sauce with a side of sesame stir fried snow peas and some seasoned potato wedges, when my meal was inturrupted by Darryl who comes in limping, from his basketball game, he rolled his ankle. So he takes off his shoes, yelling for pain meds and I end up having to cut the sock off his foot. At this point, I tried to not let my reaction show in my face, but I said very calmly, "okay, we need to go to the ER" because it was practically grapefruit size.

So I'm trying to get the dogs tucked away and Ginger, my little kidney patient who wouldn't come out of her crate all week decided she didn't want to go back IN the crate because she was feeling better. I was like, "Really Ginger? I had to drag you out of there snarling all week and now the one time I need you to get IN there, you won't?" And of course, she was tricked into the crate with a treat.

Long story short, D's ankle wasn't broken, he's just crutching around in an air cast until he can put weight on it. I hope he meant it when he promised no more basketball until after the wedding.

Ginger Update

Looks like our little fur girl has a kidney infection, so sad! We got her on some antibiotics and she's going back on Friday to confirm that they are working and that she doesn't have a blockage in her kidney requiring an ultrasound. She's been up and about, makes me glad I fed her an ice cube every 30 minutes last night, hydration is good for the kidneys. I'm going to keep up with the ice cubes and give the antibiotics time to work, hopefully she'll be in good spirits when I get home!

Poor Little Gingy

My poor little Ginger hasn't been herself lately. It's been so bad, I had to cancel her badly needed trip to the groomer. She's been in a terrible mood and I'm not sure what to do. It all started yesterday morning, she got up, ate breakfast, and then went back to her crate, which is odd because she's usually driving us nuts, wanting to go back outside to play and bark.

Last night, she seemed okay, she was running around in the yard. When she came in and was calmly laying on the carpet, I crouched down to pet her. Then I tried to roll her over to give her a belly rub, which she loves. She snarled and snapped at me and I loudly scolded her with a light swat on the bottom.

She then went scooting under our bed where she sulked for about 3 hours. Then it was time for her to go out for her last nightly potty run and she wouldn't come out. So we gently tried to prod her out with a stick, this tactic has worked before, but she freaked out and had an accident under the bed, then we felt really awful. We ended up having to disassemble the bed at 12:30 AM, grab her out of there, clean the carpet, etc.

This morning, she went and hid back in her crate again and when I carried her across the house in it to the kitchen, she was snarling at me. I managed to lure her out with treats and sweet words to get her to go to the bathroom outside but she darted right back into hiding.

I think a trip to the vet may be in order. Part of me wonders if she's just stressed and needs a run around the block to blow off some steam, but I also wonder if she's in pain so I want to check with the vet first. Poor Gingy.

Confession Monday

My favorite guilty pleasure as of late are The Closer and Saving Grace. I wish I was a detective. Not really, because in real life I bet it's scary and gross, but I wish I had a cooler job sometimes. Plus as flawed as the heroins of these shows are, there are some aspects of their personality that I really admire, especially their dedication to their jobs and how good they are at them.

I also wish Petey and Ginger could sniff drugs. German Shepards get all the glory, I bet a Cairn Terrier could root out some drugs like a champ. Criminals would be like, "Oh what a cute fuzzy little face, OH DANG YOU JUST FOUND MY STASH!"

25 Things

I was tagged by my friend Lyra on Facebook and by The Waspy Redhead, in their “25 things” posts, the instructions were to write 25 random facts, habits, goals, fears etc. and then tag some people to do the same.

1. I saw Spoon perform live last spring. They were terrible. It was the first time I saw a band live and consequently liked them less.

2. I signed up to run the Capital 10k, somebody for the love of God please sign up to do it with me. Also, do not judge me when I stop to walk after the first 5k.

3. My cube is adorable, if there was some sort of adorable cube contest at my work, I'd win, hands down.

4. I ate an apple today in a fit of anger. My computer crashed and I had to gnaw on something.

5. You know how you feel when you first meet someone and you're all working to impress them and are all insecure? I thought I'd never feel that way again since D and I are getting married, but last night I had a dream and it was like when we were first dating, the feeling totally came rushing back. I immediately woke up and snuggled him.

6. I would like to attend cooking school some day.

7. My dog Ginger is obsessed with sitting in my lap when I'm in our office at the desk. I don't know what it is about that desk/chair/room but she goes ape shit if I don't put her on my lap, then she licks the keyboard.

8. I keep saying I'm going to join Weight Watchers, but I know I'm procrastinating because I'm afraid it won't help me at all.

9. Darryl and I talk on the phone every day, I think we've gone without speaking maybe 3 times in the 5+ years we've been together.

10. No matter how annoyed I am at Darryl, no matter how many hours I've been stewing over something, he walks in the door and I can't stay mad because I'm just so dang happy to see him. This gets him off the hook more than he'll ever know.

11. I am scared at how much I love my dog Petey. I like Ginger just fine, but she bites me, hard, without warning and then pees on my couch and bed for no good reason. Petey is a total snuggle bug. I think if anything ever happened to him my heart would stop. I think if anything ever happened to Ginger, his heart would stop.

12. My favorite thing about my new job is that they don't treat me like a field tech.

13. I love to entertain, my favorite thing to cook are hors d'erves.

14. I love to watch my dogs greet each other, they touch noses and wag their tails.

15. I am concerned by the way people my age eat junk/fast food. I cringe when I see people with fast food cups or sacks in their hands.

16. I love Asian food, I get crazy cravings for it.

17. I wish I could get up when my alarm goes off, but I snooze for like 45 minutes.

18. I once dated someone who would get angry when I hit the snooze button. What is wrong with you? Who doesn't like to snooze?

19. I came close to hippying out pretty hard in college, right before I met Darryl. It was a time where I seriously considered shaving my head, braiding my hair, and getting my nose pierced. I am glad I never defiled my hair, but I do regret not getting the nose piercing. The most hippied out I got was going around braless with a scarf in my hair.

20. I sometimes wish I could live the life of a south Austin hipster for a month. Generally I think they're ghastly, but I was sitting at a diner on SoCo tonight thinking, I wish I had a crazy arm tat and face piercing and a very interesting outfit on with some sort of crazy looking hair held back by a scarf. I bet I'd take a lot of smoke breaks and talk to my friends about some band that no one has ever heard of but that's playing at SXSW.

21. I really like the 70's as an era, I think we can draw many parallels to today. I'm obsessed with all TV shows and movies that depict this time period. If I could go back in time, that's when I'd go. I loved Swingtown, I wish it was still on the air.

22. Sometimes when I'm really working hard on an environmental cleanup site I fantasize about Captain Planet coming in and saving the day. Sometimes I even sing the theme song softly to myself.

23. I think that getting all upity about certain chemicals in Nalgene bottles is rediculous. I hate people who throw away their perfectly good Nalgenes. If you knew the cocktail of much worse things you are exposed to on a daily basis, some plastic chemical in your Nalgene would be the least of your concerns. I am trained to know what I am coming in contact with. I'm surprised I'm not already growing a 3rd arm based on just what we have around the house.

24. I have a friend who was horrified that her mother suggested she clean her child's high chair with a bleach wipe, prefering a more gentle cleaning method. I on the otherhand, consider bleach the only acceptable cleaning method. Hope my baby likes bleach.

25. I can't stand people "Going Green". It's so trendy. I know, ultimately, it's hella annoying but worth tolerating if it raises awareness, but I still think people who bring canvas bags to the grocery stores are giant posers.

I tag:

- Kristen at Life in the Mozart State
-Fu at Dollip of Solipsism
-David at Hiero's Experiments

Precious

I think Petey and Ginger need some new threads, pink cashmere for Ginger and a nice little nautical number for Petey. Who knew JCrew sold dog attire? My dogs can now generate their own dry cleaning bills....

Ain't No Thing But A Chicken Wing

Ginger is my little chow hound, always underfoot when I'm cooking in the kitchen, moves at the speed of light when the dishwasher is opened to lick food off the dishes, etc. In fact, she's so underfoot in the kitchen, I've accidentally kicked her in the face a few times while in the flurry of food prep. She does come in handy when I spill something and is usually pretty good if I drop something she shouldn't have, like onion bits, I can usually yell at her and scare her off from it.

However, last night was not one of those occasions. I was preparing a chicken enchilada casserole (which never happened, ingredients have been tabled for tonight) and I accidentally dropped a chicken wing on the floor. Technically, it never even hit the floor because she swooped in and took off with it. Then there was a comical chase with Petey and I throughout the house which culminated in my bedroom where she scurried under the bed. Sticking your hand under the bed to take something away from her is usually asking for a severely bitten finger, but I was fearless in my pursuit. Unfortunately she wriggled to the opposite side of the bed, so I ran around to the other side and of course, then she wriggled back to the first side so I couldn't reach her. I was about to start ripping off the mattress and removing the box spring when she came trotting out, no wing in site. I looked under the bed for it, no sign. Then it occurs to me that she swallowed the damn thing whole!

Next came a phone call to the vet who recommended I bring her in to induce vomiting. Chicken bones can splinter and could cause intestinal blockage or perforation. I know a lot of bigger dogs can get away with this sort of thing, but she's only 14 lbs and has teeny intestines. So we go in, they put a tiny pill inside her eyelid and tell me to walk her around outside. Sure enough, Ginger yacks up the chicken wing, still in one piece. I take her back in, they take the pill out of her eye, rinse it out, add some ointment and send us on our way. I thought about photographing the regurgitated chicken wing for the blog, but thought better of it. You might be reading this over lunch ;).

Weekend Recap

I am starting to note a serious lack of photos of my real life on this blog. The photos provided herein are courtesy of The Waspy Redhead. I think my new year's resolution is to add a little more photojournalism to my life. Here's a rundown of my weekend:

Thursday-Nursed massive hangover and prepared pot of famous chili recipe that I first discovered New Year's Day 2001. This chili is epic, I have many chili-haters in my life and I have converted many a person through it. The key is I use stew meat rather than ground beef. MOH and friend Marion came in from Ft. Worth for a bowl of said chili and we caught up and watched Tropic Thunder (saw it in the theater, might have been my fav movie of 2008 besides SATC).

the crew by the campfire

Friday-Brunch at Sweetish Hill with a huge gaggle of college girlfriends. Was WONDERFUL to play catch up with everyone. Ran some errands and prepared for camping trip at Pedernales Falls. Finally got the car and Petey loaded and got on our way. Ginger was NOT pleased about being left behind. Darryl called to say she was freaking out by the garage door and kept sniffing at her leash. She and Petey are such a sweet duo, they hate to be separated. D was struggling with a sore throat so he opted to stay home with Ginger. Met up with The Waspy Redhead, et al for camping. Used the new dutch oven my parents gave us for Christmas to prepare peach cobbler, it was considered a great success.

before

2 cans of peaches (big cans, like 28 oz)
1 box yellow cake mix
1/3 cup of butter chopped up and placed on top of cake mix
place 15 coals below and 10 coals on lid, cook for 45 min

after

Was harassed by park ranger for being too loud and drinking beer in a state park, which although beer cans and drinking is ubiquitous in all state parks, I was forced to pour out my half a can of Bud Light. Thankfully, no tickets were issued.

Saturday-Hiked around with the Petey Monster, most of the other dogs we were hiking with pooped out and had to be carried. Petey could have probably towed them on a little wagon with all his extra energy. Enjoyed a dinner accompanied by cheesey potato wedges baked in the dutch oven. Then Petey started acting funny and I realized we had a doggy diarrhea situation, probably from the river water he drank while splashing through. I contemplated driving home and returning in the morning to pick up my camping equipment, a dog with a gastrointestinal issue inside a tent is not a recipe for a good night's sleep. I decided to tough it out and despite having to get up multiple times for him to do his business, we made it through the night without a major tent soiling event.

potatoes

Sunday-Broke camp ASAP, headed back to Austin where Petey got a bath, some canned pumpkin and ice cubes (he wouldn't drink, but he was happy to chomp down a cube every couple hours, good for tricking them into hydrating), and some general TLC for his tummy. He got tons of sympathy and spent most of the day curled up either in his bed or at the foot of mine. I even put the Dog Whisperer on for him, he likes to look at the screen and cock his head to the side when the dogs on the show have a meltdown. He seems to be doing okay now and I've never seen the pumpkin fail in binding up these sorts of issues, so if we're still having problems into tomorrow it might be time to see the vet. I made my chicken tikka masala for dinner, cleaned out the Tivo, and caught up with Darryl.

Man's Best Friend Indeed...

This afternoon my mother and I took the dogs for a walk and Petey got a little overexcited when we came upon a trio of 2 schnauzers and a Yorkie. He managed to knock me down (yes a 13 pound dog made me eat concrete) and leave me bleeding on the sidewalk while he went after the dogs. As I was laying on the ground all I could say is, "Mom, go get Petey" because the thought of having to jump up and chase him down at a full sprint with a bruised and bleeding knee/hand/elbow with a twisted ankle to boot just didn't sound like much fun.

We get home and get me cleaned up, meanwhile he's out in the backyard. The next thing I know he's tunneled under the fence and is in my neighbor's yard, trying to get in their back door. My nerves are shot.