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marți, 30 noiembrie 2010

Big, fat silver linings

Posted on 05:07 by Roger
The week that we had to put Jobie down was a doozy. But it had a big fat silver lining - my friends and family.  They constantly surprise me with their awesomeness and creative ways to make me smile.  I am in awe.

The day after Jobie was gone, we all moped around the house for a good bit.  With everything else going on, the loss of Jobie was the final straw in this chaos that life has thrown our way.  There was no way that I could positively-think us out of this.  Things just sucked all over place.  Wrigley, our other dog, was not interested in playing. Brooke was so fussy and wanted to be held the entire day. David was stressed out. And I became teary-eyed at little things, like seeing Jobie's collar or the fact that my tires need to be replaced.  It was rough.

But then my friends and family came through with their amazing ways to show me that I am loved and supported.  It completely caught me off-guard.

I checked out Pansy's blog (Pansy is good friend of mine).  And her blog had me laughing so hard on a day when I did not even think I could smile.  Apparently I left a sock at her house a few weeks ago.  So naturally she took it with her to Washington D.C. to be photographed on a few monuments and such.  That girl... she so gets my sense of humor.  Check out her post here.


During one teary-eyed session, I heard a knock on the door from the UPS man... delivering a cherry pie!!!  My friend, Jess, sent me a whole-freakin' cherry pie.  Holy smack - does that girl know me or what!  I was so surprised and so delighted that I burst into tears.  The UPS guy officially thinks I am crazy (as he has also seen me pregnant).  And now he has also seen me crying and laughing at the same time telling him how much I like pie and that pie cures all troubles.  I am sure my house in now flagged as "special".


Other friends and family called to talk about sweet Jobie memories, others called to plan future happy hours (sans boys and kiddos), some recorded my favorite Food Network shows for me (we don't have cable) and others called just to let me vent about all of life's troubles.

And while that week started out being a horribly rough week that will go down in the top 10 list of rough weeks... it ended on a really good note.  I felt loved.  And when it all comes down to it, it does not matter how much money you make, or whether your house is a disasterous mess, or that your stupid tires need to be replaced.  It comes down to knowing that you have given love and have been loved in return.  And baby... I have both in spades!
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luni, 29 noiembrie 2010

Good to be home

Posted on 09:53 by Roger
Thanksgiving was whirlwind - seeing family, catching up with old friends, loving on babies and puppies.  And while it was fun, it is good to be home - to sleep in my own bed, get back to morning rituals, and plop down on that perfect spot on the couch.  Yes, it is good to be home.


It is interesting how traveling to other homes can make you appreciate your home even more.  It is a gift of fresh perspective to appreciate what you have, instead of yearn for what you don't.  Sometimes my home gets a bad rap.  It is small, only has one bathroom, has very little storage, the laundry room is in a weird place and it could use a few more windows.  But today, I am appreciating it. Today I am enjoying the openness of the kitchen, the coziness of our living room, the window above our kitchen sink, the Italian string lights that hang from our pecan trees in the backyard, and the wood floors that echo the pitter-patter of little feet.  In the spirit of a good Thanksgiving holiday, I am thankful for my house. 

What are the little things that make your house a home?

Image via Mary Ruffle
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Paperback Swap

Posted on 06:11 by Roger
To continue the theme of our Book Nerd Challenge, I have to share this cool site that my sister-in-law told me about over Thanksgiving - Paperback Swap.  So great.  Basically you just post old books that you have already read and are willing to trade.  Then once someone requests one of your books and you ship it, you get to request a new book for yourself.  Cool, right?  A never-ending supply of books.


I love this idea.  Normally I get most of my books from the library.  But sometimes there are those books that the library does not have or that there is a long waiting list for.  Paperback Swap is the perfect solution.  So far I already have 7 books posted.  And now I am on hunt all around my house, cleaning out boxes and drawers filled with old books.
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marți, 23 noiembrie 2010

BBC's 100 Books

Posted on 05:52 by Roger

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Let's see if I am the book nerd that I claim to be.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman  (This is the golden compass trilogy)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hikers's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis 
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville  
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce 
76 The Inferno - Dante 
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad  
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

34... not so bad.  At least it is more than 6.  How did you do?

Image via Design Sponge
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sâmbătă, 20 noiembrie 2010

Thankful for...

Posted on 13:32 by Roger
Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang!


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marți, 16 noiembrie 2010

Goodbye old friend

Posted on 19:03 by Roger
I am heartbroken tonight.  My dog, Jobie, has passed on to the great dog heaven in the sky filled with squirrels to chase, head scratches and endless dog biscuits.  For 12 glorious years, she was my best friend, an old soul, superb squirrel catcher, fantastic listener, and the greatest pound puppy that a girl could have.  She will be so missed.


So to all you fellow dog lovers, raise a glass tonight to my girl, Jobie... one of the greats.

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Edible Estates

Posted on 06:05 by Roger

Fritz Haeg is transforming unused front lawn spaces into lush gardens that grow fruits and vegetables. I love this idea and have often thought about doing it in my own front yard.  A beautiful, yet utilitarian yard that offers delicious food - there is something simply perfect about that.  No more tending to the yard for the sake of just having a yard.  Seems pretty cool.
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luni, 15 noiembrie 2010

Question of the day - writer's block

Posted on 06:30 by Roger
As I sit here trying to think up something witty, marvelous, thoughtful to write, I realize that I got nothing!  The tank is empty. Inspiration is lost. My ooomph is no where to be found.  Yes, kids... I have writer's block.  Hate it when that happens.


So here goes the question of the day - Where do you find your blogging inspiration when it seems that you might have misplaced it?
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vineri, 12 noiembrie 2010

Double Rainbows

Posted on 06:31 by Roger
This week is proving to be a rough one for many people that I care about... really rough.  Thank you for all the sweet comments on yesterday's post.  They made me feel so much better.  You really have no idea how much.

Anyways, today is my brother's birthday.  So we gotta turn this week around just in time for the weekend.  Wishing everyone a Double Rainbow kind of day!  Happy Birthday Chris!


Image via Little Brown Pen

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joi, 11 noiembrie 2010

Jobie

Posted on 06:22 by Roger
Ugh.  I am struggling today.  We took our dog, Jobie, to the vet earlier this week and it is not looking so good.  The tests result show that nothing good is going on, but they are not conclusive as to what exactly is the problem.  And now I am going back and forth with this decision of putting her down now or waiting it out until it gets worse.  This just sucks.

In a way, Jobie is my first baby.  Yes, I understand that she is not a human baby.  But she is my first dog baby.  I have had other dogs before.  But Jobie is the dog that I picked out alone.  I was in college and dealing with some pretty heavy crap in my life and I saw this puppy that needed me just as much as I needed her.  She was not the most playful puppy and she was afraid of everything.  She was an old soul even at the tender age of 12 weeks.  But together we healed our wounds and made quite a life for ourselves - living in 4 different cities, starting new jobs, dating different boyfriends, getting married, having a baby.  She was with me through it all.

And now that this may be the end of her life, I feel as if I am failing her.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know what she would want me to do.

I don't believe in putting pets through a battery of tests, medicines, and procedures just to extend their lives a little more, especially when the quality of their lives may not be all that great.  Sometimes in that way, I think we treat pets better than we do people. But when do you say when?  At what point do you say that the current quality of life is not enough?  I have never wished that she could talk more than I wish right now.
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miercuri, 10 noiembrie 2010

Plastic pieces of awesomeness

Posted on 05:42 by Roger
We have been getting requests from the family as to what Little B might like for Christmas.  I don't have the heart to tell them that is she is 1 and you could give her a newspaper to tear up and she would be delighted.  But that was before I  came across these plastic pieces of awesomeness.

Little B (aka - me, the mommy) would love a blank canvas to strategically place food in order to create a face that she will gobble up with delight.

Photo via Pioneer Woman
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marți, 9 noiembrie 2010

Pumpkin Risotto

Posted on 06:33 by Roger
I came across this old New York times article that I had bookmarked over a year ago for Pumpkin Risotto.  I never got around to making it last year.  But it still sounds so delicious.  I 100% trust a man that tells me to be extra-generous with cheese and butter. So I will give it a whirl this weekend.  Wish me luck.


The secret is in the preparation of the pumpkin. After removing seeds and fiber, cut the flesh into chunks, leaving the skin still attached. With your hands, mix the chunks in a bowl with 2 or 3 tablespoons of the best olive oil, salt and pepper, a tablespoon of fresh marjoram and a teaspoon of dried oregano. Lay the chunks on a baking tray, skin side down, and put them in the oven, which you have preheated to 425°F. When the chunks of pumpkin are soft and the edges are tinged with brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool, scrape the flesh from the skin and shred with a fork. Prepare your risotto in the usual way and once the rice is ready, stir in the pumpkin, along with freshly grated Parmesan and butter. (Mme. Farigoule’s tip is to be extra-generous with both cheese and butter.) Add a sage leaf for decoration, and a sprinkling of Parmesan, et voilà.

Photo via This Mama Cooks
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luni, 8 noiembrie 2010

Meal Planning Monday

Posted on 11:29 by Roger
This week's menu is gonna be a good one.  And the beauty of most of these dishes... whatever we don't finish, we can throw into the freezer for future dinner.  Love that!


Monday: Roasted chicken with root vegetables and baked apples in a wine sauce
Tuesday: Mushroom and broccoli quiche
Wednesday: Chicken enchiladas
Thursday: Lasagna and Caesar salad
Friday: Chili with cornbread

And of course, I would not be surprised if some homemade chocolate chip cookies magically appeared for dessert one night.  I have been craving those so much recently.
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When daddy goes to the park...

Posted on 09:23 by Roger
Every weekend David and Little B head out just the two of them for a "daddy and daughter" adventure.  This past weekend they were off to the park.  Little did I know that David has a much different philosophy about playground play than I do.  Little B and I work on "feet-first", "hold-on-to-the-rail" and "on-your-tummy" a lot.  David prefers the "run-wild-kid" approach.


After David showed me this video and I finally stopped laughing, I went to inspect Little B's face for any lasting signs of wear and tear.  Other than a bright pink nose and a bit of playground mulch in her teeth, she seemed pretty unaffected.  When I asked David why he let her do that, he responded with "She liked it!  She did it 15 times."  Maybe for their next adventure, I'll send her out with a mouth guard.
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sâmbătă, 6 noiembrie 2010

Gyspy Picnic Weekend!

Posted on 12:10 by Roger
 

What are yall up to this weekend?  We will be enjoying one those we-have-nothing-planned-let's-see-what-happens kind of weekend.  Don't you just love those?  Anyways, we may head down to Austin's Gypsy Picnic Trailer Food Festival.  Yep, you heard me right.  A festival of trailer food. Delicious!  Another reason why I love Austin.


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joi, 4 noiembrie 2010

Question of the day

Posted on 05:08 by Roger

As I sit here sipping my morning cup of joe, I have been catching up on some of my favorite blogs.  The past few weeks have been so busy, I have not had much time to myself to peruse the blogosphere.  Anyways it got me to thinking, when do you find time to read other blogs?  Is it while your hubby is watching football or maybe while the baby sleeps?  Or if you are super sneaky like I am, maybe it is when you are supposed to be working?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Image via Apartment Therapy
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miercuri, 3 noiembrie 2010

Old movies

Posted on 11:06 by Roger
I have a bunch of old movies that I only like to watch in the fall.  They get me in an autumn-kind of mood that inspires apple cider, rainy Sundays, and corduroy jackets. Kind of like how certain songs remind you a time of year or a specific time of your life.




Do you have movies like that?  If so, what are they?  Leave me a comment and let me know.
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What I am loving

Posted on 05:57 by Roger

Things I am loving this week...
  • The fall wreath hanging on our front door
  • 60 degree temps
  • Pot roast cooking in the slow cooker
  • Wearing my tall brown boots that I got when we were in Italy
  • A storm that is blowing in as I type this
  • Getting back to routine after a whirlwind weekend of fun
  • Sipping on the first hot chocolate of the season
What are you loving this week?

Image via Cupcakes and Cashmere
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marți, 2 noiembrie 2010

Trick-or-Treat!

Posted on 11:26 by Roger
We had the best weekend!  I just did not want it to end.  Project Spooky Baby Shower was a huge success.  Little B rocked her witchy costume.  I got some much needed friend time in.  And David scored a few Reeses peanut butter cups out of Little B's trick-or-treat loot.


I was so proud to show off Little B's costume - a mish-mash of borrowed, store bought, and a homemade tutu that could not have been easier to make.  My cute little witch walking on her own with her chunky legs wrapped in striped knit and a trail of purple glitter falling behind her.  She made me smile as I thought "this is one of those moments to file away in the memory bank of life."  She loved Halloween.  Yep, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that she has inherited the Halloween gene.


 
I love the magic of Halloween.  Adults with child-like enthusiasm.  Kids so excited to show off their costumes.  Porches dressed up with kitschy, spooky decorations. Neighbors opening their doors for a bit of oohing and aahing.  Candy wrappers everywhere as we all indulge in a little sugar.  This is what it is all about people.

Even though this was Little B's second Halloween, it was the first one where we felt that she could really participate in.  And while the Halloween season is over, I am giddy with anticipation for next year's festivities where she will understand it a little more.

And of course, Halloween is the appetizer in the feast of seasonal celebrations.  With Thanksgiving coming up and Christmas quickly following, the holidays take on a new meaning to me this year.  While past holidays have always been about what everybody else wants (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles), this year the focus will shift to the traditions that David and I want to begin with our new family.  I can just sense it.  We are at the beginning of something really great.  And that makes me happy to be right here, right now, in this moment.
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