So
pretty much Ange and I have been "partying" for 36 hours straight (and I
use partying very loosely). One of my bffs came into town for about 24
hours and then we decided to go to the winery this weekend without
actually checking to see if the winery was open (it wasn't; oops!) so we
ended up hosting a little impromptu afternoon winery party of sorts at
our house. After all that hosting and socializing I am BEAT! But I
wouldn't have changed a thing. Such an awesome weekend. Now I have to
bust some ass on grading and make it through finals and we're off to the
Gambia!
Scientific
method proved that there is more than one salamander living in our
yard. I saw four at one time today! Two are pictured here; they're so
small I couldn't get all 4 in the picture with any kind of clarity.
There's also a slug in the picture. We have lots of them.
Scientific method also led us to reject the null hypothesis. Ho did not
equal "Dogs will shred little salamanders into millions of pieces." I
think this is because they salamanders belong to the honey badger
family; they did not give a crap about the girls sniffing them. If they
would have darted it would have been over for sure.
A
small glimpse into the weirdo house that is ours. I got my faculty
regalia today. Since I'll only wear it once a year and it cost an arm
and a leg I thought I'd practice using it and get some more mileage. I
bet our dogs never thought they'd get doctor water!
Ange has a
presentation she is nervous about tomorrow. She decided to practice for
me tonight. Naturally to practice you need to full get into the moment
and sanding next to the kitchen table is almost like a classroom right?
Doesn't everybody do these things at home?
Duke
likes to pretend he's the Lion King. He'll sit at the top step of the
deck for hours on end just watching the world go by. And by world go by I
mean nothing happening. Because duh, we live at the bottom of the
canyon. Maybe he sees a bird fly by every once in a while. Maybe he's
reflecting back over his life. Who knows? All I know is he loves it and
he sure looks cute doing it!
22 days until we leave for Africa.
SO MUCH WORK TO DO BEFORE THEN!
Luckily it was a gorgeous day and I pulled the hammock out of
hibernation so I could enjoy the day, spend time with my babe AND get
work done. Not too shabby!
Tonight's Gambia party went well! Ange and I are super pumped for this trip! Only 36 more days til departure!!!
Duke
doesn't really like to play with dog toys. But he does love some rocks.
We went on a walk this morning and he found this rock about a 1/4 of a
mile from the house. He scooped it up and decided he didn't want either
of us getting it so he ran ahead about 50 yards and kept looking back to
make sure we were still coming but not close enough that his rock was
in danger. When we finally got back to the house he ran out of places to
go and I could finally snap his picture. He tried to sneak it in the
house but got in trouble; he knows the rules, no rocks in the house!
We have a lot of work to do this weekend so we
decided to have an at home date night. We worked until about 9 and then
settled in for a movie. Now Ange isn't really a movie fan so when we
watch a movie together it goes one of two ways:
1. We get a movie I'm super excited about and she falls asleep halfway through.
OR
2. We find some ridiculous comedy that sounds good to Ange and
simultaneously doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out, and there's
only a 50/50 chance she'll fall asleep.
Tonight's selection
was Jack and Jill starring Adam Sandler x2. It was completely ridiculous
as expected. Mostly completely OOC and kooky but lots of very hilarious
slapstick. Ange made it through the whole thing which equals successful
date night for me!
This is our Dukey boy. Dukey only likes to eat
his from a laying down position. He has bad hips so I think it hurts for
him to bend over to eat. In the top picture you'll note two standing
feeders that we got so that he could eating from a standing position. He
basically told us to take a leap off a bridge because he refuses to eat
from them. So instead squatty little Sam eats from them. Because he's
weird too.
When Duke is done eating he likes to pass out on
the floor next to his bowl. Never know when you might get hungry again
and will need quick access to food!
I also like that Duke
appears to be sticking his tongue out at me in the top picture. He knew I
was going to rat him out on my blog!
My jewelry "reserves."
AKA the junk Ange won't let me keep on the dresser so I have to spread
it all over the place when I'm looking for the perfect "something" to
complement an outfit.
My A Team stuff comprises 4 small
jewelry boxes on the dresser. But sometimes you gotta pull out a pizazz
piece that isn't an everyday item. That was today. Ange just sighs so
big when I pull out this stuff. No appreciation for my fashionista ways!
Grrr. I found my lovely window hamsa busted and
broken in the window sill today. I lost one of my hamsa earrings that I
also got in Morocco during Christmas. Now I'm hamsa-less. Who will
protect me now?!?!
Duke's new pain medicine, Rimadyl, comes in a
"beef flavored" chewable tablet. However if it tastes like it smells I'm
gonna guess it's closer to "barf flavor." YUCK! If dogs could talk...
Oh sure. She looks all innocent and cute NOW,
but when I woke up on the couch a little while ago I woke up to two
little beady eyes staring down at me. Yes, DOWN. Which implies she was
above me. Considering she's less than 2 feet tall all stretched out that
can only mean she had somehow wiggled and tiptoed her rumpus onto the
couch without waking me up, and managed to perch right next to my head
where she was finally able to wake me up with the power of her laser
beam staring at my eyelids! I live with a bunch of weirdos!
And I don't mean the yummy drink.
It rained like WHOA last night. It actually woke me up at one point. No
thunder, no lightening, no hail...just loud ass rain. I laid there for a
while hoping that the steep canyon behind our house wouldn't decide to
move it, move it.
Today I counted 15 "waterfalls" on my 2 mile
trip up to the highway. Some were in dry run off areas and some were
just randomly popping out of the canyon walls. When I came home this
evening most of them were still running...lighter flow but still
running.
On the canyon wall on the way up our driveway there
was a mini-mudslide. It's about 20 feet across by 20 feet high. Let's
hope this is the worst slide we get around here! We have several more
days ahead of rain!
We
have a little tradition around Camp Awesome: when you get to the bottom
of a bag of chips and the ratio of food reward to crumby hands becomes
too great, you are obligated to create a "snack bag." You take the
kitchen shears and cut it down to a nice low length to reduce the
potential for crumb halfway up your arm and voila! New bag practically!
Yum! Pass me the chips please!
My
dad and stepmom arrived at Camp Awesome today! We chose to have a
relaxing day and evening at the camp since they've been on the go, go,
go since they've arrived in California. We even got them to play a game
of A to Z! All in all a good first day visit even if it has been raining
the entire time they've been here!
Until we moved into Camp Awesome, I never
realized how differently dogs see from humans. Specifically, how wacky
their depth perception is and how hard it is for them to figure things
out sometimes. One of those times is when I try and call for Duke when
he's on the upper driveway. When I come out the door and he's standing
anywhere except the end of the deck he gets so confused as to how to get
to me. I have to physically walk to the end of the deck so he can see
how to walk a basically 90 degree angle to come in. We do this at least
once a day. You'd think he'd figure it out. Especially since if left
alone he eventually comes and stands at the backdoor. Nerds.
Daisy looks how we feel. In the midst of all
the sick doggie craziness, Daisy has been her usual wacky self. Today
she did NOT want to come in when it was time for us to leave. So we
decided to let her be a wild and free dog. This meant she would outside
for about 6 hours by herself. She spends hours and hours outside when
we're home so we figured it wasn't much difference. We left a bowl of
water out (and she always has our mineral spring overflow pan) and hoped
for the best. Well at least Ange did. I was worried to death all day.
Nervous dog mom you could say. We got home and she came running up the
canyon to greet us! I was relieved. I thought she might come in for a
long nap like she usually does on the weekend, but nope! Stayed outside
until the sun went down. In addition to the time she spent when we got
up today, she spent almost 12 solid hours outside today. She loved every
minute of it. And now she's passed out COLD. Works out for all of us!
We
weren't the only ones who enjoyed the sunny day! Duke got a nice brush
down and as you can see he was happier than a clam about it!
I've
been feeling extremely fatigued lately and I've just been chalking it
up to first year faculty stress. But this week I noticed I was getting
more headaches than usual and that when I was leaned over for more than a
moment I was feeling dizzy. Anemia runs in my family and is more likely
to happen to vegetarians so I decided that I needed to make a more
concerted effort to pump up my iron levels. Plant based iron is harder
for the body to absorb than animal-based iron, but if you pair it with
vitamin C it does a much more efficient job. So my love and I have been
working this week to be more intentional with our food choices. This
morning she cheffed me up some spinach, red pepper and garlic eggs and
cut up the pineapple we got yesterday. The spinach has lots of iron and
both the pineapple and red bell peppers pack lots of vitamin c. In fact,
red bell peppers have more vitamin c than an orange! Bet you didn't
know that did ya? Paired with a multivitamin and some zinc I'm hope my
vitamin packed meals are helping boost my blood and maybe even ramp up
the old immune system so it can kick this poison oak's ass!
