estacey
we had a BUSY day yesterday.. here are the pics!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jisou/sets/72157594450824810/
he wasn't sleeping with me when i woke up, which was a surprise. kitten was there, but no ellie.
then i sat up and turned around, and there he was. he had been sleeping right by my head. :) i grabbed the camera and got this pretty picture, in such pretty light. i just should've centered it better horizontally. but then more of my sheets would've shown, i suppose.
i stayed home on tuesday night, but didn't get there until after 10. the cats, particularly elliot, were all over me.. in fact, when i woke up on wednesday, elliot was sleeping on me. on his back. with his feet up in the air. it was ridiculously cute.
last night, chris's.
tonight, i gotta rush off to exchange cars at chris's (i was parked in so had to drive one of his today), get a haircut, do the cats at petsmart... and now i'm worried about my jackfruit. the produce guy at work said to make sure i got it open before it went overripe; rotting jackfruit is bad jackfruit. and since i won't be home until sunday.. well, i am thinking i should open it up, stat, and refrigerate it. i dunno.
maybe chris will do it for me, although i kinda wanted to eat some of it, too! but if i go there tonight after the cats, the guilt from never being there to snuggle with my cats is going to just eat me up.
dilemmas, dilemmas.
on a bright note, i had my 6-month review at work today and it went awesome. i am officially classified as "outstanding." :)
this entry features a photo set on flickr from specklet, called Tiny Animals on Fingers, and i have a picture there, of my nice little crab that lived in the bathroom for a while!
sadly, my pic did not make it on the tiny-animals-on-fingers photo mosaic. hrm. although, i gotta admit, the tiny octopus and the tiny monkeys are cuter than my little crab.
maybe next time! ¶ 4:29 PM 0 comments
please note that i took this picture on 12/24. yes, christmas eve day, and look at it out there! sunny and gorgeous. and, actually, a little too warm. hehe.
¶ 3:05 PM 0 comments
i asked this nice guy who has contacts down in the (farmy) homestead area where on earth i could get a jackfruit. well, instead of telling me where i could buy a jackfruit, he got me one! it was delivered to me at work yesterday.
i was all excited, and chris laughed, "excited about a fruit, huh?" well, then i brought it to his house. you can see his reaction here: something like awe.
this bad boy is about 25 lbs! it'll be ready to eat in a few days.. i can't wait! what a funny, awesome holiday gift! this has been such a nice christmas. :)
sometimes love feels a lot like a dog's paw grinding into your ribs. sometimes. :)
¶ 8:27 PM 0 comments
i noticed a little green out-of-place something laying in the leaves.
it was an iguana. i never have seen one this small before! it's just a baby, like the ones they sell in the pet store.
he didn't fight or run or anything - i just plucked him up and called for chris to grab the camera. he was ridiculously cute. after prodding him for a few minutes and picking his sloughing skin off, we returned him to the hibiscus bush. very neat encounter. :)
he JUMPED INTO THE INTERCOASTAL today when we were out for a ride. chris had to kill the engine, as to not chop him into buddy bits with the propeller, and jump in after him. my goodness.
i got a ton of cute pics on the boat ride beforehand, but when we got back to the house, i realized i had my camera set to something funny from when i was experimenting with it. and, yeah, all the pictures are super dark.
that's me and my christmas gift! how cool is that? i was really convinced that chris hadn't gotten me anything and was going to give me the threatened gift if money, especially after he said on the phone on saturday, "huh, maybe i should buy you something." well, then last night as i was wrapping the last of his unexciting gifts, he brought in a cardboard box with a bow on it. when i opened it...... a d70!!!!!!! i have wanted one of these for years, but have kept shelving the dream of getting one because they're so expensive.. i figured if i did manage to save up the dough to buy one, then i would just be asking for my car's transmission to fall out onto the highway during rush hour. so yeah, something i really wanted that i never really thought i'd have. it's awesome.
also, when i was oohing and ahhing over it, chris said that i had better figure out how to use it by friday, since we were going somewhere. somewhere cold. somewhere cold as in new york! :) :) i'm really, really excited about this, too. we're gonna have a blast and i'll have new things to take pictures of! hopefully no one will mug me and take my camera! my chris is a good one, isn't he? :)
christmas so far has been really nice. yesterday was beautiful out.. chris had a football game to watch, so i rode bike to the store where i finished up my last-minute shopping, ran into my bud ryan and got a hug at whole foods, went iguana watching at middle river, picked a flower from a mystery tree with mystery fruit hanging off it. then we had dinner, and whoa was that something. chris's mom nags a little, like why does he have to eat that (as he shoves food into his mouth), to which he responds by picking up his plate and licking the food off it, as food falls onto his lap and the floor. me and the sisters were sitting there, trying to stifle our laughs. ahhh, family love is a touching thing.
chris's parents (mom mostly) have been driving him a little nuts, so we snuck out last night.. literally snuck out the back door.. and rode bikes to the movie theater, where we saw the pursuit if happyness with his sisters. it was an awesome story, and more awesome still that it's a true one. then we rode around, went to walgreens where i managed to get a $45 512mb memory chip for the camera for a mere $15 (don't ask me), then met dean & meredith for drinks and went out for some on our own, bringing out to-go cups out onto the commercial pier to check out the waves.. when we got back, my camera's batteries were charged so i got to mess around with it.
the first picture!
since then, i've gotten some pics of the dogs, of course.
tested out macro
it would seem i got a pretty good lens! :)
i woke up with a, um.. well.. hangover today. it's a little strange to be hungover on christmas, but i guess that's okay. :) we had a good time.
tonight i get pictures of the christmas tree.. actually, i should do that today, while we still have unopened gifts under it. then friday night, i get pictures of the big christmas tree! :) ¶ 11:51 AM 0 comments
I guess I just really don't understand people.
We all love an escape story. You know, you hear about a cow or a pig that escaped off the slaughterhouse truck. It gets caught, sent back to the slaughterhouse. Meanwhile, the media has picked up on the story and the public is in an uproar – let that brave animal live!
Examples: Queenie, Emily.
Then John Q. Public goes back to eating his cheeseburger, not giving a thought to the fact that it could very well be Queenie’s brother on his plate. At the least, it is another creature that is just as feeling, whose life is just as important to him as Queenie’s was to her.
So this Charlotte’s Web, it makes me think along the same lines. It makes me think of how horribly ignorant people are about their meat, and if not ignorant, then damned uncaring. And how little sense it makes to root for one pig when millions and millions die in our slaughterhouses each year.
The trailers just piss me off. Most of the people involved with the movie eat meat (this seems like greedy capitalization, if you ask me) and most people who will see it and be so touched by it eat meat.. Makes no sense. Arrrr.
A link: http://www.goveg.com/f-top10cows.asp ¶ 4:50 PM 0 comments
i did a search for "sick" and "flu" and bethy's pic of this little cow came up on the first page of matches. :)
so anyway, yeah, i'm sick. i really haven't been sick since last christmas, so i don't think i can complain.
i've stayed at home the past couple of nights. the cats are loving it, of course.. ellie lays by my head or by my lap. kitten lays next to me, facing the wall. my god, that cat cracks me up. the other day, i picked her up and she started in with the misery-cat routine, crying and trying to get down. i wasn't ready to set her down yet, so i just held her away from my body a little bit. there she was, suspended in the air, crying her head off.... and doing happy paws! so happy, but just not willing to admit it!
so yeah, they were enjoying it. i'm back at work today, though, suffering through.. since i already have to take christmas day unpaid since i was home yesterday.. and new year's day unpaid, too.. short paychecks are JUST what i need right now, you know? laaaaaaaaaaaaame.
other than the illness and the poverty, all is good. ;) i should be better in time for christmas, at least. chris's family is in town - the out-of-town sis, the parents. sure am looking forward to having to meet everyone. no, really. but i am looking forward to a family christmas, even if i have to hork someone else's family! :) and a chris christmas, which will be nice too. even though he keeps threatening to give me a really thoughtful gift (money). i will have to respond in kind (coal).
april's caption: "this sign was hung in an american-themed diner around the corner from the hotel. they had delicious blueberry pancakes that i wholeheartedly recommend."
is that the way brits think we yanks talk? ha!
a few examples:
we've all seen this picture.
not so much this one, but it's also of jfk jr. and his bride.
how gorgeous is that?
julia roberts and her man:
brad pitt & jennifer aniston:
off subject, but this came up on a search for the last pic:
angelina used to look, um, different, eh?
did y'all realize she used to have a tramp stamp? and a chinese symbol tattoo? ha!
she's come a long way, eh?
ah, the joy!
payday is friday. my car insurance payment went through before i thought it was going to. they charge me $30 for each nsf, something i have had not to suffer for a long, long time. but yeah, christmas is around the corner. so the $5 i spent yesterday at the nutrition store instead cost me $35. the $15 i spent at the grocery store instead cost me $45.
bank, quit kickin' me while i'm down. :(
i just hope there are no other monthly payments that go through before friday. that $4.95 for launch.com will become $34.95. ahh, the joy and mystery of being poor!
I'm so tiiired, originally uploaded by True_Bavarian.
do a search for the most 'interesting' pics on flickr tagged with 'yawning' and it's all animals, animals, animals.
see?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/yawning/interesting/
it's kinda cute to look at. :)
i brought two books with me to key west this weekend. two. i had started both, but wasn't so far into them that i thought i would finish them both over the weekend.
well, i finished them both in the car ride on the way there. whoops.
so when the rain came, and continued, i started to panic at the idea of not having anything to read at the hotel, if we got stuck in all night. "did you see a bookstore?" i asked chris's cousin, whose name sounds much like "john-jenny." he and his wife, yee mae, took the conch train tour, see. "no, no bookstore." damn.
so chris and i kept our eyes peeled on the walk back to the bed & breakfast. lots of t-shirts. btw, i was amused to see a guy standing and staring at a windowful of t-shirts, his lips moving slowly as he digested the endless witticisms imparted on the cotton. "tell your b... b... boo... boobs to st-st-stop staring at my ey-ey...eyes." you should not have to move your lips to read the front of a tee shirt, people. there were also lots of sarongs, lots of jewelry. shorts with asswriting. paintings of sailboats and tropical scenes, but no books. then finally, "look! a bookstore!"
we excitedly crossed the street. but no, it wasn't a bookstore after all. instead, it was a store that made reproductions of key west landmarks and dives, so if you loved the mermaid & the alligator, for example, you could take a sign of "theirs" home to michigan with you. we saw a very cute sign that i guess is actually hanging somewhere in key west that read: "drive carefully! we love our chicks!" it was yellow with the profile of a rooster and some chicky chicks on it. very cute. :)
we continued on our walk. i came to a very quick conclusion, which i shared with chris. "key west is not the place to buy a book. t-shirts? sure. sex toys? yep! bongs? of course! just no books." and seriously, the bong-to-book ratio in key west is disturbing.
luckily, we found a walgreens with a little book section. the walgreens worker pointed to where i could find them, in the store's back corner. i immediately worried i would have to rub shoulders with guys thumbing through issues of jugs in order to find a book to keep me occupied, but it was a genuine magazine & book section, just very small. i found lots of too-pop fiction (yes, i have read dean koontz before, but that was when i was 13), as well as two books i would actually read but already had (memoirs of a geisha and.. hmm, i forget). i was unimpressed - after all, this was key west. shouldn't there be some island fiction? a doc ford? a carl hiaasen? i'd even take jimmy buffet! and then finally, under a cheesy romance book, i found double whammy by carl hiaasen. he may be formulaic, but he's good. so... jackpot! and it turns out skink is in this book, too. yay!
then today i come home to find christmas gifts from byron, including two more books. so now carl hiaasen has been temporarily deserted in favor of a book about a puppers named marley. :)
Justin Timberlake has an idea of what you can get that special lady in your life.. ¶ 7:56 PM 1 comments
well, that's a lie. it was clear sunday morning for about an hour, just long enough for us to ride bikes to mallory square and get breakfast. then the rain started again.
that one hour was just lovely, though. the sun was out, the water was calm and a gorgeous shade of blue. pelicans were drying their wings and napping on boats around the harbor. sadly, i didn't have my camera. "we have to come back so i can get pictures!" i said, believing the forecast that sunday was going to be nice. arrrrrgh.
anyway, what can you do about the weather?
the best part is that we had dinner at, like, 5:30 on saturday. we were asleep by 8, fully intending to wake up later and go out for drinks. instead, we slept. we're like jerry seinfeld's freaking parents; going out for the early-bird and in bed at the same time as 6-year-olds around the country. :D
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last night, while writing last night's post, actually, i was sitting in bed and thinking, "god, something smells in here." could it be the litterbox, left over from oreo? i decided i'd just keep it there, since elliot has been stuck in my room more than once when a gust of wind slammed my door shut. he probably held it for as long as he could, but.. um, yeah. kitty pee is about the absolute worst smell to welcome you home that you can imagine. anyway, the litterbox has no waste in it, so that didn't really make sense...
after a little thought, i placed the smell: something dead. it crossed my mind that it's kinda sad that i can place that smell now.
grabbed my flashlight, lifted the bedskirt. sure enough, there was a deceased mouse. an ex mouse, if you will.
ahh, the joy of having cats.
latex gloves, a cross-country ski pole, a paper sack, and a half-bottle of oust, and all is back to normal, but still. lay off with the rodents, cats! dead and alive!
i guess that's what i get for getting them all hopped up on catnip.
oreo is still there. she seems to be okay. certainly not happy about the cage or anything, but she was playing pretty happily the whole time i was there and she was free.
i have to get gifts for two little girls for this adopt-a-family thing at work. i have a few options.. an 8-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 14-year-old.... but i have no idea what to get them. what do kids like these days? in the $20-range?
wanna know how nice chris is? he fed my strays for me last night. yep, bought food and stopped by the enterprise to feed my strays. bless his heart. and mind you, this is after working 39 hours in three days.
took gretchen and buddy on a jog last night, at the same time. it was pretty funny, but buddy did a lot better than i thought he would. he's so little and, well, slow. all in all, it was pretty amusing and good for me in an exercise-of-patience kind of way.
i think i should see a chiropractor. tonight while driving, i realized i was actually fantasizing about getting a really good back crack. what have i been doing wrong?
okay, could i have any more subjects going on in this one post? don't think so. ¶ 11:48 PM 0 comments
Walking through the craft store, her excitement could barely be contained., originally uploaded by fd.
Yay! I can see Flickr pics at work again!
¶ 3:30 PM 0 comments
i've never had a dog, see. and i looove dogs.
i almost adopted one, but then byron's parents adopted it instead. i was standing in line at the shelter to adopt this dog "leah" when his parents dropped the bomb that, hey, kids, we'll let you rent out our beachfront condo for $500 each. even though i had only spent 10 minutes with the dog at that point, i already felt responsible for that limping, dirty, pathetic little girl.
as fate would have it, the dog that byron's parents wanted to adopt (a precious baby lab) at the same shelter was already taken. so, grudgingly, they said they'd give leah a home. it worked out awesome - it turns out i was awfully allergic to her anyway, and she got to live in a house in the country in georgia, with owners that turned out to absolutely adore her. :)
so yeah, i've never had a dog. and hanging out with chris's all the time, i realized i can. i just can't, you know, let it get dirty. and probably not let it sleep with me. but most dog-owner things, i can do!
i shouldn't care. after all, i have chris's dogs to for belly-rubbin' and cuddling and walks outside, but it's not the same as my own dog.
ain't she pretty? at a shelter in palm beach. cattle dog mix. me likes.
or what about this one? or are the jack russells way too energetic?
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=7502916
but she's so precious!
ah well, sooooomeday. someday i'll be a dog mama. :) ¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments
Story
"A pit-bull puppy chewed off four of a baby girl's toes while the child's parents slept, police here said Monday."
Okay, there are so many things wrong with this story.
Pit bulls get a lot of shit. Understandably; they do a lot of bad things. I'm not one to really jump to any conclusions about aggression and animals, and for a long time I thought he reputation pits have was unfair. Until I saw that pit bull kill a stray cat in my front yard, until I saw how it could just not control itself, even though it knew well enough to heed my commands. Now, well.. I don't think I would ever have a pit bull. I'm sure there are lots of them that are sweet as sugar, but I'm just a bit apprehensive.
Then I read this. A six-week-old puppy, for crissake! I thought, it surely must not have understood what it was doing, gnawing this poor baby's toes off. So you feel bad for the puppy. At the same time, the baby must have been crying and crying. Do puppies understand that?
Then I think - wait, the parents were sleeping in the same room as this baby? On a mattress on the floor, while the baby slept in her car seat? And they didn't wake up?
I remember watching Amanda overnight when she was a little baby. I used to snuggle her up on the couch with me when she'd wake up in the middle of the night, a bottle propped in her mouth. People would ask, aren't you worried you'll roll over on her or something? But no; when you're sleeping with a little baby, your senses are hyper aware. You know to not roll over, even though you're sleeping.
So what kind of people are sleeping with their kid in the living room, on a mattress on the floor, while the baby is in a car seat? What kind of people don't wake up when their baby is bawling for an hour because her toes are being chewed off? (I'm guessing they were under the influence of something.)
Answer? THE KIND OF PEOPLE WHO GET A PIT BULL!
You know, 'cause pits are bad-ass. 50 Cent has one. They're a good accessory to your gold chains and pants hangin' off your ass.
So yeah, new theory: maybe it's not the dogs at all. Maybe it's the owners. Or maybe it's a combination of both.
Recap: this story is f'd up, in so many ways. ¶ 11:41 AM 0 comments
what a sad story, but look at those “after” pictures! ¶ 11:37 AM 0 comments
it works, but i can't see any pics. so i am HOPING this is actually the pic of shiloh that i posted...
but anyway, how cute is this child?
i have a slight thing for angelina (like the rest of america) (brad's alright too) and think very much that the fact that babies are half their mom and half their dad, two people who hopefully them and one another, is a very cool thing. so the fact that this baby is half ange, half brad, and very obviously so - and comes out so damn cute! well, it all adds up to a pretty interesting picture. a brad baby with angie lips. so cute.
Every once in a while, I’ll do a Google search and be surprised with the results. It turns out Google has all these awesome features.. For example, did you know you don’t have to go to dictionary.com for a definition? Simply go to Google and type in “define:word” (word being your word, obviously), and you get this:
a unit of language that native speakers can identify; "words are the blocks from which sentences are made"; "he hardly said ten words all morning" | |
They have an awesome recipe tool that came up the other night when I had a hankering for something using both the mangos and avocados I had on hand, but now I can’t figure out how I got it to work. While trying to figure it out, I wound up on this page, which explains all their tools:
http://www.google.com/help/features.html
I thought it may be a handy link!
i was trying to finish up the wisconsin xmas shopping tonight, so went to old navy to buy pajama pants for my niece. apparently they wear them to school nowadays in wisconsin. and everywhere else.
okaaaay.
it didn't fully strike me as weird until i was faced with the racks of pajama pants in the store. all checkered, polka-dotted, or covered in happy penguins or dogs wearing santa hats. "certainly she doesn't mean THESE," i thought. alas, kamille's cell was out of service. so i called dawn. "like, with snowflakes on 'em and stuff?" "yep." al-righty. so amanda is getting fleecy snowflaked pj pants and flannel ones with little scotty dogs all over them. and two gift receipts, because i just can't imagine this is right.
i'm home tonight, laying in bed with the ellie cat. he's such a snuggly, snuggly lovey baby.
everyone hear about nicole ritchie? what a stupid, stupid girl. all the money in the world, and she can't call a CAB? instead, she drives the wrong way down the freeway, drunk. brilliant!
we had such a nice, relaxing weekend. chris having the little boston whaler has been so awesome.. he keeps saying that i'm using him for his boat. then he remembers he didn't have it when i met him. so then, of course, i then confess to using subliminal messaging as he slept. "chris, you want to buy a boat. chrissss you want a booooooat. a boat that we will never leave the sight of land in for fear of getting stranded outside of boatu.s.'s coverage area." yes, i am a very sneaky, conniving woman. :D
joking aside, it's great. it's always so pretty outside, so gorgeous at night.. getting to go out for drinks (or bringing one along) or out to eat in such a pretty, out-of-routine way, like last night, is great. and best of all - chris, the constant multi-tasker, is mine all mine when we're on the boat. i can't get the boy to sit still if we're at home, but he's a captive conversationalist, co-singer, and hand-holder on the boat. so i guess you could kinda say that i'm using chris's boat for chris. :)
1. When was the last time you shaved your legs?
Afternoon shower, 4 p.m.
2. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?
Sleeping. Slept blissfully until 9.
3. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Just got in from a boat ride, so I was putting things away.
4. Are you any good at math?
Nyet. I blame math for me not having my Bachelor's. It's all math's fault.
5. Your prom night?
It was good.
6. Do you have any famous ancestors?
Not that I know of. There could be some famous viking back there somewhere, though.
7. Have you ever taken out a loan to pay for school?
Nope.
8. Do you know the words to the song on your song on Myspace?
Huh?
9. Last thing received in the mail?
A book from Amazon. Also, like seven brochures from local lawyers that are willing to defend my illegal-lane-change ticket. Good thing I wasn't trying to hide that little boo-boo from anyone.
10. How many different beverages have you drank today?
Oh jesus. Coffee with brunch, fruitwater on the bike ride back, water, half a bottle of G.T. Kombucha tea, sangria on the boat, then a hot chocolate with kahlua on the boat ride home from the restaurant. Then water with a splash of mango juice when I got home. Mind you, this is not a normal day. Usually it's a cup of coffee in the morning, water (sometimes with juice splashed in), and some Kombucha if I'm lucky enough to have some on hand.
11. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
Ha ha ha ha, Color Me Badd with Dawn.
12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine?
Sometimes, often rambling if I do. So sometimes I spare the folks I'm calling and just hang up instead.
Why are there a bunch of missing numbers?
14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
Nope
16. What is out your back door?
At my house, a nice lush Florida yard with lots of birds, annoying blue jays, and the occasional feline. But I'm never there anymore. Outside Chris's is a swimming pool and three lovely little puggles.
17. Any plans for Friday night?
Nope, and I doubt there will be! We have to be in Miami at 8 on Saturday!
18. Do you like the ocean?
Definativamente. It's a great part about South Florida; even now, when I'm not diving, I still usually take A1A if I'm not in a rush.
19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different kinds of popcorn?
Um, no
20. Have you ever been to a planetarium?
At BCC, a year or two ago.
22. Something you are excited about?
Getting Christmas shopping done this week. Going to Key West this weekend.
23. If you could smack the ever living shit out of anyone rightnow who would it be?
Hmm, no one. This is kind of an angry question, isn't it?
24. Are any of your great-grandparents still alive?
Nope.
25. Describe your keychain:
It used to be out of hand; I looked like a janitor or something. So I cleared off all the mystery and old place/office keys and the unnecessary keychains. So right now it's just a little flashlight thing and a lanyard to wear around my neck. PetsMart card. Petco card. And four keys.
26. Where do you keep your change?
In the bottom of my cavernous purse, from where sometimes it gets transferred to the overflowing "Maid Fund" piggy bank on my dresser.
27. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group?
I had to give a presentation at our last meeting when my boss got called out for something urgent. But only to, like, eight people. I try to avoid these types of things usually, so it's been a while.. Maybe the last time I gave a go at speech class. We had to give a self biography. When I ran down a description of my family, mentioning my dad made my lip start to quiver and eyes tear up. It was ridiculously not cool. Yeah, next time I think I'll leave that out.
28. What kind of winter coat do you have?
Winter coat? Ha! I have a lightweight polarfleece coat, and that's as much as I need. Winter is for suckaaaas, baby.
29. What was the weather like on your graduation?
No recuerdo, though I'm guessing it was decent. Ma never showed up to give me a ride to the school, so I had to walk. It turned out she had run out of gas. Ha.
30. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed?
I usually leave it open a crack so my kitties can come in and out as they please. Then Ellie can sit and watch me sleep and, the minute I open my eyes, pounce on the bed and chirp for attention. :) It's actually quite a nice way to wake up. ¶ 9:51 PM 1 comments
slept in, then got up and leisurely played with my little food processor, making a little raw fruit pie and mixin' up the food for the tortoises.
i buy these exceptionally yummy raw fruit pies from glaser organics (via whole foods) all the time. they're like $5.99 a piece, which sucks. and they're small! but they're so good, and only contain fruit & nuts,so they're healthy for you. i did my own today - for a "crust" i mixed a handful of soaked almonds with four or five medjool dates. processed. smooshed with a spatula onto the bottom of two bowls. i think this is the key - this stuff is so yummy. dates are excellent for sweetening stuff up.
for the filling, i used a banana, a mango, some raspberries, and some blueberries. processed, then divided into the two bowls and topped with sliced bananas. i forgot to add the coconut.
the result is super yummy, to the point that it's surprising there's nothing but raw fruit and nuts in it.
chris had some furniture delivered today.. i went outside with the book that the chick from la crosse wrote (yay, cheap - used from amazon), had the dogs all try to pile on top of me as i tried to read, then came back into a house with a new couch! and a new loveseat! and a table in the dining room! before, there was just a vase in the middle of the floor so that people wouldn't walk into the chandelier. heh. it looks awesome. :)
i read, i napped. that's about it.
tonight i fetched stuff for dinner and chris made it - pasta and shrimp with pesto and garlic. oooooh, it was so good.
then we finished decorating the christmas tree. he got these ornaments from kids outside his church today that were fundraising. very cute.
so yep, that was my lazy day. i feel bad on days like today for feeling like i wasted a weekend day, but at the same time - sometimes you need to veg out. so yeah, it was good.
the downside is that it's 1:30 a.m. chris has been asleep for a good hour already. we have brunch at 11. we may ride bikes there, which will take an hour. and i'm not really tired yet!
last night, i gave all the cats wet food as soon as i got there, as a treat. then i let them out. then i distributed catnip. oh, if i could've just gotten a picture of all the happy rolling-around that took place...
i did get this kitty with the black nose, linus, looking very blissful in oreo's bed. she wasn't impressed that he took it over, but ah well.
she's doing better with the other cats now, but seems to be craving lap time.
how cute is he?
they're not usually allowed in the house, but sebastian comes and stands at the door with his puppy-dog eyes (literally) and cries. i usually break and let him in. being the smart dog he is, he comes and lays next to me on the couch, rather than trying to sit with chris. chris would put him back out.
no more dogs in the house until after the xmas tree comes down, though. sebastian attacked it last year and broke a bunch of ornaments. as it is, they stand at the sliding glass door and bark at it.
dogs. are. awesome.
again, tired. again, awake too late. even better tonight, considering i have to be up at *5:30* tomorrow. i get done really early, but i have a feeling i will be spending some of the early-off time sleeping. grr.
all is well here, besides being awake right now.
not much to say of interest, though. can't wait for the weekend. then next weekend, it's off to the keys again! then the next weekend is christmas! ack!
trying to help these pathetic little creatures. the pictures are.. yeah, wow. yet so many of the dogs, despite their hard lives, in the 'after' pics have that awesome doggy smiley face that i love so much.
gotta donate some $ to these folks pronto.
don't ever let me go to peru; i may not come back!
¶ 2:07 PM 0 comments
and man, i wish i could find the link she gave me.
basically, this lady had been trying for five years to get pregnant. she finally did, and healthily carried the little boy to full-term. she noticed his kicks were getting less frequent, but.. oh, hmm, i'm forgetting how it happened. basically, he was kicking one day and, the next, when she went to get her c-section, he was not. the baby's umbilical cord got wrapped around his neck and he died.
so now she is trying to get the word out about fetal kick counting. basically, after 20 weeks, you monitor your baby's kicks, making sure you get at least 10 in two hours. it teaches you to learn your baby's schedule and activities, so you know when something is wrong. over half of women who end up miscarrying notice a decrease in their baby's activity in the days prior, so keeping in mind that this could mean something is very wrong, and to seek immediate medical attention if it happens, is a very good thing.
http://www.babykickalliance.org/index.asp
most women aren't told by their OB-GYNs to start counting kicks, and it's something i'd never heard of.. so anyway, just getting the word out there, too. to all my three readers. :)
btw, i thought this baby was really cute at first. but the more i look at the picture, the more he's starting to look like gollum.
it's probably just due to the fact that i had a migraine earlier so took some excedrin (hello, caffeine) and took a long nap. not sleeping sucks. i'm all restless. i think i have that whole restless legs syndrome (which sounds ridiculous but, trust me, is really not cool) and sometimes i feel like that in my arms too. is that even possible?
migraine is due to the fact that i had three drinks last night at chris's work xmas party and then made the mistake of running this morning at about 10. i felt fine, so i thought it would be okay, but previous-night drinks + 80 degrees + sun + 4 miles is no good.
i already have completely given up on drinking during the day; it's an instant headache. now i definitely think i have to give up on drinking ANYTHING if i expect to run the next morning. or maybe it was just the sun that did it. but it's not as if i've never run in the sun before.. ahh, who knows. though, come to think of it, i never did so well, headache-wise, when running in the summer sun & humidity, even if vodka & cranberry was not involved the night before. long story short: i'm a wimp.
thankfully, the headache went away later tonight.
in time to help chris put up the xmas tree and then go on a nice, long boat ride. it was so so so so gorgeous out. we have this nearly full moon and the water was glassy.
oh yes, the weekend, must file my report.
saturday - slept in, went to the hoes' baby shower at a steakhouse at bayside. that was good, but poor andrea is in the hospital. she's okay, but missing her party must have sucked.
i feel like i need to give them more money now that i realize that our food at the steakhouse was on them!
then we came home and i fell asleep. chris took the boat out. i woke up about 15 minutes before we were supposed to be AT the xmas party. got ready, drove over.
at the party, i got carded. i thought the lady was kidding, but she wasn't. the best part was when chris got carded right after me. ha! so yeah, we were probably one of maybe three people there that got carded, so that was amusing.
today, aside from the jog and the ensuing migraine (and boat ride) was errands-running. funny that i always tag along happily with chris when he does his errands. and not surprisingly, that i'm always happy when he comes along for mine.
ok, it's 3 a.m. hope i can sleep soon...!
Antarctic_M lives in Antarctica. I thought it was temporary; I saw pictures from the long voyage home on her photostream.
Well, now there are new pictures in her photostream taken in Antarctica, so I guess she's back. She sure does have some interesting wildlife outside her front door. :)
she posts all these sensuous photos of herself.. but if ever her face is shown, it is blurry or her hair is covering her face or something. it's not as if she's protectecting her identity or anything; if you knew her, it's not as if you wouldn't recognize her from the pics.
it's just very weird. any guesses?
i got to choose the menu for a meeting today. bless my company, over half the people present were vegetarian. sp instead of ordering a few tokens of meaty food, i said, 'let them eat veggies!' lo and behold, everyone survived. plus, the fare was a lot healthier than the usual meeting food, where even the vegetarian food is unhealthy thanks to the loads of cheese.
anyway, during the meeting, we got to discussing grass-fed meats and animal compassion in raising meat. the possible environmental impacts of choosing to raise beef as grass-fed rather than grain-. you pay more, as they say, but the positive environmental impact is worth it.
right, i thought.
then i thought about the lengths that we go to in order to eat meat can be filed under 'ethical' in terms of decency and environmentalism. i wonder why more people don't go the route that i did. you know, at least cut down on the bloody stuff. eating vegetarian is so simple.
a couple of quotes:
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
- Albert Einstein
“If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.”
- Sir Paul McCartney
"I am conscious that meat eating is not in accordance with the finer feelings, and I abstain from it whenever I can."
- Dr. Albert Schweitzer -1952 Nobel Peace Prize recipient
"There will never be any peace in the world as long as we eat animals."
- Isaac Bashevis Singer
“I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals…”
- Henry David Thoreau
"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
jesus, I'm in some good company by not eating meat.
so anyway, folks, time to get off my soapbox to go feed some of my favorite fellow veggies - the rabbit & the torts. :) they get some fruit left over from today's meeting!
