Hey-o hey-o hey-o.

We just put my stepmom on the curb at the airport and we're really sad about it so let's think of something good...

1. It's a gorgeous day out and we'll hopefully make it for a walk.

2. Our hot-water heater got replaced last week and there's a really nice handyman currently making some small much-needed repairs here and there...yippee for a new and functioning shower handle vs. just using pliers like we had been doing for way too long.

3. It's Marathon Monday! And a gorgeous day for the many runners out there slogging through 26.2 miles. One day maybe I'll be amongst them?

4. There's a long and somewhat shaggy dog on the couch next to me.

5. And a beautiful baby asleep {& probably ready to wake-up} in the other room..and she's mine!!

Hope your Monday is treating you well dear Reader.
xoxo, natty ♥

A hair cut.

I love getting things neat and tidy for the New Year.

And that includes ourselves, even if we have four legs.

 

How are you gearing up to usher in 2014? 
xoxo, natty ♥

Owney.

Our Smithsonian daily rip-off calendar showed me this little guy yesterday.

Though I'm morbidly fascinated by how he's been stuffed like this for over a century.

I also love this reminder that human love of dogs is by no means a new phenomena.

xoxo, natty ♥  

Another one bites the dust.

I salvaged this toy for Guinness from the "free"/mail table in our building's lobby.
And now I'm throwing it away because he ripped off the eyes and started to extract stuffing through the holes. And it's making our apartment messy/messier.

What's on your weekend agenda? Ours includes some Nationals baseball and maybe a few miles spent running.

xoxo, natty ♥  

What happens at dog park...

xoxo, natty ♥

Biscuits for baby.

Baby dog that is. 

And he isn't even a baby anymore.

For Christmas this year my sweet cousin gave me a bag of home-made dog biscuit mix. She's in the eighth grade and I loved this gift so much, probably more than Guinness.

Ready for the oven!

I had meant to put these things together since we got home but kept putting it off. It was only the dry ingredients that she gave me so all I had to do was add in the good stuff {cheese, butter, an egg}, knead, cut, and bake.

They're in the oven right now and I hate to admit it but they smell sooooooo good. It makes me want to bake some cheesy bread/crackery stuff.

Actually, I am attempting bread tonight. It's in the microwave trying to rise. The soup planned out on Sunday got scrapped for tuna melts but we have no bread in the house. Since it's one of the nastiest days we've ever had, weather-wise { steady and heavy rain, in the low 40s, very windy}, I thought the idea of baking bread seemed warmer and nicer than walking to the store. 

But it didn't rise in it's first go round - did I knead it too much? It's gonna go in the oven no matter what but we may end up with something very dense for tuna melts.

Oh well. At least our apartment smells nice.

xoxo, natty ♥

It may not be Halloween anymore...

but someone was cold!

xoxo, natty ♥

My try at Pad Thai.

I made Pad Thai for the first time tonight.

Aaaaaaand I might do it again - it was pretty good though I do admit that it was from a packet.

In other news, if I were teaching still, tomorrow would be the first day of school and I would be cleaning up my classroom still; have a fantabulous day everyone at school!

To distract me from thinking about how I'm not teaching, our dog put on a little show for me this afternoon. He can howl but I think it looks and sounds pretty pathetic because he's not very big nor is he a hound; he's a dachshund and meant to hunt badgers not howl at the moon. It also doesn't happen very often, usually when there's an ambulance or firetruck siren going off very near to him. Since we live in a city there are always sirens but not too many trigger his howl reflex and today I got lucky. For your enjoyment, here he is.

It's weird, right? It's kind of goofier if you can see him from the front and appreciate how he throws his head back but I was parked on the couch and couldn't really get a good angle of him. Don't mind the Law & Order on in the background. 

And in even other and much more meaningful and exciting news, a sweet friend and her husband welcomed their new little guy into the world last night; congratulations and much happiness for the three of them!!!!!
xoxo, natty ♥

Organic.

Last night before walking to get gelato Mike got up from the couch, walked to the kitchen, and told me to come look at the dog.
This is what I saw, minus the happy modesty clouds.

He somehow packs so much resentment into one look.

Happy weekend to you!
xoxo, natty ♥

Why?

Guinness has some weird habits. I was watching him during one of his...rituals...this morning and wondered why he does this.
When I give him a new bowl of kibble, before he settles in to eat anything, he pokes at the food with his snout. Then he might kind of push at the bowl. Then he takes a step back and goes to a different side of the bowl. He repeats the process at least three or four times and then takes a small mouthful somewhere around the apartment to eat it.

Does anyone else have a hound that does this? When I saw him this morning it occurred to me that...this is weird so please bear with me...he looks like he's poking at something to make sure it's really and truly dead before he digs in. Is that freakish? Yes? But does it make sense considering dogs' origins? Ugh. I'm not keen on thinking about the dog as anything other than a goofy and loving companion. I decided to not consult google. Yet. I might look it up later but for now I'm enjoying my anthropological attempt.
Good Saturday to you!
xoxo, natty ♥

Ready, Set, Garage Sale.

Today we started to get ready to move. Oh My Goodness it's really happening.
We're also still dog sitting.

Our little guy on the right is a little unsure of it all. He's actually quite morose from jealousy. 

Do you see the frustration and resentment lounging in his bed?

Hopefully once Oliver heads home Guinness will perk up.
As I mentioned, we packed and organized today. Tomorrow, we have a garage sale. We cleared out a fair amount of clothing and have a ton of other things ready to get rid of.

Ready to sell!

The couch and our easy chair are also part of the exodus. We'll live without them until the end of the month when our lease is up. We're traveling here and there {San Diego & Seattle/Puget Sound} the first two weeks of July and kind of couch hopping {Mom?} until we officially exit stage East around the 22nd or 23rd next month.
I totally can't believe this. In a good way. I'm sad, though. And excited. Sadcited?

If you're in the area and you know where we hang out then come check out our sale in the AM; there will be treats for sale but I can cut you a deal ;)
xoxo, natty ♥
P.S.
The weight of a many, many balloons was too much for my coak hanger-come-wreath hanger today.

Please ignore the awkward cement stain.

Sad!

Patty Pan.

If June is my favorite month of the year then May is a close second. The weather has been glorious, promises of longer days abound and some real warmth finally settles in around here. Let me ponder a few more things that make me happy.

About as good as any picture of us gets.

1} Our good friend just wrapped up his master's degree. That is some hard work he did and even more admiral work that he's on his way to doing considering that his degree is in Social Welfare; we are SO proud of him.
2} For part of our dinner tonight I pan fried us up some...wait for it...Patty Pan Squash! I definitely forgot to take any pictures of the little dudes but just picture very light green flying saucers about three inches wide. They were very spring-like and dainty AND delicious {healthy too!}.
3} I'm looking at some lovely flowers my hubby-dubby got me this weekend; what a keeper!
4} We've got a new episode of Girls waiting on our DVR. Have you seen this show yet? It's Not Too Shabby.
5} DVR...I'm loving this situation as much as I can right now considering that as a couple we'll soon be one starving student plus one starving student's wife and DVRs usually aren't a part of that lifestyle.
What's lovely about life in your neck of the woods? I actually have one more thing that I want to talk about but it deserves its own mention. My buddy, my pal, my Becs...she just welcomed a new family member into her home. His name is Wish and he has four legs and a swishy/fluffy tail. I'm so happy for Wish and his new family!!!
xoxo, natty ♥

Undignified.

Sometimes I can't help myself.

May your weekend have ended well and your work week get off to a splendiferous start!
 xoxo, natty ♥

Rarefied air/The View up Here.

My nearly-in-laws stayed at a downtown hotel this past weekend. Our downtown is not as urban as other big cities; it doesn't have quite the same bustle as, say, San Francisco, but it certainly does feel like a city center. We even have tall buildings y'all! The buildings can't be super-dee-dooper tall, though, since we also have an airport. Mikey's folks were at the top of this hotel...the TWENTIETH floor, which is big-time for our burg.

We hung out at the hotel talkind wedding logistics and seating chart stuff {fun times, USA!} on Saturday while I took a nap on the love seat {I really am sorry, I was just so tired :(}.To keep us company and because he makes us laugh, we snuck in the hound.

He had a good time sniffing around; I tried not to think too hard about what he might be sensing with his olfactory system {I get a bit squeamish if I over-think certain things; hotels bedding, sitting in a confined space 38,000 {that's THOUSAND}feet in the air and Carrot Top top off the list.}.
We actually napped on the love seat.
Guinness kept trying to look out the window {when he wasn't dozing}.

I suppose I'm ridiculous when I'm more interested in how cute I think the dog is looking out the window than how pretty of a view we had...

and subsequently take more pictures of the pooch than of the scenery {which was pretty dang cool, 20 feet up in the air [it's "ok" when you're in a building, it's the hanging in an airplane thing that gets to me]}.

Every once and a while the doggy would perk up, like he saw something really interesting out the window.
I wonder if animals/dogs get the height thing when they're inside like this; it very well could just be a picture on a screen and Guinness definitely could not care any less than he does about those.
I truly am curious, though, to know what he could have been thinking...maybe {probably?} not too much beyond what his next snack would be.
It's late and tomorrow is the first day of classes and I ask myself as I do every year at this point, how did we get back here? There must be a good reason :)
xoxo, natty ♥
P.S.
My usual 'puter is suffering from router-itis and this one isn't good about formatting...so if the pictures are looking ug-lay, please excuse it.

Pretty flowers, patriotic toes and king of the mountain easy chair

I had brunch this morning with a good friend in the Big City. After driving home in a warm car (our Big City is notoriously foggy/cold in the summer all the time so I was enjoying the ambient warmth of my car) with delicious noms in my tummy I am sleepy. As a prelude to a nap, I'm blogging.
I snapped some shots of the flowers in our driveway.

These are trumpet flowers; that's what I call them because they look like these:

Note the resemblance. Photo courtesy of here.

They are night bloomers and smell beautiful in the evenings.

They flower several times throughout spring/summer/fall so we get to enjoy them lots.
I don't have a name for these.

 

They're just pretty.

Yesterday a different friend (see: first paragraph above) and I got pedicures since we hadn't seen each other in a while and that's what you do upon reuniting.
I had patriotic nail stickers and asked my nail lady to add them to my toes. I like to add flair to myself, especially holiday flair. Don't mind the freaky-deaky sandal marks on my feet. Also, don't mind the feet pictures. I'll never do it again, I promise {I might be crossing my fingers as I write this!}.
On second thought, as I just looked at the pictures on photobucket, I rescind the pictures without ever even putting them up. Some things I shouldn't post, I realize. You're welcome.
We have two smallish dog beds for our hound. They sit next to each other in our family room. One usually has some toys in it while the pooch will laze in the other. A cat will sleep in one at night too. While cleaning was happening yesterday both beds were stacked onto a chair we have and when I looked over at one point, I saw this:

Let me give you a better angle.

I hate (kind of) that I'm one of those pet picture takers, but he's just so ridiculous to me, I need and must document it.
xoxo, natty ♥

Green...what?

Beautiful green spring days, that's what. I'm lame because I failed to take a picture of the ethereal lighting that results from bright green leaves everywhere (thank you March and April rains!) paired against a gray sky in the late afternoon...delicious. I thought that I love June the most, and I really do think that I still do, but middle of March through May is oh-so-wonderful with it's abounding life after a winter of discontent. That's being a bit over dramatic, I admit, but you get what I'm saying: I love when we bounce back from winter, it's an amazing time of year. Amazing if you think that extreme amounts of grading is a fabulous thing, that is...alas, that is the plight of the teacher. Spring break comes late this year which is "OK" I guess if you think about how quickly summer will arrive after break but from the other end of the vay-cay, the end where it's hardly peaking over the horizon, it stinks. We've got a full week left before that time off and I'm so looking forward to the mountain of grading that I get to do putting aside work and taking some time for myself to read, cook, bake, run, blog, go to Carmel, maybe go to the Ferry Building market, sleep in...can you sense my desperate tone?

In all honesty, though, things are quite nice. The weather and day light savings time are in full swing as is wedding planning. I finally got pictures from the last two months uploaded to photobucket so I can post with pictures (when it's not late Wednesday night, though) and I'm trying to figure out neat ways of posting those pictures (lightbox help anyone??). That actually is my explanation for those past two "test" posts; I have kind of figured out how to do that thing where you click on the picture and it pops up and makes the background kind of gray-ed out and then a little "next" button appears to use (kind of like what facebook does), which is called "lighbox" like I mentioned, but it's not quite working for me. I'll tinker with it or figure out a better way or something.

Last week we had some excitement when a stray dog came to us and was our dog for like a day and a half and we named her "Dolly" and Guinness was even getting used to sharing his people, but out of responsibility I took her to the SPCA to be checked in and she was microchipped so she got to go back to her family which I'm sure was quite worried and happy to have their puppy back so all's well that ends well =)

My amazing grandmother is celebrating a birthday next week which I'm excited about; a good dinner is sure to be involved...and Bundt cake! We apparently love our cakes in this family. Mike celebrated his day two weeks ago and we ate ourselves silly at Henry's Hi-Life (we fell for the prime rib special...the 16 oz ones...each [it is supposed to disturb me that one can gain a pain, more or less, in one sitting, yes?]) and then enjoyed a key lime tart...yum!I gave the birthday boy this special watch which is gps enabled or some such thing. He used to have one that I usurped and loved to use because it tells you how fast you're running and your total distance, which is great for slightly type-A personalities like moi. Then I lost it. I left it on the hood of the car after a run at a local park so that I could stretch without it on my wrist and drove away and didn't realize it for like three days. Then someone stole it right off of my dainty little wrist and I could do nothing about it.

Moving backwards, we celebrated St. Paddy's day in our traditional style which is corned beef and veggies and this year I made Colcannon too which I was pretty excited about; thanks Martha!

   

 I've also been making soda bread for a few years now. There are two recipes I like (again, thanks Martha!); one is a bit sweet and the other is very wheat-y...but don't worry, BOTH are delish with butter!   



  
Anyway, this has been oodles of fun (staying up late for no reason at all when I have work tomorrow =) ) but I must retire for the night...be good y'all!

Digging

Here’s something funny I came across from last summer…I hope the video works. We were hanging out in the back yard and we have this old bottom half of a wine barrel as a planter that had nothing in it. Guinness found something though! Please ignore my ugly voice and that bizarre clicking in the background(how is it that a teacher who blabs all day doesn't really like to hear her own voice?! My poor students!)...maybe just leave off the volume! Happy Saturday!