Everything is good!

Everything is good. The cats are good. The dog is good. The boyfriend is good. The house is good. I'm good. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and it was good too. It's definitely one of my favorite holidays, because I really, truly love eating good food, and there is always an abundance of it on Thanksgiving and for about a week after. I wait all year for yams and sweet potatoes! Ohhh I love them! I spent this Thanksgiving with Christopher's family, and my cousin Brie joined us too! Ellie came, and spent ALL of her time prancing around in the kitchen waiting for food to drop. She has blossomed into an amazing squishy faced cuddly baby. She's the best! I'm looking into getting her certified as a therapy dog, for a couple of reasons. One reason is that she's super sweet and loves people, and people love her, so it would be nice to spend a little time touring hospitals or elderly care facilities and making people happy. Another reason is that she is very intensely clingy, and I feel bad leaving her home alone. As a therapy dog, she could go into public places with me, and I think that would be nice for her.

In other news, I put up our Christmas tree! It always makes our home feel so festive! It's also a good reminder that I need to FINISH CHRISTMAS SHOPPING, which I totally haven't done yet! Christopher has recieved his present, a PS3. It was purchased on black friday at the Best Buy Christopher works at, so it seemed pretty silly to hide it from him til Christmas, since he knew I got it and all. Home life has been the same as usual. I've been feeling a tad under the weather lately. I'm not sick though... I'm just fighting the urge to hibernate for the winter. :) I'm really not a fan of cold weather. Today I spent all morning relaxing and staying warm! I had a hot bath, and then cuddled on the couch with Ellie watching "Say Yes to the Dress" on TLC. I really don't like the drama of that show, but I LOVE looking at wedding dresses! I don't have one picked out for myself yet (which isn't a big deal, because I also don't have a ring yet..... hint hint...) but I DO know that my wedding dress will not be acceptable unless I have a GIANT BOW on my butt! The bigger the better. There are very few occasions in which butt-bows are allowed, so I'm going to make the most of my wedding day. TLC is a bad channel for me to watch... it always makes me cry, and usually makes me whine about getting married or having babies or needing prettier clothes. I don't usually whine about the babies thing anymore, because I have a substitue dog-baby that works just as well. I can feed her, clean her, play with her, and cuddle her, and she loves me. What more do I need in a baby?! She's way cheap too, as far as babies go. I don't have to buy expensive clothes, because she's naked most of the time anyway. She doesn't need diapers, because I taught her to go in the yard. She'll never get any bigger than her 13ish pounds. I don't think there is any human baby that holds a candle to that! So THAT'S MY UPDATE for now! I'm going to go back to drinking tea and perusing the internet!

Ellie Update

Ellie is a really good dog, and she tries REALLY hard to do everything we want. I was kinda worried for a day or so that it just wouldn't work out. She kept going potty in the house, even though we took her out ALL the time. She chased the cats a few too many times for my comfort. My mom also expressed some concern about her. It's all irrelevant though. She loves us. And we love her too. She wouldn't go potty in the house if she'd known it was bad, she has just never been loose in a house before. She went the whole day yesterday without going in the house once. She's catching on. I also taught her how to "sit pretty", so she can be like my mom's dogs. It took Sophie like 6 years to learn that trick, so I feel pretty good about Ellie learning it in 10 minutes. She spends most of her free time holding a toy in her mouth and speeding around the house like a weirdo. She goes from the living room to the kitchen to the hallway to the living room, etc. Her favorite toy so far is her little green weiner dog thing like they have in the Petsmart commercials. Her face is pretty weird looking, and her mouth equally so, which makes it difficult to fit most normal toys in it. :3 It's adorable, really. Her whole body is just stumpy, in one way or another. The cats are starting to adjust. When I take Ellie out to go potty, they wait at the door and watch. Samus also decided to come lay on my lap, while Ellie was sleeping right next to me! It felt a little tense, but it's improvement. Samus glared at her the whole time, too, like she was a terrible intruder in her comfort space. I've gotten a couple of those "HOW COULD YOU?!" looks from them too. I figure they can't stay mad forever, but they're cats. Maybe they can. Ham still mostly avoids her, but last night she spent about half an hour staring into the front of Ellie's kennel after she'd gone to sleep. Ellie didn't notice. I'm not sure if Ham was more interested in getting close to Ellie herself, or if she was just trying to figure out what the weird sounds were that were coming out of the kennel, because the sounds ARE really weird. She snores when she sleeps, and says "boo boo boo boo" like a little piggy when she wants attention or food, and makes "snarf" sounds when she walks around and plays. She burps and farts and weezes. She's the loudest dog, but I think it's all pretty endearing. She doesn't bark at all though. The only thing that really makes her bark is when Christopher does his "sonic attack"... you have to hear it to understand... but that is how he makes Ellie HOWL!! It's WAY cute!! She howls and barks, and seems really happy. So now the goals from here on out are to solidify her potty training, get her fixed (eek!), and keep reducing her spazzy OCD house pacing time.

DOG!

I HAVE A DOG! SERIOUSLY!! I would have blogged some pre-dog shenanigans, but there really weren't any. I found out about her one day, went to see her the next day, and then went back later that day and brought her home with me! Her name is Eleanor, but we've been calling her Ellie. She's the best thing ever. She has a squishy face, and makes snarfy sounds, and loves everyone! Our cats are still a little upset about her, but I think it will work out.
I found her on craigslist, (thanks craigslist!) which I regularly peruse, but I really wasn't actively looking for a dog, or expecting to get one soon. I just stumbled upon an ad that said they had a boston terrier who was unable to have puppies, so they didn't want her, but wanted her to live in a good home environment where people would love her. A little light turned on in my heart. A little dog light. I emailed them, and said that, for some reason, I was terribly interested, and wanted to meet their dog. I included a description of myself and my home, and my lifestyle. They thought it was a good match, and called me the next morning, inviting me over for an interview/dog meeting. I loved her IMMEDIATELY!

So, for a little more of her story, she was previously owned by a breeder. They did genetic testing on her, and she is negative for eye, spine, and patella problems that are common for the breed, and she won 1st place in a confirmation contest. For those reasons, they decided they were going to breed her. She has lived most of her life in a kennel, and was gonna spend the rest of her life in a kennel having puppies, and then having more puppies, etc. But, lucky for her, she's infertile! Yay! No one knows why she can't get preggo, but I don't care. The breeder didn't want her anymore. Long story short, now she's mine.

We're trying to keep her in her kennel at night, and on a regular schedule throughout the day until she's used to our home, because she's not terribly well potty trained. She knows not to go potty in her kennel, and she knows she's supposed to go when we take her out, but she isn't quite sure about the kitchen, she thinks it might be ok to potty there. It's not, so until she knows, we're doing a kennel-potty-play-kennel-potty-play rotation. She's also about 3 pounds too thin, they say it's because they put her on hormones to try to help her get pregnant. I'm not sure why, with a dog that only weighs 13 pounds, they would keep her on the hormones so long she'd loose 3 of her pounds. That's a lot, when you're already small. But anyway, I switched her food from Costco brand to Bill Jac. It's first 6 ingredients or so are all animal meat/fat/protein, so it will help her bulk up, and is easier to digest. I also have been giving her a raw egg each morning, to help with her fat, and also her coat, because she's got a little dandruff. We still need to get her fixed, which I will update on when it happens. She's a little bit of a project dog, but all in all, I think she's going to be great. And she REALLY likes being out and playing with people. She's friendly to other dogs, but a little protective of her food, which we'll have to work on. She wants to learn. She learned to sit in about half an hour. Liver treats are the trick. She'll do anything to have one.

The cats don't really like her yet, but I hope they all end up getting along. The real problem is when the cats start running from her, because then she wants to chase them, and then the cats panic and run MORE, and she chases them even harder. I think Ham stands the best chance of liking her, because her existance promises a future of rawhide chews, which she thoroughly enjoys. Her mouth doesn't even fit around them. It's a little bit strange to watch her eat em, but whatever makes her happy is fine with me.

Baking?

I made this last night! I like Star Wars, but... if it weren't for Christopher I don't think I would have decided on R2-D2.... that's pretty nerdy, even for me, but I LOVE fondant! Who knew? It's like fantastic play dough, but YOU CAN EAT IT!!! And it doesn't taste like salt! It just tastes like sugarey flourey goodness. Christopher was really suprised/happy when I gave it to him. R2 himself is made of 2 brownie cupcakes stacked on top of each other, and it has some homemade vanilla/cinnamon buttercream inside to hold it all together. Yum! The brownies taste really good, but I don't think anyone has the heart to eat him!

GARDEN!

Lately, the hubby and I have been paying some special attention to our yard. We feel pretty obligated, since all of our neighbors mow their lawns like every single day. We live in a fancy neighborhood! It makes us feel pretty un-classy to have a nasty unkept overgrown yard, so we did something about it! Our backyard had grass that was SO tall (I'm estimating almost 2 feet, seriously) that we actually had to call our family for help, because we couldn't get the lawnmower to drive over it. They advised us to lift the front of the lawnmower up while driving it around, and it worked great. I think Ham is really going to miss the long grass. She thought it was a jungle, especially made for cats. She found a whole bunch of misquito-eater bugs in there, and probably a few spiders and the like as well. She tried to catch them, but I don't think it really worked out for her.
Last night (this might seem off-subject, but it's really not) I managed to get $50.00 in tips while I was at work, which is AMAZING, because I never EVER get tips. I think in total, I've gotten tips like 5 times during the 3 years I've worked at this job. Anyway, this morning, Christopher went to work pretty early, leaving me all alone with a fancy $50.00 sitting in my pocket, so to celebrate my tip-getting I went and spent every bit of it on PLANTS FOR THE BACK YARD!!!! And also some dirt! I was being a real manly-girl about it, and hauled it all by myself, even though the dirt was 50 pounds a bag. A guy in a big ol' truck even offered to give me a ride home so I didn't have to put the dirt in my little honda, but I declined. I was doing this on my own. (I was also not getting kidnapped, something that always crosses my mind when strangers are overly helpful at me.) I drove my little car home, balancing my plants in the passenger seat, and TOTALLY took over the back yard with plants. It looks really fantastic. Ham and Samus watched me through the screen door the whole time. I emptied out ALL of the pots and planters that were on our back porch, most of them were about half full of styrofoam peanuts......I'm not really sure what's up with that, but it was nasty, and I filled them all with "Black Gold" potting soil. Then, (the fun part!) I planted all of my pretty new plants!! I put lavender in the first planter, which I chose because it's fun to pick and bring inside to make your house smell reeeeally good, and because it looks pretty nice all year round, and in the other planters I put tomatoes, jalapenos, and basil! I realised after I planted them that if I'd chosen cilantro instead of basil I could have had my own back yard salsa, but that's okay. I use basil a lot more frequently than cilantro anyway. I had a really good time just being outside and enjoying the sunny weather. Our little temperature-machine read 86 degrees, but it felt a lot warmer to me when I was in the sun. I even got a little bit of a sunburn! It doesn't hurt though, and it's just a little bit of pink on my cheeks and shoulders, so I'm okay. It usually takes a LOT of sun to give me a burn, so I was suprised by how affected I was, but this was really my first time out in the sun this year. My birthday is on June 1st, (soon!) and I think/hope Christopher will take me to the beach, so maybe this sun prepared me, and I won't get burned any more! My fur-babies were really patient with me while I planted all those exciting things outside. I knew they wanted to come out and smell them and eat them, but it took so long I didn't get a chance to bring them outside before I had to go to work. Luckily, I thought ahead, and had a planty suprise for them! CATNIP!!! I've had a dying vine-plant inside for a long time. I think I got it the same week Christopher and I first moved into our apartment. It's survived two re-pottings, one fall from a shelf, and the cats nibbling off every new growth for as long as it could stand. This morning I watered it, and FOUR more leaves fell off, leaving only three, one of which was severely mangled by one of the cats. It was time for it to go. I replaced it with the catnip. This one is made for cats to eat, so I won't yell at them when they do. I figure if they leave it alone enough, I may be able to dry some and make them toys with it. I'm really excited for all my plants to grow, and I hope I get some yummy tomatoes SOON! I LOVE tomatoes!!! I think the jalapeno plant will be the first thing to be ready, though, because it already has little buds on it! Yaaaaaay little buds! Yay gardening!

Cat Clothes, Yeah!

Cats wearing clothes are super-cute. This is my Samus cat, wearing a "tunnel of love" shirt that I bought to put on Ham, but Ham was too fat to fit in it, so I put it on grumpy Samus instead. She actually doesn't seem to mind wearing it too much. I was suprised. She's giving me one of her "kill all humans" looks in this picture, which is ironic with the loving message on her shirt. She might be grumpy, but she has her own special kind of love, that comes out whenever I have a blanket on me. Then she'll lay on me, her stinky face as close as she can get it to mine, and she'll purr, and sleep, and intermittently touch my face with her litter paws. She'll do this for hours, as long as I don't pet her too much. Just a little bit on her head. Samus has been more needy lately than I'm used to. She's aloof during the day, but in the early mornings and middle of the night, or really any time when we're sleeping, she has been walking around the house meowing, and scratching on our door. If I go out to make sure she's okay, she rubs all over me, but if I pet her she runs off... it's pretty weird. I bathed her a couple of weeks ago, but her greasy stinkiness is already coming back. She gets that way because she refuses to wash herself. She'll wash her front paws, and her face a little bit, but never her body. It's okay though. I appreciate her stinky, tempermental cat-love. :3

I'm sorry, blog!

BLOG I'M SORRY!! Why have I neglected you!?!? It will officially stop right now. Neglect = OVER. Seriously. I have a feeling this will be LONG!! I have so much to say! So much has happened!

One of the more visually significant changes lately is my CLEAN HOUSE, free of all boxes! (Except in the guest room! There are a couple left in there!) We are, though, moved in. I'm not really finding any more weird things in the cupboards. Everything looks nice and put together. We had the carpets shampooed (that has too many vowels in a row, but I think that's how it's spelled...), and I even pulled the fridge out and mopped behind it. So long, weird smells! And on top of that, take a look at my tax returns....!

They turned themselves into RECLINING COUCHES!! Hooraaaaay!! Each of the seats recline, except for the middle one on the big couch. They are, of course, being modeled by my amazingly handsome boyfriend Christopher. Also, notice the pretty curtains! They're from ikea, but I hemmed them! They came about twice as long as what they are now. I really have no idea who has windows long enough for the fabric they come with. I guess it's just to be safe, and make sure they will fit anybody's windows. They look great, though, because they're red, and our kitchen is red! It ties the two rooms together really well. I'm also working on curtains for the kitchen window above the sink, and great big ones for the sliding glass door. They'll be done soon, hopefully this week, and I'll put pictures up when they are! They're looking goooood!!!

In other news, I've been doing a LOT of job hunting. If I'm not happy, I should change my life so I AM happy, right?! My work isn't the worst thing in the world, but I could do better. And despite the economy and lack of available jobs, I find myself suprisingly qualified for a lot of the ones that are available out there. I've applied for a couple jobs at the VA hospital, one as a veterinary secretary (tongue twister, but how fun would that be?!) and a few "on the phone/computer" work from home jobs. So far no luck, but eventually someone will hire me, right!? My main goal is to find a job that will offer me a little bigger paycheck, and hopefully some health insurance. I would REALLY REALLY love to have a job that would either let me work from home, or be SUPER pet friendly, so that one day I can bring my potential doggy to work with me. I know that's kind of a long shot, so for now, I'll settle with a raise. I have a lot of skills, and I am qualified for so many better paying positions it's rediculous that I'm still getting $11.50 an hour. D:

I've been making/collecting recipes for a LOT of cupcakes recently. I know cupcakes are super popular right now, and I don't usually get on the "trendy" bandwagon, but I LOVE baking, and I just can't resist all the new creative recipes that are out there! Brie and Keely came over a few days before easter, so we made some vanilla cupcakes with "grass" frosting, and PEEPS on them! How cute!!!! I also made, quite possibly, the most delicious cupcakes in the world. GREEN TEA CUPCAKES!!! Mostly a regular cake recipe, but I put an extra egg white in, and 2 heaping tablespoons of matcha in both the batter, and in the buttercream frosting! They were AMAZING. You have no idea. And if you don't know what matcha is, stop by your local asian food store, or import goods store, and check it out. It's WAY fun to bake with. It's basically green tea, but it's powdered. It keeps the green color even through baking, because they use the delicate tiny baby tea leaves, instead of the larger older leaves that get put into tea bags. It also doesn't bitter when exposed to heat like the older tea leaves do. I also made these ones in my new giant cupcake pan, so one cupcake is just about perfect for feeding 2 people. How romantic!! I unfortunately didn't take a picture after these were frosted (they were so pretty!), but you can see how green and yummy looking they are! I am most definitely planning on making more, but I'm trying to wait for special occasions to make them. It seems kind of senseless just baking huge amounts of cupcakes, and not having anything to do with them! Except eat them, of course, but I really don't need to eat cupcakes every day.

So, other than the baking and the cleaning and the other home-makerish things, I have been planning out a new cage for Thor, the weirdo iguana. He needs more room to run around, and it would be REALLY good for him to have a heated water area in his cage. Also, we're going to make sure all of the surfaces are LAMINATE!! YES!!! Easy to clean. No more smelly messes being absorbed into stuff. He'll be so happy!

MORE TO COME SOON!! I will try my hardest not to let my blogging completely fall behind. I really like keeping this thing updated. Twitter gives me some kind of false-blogging-security feeling. I think I've blogged. I have, really. But it DOESN'T COUNT! It's a mini-blog because it's not a complete blog, and I don't want it to replace mine!