Vacation delimna

I realize I didn’t post anything yesterday morning.  Somehow, in the fun that was taking Riley to the dog park and cooking a kicking dinner, I managed NOT to post anything the previous night.  Then in the morning, inspiration just didn’t hit.  Since I didn’t want to post mere trash in the two minutes I had to spare, I thought I’d just post late.  And onto the post….

Since we’ve had Riley, we’ve only been out of the area once.  It was to Turner Falls, and she came with us.  Well, we have a possible trip coming up soon, and Riley can’t come.  So, we’re stuck with trying to figure out what to do with the puppy while we’re away.  

Now, I know the easy answer is find a kennel or ask someone we know to watch her.  Simple, right?!  Well, yeah, it should be, but we are finding that it is not at all that simple.  

On the friends and family option, the issue is that Riley is still a puppy.  She still has accidents.  She’s still teething and therefore tries to chew on things.  ’m afraid we’d send her to someone’s home, and she’d destroy something.  Possibly something valuable that would put a strain on us to replace.  Also, Riley still tests boundaries to see what she can get away with.  We’ve worked very hard to be very diligent and consistent with her.  I can only imagine what someone else would let her get away with because of those oh-so-cute puppy dog eyes and little whimpers she lets out!  I am not sure either of us are willing to retrain the dog if she’s allowed to run amuck for two whole days!  I shudder at the thought!

So, board her, right?  Simple.  Lots of places have boarding services.  Just drop her off…..with strangers….to live in a hole….and miss us.  Drop MY BABY off with STRANGERS.  Um, does anyone else see an issue here??  Yeah, apparently I am one of “those” pet parents.  I don’t want to leave her with just anyone!  I want to make sure that she is allowed out of a cage and that she gets daily attention.  I want to make sure it’s clean and that the workers are all friendly dog loving people.  

We’ve been looking at kennels all day.  The reviews for some of these places are just wretched.  If the reviews are mostly good, then we probably can’t afford the place because it’s a “weekend retreat spa for dogs” with services that I don’t even treat myself to!  

The other thing?  We can’t pick her up on Sunday for many of these places, and I am simply not willing to board her for longer than necessary.  Can you imagine picking your puppy up on Monday morning only to put her in her kennel so that you can now leave her and go to work?!  Yeah, that’s just begging for her to seriously destroy something to spite you.  And I don’t want my little Ri to spite me.  

I’ll be stopping by one of the possible contenders tomorrow to see if it is sufficient for our pup.  If not, we aren’t going to be able to take this trip…..or any trip for a while.  And that’s not a great solution either.

Has anyone else run into these issues?

Week 3, sorta

Another Monday; another run.    There was one small problem with my plan: I totally forgot to LOOK at the training recommendations for Week 3!  Um, yeah, that would be important, right?  I know, sometimes I wonder if I left my brain in bed and my body went to work without it!

Last week, my repeated Week 2 got a little derailed due to unexpected obligations and a doctor appointment.   I managed to run in the gym last Monday, but not again that week.  I did, however, try to do the run/walk intervals while walking Riley on Thursday.  She was surprisingly amiable to my plan.  I thought I’d have to stop more or drag her along.  Not really.  She seemed to enjoy that I was jogging more than usual and trotted happily alongside me.  

Being that I didn’t want to repeat Week 2 a third time, I was determined to up my run time, even without knowing the “correct” training schedule.  I set out with my intervals and simply alternated two minutes walking and two minutes jogging for the entire workout.  For the first time, I felt GREAT the entire time.  My knee didn’t hurt on my left leg.  My toes and ankle on my right left weren’t in pain every time my foot struck the treadmill.  I didn’t have to coax myself to keep going after 10 minutes.  And after, I felt loose and pain free.  It was a totally different experience than I’d become used to.  And I am thankful for that!

The real week 3 is an interval of 1.5 minutes jogging, 1.5 minutes walking, 3 minutes jogging, and 3 minutes walking repeated twice.  We’ll see if I can actually manage to do the proper training routine on Wednesday!  

Granola - Attempt #1

How does a girl console herself from yet another Colt loss??  Pumpkin granola!

Because at least it tastes like a win!  And fall.  Which I really want Texas to realize that it is....actually.....officially fall.

I modified Brittany's recipe at Eating Bird Food to match what I had on hand.  I didn't want to use coconut, so I omitted it.  I didn't have coconut oil, so I used canola.  I mixed maple syrup and brown rice syrup instead of honey and agave.  I made up for the lack of sunflower seeds with extra of each of the pumpkin seeds and almonds.  I also swapped the flax for the wheat germ.  My "pumpkin pie spice" was half allspice, half ground ginger, and a few grates of fresh nutmeg since my hubby doesn't do cinnamon.  Yeah, I was determined to make it work, with or without the right stuff in my cabinets!

The verdict?!  So simple, so delicious!  I can't wait to gobble this up on top of morning smoothies and yogurts!  Really....don't ever BUY granola.  This was stupidly easy.  And you can do soooooo much.  :) 

Sweet java

It's under 50 outside for the first time since winter.

Seemed only right that this guy get busted out.

Oh yeah....

A good night

We have a friend in town and another came over.  We spent the entire evening chatting, laughing, and drinking good beer.  It was one of those really good nights that only end because everyone is thoroughly exhausted.  That can't really be beat!

He's in town for Karl's D&D game.  I hate to admit it but having friends visit sure makes D&D more exciting for me.  I get to cook for more people!  On today's menu: pecan whole grain waffles for breakfast with some wonderful toppings and bbq topped nachos!  I hope the boys like them.

Who knows what the day holds after that, but I hope it's as much fun as last night (minus a bit of the beer!). 

Food in Review

Meat was an afterthought to most of this week’s meals, and it was totally unintentional!  Um…oops?  See what happens when you don’t have access to grass fed beef?!  Beer, however, managed to be at the forefront!  Priorities, people!

Friday: Dinner was courtesy of Central Market’s Brewtopia.  We had Shiner Oktoberfest marinated, fire roosted chicken breasts with the “beer sides” kit that offered roasted rosemary potatoes, carrots, and green beans with oatmeal stout dinner rolls and beer sharp cheddar spread.  The green beans and carrots were horrible.  Everything else was heavenly and affordable….at $16 for the entire thing.  The potatoes were used in Sunday’s breakfast.  The leftover chicken was in Saturday’s gamer nachos and Wednesday night’s dinner.  The beer cheese spread….well; I have plans to make that into wontons next week.  Oh yeah, I went there.  

 

Saturday: More Oktoberfest celebrations?  Yeah, we had bock beer brats from CM: boiled, split open, and grilled till absolutely golden.  These turned in to Bratbens: a fusion of bratwurst and Rueben sandwiches.  These were our typical Rueben – grilled brown mustard infused kraut, cheese (this time grated fancy-pants Swiss from the discount left over “nubs” at CM), and homemade dressing all grilled together till golden and melty – just with bratwurst.  Totally delicious.  Served with sweet potato fries.  His favorite dinner + my favorite side dish!

 

Sunday: This meal was full of fail.  I wanted to make a tuna nicoise salad.  Nicoise is a sort of traditional French dish.  Now, French food is NOT my bag, but I thought I had this one covered.  I boiled potatoes, steamed green beans, and grilled the tuna.  I made a homemade dijon dressing for the whole thing.  Yeah, nothing cooked like it should have or in the time allotted.  The flavors refused to meld.  It was edible, and that’s the only nice thing I have to say about this dish.  

 

Monday: To make up for Sunday’s fail, Monday’s dinner was over-the-moon incredible.  I made falafel for the first time ever.  I’m not every sure I’ve ever HAD the dish, but I love all of the components individually, so I had high hopes that the dish would be good.  I was referred to the recipe by the No Meat Athlete, but ended up literally doubling all of the spices and some ingredients that weren’t even called for like cilantro.  I made slider-sized patties, so it made 8 not 12.  Then I followed the directions given in the recipe for pan-searing then baking.  The golden beauties were stuffed into whole wheat pita halves (half for me, a whole for him) with spinach and tomato.  I made a sauce of yogurt, cilantro, lemon zest, lemon juice, and a few cloves of garlic to top it all off.  The sauce is SO necessary!  It brings so much freshness and tang to the meal.  Oven-fried okra rounded out this meal, and it was all just incredible.  Perhaps it was the epic failure of a dinner that made this so good??

 

 Tuesday: I found a recipe that I was jumping to make called 4-ingredient pizza dough from the Healthy Everythingtarian.  One of the four ingredients?  A bottle of beer.  SCORE!  So, I made our pizza dough with flour we had on hand (which happened to be two cups of whole wheat graham flour and one cup of bread flour) and a bottle of Magic Hat Hex beer.   The bread flour was a mistake, I think.  The pizza dough was a little too tough.  I have to think that the extra gluten in the bread flour was the culprit there.  So, I will DEFINITELY be making it again soon with better flour options.  Perhaps spelt flour, hmm??  Anyhow, our pizza had sundried tomatoes (which I found for $2.99 for a 16 oz bag that were simply dried and not in oil!), fresh basil, fresh spinach, red onion, garlic infused olive oil, ricotta dollops, mozzarella, and parmesan.  The flavor was great.  The crust just needs the right flour.  

 

 

Wednesday: I used the left over rotisserie chicken to make chicken, onion, and spinach quesadillas on wheat tortillas.  The flavor was off?  Perhaps using beer-marinated chicken in a Tex-Mex dish was a poor idea?  Or maybe it’s just my boss took us out for Mexican at lunch?  These were unsatisfying, and I usually gobble my quesadillas up.  The husband, on the other hand, said they were good.  So….probably the Mexican lunch that did these in!

Thursday: Inspired by all the pumpkin in the blog-o-sphere, I decided I wanted to try to make a pumpkin pasta sauce!  I read about 6-10 recipes then went my own way with it.  This sauce had half a diced onion, three thinly sliced tiny sweet peppers ( a red bell would work fine), two cloves of garlic, a shake of red pepper flake, half a can of pureed pumpkin, veggie stock, half a teaspoon of ground ginger, half a teaspoon of hot smoked paprika, a grate of nutmeg, and one ounce of Neufchatel cheese.  I served it with ricotta and goat cheese ravioli.  I didn’t realize the ravioli had basil pasta for the shell!  How pretty are those colors?!  Seriously.  My husband repeated over and over how delicious this was.  Now that my friends, is a winner!  Make it.  Make it now!  I was going to serve it with garlic bread, but we had left over pizza.  Waste not, want not!  

 

Riley says…silly Mommy, you almost posted the food on the wrong day!  

 

Yes, Riley, I did.  Now roll over.

Sucked in

Oh television, our love/hate relationship is really at an all time high.  I long for your offerings of adventurous reality television, night time dramas, and "white trash" programming.  Yet, I hate getting sucked in and unproductive for such spans of time!

Is anyone else having this problem with the new season.  Our TiVo list just keeps getting longer and longer.  We just cannot manage to stay current on all the silly stuff we want to watch.  Part of it is because I refuse to be the couch potato I'd become comfortable with even a year ago.  Another issue is that with Riley, sitting and watching a show is HARD.  She demands attention.  As I type this, she's staring at me and whining intensely because we aren't getting her bone from under the ottoman.  Now, she PUT the bone there, mind you.  It's so that I have to get up! 

I got up.  She played for 2.5 seconds.  Guess where the toy is now?  Yeah.  That's right.  Under the ottoman.  Now, I wonder if I'll ever finish this episode of Parenthood?  Yeah, probably not.