Vacation

A couple of weeks ago, Ricky and I realized we needed to get out of town for a couple of days.  We were a  point where we couldn't relax at home anymore - there's too much to do and anytime we sat down to rest we were thinking "Oh boy, I should be doing _____________."  So we decided to head out of town.

We both love the beach and find it to be one of the most peaceful, relaxing places on earth.  We also enjoy camping.  An added bonus of camping is that it's not nearly as expensive as hotels at the beach during the summer.  So, we packed up our stuff and headed to Cape Lookout State Park in Tillamook, Oregon.

It was a wonderful, relaxing time.  Sleeping outside with the sound of the ocean from just over the berm was delightful.  Cooking over the fire always tastes better than cooking on a stove.  And of course, there was the general fact that we had no place we had to go, no schedule to keep, nothing we had to do besides sit around the fire and relax.

Unfortunately, our vacation was short lived.  We only got to be away for two nights.  However, it was exactly what we needed to refresh and re-energize.  We're back home now, much more able to cope with the things that daily life throws at us.  We're also planning another beach escape for later in the summer!

Workin' 'Round the Ol' Homestead

We've been doing a lot of work around this place!

Yesterday I pressure washed our picnic table in preparation of painting it and making it nice and new looking.  I don't know how old it is - it was a hand me down from a family friend - but it was showing some age so I decided to give it a makeover.  I'll post photos once I'm done.

We also built a new fence yesterday.  The neighbors got new dogs and Jacko had been going crazy trying to get to them.  He figured out that if he pushed hard enough on the fence slats, he could pop them off the rails and get his fat butt into the neighbor's yard!  We had to remedy that as quickly as possible, so we built a fence on our side that is both stronger and with rails facing out, so he can't push his want into the neighbor's yard anymore.

Today was another productive day.  Ricky pressure washed and resealed our beautiful stamped concrete.  With all of the rain, mud, and wrestling that goes on, the seal was wearing quickly and we wanted to preserve the beautiful look of our concrete.  Now it looks as good as the day it was first sealed, nearly a year ago!

Our patio the day it was finished, September 2011

As if that weren't enough, we took the dogs to the dog park.  Once the patio is sealed, no one can walk on it for 24 hours, which means the pups can't go in the backyard except on a leash and out the side door.  We took them to the park so they could run around and have fun as a break between a morning and evening of cooped-up-ness.  Fearful of what a bike ride would do to Jacko's heart, I drove him while Ricky took Cody on the bike.  Apparently we should have been more concerned for Cody!  He was pretty shaky and worn out when they got there, so when it was time to go home we switched.  Cody rode in the truck with me and Jacko got to go for a (slow) bike ride home.  As you can imagine, he was in hog heaven.  Bike rides are few and far between for him now, so this was an extra special treat.

Add to that the 1 million loads of laundry I've done and it's been a pretty good weekend for us!

Ch-ch-ch-chia!

Ch-ch-ch-chia pet pudding!

I stumbled on a recipe for coconut mango "tapioca" the other day and had to try it.  Instead of tapioca, this recipe uses chia seeds.  Yes, the same chia seeds that you use to grow a chia pet.  Turns out these seeds have a high nutritional value.  They're full of omega-3 fatty acids and loaded with fiber.  Awesome!

The pudding, which can be found here on Skinnytaste, is pretty tasty.  It makes quite a bit - maybe 1.5-2 cups worth? - and serves 2, so you get a good amount in a portion.  I prefer warm puddings, so when I tried it right out of the fridge I didn't like it.  I tried warming it in the microwave but it got too runny that way.  Instead, I let it sit out and come to room temp.  That was perfect.  Sweet, creamy, delicious.

Next time I am going to put more coconut in it.  My mom also had the idea of layering it with various fruits for a fruit parfait.  I'm thinking pineapple, mango...what other tropical type fruits could I use?  Anyway, for a 3 points plus treat it was quite delicious!

The Most Important Meal of the Day

I have long been a fan of breakfast.  I'm not sure when or why it started, but breakfast is easily my favorite food group, if you can call it a food group.  From Lucky Charms and Trix (thank you, grandparents) to pancakes, waffles and eggs benedict, I have an affinity for breakfast foods and could easily eat them every meal.

I am not, however, a morning person.  I'm more of a brunch girl, if we're being honest.  I love a nice big "breakfast" of pancakes, eggs, fruit - the works - somewhere around 10 am.  Work, on the other hand, starts at 7, which presents a real problem for this night owl.

Recently I realized that I needed to come up with better breakfast solutions.  I was eating far too much sodium between the instant oatmeals and store-bought breakfast burritos.  Not to mention, that gets expensive!  I decided I needed to find ways to have breakfast that I make without having to get up any earlier.

Enter my new obsession, the pre-made breakfast.

I did a lot of googling, pinteresting, and more googling and found several breakfast recipes that freeze and reheat well.  I also found recipes that are meant to be enjoyed cold.  I've been making this and stocking our freezer with them.  They're homemade, meaning I know every ingredient that goes into them, and healthy.   Some of my favorites are

Refrigerator Oatmeal from The Yummy Life
Cream Cheese Pancakes from I Breathe...I'm Hungry
3-2-1 Custard from The Greenbacks Gal

Finding these recipes has really made a difference for me.  I love that I can have hot pancakes in the morning without having to stand over the griddle.  Truly, 1 minute in the microwave and they're just as good as when I pulled them out!  The refrigerator oatmeals are grand, especially when it's already 80 degrees in the morning.    I also love that I have variety at my fingertips.  I am definitely not one who can eat the same breakfast every day.  I love breakfast and I love variety, and I love that these make ahead recipes allow me to have both without too much stress in the mornings.

Six months? How did that happen?

Somehow I managed to let 6 months go by without a post.  I thought about posting, but never seemed to have the time, energy, desire, motivation, inclination...whatever you want to call it.

Jacko and Cody are still with us.  Cody has only had 1 seizure since that first one, so he doesn't have to be on medication - yay!  Jacko is definitely slowing down.  His breathing is getting more and more labored and he can't play for long, but he doesn't seem unhappy or in pain.  Mostly what he wants to do is cuddle and chew on bones.  He's also discovered how to take the lid off the treat jar (told you he's smart).  He managed to empty the jar one and a half times before I discovered his new knowledge and moved the treats to where he can't get to them.

We recently went through a strike at my job.  I have never been through one before and I hope to never do it again.  It is easily one of the worst experiences of my life.  On the flip side, we discovered just how tight our staff is and how different we are from some of the other schools.  Our staff gets along very well, and the strike just highlighted how much we care about each other and our students.

My Advanced Theatre class produced two successful plays this year.  We opened with The Phantom Tollbooth in February and ended the year with The Jungle Book in May.  Unfortunately, The Jungle Book got overshadowed by all the strike goings on in the district and attendance was less than satisfying.  It's sad, too, because several people said it was our best show yet.

Ricky is still working nights, and I have just 3 student days left at school, plus two staff workdays after that.  Then I have about a month off before the Chinese kids get here!  After that, my cousin is coming to visit to celebrate his high school graduation.  This is the baby of the family, the last of us to graduate high school.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get back into shape again, still, whatever.  My current obsession is make ahead breakfasts. I've been trying lots of recipes and will post them soon, with reviews.

So, that's about it.  Six months in a nutshell.  I'll try to be better about posting, but no guarantees.  It might help if I had some specific things to write about.  Any suggestions?

Tough times

Things around here are bleh. For one, I think my "winter blues" (yes, I'm technically diagnosed with SAD but I hate saying it) are worse this year than they've been in the past.

Secondly, both dogs are having health issues that are scary and unpredictable and I hate that. They're my babies, I want to protect them!

Third, I'm having anxiety about every. little. thing. Everything feels like this huge weight on my shoulders and I'm stressing about everything and nothing. It sucks. I'm guessing it's a byproduct of items 1 and 2.

So - puppy health. First, Jacko has what's called a 3rd degree heart block or complete heart block. The two parts of his heart (atria and ventricles) don't talk and his heart rate is incredibly low. There is no cure. The options are to do nothing or do a very pricey pacemaker surgery and hope it helps. After hearing the cost of the surgery and doing some research on the risks, we've decided against it. So now we just wait for him to die. I know that sounds awful, but it's true. He is going to die, sooner rather than later, and all we can do is wait and watch and love on him a lot while he's still here. It's a fairly rare condition so there's not a ton of information on it, but the research there is tells us we have anywhere from a week to 6 months or so with our beloved pup.

While that's all happening, Cody decided it'd be cool to be epileptic. He had a grand mal seizure at 3 am on Black Friday, scaring Ricky and I half to death. He's fine now, and the current treatment is "watch and wait." The medication to prevent seizures has enough side effects, and serious enough side effects, that the vet advised we not use them unless he's having more than one seizure every 3 months. As far as we know, the seizure he had on Friday was his first, so for now we're just waiting and hoping it doesn't happen again.

Add all that to the crappy weather and you can understand why every little thing is stressing me out. I need a vacation from my life.

My Shellac Experience

A few weeks ago, I decided to give the new shellac nail polish a chance. I'm a lifetime nail biter and I thought this might be just the thing to help me stop, since I don't bite when I have polish on my nails. Unfortunately, traditional polish lasts approximately 7.6 seconds outside the salon before I screw it up, whereas the shellac is said to last for 2 weeks without chipping or peeling and it's dry before you walk out the door.

The process begins the same as a normal manicure. You soak, you get your cuticles pushed back and trimmed, your nails are filed and buffed. It's when the basecoat comes out that things change. Between each coat of base coat, polish, and topcoat, your hands are put into a small UV dryer. I lovingly refer to it as the nail tanning bed. Without the UV dryer, the polish will never dry! It's essentially baking the polish onto your nails. The dry time for each coat is about 4 minutes.

How do I like it? I tell you what - this stuff is amazing! It does not last a full two weeks for me, not because the polish looks bad but because my nails grow so fast that by the two week mark I have a full 1/4 to 1/2 inch of new growth, and that just looks silly. I love that I can walk out of the salon with dry nails - no smudging it when I open the car door, yay! I love that I can be rough on my hands, as usual, and the polish holds up to the challenge. I love that I appear to have quit biting my nails!

Now, about those nasty rumors that shellac will ruin your nails: according to the nail tech I've been seeing, there are two kinds of "long lasting" polish, the shellac and another called gel nails or Gelife. She said they tried switched to the gel because it was a lot cheaper and significantly faster, with a UV dry time of only 30 seconds for each coat. She said that at first they loved it, but then they realized that on a client's 2nd or 3rd time with the gel, their nails were completely ruined. She beliefs it's because the gel isn't as high quality as the shellac. While the shellac is more expensive and takes more time, the salon I patronize prefers it because they believe strongly that it's much healthier for the nails - so much so that they threw away all the gel polish and switched back solely to the shellac!

After about 10 days, I notice that the edges of the polish are starting to lift. This also happens to coincide with the noticeable growout, so I've been attributing the lifting with the fact that the polish is no longer butted up to the nail bed. If I'm good and don't pick, it's fine and not noticeable unless you get really close. When I'm bad and can't leave it alone, I notice that peeling the polish off is not great for my nails as it seems to take some of the top layer of the nail with it. I do not notice that it significantly weakens my nails if I have the shellac removed the proper way, however.

Speaking of the proper way, to have the shellac removed, the nails are soaked in acetone and then the shellac is easy to push off the nail. This is not something I've ever tried at home, and I don't intend to. The salon will remove it free of charge, no appointment or new manicure necessary.