Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

Winston bit me in the face today.  I was trying to trim his nails and he was not having it.  This was after giving him xanax.  It's really bizarre, I used to be able to trim his nails pretty easily, but now he just will not let me.  He also doesn't let me brush his teeth.  I'm taking him to the groomers from now on, that shit is not worth getting bit in the face over.

Food is the most primitive form of comfort.

I'm a bad blogger.  I had the whole day to myself and didn't save any time to write a blog.  So I'm writing one now instead of sleeping.  But that's okay, I don't have anything to do early tomorrow, anyways.

I made a fantastic meal today.  I made a pine nut and currant meatball dish with swiss chard and baguette slices:
Trust me, I'm aware I need to work on my display, but whatever, it was incredibly delicious.  I got the recipe out of a Real Simple recipe book/magazine.  I purchased it a while back and made another meal out of it previously which was equally delicious.  I plan to cook an apricot glazed ham with asparagus and potatoes meal from the book later this week, which I'm sure could not be bad.

I own a lot of recipe books, but this one piqued my interest for a few reasons.  Real Simple magazine is a GREAT magazine, it is incredibly useful for a million different reasons, so obviously, they're going to make a good cookbook.  Another reason I chose this book is because many of these dishes had really interesting ingredient choices, some of the ingredients they put together would never have occurred to me otherwise.  The dishes are also incredibly varied.  If I want scallops one day, braised chicken the next, and turkey waldorf another, it's all here.  Lastly, and most importantly, all of these dishes are intended to be quick, easy, and mostly nutritional.  So far, they have been.

Here's a link to the book to purchase if you're interested:  Recipe Book .   You may be able to find these recipes on the Real Simple recipe website as well, I'm not sure.

Tyler is a major foodie and he has really loved all of the dishes I have made from the book so far.  It makes me feel pretty good, because he does most of the cooking, and it's nice for me to get to make something delicious every once in a while as well.  I wish I had the natural ability to cook like him, but I don't.  Luckily for me (and him, I suppose) I am really good at following directions.  So, as long as it's a good recipe, it's going to be a good meal.  This is probably one of the reasons I tend to do more baking than him.  Baking is a lot less winging it and a lot more measuring and following timelines.

I had it all set in my head that next time I wrote a blog it would be about communication differences based on your upbringing, but somehow this just ended up being about food.  Whoops.  Maybe next time!

By the way, this Saturday is Tyler's birthday and we will be heading to Chicago to see Beady Eye (Liam Gallagher's new band).  We're only going for one night, but it should be a lot of fun!

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.

I FINALLY got internet, thanks to my new neighbors, so posting will no longer be painful.  Huzzah!

Remember when I said I was excited to have my new bike?  Well, did I ever mention I haven't truly ridden a bike for any sort of real distance in probably 15 years?  Yesterday, during a record breaking hot day, which was also incredibly windy, Tyler got me to ride for about 15 miles.  My butt hurts incredibly bad from the seat and I have a ridiculous sunburn on the tops of my shoulders and my nose.  I can wear a t-shirt, but makeup only goes so far in covering up things you want hidden on your face.  I feel a little ridiculous, but at least it's just temporary.  I still like my bike.  I just won't be riding it for a couple of days.

I brought Panda to the most fun adoption event yet on Sunday.  There was so many adorable puppies.  There were even two I secretly considered adopting myself.  One was a female who looked and acted like Winston but she was about 5 times bigger, which, is still pretty small.  Her breed was something of  a mystery to them, but I am pretty sure she was a Brussels Griffon or Affenpinscher mixed with a Chinese Crested.  The other was a black female Brussels Griffon, and she was just very docile, gentle, and sweet.  I guess I also toyed with the idea of this grey miniature poodle with no teeth.  She was very sweet and incredibly soft, and so cute and tiny, but to be honest, it was mostly because she looked really bizarre without any teeth and I loved her for it.  I'm a glutton for strange dogs, I guess.

Fostering has been going well, by the way.  We're still working on some potty training issues, but Panda has gotten MUCH better.  She almost always pees outside, but her pooping inside has unfortunately not changed a whole lot yet.  She's become much more social, but she can still be very shy and still spooks pretty easily, but I give her another month and I think she'll be doing much better.  She got a lot of compliments from the other fosters (a few of them have even fostered her for short periods of time), they all said she looked great physically, because she used to be a bit overweight, and that she seemed so much more friendly and social.  She's always been a sweet dog, but she mostly just tended to herself when I first started fostering her.  Now, she is starting to enjoy the company of people and trust them a bit more.  I'd say she's probably at the halfway point, but moving really quickly towards healthy responses towards people.  I'm really proud of her, I can't imagine what her life was like in the puppy mill.  It really makes me feel good that she is making such strides and that people are noticing.

Anyhow, time for food and bed.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

I just wanted to do a quick update to make up for my absence over the past few weeks.  Ever since I quite smoking (in January) I've been feeling the urge to start something of an exercise regiment.  However, I'm reluctant to get a gym membership, because if I have to travel to a destination to do it, I probably never will get around to it (I am lazy when it comes to driving anywhere).  It has also been a terrifyingly long winter, so exercising outside as a beginning was not of any interest to me, either.  But now, it is finally nice outside, so I made a few purchases.

I bought a hula hoop.  This is fun, but not really much of a workout, so I think I need to take it apart and put some sand inside.  I also bought a jump rope.  This is a pretty intense workout.  I have to alternate between jumping for a few minutes, and then hula hooping for a few, otherwise I get way too winded.  At least for now, until I increase my stamina.  These two items together were only around $10-11, so it was a pretty good deal.  I figure in the winter, I can use these in the laundry room when it's too cold to use them outside.

My favorite exercise purchase, though, is my new bike.  I got a hybrid Schwinn and it is so cute.  I'm working on getting the seat adjusted perfectly so it becomes a bit more comfortable.  I love it, I've taken it on a few rides, but nothing more than 30 minutes yet.  I can't wait until Tyler and I have time to bike together all day.

It's amazing how just a little bit of workout can help, though.  I only just made these purchases about a week ago, and I've exercised probably 3 of the days, but I can already tell a difference in tone.  Not much, but enough to encourage me to continue.

Anyways, I am currently in the throes of online house shopping and hanging with the pups, so I am going to get back to that.

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.

My sincerest apologies for the lack of blogs.  I have been consistently on the go for a couple of weeks, and thus, have forgotten to try and make time for my blog.  The important thing is, I'm here now, and I have plenty to talk about.

For this blog, I'll finally talk about my trip to New Orleans.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I took a pretty ridiculous amount of photos.  I'd take a photo and post it immediately to Facebook almost like a photo journal.  Had I had the option to make the journal on here somehow, I would have.  But, at this point, it would take me days to compile all of the photos, transfer them to photobucket and then repost about everything I was doing, so I'll stick with some highlights.

First of all, we ate food like we were never going to eat again.  We spared no expense and spared no amount of calories.  It is easy to do this in NOLA:

Soul food at Mother's:


The highlight of the trip for me, crab legs:


Tyler wanted a bib too, even though he was only eating shrimp:


Beignets and coffee at Cafe du Monde.  I should mention I NEVER drink coffee, but I drank it twice in New Orleans because it was just that good:


Crawfish at the Bayou Boogaloo (a local music festival):


Excellent brunch:


I have tons more food pictures, but you get the idea.  We ate well.  It's pretty rare that I get to eat seafood for every meal, so getting it eat it 95% of the time for our entire trip was quite the treat.

We saw and heard some really great musicians:

Street musicians:




Cedric Burnside:


Had plenty of drinks:




Did some tourist shopping:

Sweet feather hairpieces:


Mardi Gras wear:


Avoiding the plague:


We got some tattoos:




Hung out in a firehouse:


Did some sightseeing:




We also went on a swamp tour:






So, as you can see, we had a pretty eventful and wonderful time:


I would highly recommend a visit to anyone who is considering it.  I can;t wait to go back and do some of the things we didn't have time for.