Oh, this is a cooking blog too?

So, when I first got the idea to start a personal blog, I didn't think my life would be NEARLY interesting enough to base entire entries on. Who wants to read about my children? I mean pets! Are there people out there who like hearing about stressful/awkward situations that could ONLY happen to me? I think not. So that is precisely why I wanted to base my blog around cooking and interior design and home projects and landscaping. Things that really ARE fun and interesting! I even bought a snazzy new camera several months ago to document these activities, step by step. The only problem is I always forget to actually document these activities... What's the point in a birthday cake having been made for me by scratch if I don't have said baker (Sar-bot) take photos and do a guest entry on my blog? Why should I have a giant hill of dirt and 3 massive boulders removed from my yard if I forget to stand out in the rain in my galoshes and hoodie and take pictures of the muddy soil being hauled away? After said mountain of dirt was gone, what was the point in bringing in two truckloads of brownish-black lava rock to make my front yard a little more interesting without some kind of documentation? What's the point in slowly getting around to paint every room of my house if I don't capture the memories of the plain, ugly whiteness? But, in all honesty......WHY DO I KEEP COOKING AND FORGETTING TO TAKE PICTURES?!

Blah.



Ahh! There's something that looks edible. But, what is that? And what does it look like underneath that top crust? And why are there no pictures detailing the actual baking process? And good lord...why is it SUCH a terrible picture? Exactly! Failure.

If you go to www.thepioneerwoman.com/cooking you will see precisely what kind of standards I intend to live up to...mark my word.

I'll be back...

My new black stallion...

Stresses in life sure do make it hard to blog regularly.  I have so many ideas running through my head on great ideas to write about......but I'm a semi-perfectionist.  So if I'm going to do something, I have to do it RIGHT, and that usually sounds way too exhausting to even attempt. 

BUT...in reference to the title of the blog.........

Okay, okay......not THAT kind of stallion!!  (hehe...)

Since my last post, I've added a new member to my family!  Please give a warm welcome to Mr. Pax!  

Supposedly he is about four years old, a Great Dane/Lab mix.  Poor guy was removed from an abusive home and transported down to the local shelter.  I had initially been looking into actual rescue groups for Great Danes or Greyhounds, but they are soooo expensive!  Several hundred dollars, and then you have to pass all of their screenings to make sure you are the PERFECT fit for the dog.  He has such kind eyes, I just couldn't pass him up.  

He and Sienna have so much fun together...

Uhh.....oops!  I meant THIS kind of fun.

They just can't get enough of each other.  Double the fun...but also double the trouble, and poo, and food expense, and dirt, and toots....but double the love!!  Pax has a thing or two to learn about the proper technique of begging (Sienna has mastered that nicely) and how to keep four on the floor, but he luckily already came with "sit" and "lay down" in his repertoire.  

He has even traveled up into the mountains for a night of camping.

And got in a nice little snooze en route back home.

All in all, he's a sweet boy, but just needs a little bit of discipline.  We'll see if that's something I'm capable of.  More to come on the taming of the wild black stallion.

--C

Grey hair is in season

Ugh.....one of the more stressful days of my life.  

You really don't realize how much you appreciate modern conveniences, until they are ripped from your cold, air-conditioned hands.  

Now, responsibility has never been one of my best qualities.  Granted, I have a house.  But with this housing market, that's not saying a whole lot.  I mean, it's not like I actually live within the limits of a semi-bustling city.  I live in the sleazy 2nd cousin suburbs of said semi-bustling city.  Not to go into too much detail regarding the house purchase, but it was a necessary decision at the time, plus in two years and seven months, it will hopefully turn out to have been a ridiculously smart investment.  

Anyway, today was going along as usual...my parents had stopped by to coerce me into helping with some yardwork, housework, we had some food, I retired to my bedroom after they left to catch up on some much needed lounging.  All of a sudden my room was silent--no white noise, no a/c seeping through my vents, the overhead fan was slowing to a stop.  My first thought was actually a decent one, I assumed there had been an accident in the local area and the power outage was temporarily.  That only lasted about three seconds though.  Then, in an instant, my heart stopped as I remembered that my power bill was still sitting on my counter, waiting to be paid...  

I've never been the best with utility bills.  In order of importance, my bills are: mortgage, credit card, student loan, cell phone, and then the variety of utilities.  Anyway, I panicked and immediately called Idaho Power to make an emergency payment over the phone.  After completing the transaction, I felt a small sense of relief, and listened carefully to hear the beautiful hum of the air conditioning kick back on.  But no such luck...  In all of my panic, my friend SarDau was staying updated via text message on the basics of the situation, and she informed me that the power won't immediately come back on...that someone has to physically come out and turn it back on.  Eff...  I decided to try one last time with Idaho Power and attempt to reach a live person at the "Emergencies" option. 

Well.  Wouldn't you know it...there was now a message available talking in detail about the power outage that was in effect for my area.  Criminilly!  This could have been helpful about three panic attacks earlier.  

After already having sent frantic text messages to my friend SarDau, and now feeling quite embarrassed by these messages, I humbly sat in my bed, waiting for the wonderful sound of the a/c to kick back on.  Oh what a day...  

Oh well, at least now I'm caught up on my power bill for a month in advance.  I wish more people were as responsible as me. 

Disregard previous post

Once again, the first day of the rest of my life never actually happened. Why is it always so easy to come up with a reasonable excuse to get out of doing a minute amount of exercising? My hips don't lie, as the song goes, and they keep telling me to get ahold of myself.

I *HATE* girls that put no effort into watching what they eat or worrying about making physical activity a regular part of their every day lives. Hate is a strong word, so that's why I made it cute by putting little stars around it. I don't actually HATE these girls, I just have a love-hate relationship with them. Only there's more hate than love.

I think that after tonight, I'll be more than willing to jump into the gym routine. Reasoning? I have to go KHAKI PANTS shopping. I hate pants shopping in general, but khaki is the worst. It just never sits right on all the bootylicious ladies out there. Here is hoping that tonight will cooperate with me, and there will be peace at last.

Fo sho.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Isn't that a somewhat skewed quote from American Beauty? Maybe? To simplify things, today is just one more day that I swear I'm going to get back into the hardcore gym routine. How sad is it that the gym is less than one mile from my house (I could walk and/or ride a bike there) and I have gone there less than 10 times since I moved into my house?

Somebody motivate me! It seems like the only time I have success is when I unhealthily cut off almost all food from my diet. But that always gets boring REALLY fast, so regular exercise seems like it really IS the logical solution. Now, just so I don't seem like I'm going to any kind of extreme, there are certain body parts that I'm very happy with and don't need to change. These body parts include, but are not limited to: hands, feet, face, ears, head, wrists, and ankles. I think I've worked really hard at keeping those areas toned and sexy. It's all those other areas that I just haven't had time for.

I also hate going to the gym because unless I go late in the evening, when I'm already tired and just wanting to lounge around, it's filled with big burly men and scarily muscular women. Am I the only normal person left in the world? Really? Can't I be somewhere in the middle? I don't want cankles, but I don't want to look like Madonna on my upper body. http://tinyurl.com/leargt

I'm sure there has to be a Celine Dion song that can perfectly describe my situation and then soothe me like a baby. Maybe Whitney or Mariah can make it all better too.

Blogging skills?

So I've been told lately that I should blog.....multiple times.  I hysterically begged to differ, however, as I feel like I am most clever audibly, rather than while recording thoughts on a computer screen.  It's almost as bad as having to listen to a recording of myself talking on a tape recorder.  It just doesn't sound as much like me as when it was being recorded.  Oh well, I'll try to make it worth your time.   

If I could have my way, I would be able to work from home, blogging away my days about all sorts of things:  restaurant reviews, toy reviews, my design projects, house upgrades, cooking...and I'd make boku bucks doing just this.  There has to be more to life than only making a few cents each month off of Google ads, right?  Become a professional blogger would justify my passionate desire to have a gigantic desktop Mac.  A little white MacBook just won't cut it when it comes to blogging with the big dogs. 

So here I go, I am going to very much attempt to turn myself into a regular blogger, rather than just a person who somehow manages to throw a few clever phrases into conversation every now and then and resultantly feels like I'm on top of the witty world.  Hopefully, as my blogging skills improve, so will my photography skills.  My poor Nikon is just collecting dust.  And away we go...

(shout out to SarDau for the encouragement!)

Welcome

Since you're new to my world of miscellany, allow me to introduce you to me and my family.

This is me--

I'm really not as bored as I look.  

Here's another.  I like to hold onto pictures where I look mildly photogenic.  I just don't have that whole *ever-camera-ready* smile on most occasions.  Oh well.

This is Sienna.  She's a petite powerhouse with big floppy jowls that get caught inside her scary underbite.  She would be an orthodontist's dream patient.  But I accept her the way she is, monster mouth and all.  She knows I love her.

This little guy is Adam, one half of my most recent adoption.  He's a roly poly bundle of energy that loves to use my leg as a ladder.

And finally, this is Zoe, my dainty, needy, little female kitten.  I only welcomed Adam and Zoe into my family less than a week ago, so we're still all learning new things about each other.  

My animals are such a huge part of my life...although I'm so overprotective that their socialization sessions are VERY supervised.  I'll loosen up in time.  Maybe.

More will be discussed about them later, but no set plans on specific topics....I just hope to cover a wide variety of my miscellaneous life.  Ta-ta.