Recap in pictures

Here are some picture on my overly full camera-

Why are we standing here instead of walking?

We're dogs not easter eggs.

That's all for now. The rest of the half decent pictures are of food and will make me hungry lol.

Easter

I dont think I'll ever actually post about Easter. lol. Here is a quick recap.

Who: My mom, brother, Ken and I

What: eating yummy foods and spending time in good company. We celebrated my mom's birthday and deviled eggs. Ken baked cornish hens for each of us that were really yummy. My mom made deviled eggs which were amazing. I made carrot cake with cream cheese icing and yellow cake with chocolate sour cream icing. I think I made something else? My mom also brought assorted candies and cakes and cookies and goodies. We did the Easter basket thing and all ate waaaay too much.

When: Easter Sunday

Where: My house! It was my mom and brother's first time seeing the new place.

Why: My mommy and brother are awesome and I don't know how to cook for two people. :-)

Other random thoughts about Easter-

Oh YEAH! I made eggs from not martha. I poked holes in eggs and drained them. Then I dyed them, and the dog's tails. Then I baked them to sterilize. Then I put candies and paperclips in them and glued mini cupcake papers to them. Crack and enjoy. They were neat.

My memory card is full and I keep forgetting to put pictures on my computer, thus clearing out my memory card. Blogs really aren't any fun without pictures and I apologize if anyone reads this.

Arts Festival

Ken and I went to the Arts Festival on Saturday. Bear and Buster also went. The dogs did really well, although Ken admitted I was right about not wanting to take Buster. He pulls, a lot. Bear did really well with his Gentle Leader. Everyone loved the doggies and kept calling Buster a beagle. He's a baby basset hound. I should have made him a shirt. I ate a giant cream puff that looked better than it tasted. Ken had crayfish that he said were better last year. We shared a pretzel that was everything I hoped for and more. So there ya go. Bear kind of stole the last little bit of it for me and I seriously though about taking it out of his mouth and eating it. The art was neat, but we went more for the food and to expose the dogs to a bunch of people and other dogs. I forgot my camera but I wouldn't have been able to take many pictures anyway what with holding the dog's leashes and stuff. We got asked where we got the dog's backpacks a lot, and what kind of dogs we had. I always thanked people for asking to pet the dogs and not just petting them. When kids asked if the dogs would bite I always told them they can, any animal with teeth can, but they won't unless they feel threatened. Some kids looked at me really weird after I said they can bite. It was a good experience overall.

I'm going to try to post at least once a calendar week. I keep neglecting my poor little blog. For the most part it's just out of lazyness and I wasn't terribly inspired to write anything. I'll post about Easter soon too. Now it's bed time.

House Goals 2010

In school they always made us have goals and usually I just came up with something cheesy and inspiring. Nevertheless, I think goals are good things to have. I have some goals for my house for this year. Yeah, it's almost April, but better late than never right. April is also much better than December for year related goals. I also like lists, maybe a little bit too much, so here is my list of goals for my house:

1. Organize the house
-a place for everything....although maybe not in it's place all the time
2. Paint the bathroom
- high gloss medium blue
3. Paint the bedroom
- I'm still in love with glossy black walls with white everything else...but the walls in the bedroom aren't in the best condition and gloss will make that show even more...hmm
4. Buy storage for bedroom
-ikea bookcase with baskets/boxes for clothes to replace the dresser
5. Fully decorate the dining room
-paint the walls, put up bead board, buy an area rug, curtains, build window seats, sew cushions, buy a couple chairs that aren't metal and foldable, figure out a non holiday arrangement for the pass through, decorate the walls, paint the inside side of the door
6. Put down laminate flooring in the kitchen
- snap and lock from ikea sounds awesome, especially at under a dollar a square foot
7. Re-caulk the bathtub and do something pretty with the sink

Here is the pass through right now, I'm not really sure what else to call it. I'll have to get a better picture before Easter. I'll have Ken hold a sheet or something behind it so you don't just see the kitchen mess behind it. The Easter decorations came from my mom's awesome collections. I love holidays. My mom puts a ton of effort into them and really makes them special. She still hides eggs for my brother and Ken and I. :-)

Crazy weather

It's March. Actually it's towards the end of March. There are eight business days and a Saturday left in the month. I know the specifics because of work and the fact that we haven't met our goals yet. But anyway, it's been warm and sunny and gorgeous outside all week.

Today it's snowing. It was rainy this morning, enough to make the ground wet and muddy and make a mess on my kitchen floor from the dog's feet, and now it's snowing. White stuff falling from the sky like when you scratch a dandruff ridden cat's back. Crazy crazy crazy. I've had enough snow for the next few years. Where are you spring?

It's really hard to take a picture of falling snow.

My Poor Neglected Blog

I've been neglecting my blog. I just haven't really felt like blogging. Working full time was a bit of an adjustment, but I'm really happy with it. I get off before 6:00 some nights. I'll also get my first full time paycheck this Friday, which is very nice. Ken got a dollar raise last week. He's really enjoying straightening stainless steal.

So what have I been up to lately?

The weekend before last Ken and I went to a car show. There really weren't that many cars that wowed us. This is the car we voted for because it had the same level of attention to detail all the way around. It wasn't perfect either but it was really really good. The paint job looked neat too, it had the color changing yellow to green going on.

I had to take a picture of this one for my mom and little brother. If it's too small to read it's a Dallas Cowboys car. I'm not really sure why it was at a classic car show, but there ya go:

Food

I wanted to do a round-up of some yummy recipes I've made in the last little while and taken pictures of. Above is some Blue Bell Banana Pudding ice cream that I sprinkled walnuts and sprinkles on. Sprinkles make everything even better.

This isn't the best picture of the prettiest meal, but it was delicious. It is Taco Soup from the crock pot lady. I didn't add any meat. I ate it with sour cream and tortilla chips. It was yummy and made a ton. It filled up almost my whole crockpot.

Ken made pizza. He made the crust and everything. It's just cheese but I think it was one of the best pizzas I've had in a long time.

This is a citrus salad inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Citrus Salad. It had a ton of different citrus fruits in it. Central Market was having their "citrus fest" so I grabbed two of everything. There was ruby red grapefruit, two different kinds of mandarin oranges, some clementines, a honey tangerine and a Cara Cara. I squeezed Meyer lemon juice over it too. There might have also been a key lime in there. I added some mint, spinach and feta.

Just looking at the picture makes me want to make this again right now. It was Carrot Salad. It was amazing. I added some mushrooms and Parmesan because I'm American and couldn't just leave something alone lol.

Whew, that was quite a few pictures. I'll have to post tomorrow about Smitten Kitchen's Monkey Bread and her Oreos. They deserve a post all to themselves. I highly recommend both. The Oreos taste like Nabisco's, even without black cacoa powder. The filling is spot on too.

Small things that make me smile

I took pictures of little things throughout the day that make me smile:

On the left is a plastic crystal thing that my great grandma had, a little round faceted one that my mom gave me, and a more elaborate one that was on sale at Kohls from their Christmas stuff.
On the left is a ...thing that I got when my mom, brother, and I stopped in Kima, which is near Houston.

My makeup brushes are awesome. They are so much better for makeup application. I wash them when I remember, probably about every ten days. I have them in a candle holder with aquarium gravel in the bottom so they stand up on their own and don't get lost in the jar.

Surprise flowers for absolutely no reason other than the fact that Ken loves me. And of course a cat has to get in the way of a picture and check out the flowers before I shoo him away.

That's all for now.

A long overdue Valentine's Day post

I meant to post this last weekend but I didn't quite get to it. It snowed a lot last week. On Thursday I tried to go to work and it didn't work. I called my boss and he said just to go home. I had already asked for Friday and Saturday off from work so I wasn't too concerned about the snow. The only thing was that Ken and I had reservations at Ferre for 7:30 on Friday. We ended up canceling the reservation and rescheduling it for Saturday at 10:00 pm. It was really nice. We had a gazpacho with scallops for the first course. Then we both had ravioli with fontina cheese and a black truffle butter sauce. For the entree I had sea bass with tortellini which was excellent. Ken had some kind of cow that wasn't quite to his liking. It was a good cut of meat and cooked perfectly, but it wasn't seasoned very well. He likes meat when he cooks it. After we finished with our entree Ken got down on one knee and I have no idea what he really said but I said yes and everyone 'awww'ed and for dessert we had a cornmeal lava cake with chocolate gelato and caramel sauce. Another table saw Ken proposing and bought us a bottle of champagne. It was really sweet and romantic. I'll add more pictures later.

Decorating

I'm trying to decide on paint colors for the inside of my house. I have a pallet that sounds good on paper and should flow through the house. My carpet is burgundy though and it doesn't exactly go with the style I want in my house. It's brand new carpet and it's soft and nice, just...very very burgundy. Here are the colors I'm deciding between. I've narrowed it down since taking this picture, but it's a neat picure.

Walking The Dog

No, I'm not talking about the yo-yo trick. And more accurately for it's walking the dogs. All three of them, for as long and as often as possible. When Bear was a puppy: 

he was a monster to walk. He had a ton of energy and is very strong. He pulled the entire time and I could not walk him next to me. I bought a gentle leader and he walks beautifully with it on. He hates it, but he heels and walks beside or behind me. I started reading www.dogbreedinfo.com when I was bored at work and read "walking on a leash" many many times. That website also taught me how important it is to walk dogs every day. It doens't matter how big a house or yard you have, dogs instinctually need to walk. A backyard is really just like a huge kennel to them. They are migratory animals. I walk my dogs before they eat. Recently I decided to take Bear on a walk without his Gentle Leader. We jogged at first to wear him out a bit, then we settled into a more comfortable pace. It took a lot of corrections, but he seemed to understand that he was to walk next to me, not in front and he is not allowed to pull on the lead. He does ok passing by barking dogs and people at a distance. When we get closer to people or to another dog walking he wants to play with them and sniff them. I'm still working on ignoring distractions with him. I also bought him a backpack which he seems to enjoy. It gives him a job to do and it also gives him a better work out. I also like that it gives me a place to put things when I don't have pockets.

Buster is a puppy and has a lot of energy. He does ok with not pulling on the lead after we've walked a couple blocks. About a week ago I put Bear's backpack on him and I thought I was walking a different dog. He slowed down. He heeled. He was a pleasure to walk. I found a bigger "hydration backpack" at Tuesday Morning for Bear and a medium sized one for Gurdie. Today when I walked the dogs they all wore backpacks. They look kind of silly but it really does make a huge difference. Gurdie doesn't seem to mind. I didn't put anything in her backpack today just to get her used to something on her back. I'll have to get Ken to take a picture of me walking the dogs and the dogs with their backpacks.

I also realized today that I need to work on obeying my commands with distractions present. I'm going to start making them all sit right next to a yard with a barking dog. We pass by horses and Bear has stopped barking at them. The horses trot along the fence next to us when we're walking. It's kind of neat. Hopefully it won't be raining tomorrow when I walk the dogs. I don't like walking in the cold rain and neither do they.

Taxes

My taxes are done. I get to keep like $60 and the rest is going towards my house. But hey it's much better than having to pay or something crazy like that. I use the free edition of turbo tax because mine are easy and it's entering info off of my W-2 and going click click click. Yay.

Green Smoothie

A while ago I was on a walk and a lady gave me a honey dew melon. I'm not really sure why, but yeah. She gave me a honey dew melon and told me to be blessed and that I had pretty dogs. Do you know how hard it is to walk three dogs and carry a honey dew melon? If she lived further away from me I would have have to tell her no lol. It sat on the counter and then in the fridge for a while while we decided if it was safe to eat. I don't really eat honey dew, so I decided to make a smoothie. I used some honey dew, a banana, cranapple juice, and frozen peaches. I just threw things in until it tasted right and had a good texture. After that it was a weird color, so I decided to throw a handful of spinach in. I also added some lemon juice. It was pretty tasty. I was going to have it for breakfast in the morning, but forgot and then I had to throw it away. I have frozen peaches and mango in the freezer so I may make another smoothie again. I also have some honey tangerines that are really...pulpy to eat by themselves. They'd probably be better in a smoothie. I wish I had a better way of making smoothies at night for in the morning. I think I tried freezing some of it in ice cube trays one time and I couldn't get them out in the morning.

Dinner, Dogs, and random musings

This is how the sky has looked lately. Taken from my back door.


Dinner:

I walked the dogs tonight after I got home from work. It was kind of nice. I'm all energized and happy now. Endorphines are neat. I put cream cheese chicken in the crock pot this morning and it is GOOD. I boiled some pasta and peas and couliflower to add to it. It's a yummy rib stickin kind of meal. I have left overs for lunch tomorrow too which is awesome. I love left overs. When I was younger I didn't, then I realized that left overs are yummy food, but you just don't have to cook them again. They also make awesome quick lunches for work. It was a revelation to me.

Dogs:

We have a shelf in our kitchen for dry goods and canned items. Here it is:
Gurdie figured out it's food and I've cought her a couple times with a bag of rice before I put it on the top shelf. The dogs have been doing pretty good. They enjoyed their walk. Gurdie got tired and was dragging. She went home early. Buster still keeps nippin when they're both around food. We've been following Ceasar's methods through www.dogbreedinfo.com. I've learned a lot from that website. I read the whole entire "raising a puppy" where a lady documents raising a Boxer Ceasar's way. She has every week until the dog is over a year old. It's good stuff.

Well, I'm going to go fly(lady.net) for a little bit before bed. I have work early tomorrow. Yay extra hours, boo early lol. Tomorrow we get to find out if our branch stays open or not. fun fun fun.

I love my slow cooker

For Christmas my mommy got me a slow cooker. I love it. I throw stuff in in the morning and turn it on low. When Ken gets home he turns it on to keep warm. Then I get home and we eat. So far I've made brown sugar chicken, cranberry porn loin, yogurt, orange chicken, and 36 clove garlic chicken in it. I absolutely flipped for everything except the orange chicken. Ken liked it though. I've never actually had "normal" orange chicken, so that might be why. I like 'the crock pot lady' and her recipes a lot. Her blog is awesome. You should go read it She has a book too which I will probably be buying soon.

My Babies

These are our babies. We have two cats, one psycho kitten, two dogs and a puppy. Of course no post about animals is complete without pictures, so here they are:

Kitty Sandwhich-

The tabby with socks is Pudge, the other one is Colbi, and the black one is Zacko

Buster and Bear-

Bear is a australian shephard/aussie cow dog somethin or other mutt mix and Buster is the Basset puppy

This is Bear wearing a shirt and Gurdie-

Ken dressed him, not me for once lol.

Some more cute pictures



These are my baby brothers (my dad's dogs):


And my mommy's new kittens:

The House

This is my house. Well in 30 years or so it'll be mine mine. :-) It was built in 1935. It isn't in bad shape at all. I know the previous owner personally. So far my boyfriend and I are still just unpacking and organizing. Today I painted the front door. It's purple...really purple. It needs a peep hole and a wreath or something. When I paid my water bill they told me I need a permit for pretty much everything except paint and carpet, so I kind of ran with that lol. Here are the "before" pictures. Please excuse the mess and boxes. The mess isn't anything unusual though lol. This is half the kitchen and one angle of the bedroom-




The carpet is burgundy and brand new. The walls are white. There aren't any bedroom doors up yet. The kitchen is tiny. And I love it. It's mine. :-)

Introduction

Hi! I started this blog because I like to ramble and take pictures, blogging was the natural next step. I just bought a house built in the 1930s, and I wanted a place to document the changes I make to it. I also plan on posting recipes I try and some random crafty goodness. And of course animal pictures will be a regular feature. I have an exercise blog http://ihateexercising2010.blogspot.com/ too, but I wanted that to just be about exercising. This is a place for my random ramblings and things I think are neat. Enjoy!

I love the macro setting on my camera. :-)