Red Red Whine

After this morning, I’m not sure who has worse separation anxiety – the burrito or the dog.

So this morning, I was planning to wake up early and give Leroy a bath before I dropped him off at the vet for his dental cleaning. Which is aWHOLEnother post in and of itself. Burrito had other plans. He woke up happy as a clam, played around in the office after he had his breakfast, and then I did the UNTHINKABLE – I dropped him in the crib so I could shower. *gasp*

I know, awful, right? You would think I made the kid crawl over hot coals. He would not be satisfied with me even being in the room, I had to be holding him and within crawling distance and in sight at all times in order for him to be content this morning. This did not bode well for my plans. So I did the only thing I could think of – turned on all of his normally entertaining toys, dropped him in the crib, and ran. It was a 1-minute bath for the dog, who was supremely smelly and in need, and then back to the burrito.

I sat him in his bouncy seat which does not “bounce” because all 19.8lbs of him is focused on crying as he watches me get in the shower. Now to be fair, the crying stopped when I picked him up from the crib and after he got settled in the bouncy chair – it’s just whining now. He can’t see me? Whine. The caterpillar toy is making noise? Whine. The monkey on his bouncy seat is looking at him with the wrong tone? Whine.

At the same time, there is a not-quite-soaking wet dog locked in the kitchen, licking his still-empty dog dish that used to contain food, and whining because he has no food in said dish. He couldn’t eat anything this morning due to his dental cleaning. So Bad Bad Leroy Brown is making pitiful dog noises in the kitchen, burrito is upstairs alternating between angry, indignant shrieks and whining, and I’m sure if there were any neighbours home on either side of my house, I’d have the cops knocking on my door wanting to know if I was hoarding animals/neglecting lots of children/keeping Gollum in my house.

Burrito’s whining continued until we got to daycare, at which point I took him out of his seat, set him down, and he turned around and started bawling. I handed him to a daycare lady and MOMMA RUN. This is only the second time I’ve had to do the MOMMA RUN, thankfully. He’s a happy baby most of the time, but when he gets into an “I want parent” mood, it’s on like Donkey Kong.

In loving memory.

Stella, Dec 20 2005 - Jul 30 2010

Living room help needed!

Ok, so I have new furniture in my living room (relatively new...got it earlier this year). I haven't put anything on the walls yet, except for 2 stars, because I'm deathly afraid of the walls falling down. They are plaster, and yes, have fallen before (half of the bathroom is drywall, part of one bedroom wall as well, and the ceiling almost fell on my mom so that went too!). **I fixed the pictures. Sorry about that.**

So, I think I know what I want it to look like, but I need some help. I currently have this:


↑This would be the west wall of the living room. See the wall? Bare. And the couch is low, so I need some stuff to put up there. Also, instead of the lamp and end table on the side, I want something else. I'd like to put a DVD shelf there, one that holds arond 200 because that's what we have now. It might need a lamp, obviously, but I'll figure that out after the DVD shelf.


↑Here's the front of the living room; north wall. See that floor lamp? Can't stand it there. I want wall lamps, and they have to be the plug-in type. I actually already have a portfolio at LampsPlus.com, which shows what I want. I just want to know which one to pick!



↓This would be the corner with the stars - I'd move a star for the wall light, duh.



SOOOOOOO...I'm trying to find a place where I can make polyvore-type boards for houses, so I can see what it all looks like together, with the lights I want, and the shelves I want from tar-jay, and the photo collages I want to put on the walls (hopefully without fallage). Any suggestions? Things that would go well? Anything?

Oh, and FYI, yes I did buy my dog a Snuggie.

Pork-tastic! (and a dog story)

I feel a bit guilty because I didn't really 'make' the pork tenderloin we had last night, as in season it or such things, but it was still a damn good dinner.

I got one of those hatfield (I think) pork tenderloins in the meat section of my local grocery store, flavored with "peppercorn." So basically I could've done it myself, but oh well. It was great!! Roasted with foil on for 20 min, stuck some shaved carrots (whole) in for 10 min (seasoned with olive oil and S&P), took the foil off, roasted for another 10 min, took the pork out to 'sit' and did the carrots for another 5 min or so. Who knew it took so long for carrots to roast???

The carrots came out with a great flavor because of the pork remnants/liquids/essence. The carrots of course were organic, they come with their manes still attached, not sure what I should do with all that greenery so i just throw it out. If anyone has anything interesting to do with carrot stem please let me know!! I buy the organic carrots because I am a snob. Or because I bought them once and they tasted so freaking good I just can't eat any other carrots now.

The potatoes I made were from my favorite place for food-ness, Weaver's Orchard (see previous posts for website). They were great! Just plain ol' gold potatoes, took about 5/6 of them (the biggest ones, left the smaller ones to make roasted taters another day), boiled them, mashed them, stuck them in a - NO. nevermind that.
Left the skin on, because that's hubs' favorite part apparently. Why? potato innards = so yummy!
Some 1% milk, from local cows in Lancaster (I like having milk come from cows I can actually drive by and moo at), a little bit of butter (I'm estimating about 2-3 tbs, give or take a stick), and some sea salt and I was in heaven. No, they will never compare to my grandmother's potatoes, but nothing really will. Sigh.

All in all, great dinner! easy too because I had to do laundry in between prep & cook. OH. AND. I had to take my overpeeing dog out.

That cute dog, in the posts from a couple weeks ago? Yeah, he's the devil incarnate. He was perfect last week, and Monday started up again with the "I'm gonna pee on everything sucka" routine. So I threw his little gold self in the car and off to the vet we went. $800 later (I exaggerate, it's what I do), I left with antibiotics and a bill for urine and blood tests. I half hope it's nothing, I half hope it's something - treatable. I'm so sick of the smelliness! and feel so bad that he pees and doesn't really know it, hence sits in it all day. bathtime = dinnertime for Leroy lately.

We'll see how it goes next week. On the bright side, I didn't threaten to turn him into a rug this week. Yet. It's only Thursday.

*disclaimer: no dogs were nor will be harmed by writer of this blog. though I may wax poetic about threats, I carry no big stick.*


...aaaaand here's dinner as leftovers the next day, WHEEEE!!!

This is what I do when I'm home sick and bored.

These are the doggies halloween costumes from last year:



here are the dogs trying to ignore me:


and here they are extreme close-up: