After years of planning

For the past few years, I’ve wanted to make a calendar of Chris and Daisy.  I’d always get enough pictures taken, but I never successfully completed a single calendar until this year.  Over the break last week, I had access to a mac that has a fairly easy assembly process for a calendar, so I got started and within a week they came!  I’m so excited, and I think next year, I’ll put more thought into what pictures to put in.  So, get ready Chris and Daisy to have another year of cameras in your face.   Hopefully, there will be many more editions of the lazy dog days.

It’s no Rockefeller Plaza Christmas tree

But it still was fun…  One of these years I’d love to go to NYC during Christmas season, but until then I guess this place will do.  I can’t believe Christmas is just around the corner, and I’m happy to say that I’m DONE with shopping.  Thanks to the internet, I got most done while I was at home, thinking I’d avoid the crowds.  But then when we went to go look at the lights, I realized I wouldn’t have had to deal with the crowd.  The place was empty.  So after all, I guess I could have saved on all those shipping fees.  Oh well, at least I could shop in pajamas and two dogs on my side to keep me warm.

Whether I like it, she’s growing

Zuri seemed a little taller since last time I saw her a few weeks ago.  Once again, we were the only ones at the elephant exhibit, so I didn’t get a chance to ask my questions to the eco explorer.  I am starting to wonder if they are not going to be there during the winter months…  I guess a lot of people don’t really care for going to the zoo in the cold, but I think I’ll take advantage of the empty zoo and enjoy the quiet season.  And if it ever snows, I’ll rush on over to the zoo to check out those three cubs in snow.  Our annual pass has sure paid off.

Stretched out

Regularly, when I am walking my dogs I get commented on by strangers how they have me stretched out.  The strangers who say that are right because these dogs know how to make a walk that should be easy, into something that is a disaster for me.  They probably get the enjoyment of sniffing or trying to chase birds, and that’s all that matters, a good time for my pups.  I’m just glad these two are small, and if they were even a little bit stronger, I’d probably put my hands in the air and say FORGET IT.  It sure gets frustrating when one wants to take his pretty little time to sniff one spot, and the other wants to chase every bird she sees.  So whenever I get a chance to have extra sets of hands on our walks, I get excited as if I’ve won keno.  Or maybe even more.

Good stuff

This year for thanksgiving, I managed to put together a complete thanksgiving dinner for two, which probably could have served a lot more people.  At the beginning of November, I was planning on doing nothing because I had to work, and I thought it would be impossible to try and create a whole dinner while I had to sleep ALL DAY LONG.  But as time approached, I started to get a little sad at the holiday spirit I didn’t have.  And then a little turned in to a lot, so when Thanksgiving week came rolling around I was in full Thanksgiving mode.  Meaning, while I was awake and not at work I’ve been locked up in the kitchen.  And for some crazy reason, I wanted the majority of the stuff to be made right from the kitchen this year.  I have no idea why I wanted it that way since I was aware of my work schedule for this week, but I wanted it no other way.  So I made my rolls, pies, salads, and then it was time for the stuffing.  Growing up, stuffing had always been my favorite part of the whole dinner, but when I moved across the pacific something changed.  I was introduced to that boxed stovetop stuff, which is okay, but I wasn’t completely in love with either.  So for the last ten years, I haven’t had HOMEMADE STUFFING.  I guess I could have challenged myself to the experience a long time ago, but I guess it wasn’t until now that I had the missing feeling.

So there I went to the internet and the research began.  After a few hours of studying the art of stuffing making, I came to the conclusion that this year I will just try and stick to what sounded basic with bread, celery, onion, garlic, parsley, sage, poultry seasoning, broth, eggs, and butter.  I was shocked at the amount of butter that goes into this stuffing stuff, and it made me realize this stuff will only be eaten on Thanksgiving.  The sautéing part and preparing the bread part was a piece of cake.  I didn’t have any hesitation.  The hesitation however came right when I was supposed to mix the broth into the bread/vegetable/seasoning mixture.  I was scared that the whole thing would get soggy and ruined.  But I thought if it did get ruined, I could pull out the boxed stuff so might as well just go for it.  So there I poured the broth over my perfectly crispy bread pieces…  It looked okay, but the next step scared me even more…  EGGS…  But since I’ve already made it a little gooey, there I went with the beaten eggs.

By the time everything was mixed it still looked fine, so it was time to bake it in the oven.  And then what happened?  A couple minutes later, I forgot to dot the top of the stuff with butter.  That’s a quick fix though, I pulled the already baking stuffing and put some butter on the already butter infested stuffing.  I’m sure this step could have been ignored, but since barefoot contessa’s stuffing called for this step, I wasn’t going to skip the butter.  So after thirty minutes passed by, it was time to take the foil off the stuff.  And boy was I amazed at how lovely it looked.  I didn’t want to wait for the final bake, but I managed to keep myself busy, so I wouldn’t touch the thing.  After a long forty-five minute wait, my very first stuffing was ready to be eaten.  When I took that bite of the stuffing, I realized what I’ve been missing out on over these years.  Because of the deliciousness of the stuffing, the pies went untouched for the night.  There was no room for pies whatsoever, which is fine because I’ve been eating pies all weekend long…  I’m so glad I stuck it out, and I don’t think we’ll eat instant stuffing again.  Good bye, Stovetop.  Welcome back, homemade.  I just hope I can recreate what I’ve made this year…  Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving:)

Honest Scrap

Not Crap but SCRAP.  So today I found out that there is a person who reads my Scrap.  Thank you so much Christine from Minor Details for presenting the blogging award of Honest Scrap to my silly little ramblings.  Back in the days when blogging was new to me, I had a lot of motivation to keep things recorded.  But recently, I’ve been sliding away from my cyber life, but I think this just gave me a little motivation boost.  And I’m sure years down the road, I will be glad I kept it going because it is fun to look back.  So thank you Christine, and when years have passed by and I’m looking at my ramblings, I will once again be thanking you for motivating me to keep up the work.

Well, I guess there are certain rules I must follow as a recipient of the award. First, I must thank the person.  Second, present this award to others whose blogs you find brilliant in design or content, and third share ten honest things about you.

I guess I’m onto the second part, and after thinking and giving it lots of thought, I just can’t pick out things.  Yes, on top of OCD, I also suffer from some major indecisiveness.  I hope I’m not portraying myself as this wacked up person because I promise I’m not…  So what I will say to fulfill this requirement is that just look on my side bar, and those are the places I roam around to entertain myself.

Well, I guess now it’s time to share ten things about myself.  Here we go.

1. This one is easy; I love dogs or any other animal.  But I think dogs are my favorite.  And if I could, I would have all sorts of animals living with me, like a hedgehog and owl.

2. I’m a recycling freak.  If I see someone at work throw away a soda bottle that can be recycled, I secretly pick it up and recycle it for them.  Every bottle counts right?

3. I love Trader Joe’s.  Okay, if Utah ever gets a Trader Joe’s that carries their wine, I will be able to live in this state.  Knowing this state, they might get one in say ten years, but they will not sell the wine…  So the cheap wine is the key.  And if they ever get one, I will put in an application.

4. I have a habit of picking my split ends.  I’ve been trying to get rid of this habit of mine for the past year, but unfortunately I haven’t had any success.  Getting a short hair cut didn’t even help.

5. I’m all about vegetables and fruit.  Which should make going vegetarian easy, but it hasn’t been easy in the past…

6. I aimlessly search craigslist.  I probably spend way too much time looking for stuff I don’t even need/want.  What a waste of time.

7. I hate debt.  Did I mention how I spent sleepless nights counting the interest I was paying on my car?  I don’t know if that was a good thing I learned while I was at college, how to calculate the interest on loans.  The class was something like, family economics.  I can already see myself doing the same thing if we ever buy a house.  I think cash up front is the way to go.

8. I’m pretty frugal.  Sure I have splurges once in a while, but I can live on very little.  Like have I said I play these games where I give myself $20/week to spend on food.  You’d be surprised, it’s pretty doable.

9. I’m a TV junkie.  Want to know my TV schedule?  Afternoons are Ellen and Oprah.  I’m so sad about Oprah ending her show.  Nights are….  The good wife, the middle, modern family, flashforward, grey’s anatomy, desperate housewives, and brothers and sisters.  Yes, I have way too much shows I keep up on.  Oh, I’m so mad at Grey’s anatomy right now, they are not returning until the beginning of next year!

10. I’m bilingual.  I didn’t know ten things would be that hard, but I can’t think of anything else right now.

Well, the list kind of got a little long, but there you have it ten whole things about myself.  Ah, I’m still mad about the whole Grey’s anatomy thing…

Thanks again, Christine:)

And the leaves fell down

I can’t believe next week will be the end of November, and then the beginning of December!  That is just ridiculous.  How do I make time stop?  Recently, I’ve been wishing for that a lot, for time to stop.  It use to be that I’d wish for the future to come, like being done with school, getting settled if there is such a thing, but I don’t want that anymore.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing, since I am trying to enjoy the present.  But in all honesty, I think I’ve been a little scared of things lately.  Like why do animals have to have such shorter life expectancy than humans?  Seriously, why, why, why?  I just don’t understand why it’s made that way.

Anyways, I should cheer up before I get prescribed Cymbalta.  It has definitely been nice these past few weeks with the cooler temperature.  It so happens that, my dogs don’t necessarily enjoy the cold, so they will do anything to try and get warm.  So during the nights (or days) we snuggle underneath the blankets together to keep each other warm.  It’s so nice to feel the warmth from them, and I’m sure they are thinking the same because if they didn’t like it, they’d be gone.  I’m sure there are a lot of people who probably get disgusted by pets being in the bed, but I just could not live without having these two by my side at all times possible.

So back to the title, the leaves fell down a few days ago in the back.  And because the colors were pretty, I made these two pose for me while I showed off a milk bone.  Once again, they would not look at the camera at the same time, but I guess that just shows their personality in the photo…  I guess it’s their stubbornness that makes them so special.

Is it really true?

For the past couple of days on the news, I’ve heard them talk about how some people may not get a pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving because of the shortage of libby’s pumpkin.  When I first heard it, I was a little worried because like a lot of people, I like pumpkin pie.  But that worry flew right away when I walked into two grocery stores today that had stacked up libby’s pumpkin in their entry way.  Not only did they have plenty of libby’s pumpkin, but one store even had it on sale for ninety-nine cents.  So I stocked right up, and to add some extra calories this Thanksgiving I think I’ll attempt a pumpkin roll…  For my health, it probably would have been better if I was affected by the shortage.

His paws

It may sound disgusting to some, but I love the feeling of Chris’ paws and smelling them.  They have this particular smell that I can remember even if I haven’t sniffed them for a while, and the feel of his paws are just so soft.  It’s weird how every dog has its own smell.  I’m not trying to leave Daisy out on this paw talk, but her paws just don’t have that smell to them.  They don’t stink, but they don’t smell good at the same time either.  But her paws like Chris’ are very soft, and a lot of times I sit there tickling these paws without knowing it, until I get kicked by Chris because he is annoyed.

I never thought I would ramble on about my dog’s feet, but I like this paw picture so I thought I should save it on here.  Just in case that one day my computer stops working, and I lose this picture because my computer won’t turn on.  So that’s what I do as a precaution step, save my pictures files in at least multiple places like external drives, flickr ACCOUNTS, e-mails, and this place.  I think someone suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Honey wheat bread

This time around I didn’t use my bread machine to make some bread.  That doesn’t happen too often because I hate waiting around for the dough to rise, and most of all I hate the mess it creates when you have to knead the dough.  Ah, all that flour all over the place…  I’m definitely not a big fan.  But what I like is the finished product.  I don’t know why, but I tend to like homemade bread without the machine a lot better.  I guess I’ll enjoy this loaf while it lasts because next time I’ll have homemade bread is probably in another year or so.

I wasn’t the only one that had to be patient…  At least I had some company while I waited.