Snow showers? I'm sorry what?

So the hubby asked this evening how low the temp was going to get this evening because the weather has been...odd today. Warm, then cold, then cold and windy. Texas weather, if you don't like it wait a few minutes. It'll change. Freaking Texas I swear. So I looked it up, we're supposed to get snow showers between the hours of 3 and 7 am. I'm sorry we're supposed to have WHAT? Did you say SNOW? Oh I don't think so not in my book of cool. No not at all. I'm a sunbelter, this is south central Texas. No snow here people, no snow.

We'll see if there's anything when the hubby leaves in the morning (at his usual 3 am) or when I get up (not likely to be there at 7:30am). If driving is going to be an issue I'm going to be very displeased. Very very displeased. I have plans people PLANS.

Where to draw the line, and other Christmas musings

I'm not so sure I like the whole Santa fantasy anymore. I wasn't grooving to hard on it from the get go. Mind you my parents never kept the fantasy alive for long, stellar parents that they were, gotta love those hippie parents, not. Because of this I have put out the effort for my child, even though it takes a lot of verbal dancing, I figured I wouldn't ruin it for her. But now, at the ripe old age of 7, she's sure that without one little doubt, Santa will get her exactly what she wants from him for Christmas. She, like every upper middle class child in our neighborhood (ok, some are waaaay upper more like wealthy not even middle class) has never had a lean year. No they have no idea what it's like to be poor or without. I think a year or two living off the land at some farm out in the middle of nowhere might do these children some good. She wouldn't roll over and die but I know for a foregone fact that many of her classmates would. Oh man if I had some of those spoiled overindulged brats for kids they'd be suffering in my home. Sometimes I wonder if my own child will survive my iron fisted rule but she troopers on.

The Christmas present thing though, my God she is lucky that Lakeshore Learning Store had what she wanted from Santa for a reasonable price because I tell you what, microscopes don't come cheap. We tried showing her one in Target, one of the kid ones in the toy section. She gave it a glance and said "No, I want a grown up real microscope" in her holier than thou tone that denotes that she is no longer a child and will not accept anything less than what mommy has access to at her job. In a lab. For real scientists. She will accept nothing less. WTF? All right people, where do we get off teaching our children these things? Going and shooting ourselves in the foot I swear. So there you have it, the beginning of our end. Now she wants what from us? A lab bench, no friggin lie, to go in her bedroom. Ye GODS what am I going to do for that you ask? Hell if I know, they don't make lab benches for 7 yr olds. Did I tell you the microscope set came with a scalpel? Yeah totally what I want to have floating around her room right?

I think what I'm going to try and do is go to Home Depot or Lowes and see what they have for short cabinets, like for closets or bathrooms, and then a pre-made counter top/butcher block. It's the height that's going to be an issue. Fortunately lab benches are meant to be stood at, not to have a chair in front of and sit at. But lets face it, that's not going to be some inexpensive Barbie doll purchase. She's lucky that she's got my mother in law buying her boatloads of fluff because let me tell you, after setting her up with a friking laboratory in her bedroom there's not going to be a hella lot of other stuff coming from mom, dad, and Santa this year. Hello recession babe, Santa's expenses have gone up this year, do you know what a bale of hay is going for? Yeah it's bad and the dogs, I mean reindeer are going on half feed for the season. Lordy the kid dragged me to the pet store for the dogs' Christmas presents too last weekend. OK I was not budgeting for the fuzzy brats this year so we did not get them all that she wanted to get them. Fortunately she was busy looking at fish so she really didn't notice but geez girl, more presents? Your mother is a Scrooge and doesn't like the season in the first place, the poverty that's flowing freely has not made her warm to the season any at all. We haven't even bought the Christmas tree yet and that is probably the only part of the season I do like.

Would you rather be a novel or a poem?

Now that is the question! Or at least it is of you're applying to Oxford. If you're applying to Cambridge it's What would you do if you were a magpie?. That one is kind of stupid but I get where they're going with it. They want to find out if students can think outside the box. Sadly I'm not so sure all these brilliant applicants can pass this test question. I know that I was the ultimate nerd back in the day. Of course you all knew this, I am, after all, a chemist. Give me a pocket protector and wrap tape across the bridge of my glasses I became a card carrying member of the nerds r us gang when I voluntarily chose my degree right? So when the teacher gave me an assignment in high school I carried it out to a "T" and got it done and in on time. Out of the box? No I don't think so. And it's not like I was the dumb kid, no no, I was just all about following the rules. In school, don't ask about the social scene, remember I was the goth. My hair changed color sometimes 3 times a week and the outfits? Not real So Cal and the only box it could be in was a coffin.

But these poor students, I mean they work their asses off to be inside the box where the teachers and the system wants them. Then they get all the way up to these prestigious schools and it's "Wait no, do a 180 and give us exactly what we never wanted from you, think for yourself and do it now." WTF? I know, there's probably no 'wrong' answer to these questions but how jacked is this new trendy thing?
Here, and I quote from the article:
"Many students will have a body of knowledge, and they may be expected to be trusted on that in the interview. What we want to do is take them beyond that point and get them to start thinking for themselves."
Yeah that's GREAT but that is exactly opposite of what you've trained, beaten, ingrained into centuries of students. CENTURIES of students. And you want to change the rules during their interview to Oxford or Cambridge (or Oxbridge as they call it there, damn Brits)? Man is that cruel and unusual punishment or what? Now they listed 2 questions that I just loved and think should be asked before graduating said schools personally:
"Instead of politicians, why don't we let the managers of Ikea run the country?"
and my fav
"How would you poison someone without the police finding out?"

Lookin for love and a little bit of warmth

This is Shay, I think I've mentioned her before a few posts ago. She's one of FBRN's foster dogs, we are accepting applications for her but they are not exactly flowing in by the boat load. We've gotten 2 and they both suck. Right so that's not the biggest problem in poor Shayna's life, it snowed at her house last week, I think I showed you pics? Yeah, those. 8 1/2 inches overnight. Yay snow! Not so much for Shayna. She didn't have any problems walking before but when it snowed? She stopped being able to walk. She hasn't been able to since. We've got her on steroids and are having acupuncture done on her but ultimately the vet says she needs to move to warmer climates. She must get out of the snow zone and into the sun belt.
I volunteered to take her but she needs someone home most of the day and we both work. Granted with the hubby's on for 4 days off for 4 days shift work there are some weeks where the dogs are only alone for 1 day and even then my mom comes in to let the dogs out. Still we are on the hunt for a home someplace more temperate, like San Diego or Arizona or something. We are going to be down to 28 degrees on Wednesday and even though this is friggin hot Texas, during the winter it gets cold. I know for a fact that So Cal doesn't. I wish I had some friends in San Diego that could foster but all my friends work all day.

So I am putting the call out to those who read here, if you have a grandmother in Florida or grandpa in So Cal that would be willing to temporarily open their home to a sweet little dog in need please let me know. We want to get Shay some place where she can use her legs again and not have to resort to putting her in a wheel chair. The longer she goes with out the ability to walk the worse it's going to get. My email is on the right sidebar, or just comment. I'm an internet addict, I'm always on....

It's cold here

Not a winter wonderland mind you but the dogs are not liking this 50 degree region. This morning it was in the 30's and they had to have a foot planted up their butts to go outside. So this afternoon the dh found Roxy's pj's (Eilene made them for her last year) so I can cozy her up again. She doesn't like them but she's got to wear something, she's got bad creaky hips and the rest of her is just not liking the cold either. I am debating whether or not to get Corbie some pj's too, we put him out the other morning and his entire body was shuddering, it was pathetic. The thing is he would just as well potty in the house and that is so not going to happen. So he's going to have to suck it up until I get him pj's or a jacket. And what's the problem there? Well I haven't decided yet which one I'd like more and the pj's are custom made (damn thick frenchie necks mean standard ones don't fit them, at all) and the jackets are special order too. Hell I may not get the thing in until next winter at this rate.

So in the meantime I have pics of the bad bunnies trying to share couch time with momma. Notice the panic, white of the eyes look Corbie has on his face? We call that the "Help, psycho with a knife is going to eat me!" look. Or, "Psycho with a knife" for short. It's the look he gets when Jaynie comes up and tries to sit next to him. It doesn't happen often, very rare in fact. Jayne just doesn't share well so he usually opts not to include himself in the snuggle fests that happen on the couch. Again, why Corbie looks so panicked, he figures Jayne is just slyly trying to eat him without anyone noticing. Riiight, that red blanket they are laying on? That's me, no one is going to get et while on my lap.



And just look at this look on Jayne's face, he's trying really hard not to get in anyone's way. He's tucked all tiny like so as not to offend everyone's personal space issues. He's the only dog that we have who takes personal space seriously and we love him for it. Roxy has serious boundary issues and Corbin is like fuzzy birth control when we let him sleep in bed with us, will not detach from the side of the human next to him. Will. Not. Detach. Roxy is still trying to figure out a way of crawling up into the body cavity of whatever person she's standing next to. I swear someday we're going to have to extract her from someone's nostral.




She was a smart girl, she nabbed the chair next to us and got it all to herself. Corbie doesn't like this option as it does not come with human contact, he's our little french whore, people lover that he is. So it's usually Roxy or Jayne doing the mad rush for the chocolate chair. See the knick in her ear? Jayne tried to eat her last week, she fights back though and unlike Corbin I don't worry about these two going at it. All sound and fury no real action. It's some scary sound and fury though, the neighbors probably thing we're mental white trash with brawling pits in our back yard. Whatever, not like they're going to stick their heads over the fence to find out huh?

It's a winter wonderland!

Well not here, San Antonio was 77 degrees yesterday and even though it was in the 40's overnight it'll still be like 72 degrees today. Yeah I'm a sunbelter but I've lived in snow before. 6 years in Maryland, yeah they don't do snow well out there They don't believe it snows there so they aren't set up for it. Driving with insufficient snow plow-age and/or salt just bites.

But anyway! I got an IM this morning form Eilene, my foster application reviewer in charge lady. She's in Colorado and they were supposed to get a 'skif' of snow. Of course I had to ask what a skif was, sunbelter that I am. A skif is more than a dusting and less than an inch. She had 8 inches by morning and it's still snowing. So, of course, I asked for pictures! She wouldn't go out in it, she had already had to go out this morning and feed the horses and cows. So I told her to take a few shots from her window, I wanted to see the snow! And the wonderful woman that she is, she obliged. God I love the look of snow. If I didn't have to drive in it I'd love to live in a snow belt place. My dream, a B&B with horses (or large lawn ornaments as those of us that are non-riders call them) and a candy store/chocolate making place attached. I have a gf that wants to so I'm voting for it. As soon as we make a spare million so we can buy it we're all over it. Don't tell the hubby, he doesn't know the master plan yet. He and the kid are dying to live in the snow though so I doubt he'd balk.

So now I have winter wonderland pictures to share with you! Alright they aren't mine but they're pretty! Plus those of you in the sunbelt can do the same and live in the snow vicariously through Eilene's pictures. Right now I think that's all the cold I can handle anyway!





This is Shay, she's one of Eilene's fosters (she has a total of 7 dogs right now, including her own). Shay does what I do when it snows, she's my kinda dog! She's on the available page at FBRN, we are looking for her forever home but it's going to be a long time coming because she's a medical case. She doesn't need any real special care but her bio reads like a mess so people usually are shy about adopting dogs like her. Which is a tragedy, she's an AWESOME dog, sweetest thing ever. She's had a very rough life, her first foster mom is a person I don't like and she ended up being shucked off by her onto Eilene. Which, in retrospect, was a blessing. Eilene has fixed her up a gotten her ready to go, now all she needs is that one magic application to come in!

Scary blast from the past....

So my old friend Murdoch (from high school) commented on my last post. He put up a link of some oooollllddd photos from ASB ball circa...1989 or 90? Maybe. He and all my other friends were seniors, class of 90, I was class of 91. Yeah, I'm just that old. He's the guy with the glasses. Can you see me? The blond guy in the second picture is the only blond guy I've ever had a crush on, his name eludes me at the moment. No wait, it was Brett Hathaway. I don't do blonds. Don't tell Jas. Brett threw a HUGE party his senior year when his mom went away one weekend. There were so many people there he had to call the police on himself to get them to go away. He had a full on skating half pipe in his backyard and there were so many people on it it collapsed. Yeah, we knew how to throw a party back in the day. We actually spent the night there that night. We slept in the same bed and he never made a pass at me. How insulting is that? Ah teen years, you couldn't pay me enough to relive them. It's a miracle we even survive them.
The link to his page is here, these are the 2 photos with me in them. We went with dates to that dance I think. The next ASB ball, when I was a senior I went stag with like 6 other girls. I also wore a beehive to that one. Yup, full on beehive baby. I don't have the pictures, I think my dad still has them. Somewhere. I don't have many pics of myself at all much really. I'm a loser like that.

Thanks Mike! If anyone on Facebook is asking just pass on my blog link, my email addy is up here! BTW, I don't have yours...

Since December 2007

See I told ya so! People were so in denial, I've been telling everyone for almost a year now that we're in a recession. That I don't give a hoot about the bull crap that Bush spews forth, we're in a recession. Hello, denial, the one and only deadly sin. You can blame all the others on the one and only, DENIAL. You can deny all you want but we are there, have been for a year now. Yes that's right, I've just scooped CNN, I called the R word for 12 months solid and no one wanted to listen.

Not that it makes any difference if you listen to me or not, I don't know any financial people. Hell I had brain surgery a year ago, not like I was going to be making any investments. No, just accruing astronomical hospital bills. Oh and have any of you bought medication lately? WTF? Every single one of the meds they put me on had a $50 deductible. When the neurologist gets pissed off at me for stopping my meds without telling her I'm going to A) tell her she should RETURN HER PHONE CALLS and B) tell her I couldn't afford the damn things. Need to feed my family damn it. And this is with insurance for god's sake. Just insane the cost of medicine now a days. Man the system is jacked.

Oh here's a quote from that CNN article linked above (I love quoting, hey at least I give credit!):

The current recession is one of the longest downturns since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Ya think? Geez we so needed the newspaper to tell us that. Not. Dude where have these people been? Haven't the people of the US already known this? Didn't Greenspan tell us this would happen years ago when the housing boom went stupid insane and totally unrealistic? Yes darlings, yes he did. I am not in a great financial situation but I'm used to being poor. But we did make smart moves with the money we did have. At the end of the boom, when we were thoroughly disgusted with So Cal and the prices, we moved to Texas. And we took out our measely 401k (all of it) and the dh's inheritance from his grandmother and bought a practically priced house in a suburb of a city here in Texas. Yeah it was far away from the family but I don't like family anyway and the hubby could suck it up. He got a ccw so all was good in the world of hubbys. Texas may be a red state but we can legally own guns and shoot people here. Sweet.

So now, at the height of the recession (I hope?) we still have no money but that's the norm. Yet we have a house that (no lie) is going up in value, no money in the stock market (remember, I pulled my 401k to buy the house) and we both have jobs. We're poor but doing better than most. Hell better than some out of work white collar workers in better neighborhoods than ours. The dh has a suck ass job and is constantly trying to find a new one (impossible but we're still trying with all we can) but it's a job. We're surviving which is more than I can say of many.

So what do I have to say of this 'news'? Well I can't say I haven't been telling you so but I told ya so. And we are once again THANKFUL that we are where we are at. It could be worse, much worse. Here's to the US dragging it's fat ass out of this one, Obama has a shit load of work ahead of him. Bush just served him up a ton of crap on a platter, poor guy.

And we have a winner!

In my preparation for the Turkey Day feast I did what I normally do, I marathon watched The Food Network. It was great this year and they had a leftovers episode. Oh my yes, this is what I'm talking about. There was one recipe that totally caught my eye
Second Day Turkey and String Bean Pot Pies.
I am a huge lover of pot pies of just about any sort and these little gems are muffin sized. YES, sign me up! Plus it's a way of using the left over green bean casserole. How many of you have a recipe for that? I don't think I've ever seen a leftover recipe for green bean bake and I looves me my green bean casserole!

I made them tonight, alerted the recipe only a bit. I didn't bother with the chicken stock, instead I used what I had on hand, half a can of cream of chicken and chopped some carrots and celery to add in. I like my pot pies with carrots and celery, it's a pot pie purist thing. Oh and they turned out sooo good. I ate 2 and the dh ate 3. I think we're going to have a brawl over the remaining ones. He plans on taking a few to work for lunch and he'd best only take A FEW. Or it might get ugly.

God said she needed to be taken off the road

God said she needed to be taken off the road

I'm sorry what? Excuse me you caused an accident because God told you to? Really? And do ya think you can pull that one off in court and get away with it? Sure why not, the drivers in San Antonio suck so hard he probably can, sad to say. Plus they love that WWJD, God told me to shit here. Lord forbid we take personal responsibility for our actions when it just makes way more sense to blame it on God. Wow, what would we do with out God as our greatest excuse for all of our piss poor decisions. Boy howdy do I LOVE living this close to the bible belt. Remind me never to drive and further north east of here. I think I may have a violent allergic to Oklahoma or north Florida.

Black Friday

I don't think I've ever gone shopping on Black Friday, not that I can remember that is. My mother in law used to take her grandson (my nephew, he's 11 and the dd's fav person in the whole world) out to have his pictures taken at JC Penny's every Black Friday. Eventually she took both her grand kids (once I gave birth to the dd and she was old enough to sit by herself in a photo) out on Black Friday to get photos done. Now this is all well and good and we don't care that she has this done. Except when she started getting lazy and expected us to take the kid to the appointment. What's the problem with this you say? Well first of all it's our holiday weekend and I do not appreciate her dictating our schedule. She's retired, what the hell does she care about other people's time frames, rare days off and for the love of God doesn't she know that we spent the entire day prior catering to her time schedule? Screw that, I don't give a rats ass about JC Penny pictures, that's her fixaion.

Oh and lets talk about the icing on the cake here, JC Penny is located in Fashion Vally, the most popular mall in San Diego. The parking is so bad it took us 45 minutes to find a spot that year. In the dirt (and here you thought all of San Diego was covered in concrete) which basically means it was part of the banks of the San Diego river. Not even a real parking spot. All because my mother in law insists on having her grandkid's pictures taken on Black Friday. Why no other day of the week, or even that weekend? Well because she's always done it on that day so that's the day It Is To Be Done. Completely retarded. We decided that year we'd never do it again and if she wanted to do it she could damn well pick up the kid herself because we weren't going to put up with that bullshit again. Totally asinine day to INSIST on getting pictures taken at frikin mall. Lucky us though, we moved the year after and didn't have to deal with the mother in law being pissed off at us and giving us her like 5 yr old child passive aggressive pout during the holidays. I love not living next to family, did I mention that one before?

So today we needed to get the kid out of the house because she was bouncing off the walls. All her friends are off doing whatever it is the families around her drive away to go do. They must like their extended families, weirdos. The happy medium, we went out shopping. Not too adventurous mind you. Well unless you're in Long Island. We went to Walmart to pick up some groceries and scored on some $2-9 DVD's, Ratatouille being high up on that list. Oddly it wasn't busy at all. And those poor people in Long Island, 1 dead because of a mob pushing their way into Walmart? My god what a way to go, can you imagine explaining that one to people?

We then went to a lovely new mall very very close to our home, The Rim. They just opened a new Nordstrom's outlet there, it's one of my favorite stores (they've got one in Fashion Vally). No way in hell can I justify buying anything at Nordy's proper but The Rack? OMG the sales that you can get there are phenominal. I needed a gown once a good long while ago and I went straight there. Got a full length low back totally beaded gown for $60. I don't know what the full price was but it was probably in the hundreds when on the shelf at Nordy's. I don't have the spare cash or the patience for The Rack today, plus it's grand opening was like, a week or two ago, so it was probably a zoo. No thanks, I'm not feeling that adventurous today. We did go to Target, Old Navy, and World Market. The dh had to get another re-usable bottle for the Egg Nog that he makes and gives away to our adult fiends for Christmas. It's very popular, the dh is Irish, he knows his alcoholic drinks. I needed to see if there was a sale at Old Navy that included the yoga pants I find so comfortable on the weekends (I wear scrubs all week at work). Turns out they only come in 2 colors, black that I already own, and navy and I don't like blue.

The good news is that they had panties on sale and I needed to get new ones. How many of you out there have an issue with the price of panties? Where do they get off charging more for a pair than they charge for a t-shirt? I buy my underwear in the kid's section, no lie. They are all pink and green and purple with little animals and such printed on them. Real sexy, I know. But they sell for like 3 for $10 and really, I'm married so do you really think I'm trying to impress anyone here? My poor hubby. They had panties (yeah, grown up panties) on sale for 5 for $15 and that was my big purchase for Black Friday. The stores should be grateful for what little they got from me, I had no intention of shopping today.

Oh the 2 women in front of me in line at Old Navy! Let me tell you an interesting phenomena that I've only seen here in San Antonio. Now mind you we're from San Diego, 45 minutes north of Tijuana, definitely a border town. We have A LOT of Mexican nationals there, a lot. Some people would go so far as to have their kids in private school in the US and drive them to and from school every day from Mexico. San Antonio is not nearly as close to the border as San Diego so you don't see Mexican nationals living integrated in our every day life the way they were in San Diego but instead you see the binge shopping. Did you know that the San Marcos Outlet Mall (45 minutes north of us here) is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the state of Texas? Know why? It's where thousands of Mexican nationals come to shop every day. During the back to school shopping spree you want to stay the hell away from that mall. Outside of the Nike outlet there's a trash can where I have, at one point, seen no less than40 empty Nike boxes where people pulled the shoes out after buying them so they could fit them all in their car with all the other purchases they've made. Note, these people all pay in cash, it's wild to see people pull a HUGE wad of bills out of their pockets. We are so used to paying with cards here that it's a rarity to see that kind of cash carried around.

The Rim was not so very crowded this year, it's a relatively new mall and consequently still mostly only us locals know of this little gem. There was this tour bus, full sized, from Mexico parked in the lot though. All of the baggage compartment below the seats was opened up and not yet full. I suspect the participants of this tour were all shopping and would bring their bags back to be tossed into the compartment and then go back out for the next round. Bring it on, our economy needs the influx! The 2 women in line ahead of me were probably part of this crew, their cart was so piled high with clothing it fell off from the weight or it. They were paying in cash and doing this weird thing where they were sorting the clothes and having the register woman ring the clothes up in batches. They set some clothes up, have her total them, pay in cash, and then repeat. Now I've seen people do this when paying with different credit cards or checking accounts but when paying with cash? Never. Just odd. Plus it was Black Friday, do you think they were taking up an inordinate amount of time with boat loads of others waiting? Yeah, they were but not so bad as to have people complain. Oddly the people out shopping today were not in a rush or agitated like I normally see on a frenzy shopping day. Nope, I think the economy is such crap that people are taking their time and thinking trough each and every thing they are buying this year. About frikin time, US gluttony being what it is.

FWIW the kid is getting presents this year. We'll probably get a little something for each other from 'Santa' but only because the kid still believes an in order to cover for that fantasy we have to have something under the tree for us. I hate this holiday. Have I mentioned that before? Oh sorry...

Final holiday thoughts

1) Oh my and I sooo happy we don't do this holiday with extended family anymore. I don't care if that's what people now assume that this holiday is all about. To me it's about being thankful that I don't have to deal with the atrocities of those we are so fortunate to be related to. You can't pick family. Hell we have some friends that we'd rather not associate with, don't ask me why we do. Maybe we're too nice, yeah that's it. We're to nice. Hahahaha! OK maybe the dh but certainly not me.

2) Tried a few new recipes, the jury is still out. Brining the turkey, eh, it's all right but it's too salty if you ask me. I'm asian, I have soy sauce flowing through my veins. If I think it's too salty that's saying something. The meat was moist but my turkey is always moist. Next year I will probably go back to turkey in a bag. When I use the bag the turkey is still moist but you can taste the aromatics like the thyme and rosemary.
The caramel ginger pumpkin cheesecake, very good with one minor issue. The ginger snaps that made up the crust melted into one solid piece that would not come up off the cake pan. I'm sure it's a tasty crust, we just can't chip it off. Very weird.
I made a pecan pie (never made one before) but I can't eat it, I'm too full and way too lazy to whip the heavy whipping cream tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Regardless, I made the pie, points for me. Oh and I bought a dozen eggs in preparation for this cook off. When I went to make the pie this afternoon I found only 1 egg in the fridge (pie needs 3). Wha? Apparently 7 eggs were used this morning for breakfast. DH got a little happy with the omelets. Had to hit up the neighbor for 2 eggs. I love my neighbors, they are awesome people. These are the same ones that we hang out with late late Halloween night trying to get rid of her oodles of candy.

All in all it was a successful day. No dogs got the turkey except I just now heard the deer get up on my counter top. *Update, Jayne the deer took a nice lick of cheesecake off the side of the cake. Had to cut off that piece and have the dh get on putting it away. Fortunately it was the only thing left out, everything else is put away. Amazing as that is....

No one is in the hospital having emergency brain surgery this year. Small miracles people, small miracles. I also have the fortunate luck of having no physical or mental issues with that surgery 1 year (and finally no meds) later. Don't ask about the medical bills, you just do not even want to know about those. If that's the worse part of last Thanksgivings leftovers though I am not going to kick that gift horse in the mouth. This time exactly one year ago today the dh was wondering whether or not his wife would live. Freaky place to be on a holiday at 34 years of age. Just goes to show that one never knows what kind of thing life is going to through at you.

I hope you all had a good holiday and didn't have to strangle any family members! And when and if you have to drive your way home please do so carefully this weekend, there are too many people out on the roads Thanksgiving weekend.

Busy busy little button

And what does an only child do on Thanksgiving day with no siblings to play with? She takes over her parents bedroom (noticed now that she already laid claim to the bathroom she is moving on to the rest of my room...) and plays paper dolls.



Her daddy took these pictures and loves them because she looks so big girl! No shower yet and only wearing a shirt, ah yes holiday times are like that. I think it took her until 2pm to take a shower. Why bother rushing when we aren't going anywhere?

11am on Turkey Day

The kitchen is a mess. And I haven't started cooking yet. It's 11am. Yeah I am SO ON IT this year. Well I suppose I am doing better than I did last year, about this time the kid was calling her daddy downstairs and he would soon be calling the neighbor ER doc and then they'd be calling the ambulance. Yeah I'm doing hella better than last year! I'll have an evening post on that one later, no really. Once I am sitting fat and happy on the couch and everything is done, cooked, and eaten. Put away and cleaned is optional.

But to back the kitchen, yeah we are working parents so our house is basically in a state of perpetual hell. There is no horizontal surface in this house that isn't piled high with crap. This is my life and we don't like it but we have to wait until we are actually at home and not sleeping or getting something done (like the kid's homework or whatever) to be able to clean. Or some semblance of cleaning. Which is probably why you don't see as many pictures as I'd like to take, the house mess is in the background, ew. Welcome to my world. And why I have yet to begin cooking this fine morning.

Fast forward 45 minutes and I have wrangled my hubby off the upstairs computer so he can help swipe off piles of junk in my kitchen so I can find my counter tops. I knew they were there, I've got pictures from before we moved in. I now have piles of stuff on the dog crates but I have kitchen surfaces to work with now, yay! Oh and that damn toaster oven that no kitchen is made to host is on the floor. My hubby loves that thing, I use it on occasion but only because it's there and I have to justify that huge waste of counter space.

So first up, I need to get the turkey out of the brine and into a pan. It's my first time brining and not doing turkey in a bag. If it doesn't work I'm hunting Alton Brown down and having WORDS with him. He should start praying now, my words usually draw blood. Did I tell ya'll I made the cheesecake last night? The Ginger Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake one? Yeah it looks good, we'll see today if that one comes out well. Did I tell you it takes too much effort to make it? Yeah, maybe it's good for some country wife that has nothing better to do than make everything from scratch but I am just to urban for that I suppose. Too much prep time and it took like 1 hour and 45 minutes to finish baking. Oh no, not doing that one again unless I have to.

I got the turkey ready for the oven and put it into the fridge. It's only an 11 pounder so it won't take but 2-2 1/2 hours to cook so it needs to wait until like 2 pm to go in. The potatoes are now peeled cut and boiling. I am doing dressing and green bean bake so that won't go in until later this evening too. Those are totally easy so I'm not even going to bother thinking about them yet.

See how easy my cooking Thanksgiving dinner is? I still don't see what the hell takes everybody all frikin day to prepare this meal it's just a big chicken with sides. The hard part about this day is traveling and then having to be somewhere on time or have dinner ready done at some specified time. Yeah I figure I need to have dinner ready between the hours of 6-8pm. No stress, we're not going anywhere or having anyone over. Thank God.

So to all of you out there Happy Turkey Day! Try not to kill any family members but if it has to be done be sure to hide the body well and completely. If you don't know how to drop me a line. My extended family is horrid (and the dh has a few family gems that the world could do without) and the dh and I have plans in place that we can share if ya need. No, really, it's good to have these backup plans already thought out, it's best to be prepared.

Doggy indigestion, or rather bad ingestion....

The holidays are coming up and I'm happy to see articles like this
Surprising dangers for pets during the holidays
being posted on the front page of CNN. Because we're human, fallible, an inherently stupid/ignorant. Don't deny it, it's true, we do stupid shit that we have no explanation for other than the fact that it was a stupid thing to do.

So for that reason I will share with you my thoughts on the matter. Just because humans can eat it it does not mean you dog can! I am an adamant freak about dogs eating people food, it's a hell no in my house. Mostly because 1) I was a vet tech for 5 years and I have seen what it can do and it's not pretty. Like really not pretty, trust me on this one peeps, it's a very unfortunate thing with a damn big bill attached to it. And 2) I had a few dogs that had some issues with eating things. Bad issues. Here let me give you 2 examples, both of the 2 dogs I had prior to my dogs now, a lab named Marlin and a show english setter named Willy. I thought Willy was the dumbest dog ever until I got Corbin, goes to show that I just don't know stupid.

Marlin, he was a typical lab, hyper hyper hyper but oddly also reactive so see, I have experience with dogs like Jayne. That's why I knew we could handle him and that anyone else would euthanize the nutter butter. Me and my love of the rejects, I swear. Anyway Marlin was with me when I was going to school in Maryland. I had gone back to San Diego for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I forget when but it was winter. I know this because on the day I flew home it snowed that evening. Mind you it was a damn long flight so I had been up at like 7 am pacific time and by the time I got home and settled it was like 10pm. I went down stairs to do something and came back up to find Marlin had raided my suitcase (unzipped but closed when I left the room) and eaten a box of Abuelita mexican hot chocolate that I had brought back with me. Now for those of you that have not experienced this stuff it's like raw cacao with sugar, yeah only the good stuff for my damn dog right? I was PISSED. At me, at the dog, at the WORLD because I knew it was going to be a long night. In a snowstorm. Now you would think that this volume of chocolate would kill him. I was HOPING it would kill him. Yeah, no. Bastage was WIRED FOR SOUND after that stuff hit his system. I had called one of the vets I worked for to see if there was anything I could do because now he had an upset tummy, the squirts, needed to go out every 15 minutes. Did I mention the snowstorm? Ya? And was crawling the friking walls all damn night. I had to be at work at 7 am because that's what time vet techs go in even though office hours and vets don't get there until 9am. Next time you run into a cranky vet tech realize this ya? So the vet said there was nothing to do for him (of course). I got NO SLEEP and was not pleased by the next morning where I had to bring him with me since he couldn't hold it for any length of time. That dog was hell, he's the one who shoved me down a flight of concrete basement stairs when I wouldn't play with him. Oh and if you're wondering no, I didn't kill him. He bonded so strongly to my ex boyfriend I left in MD I gave Marlin to him. Separating them would have been cruel, those brats deserved each other anyway.

Dog #2, Willy, beautiful dog, dumb as rocks but so lovie you just don't care. Yeah he was a great dog for all his oddities. He loved everybody, polar opposite of Marlin. We kept them in the kitchen when we were gone. This was before we bought crates (before I was sold on crate training, all my dogs stay in crates when we're gone now) so they were baby gated into the kitchen. On a microwave cart in there I had a few cookbooks and one day, for reasons I just do not know, my bible was left in there. Yeah I had a bible (I probably still do somewhere too) I know that sounds so odd doesn't it? Me? Bible? It happens. Anyway I came home one day to bits of bible everywhere. Willy had eaten the bible. Not the cover mind you, no the thin thin pages of the interior. Shitting scripture for days. You could actually read some of it. Oddly Marlin didn't have a bite, it was just Willy. I never did understand what was going on in that dog's wee little brain but I was so waiting for the lightening to come shooting out of the sky, I swear. Lesson here, keep your religious icons away from the separation anxiety dogs or suffer some strange consequences. As for what happened to Willy, when I divorced my first husband (oh you didn't know I've been married before? Yeah I'll tell ya'll that story someday too, promise) we gave him to my aunt in law. She had fallen in love with him when we had moved across country and stayed in her house for a spell, Creve Coeur in St. Louis. I couldn't get rid of Marlin after the divorce. Like Jayne very few people can handle a dog with those kind of issues. Hell my ex couldn't really handle him but he did ok so there he stayed.

I'd show you guys a pic of them but it was in the days before digi cameras so I'll have to find where I put those old portraits I had taken of them and scan it in. It's around somewhere I'm sure.

But important note I want to make here, there are a multitude of different things that are toxic to dogs, please do not learn the hard way!

here's a mini list of what people may or may not know:

Grapes
raisins (no lie here people, we almost lost a foster to this one recently)
onions
garlic
tylenol/acetamenopin
macadamia nuts
chocolate toxicity slide rule
Xylitol

And there's a multitude of plants, the article above has a link to a website of all the plants that are toxic to pets, or maybe the book, I forget. I have a water softener in my house so I don't keep any house plants, too lazy to gather the water from outside.

If you need to make your pet vomit and can't take the dog in (because you're supposed to take the dog in and not make them vomit yourself) hydrogen peroxide works like a charm. It's takes a lot of it (10cc for a lab, yeah he ate 13 Costco muffins whole, I had to get him to give them back before they went through his system and caused another all nighter) but it works.