Can everyone please stay home more?

Joe and I seem to be busy....constantly.  This is our own doing, of course we have to go to work every day whether we like it or not but our nights and weekends are filled with happy hours, dinner with friends, rugby practice, volunteering, and on the nights that we are actually both home together we spend most of our time doing chores.  The laundry needs to be done, the floors need to be cleaned, the toilets need to be scrubbed...we almost never have a night to just completely relax. But the nights that we do manage to clear our schedules and ignore our chores are my absolute favorite...so why don't we do it more?

For one, I have serious fear of missing out. If I skipped a party with my friends and it ended up being one filled with great memories, I know I would regret it.  At the same time, when I come home on Sunday after a weekend with my friends feeling hungover and exhausted knowing a pile of laundry and a dirty house are waiting for me at home...I tend to regret that too. It's a real catch 22.

But it's also really important to me to maintain the friendships I have.  I have very few close friend where we live in CT, and my closest girlfriends from college live in the Boston area.  It's hard to keep up with everyone and make it to all their big events and have girls weekends to catch up with each other when we all have other friends and families and homes to maintain, but at the same time I know I want to have these friendships in 10, 20, 30 years so the effort to get together is important and necessary. Joe and I spend at least 1 weekend a month off on an adventure with our college friends and another weekend every month doing something with our families.

We haven't even gotten to my commitment to the National Guard 1 weekend every month. This weekend just so happens to be my guard weekend which means I am working 12 straight days without a break (every month people).  Joe is off at our friends' wedding on the cape which I have to skip for my military commitment. But this means not only do I have to miss out on all the fun but I have to work all day Saturday and Sunday AND I have to take care of both dogs, do all the laundry and all the cleaning that Joe normally helps out with when I am at drill.  Next week we already have after work plans lined up every day but Monday.  When I was closer to 21 I would have just said I'll sleep when I'm dead, but now that I'm closer to 30 than 21 all this running around makes me exhausted all the time!

When we got Coby I thought, great, this means we have an excuse to come home every night and not stay over places any more...but that proved not to be the case.  When we got Otto last weekend I actually panicked because we have weekend plans every weekend for the next month and I wasn't sure if he'd be welcome on all our adventures, but we can't leave him so we'd be forced to cancel if we couldn't bring him.  I love being home, but I hate missing out.  So to all my friends, let's just Facetime with our dogs to catch up and all stay home a little more :)

We have a baby...a furry one

So after our first trip to the vet on Tuesday our suspicions were confirmed that Otto was way to young to leave his momma...he's only 3-4 weeks old! Fortunately, despite his young age he seems to be pretty healthy but he's only 1.5 lbs so the vet said we have to treat him like we would treat a premature baby. He mostly just eats and sleeps, but we have to feed him every 4 hours (now with some extra vitamins and fattening stuff mixed in) which means midnight bottle feedings and coming home every day at lunch for a bottle too. Usually he wakes up between midnight at 1am and cries/barks a little to tell me he's hungry.  He sleeps in our room in a laundry basket so I always wake up right away and take him in the other room to feed him.  Of course, Joe doesn't wake up at all and sleeps like a baby through the whole thing. He loves to feed him his after-work bottle, but no way is he getting up in the middle of the night...seems like some pretty good foreshadowing for parenting an actual child!

Usually I sleep pretty soundly through the night but ever since Otto came around I wake up pretty much every hour and shine a little flashlight on him to make sure he's OK.  Usually he's just sleeping like he should be but if I can't see his chest moving I have to reach out and touch him to make sure he's still alive. At work, I worry about him all day.  He's home and crated (he's so small that the crate gives him plenty of recreation room but protects him from Coby or doing something like eating wires) but he's just so small and young I feel like something bad could happen at any time. He's only ever home for 4 hours at a time in the crate but it feels so long and it makes me feel so guilty!! I just keep thinking that mothers of human children must feel this amplified by 10.  The worry, the guilt, just hoping everything turns out well for your little one, it feels overwhelming with a puppy let alone a baby!

Otto tried to suckle Coby at first...

And then there's our first born, Coby. I was always worried that if we got a second dog we would never love him/her as much as Coby because he will always be our first pup.  But we've only had Coby since he was 5, we didn't go through puppyhood with him so even though he's our first, we never went through this formative bonding time with him. I think it's good dog #2 was a puppy because we get to catch up on the 2 years of bonding we've already had with Coby in a shorter period of time and it will even out. We've tried very hard to keep Coby on his same routine and show him plenty of attention too so he doesn't feel too displaced by and jealous of Otto (again, moms of humans this must be a real struggle for you). Slowly but surely Coby is showing more interest in his little brother. The vet knows Coby pretty well and when we took Otto in for his initial check-up she predicted they will become great friends so that was reassuring!

Much like human parenting, puppy parenting can be tough but it's so worth it!  There is nothing better than a relaxing night at home with all my boys and they all make me want to rush home every day to see their happy faces :)

We Surprised Ourselves with a Dog!

We had no intention of getting a dog this past Sunday, but somehow we did! Saturday we were at our pirate themed birthday party having a great time, when we got a message that there was a puppy in need of a home so at 11pm after a few cocktails I said "OF COURSE WE WANT THAT PUPPY!" Joe and I had a sober conversation about it the next morning and decided to stick by our decision. I have been wanting a second dog for a looong time and this just seemed perfect!  So at 1pm on Sunday we picked up a little boy miniature poodle!

Now since this was spontaneous, we didn't have a name ready.  My suggestion was Snowball but Joe thought that was a girl name, he wanted Gus but I thought that was a name for a big dog. We literally googled "cool dog names" and Joe read the list to me in the car as we drove to pick up the pup.  We both liked Ace, Brady was a contender but it seemed too cliche for Patriots fans, he kept reading down the list and when he got to Otto we both said, in unison, "Otto, I like that." Boom, the dog is named Otto. 

When we picked him up he was much smaller than expected, we picked him up from our friend who had already gotten him from the breeder.  He was supposedly 8 weeks but weighs no more than 3 lbs and we found out upon pick-up that he can't even eat solid foods he must be bottle fed...puppy formula! Didn't even know there was such a thing.  We had gone to the store in the morning to get puppy pads, a collar (which he might grow into in about a month)  and puppy food, but we had to go back to get the formula and a bottle...and a tag now that he had a a name!  

After doing a little research we found out that the fact that he has no teeth (literally nothing just gums) means he's really only about 3 weeks old...too young to be away from his mom but here we are! We're taking him to the vet tomorrow to get him checked up an de-wormed but he's too young to even get his shots so we'll have to go back again next month for that.  But so far he has been a very good dog: very quiet, sleeps a lot, takes his bottle most of the time AND HE IS ADORABLE. 

Coby...thinks Otto is an alien. 

Definitely a little confusion and jealousy from Coby but it's only been 1 day.  He slept downstairs on the couch like always but Otto slept in a laundry basket in our room. At 1am Otto was wimpering pretty bad and I figured he was hungry so I took him in the other room to give him a bottle (serious parenting practice here ladies and gents) and Coby was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and had his head cocked looking up at me like, "What is this creature that is getting all your attention, Mom?" Otto is really curious about Coby but Coby runs away from Otto every time he gets close enough to touch him. 

Anyway, one day into puppy parenting and no complaints!  Sitting here on the couch surrounded by all my boys and loving every second of it :) 

7 year olds or 27 year olds?

This afternoon I am going to a birthday party for 2 of my friends, Sh'vawn is turning 27 and Sarah is turning 26. Their husbands started planning a surprise party for them months ago, but boys being boys the girls found out almost immediately so the surprise part was out the window. Sarah and her husband own a pool and since their birthdays are in July, a pool party was the pretty obvious choice. Even though the girls knew about the party, I still didn't think they should have to deal with planning anything on their birthdays and I knew the boys would be just fine handling the food and booze but didn't think they'd get on board with planning any kind of theme so I told them to leave that part to me! Sarah send me some suggestions a few months ago:

Cowboy boots and bathing suits (wild wild west)
Luau
Survivor (any opportunity to bring out the buffs)
Beer Olympics
Fiestã (with lots of piñatas of course)
Pirates
Halfway to Tu Bishvat (Jewish holiday that falls on Jan 25th this year!)

Idk where the Jewish holiday came from since none of us are Jewish, but aside from that and beer olympics, any of these could be themes for 7 year old parties! The only "demands" they had was Sarah really wanted a pinata and Sh'vawn really wanted an ice cream cake...easy enough! So I went with the pirate theme and in my shopping found that pretty much all the pirate party supplies were definitely marketed towards children...or in some instances even came in child sizes. So I decided really the only difference between the 7 year old's party and the 27 year old's is the 1. the keg (although maybe some kid parties have these for the adults) and 2. the pinata full of nips rather than candy.  

And yes, that exact shark pinata will be in attendance...full of mini rums. But the more us 27 year olds drink. the closer our behavior comes to that of a 7 year old.  We become a little crazier, a little more energetic (in the beginning) and a liiiittle out of control/hard to handle. We might even throw a temper tantrum (but hopefully not).  Embracing your inner child is a great thing, and you're never too old or too cool for theme parties!  So get out there and enjoy your weekend...and make sure you do something a 7 year old would do :) 

Unsolicited Relationship Advice

There are two things my husband does without fail every single day: tells me he loves me, and makes me laugh. (There are a few other things he does every day like eat and sleep, but you get it.) I cannot explain to you how important these things are. Every morning before he leaves for work, he grabs me around the waste, kisses me like he means it, looks in my eyes and says "I love you" in a way which is sincere, not just a habit.
You're probably thinking...great for you, I'm just going to go throw up now. But doesn't everyone strive for that?  I can't understand why people settle for anything less. I know people who work late because they don't want to go home and see their spouse, or people who get in such intense fights that they go days without speaking...WHAT?! Your partner should be the person who supports you in everything, who loves you unconditionally, and who you enjoy spending time with no matter how much time you get together.  I literally tear out of work at 4:30 every day and rush straight home to give Joe a kiss...and usually he and the dog both run to the door to greet me.  It's one of the best moments of the day, and maybe not everyone's partner runs to the door to greet them, but how awful must it be if you dread returning home rather than look forward to it. Sorry, but you're doing it wrong and you really need to make a change if that describes you.
Strive for something like this:

Someone who wants to make your day better, someone who understands your needs, and someone who's mind you can almost read (I knew if he was putting on pants he assumed we were going out). Maybe you prefer a man who wears pants all the time, but I'll take the guy in boxers who greets me at the door with my favorite cocktail in his hand after a long day :) 

I'll also include his best joke of the week here for you (this is when we were in the ER on Sunday): 

Doctor: I'm diagnosing you with cellulitis

Joe; Can she just go to the gym to get rid of that?

The doctor didn't laugh but I did, really hard. The moral of the story here is: stop putting up with people that don't deserve you and don't stay in a relationship that doesn't truly make you happy! At the very least, you deserve someone who loves you and makes you laugh.

The ER patched me up...but our chickens died

Sunday morning I woke up with some pain in my calf, I figured it was just a pulled muscle and didn't think much of it. Later in the day I noticed a red spot on the back of my calf about the size of a silver dollar and thought maybe I got bit my something.  The red spot kept growing and getting darker, it looked almost like a bruise and there was a dull burning that accompanied it.  By 7:00 pretty much everything from my knee down was on pins and needles and I got nervous maybe it was a blood clot so Joe and I decided to make a trip to the ER to get it checked out.

After they ruled out a blood clot, they diagnosed me with cellulitis which I guess is a pretty common bacterial infection of the skin but it spreads rapidly throughout your tissue and can be pretty painful. They gave me medication for lime disease just in case and a prescription for antibiotics, drew a circle around it and told me to come back if it got bigger than the circle. By the time we filled my prescription at CVS and got back home it was after midnight. 

We had left our chickens out when we went to the hospital, they still had about 2 hours of roaming left and were tucked into our back woods with no desire to come out when we left.  There have been a few nights when one or two didn't come home and they always showed back up the next morning so we didn't think much of leaving them out for an extra hour or two...midnight was a little later than we thought we'd be.  When we got home I went straight up to bed and Joe went straight out to the coop to make sure the girls were tucked in safe and sound...but they weren't there.  He got a flashlight and saw that there were feathers strewn all over the yard and paths of feathers going into the woods.  Something (probably coyotes) ate all of our chickens. He came inside to tell me and I ended up crying myself to sleep. Chickens, to me, aren't pets in the way my dog is.  They're outdoor animals and they're there to serve a purpose (eggs) rather than being for companionship; but the idea of them being dragged off and eaten when they were supposed to be sleeping was a pretty awful thought. I had hoped that one or two made it off somewhere or escaped and would come back the next day, but it has been 2 days and no such luck.  

So for now...no more eggs :(  We're looking into getting new chickens; it's not really the right time of year but we found some chicks available on craigslist that we're going to look into.  I told Joe that we should build a big shelter around the coop and keep the chickens in there and protected all the time, never let them just roam free anymore.  He responded...just because there are sharks in the ocean doesn't mean we're not going to swim. 

Farewell Susie, Ruth, Penny and Rose...hope you ladies are resting easy. 

I decided to try Blue Apron...

A few months ago I had what I thought was a great business idea; delivering fresh-made meals to people's houses that they just have to pop in the oven and voila they can feed their family a healthy, homemade meal with minimal effort. Many people told me this service already exists and it's called Blue Apron, so I decided to check them out. Blue Apron does not make your meals for you, but it does all the grocery shopping and meal planning for you. You pick the delivery day and they deliver the ingredients for 3 meals complete with the recipes and cooking instructions right to your front door (in a refrigerated box so you don't have to worry about being home to get the delivery).  It's $20/meal (for 2) which is probably more than we'd spend in a grocery store but definitely less than we'd spend in a restaurant so I decided to sign up and give it a try!

My first delivery came around 4:00 on Monday (it was guaranteed to be delivered by 8pm but I was excited it came early enough for me to make one of the meals for Monday's dinner). The ingredients were all fresh and labeled so I could easily look at the recipe cards and tell which ingredients went with which meals. The package even came with 2 giant ice packs that are reusable!  Very exciting, Blue Apron should mention this as part of their marketing because I was almost as excited about the free ice packs as I was about the food. 

The first meal I tried was the summer soba salad, it took me about a half hour to prepare all the ingredients, cook the noodles and put everything together.  It was a delicious meal and definitely nothing I would have ever tried to make on my own.  I was worried about the portion sizes being too small with some of these meals (tomorrow is stuffed peppers and you literally get 1 pepper each with no sides...definitely not enough food for Joe!) but there was tons of pasta to go around here.  I ate less than 1/3rd of the dish and was full so I have plenty left for lunch tomorrow! 

We'll see how the next few meals go but after meal #1 with Blue Apron I am pretty impressed with the service and definitely think it's worth the cost! 

Nachos are a breakfast food

When Joe is working nights, we only see each other for about an hour in the morning when I eat breakfast and he eats dinner and an hour after work when he eats breakfast and I eat dinner.  We try to make the most of our times and eating meals together is important to me...but when it's dinner for one of us and breakfast for the other it can be tough to figure out what to eat. Enter, BREAKFAST NACHOS:

There's nothing really too complicated here, I used all the normal nacho ingredients (shredded cheese, salsa, japanenos, sour cream, I also like to add a little bbq sauce because I eat it on everything) but I substituted the chicken/beef for...you guessed it...scrambled eggs!  It was delicious and you can eat it for breakfast OR dinner!  For a lower fat version, you can just use egg whites and substitute greek yogurt instead of the sour cream (that's what I did...pictured above). 

Free Range(ish) Chickens

Our chickens are free range...ish.  We keep them cooped up (get it, GET IT?!) during the day when we're at work and then my husband, Joe let's them out around 4 when he gets home and they come back to the coop on their own around dusk. We keep them in their coop mainly to protect them from things like this:

(yes that's a bear roaming our yard in suburban Connecticut) and also so that we can go wrangle them back to our yard when our neighbors from the abutting condo complex come to warn us that our chickens are wandering in the streets. For the first few months they would be sleeping soundly in their nesting boxes within the coop when we went out to check on them around 9pm.  The last few weeks they have been roosting/sleeping on the top of their coop (they like to roost on the highest point...no idea why) so my husband goes out around 9, picks them up one by one and "scoots" them into the coop.  Tonight he's is working the night shift which happens pretty often and usually without much warning, so for the first time I had to go out and "scoot" the ladies into their coop. It was a scene.  For starters they weren't sleeping peacefully like my husband said they would be, they were awake and they were looking at me.  They were also laying right next to each other almost overlapping their wings so it was very difficult to grab one without disturbing the others.  After about 2 minutes of hemming and hawing and poking at them just enough to really rile them up; I grabbed one. Not a tight enough grip, she flapped her wings right out of my hands almost immediately and landed on the ground right in front of the coop door.  Then I really did just have to scoot her in and she went pretty peacefully. The next three were increasingly difficult and the last one kept turning around in a circle following my movements so that I couldn't grab her from behind and it's pretty hard to grab a hen that's staring straight at you...I couldn't even figure out where to grab her! Finally I nabbed her from behind and after she flapped out and around the coop for a minute, she wandered in the door on her own. This entire endeavor probably lasted 15 minutes and was enough for me to break a serious sweat and get a foot cramp from the stress of it all...I hope Joe is off the night shift soon or else our hens might not be free ranging at all for a while!

Mexican Egg Fried Rice

Tonight I tried to whip up a dish with things we already had in the kitchen and garden, and it turned out pretty well! Ingredients:

3 cups brown rice (cooked)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 a red onion
1 green pepper
4 eggs
1 can of black beans
2 tomatoes
Cilantro
1/4 Jar of jalapenos
Cumin powder
Garlic powder

1. Heat water on the stovetop for rice according to the instructions on the box.
2. While the water is heating, chop the onion and peppers into small pieces (whatever size you want to eat works).
3. Saute the onions and peppers in the olive oil over medium heat in a large frying pan or wok. (All the ingredients will end up in this dish so make sure it's big enough!) Season with cumin powder.
3. Rinse the black beans in a strainer to get the yucky stuff from the can off.
4. When there is about 5 minutes left for the rice to cook, add the 4 eggs into the same container as the onions & peppers. Scramble it all up together.
5. When the rice is done, add the rice, black beans and tomatoes to the frying pan. Add garlic powder and more cumin powder to taste.
6. Chop the cilantro and add it to the frying pan, also add in the jalapenos. Let heat for another minute and viola! You are ready to eat!

Of course any of these ingredients can be removed and other ingredients can be added to your liking.  My husband finished his portion off with hot sauce and sour cream, I finished mine off with some shredded cheese.  We both liked it and have plenty left for lunch tomorrow!

Backyard Chickens

About 3 months ago my husband and I got 4 hens. He grew up on a farm (I did NOT) and has been talking about getting chickens since we bought a house, I thought it seemed kind of cool and who wouldn't want fresh organic eggs everyday; so I agreed.  It was pretty easy to get set up. We ordered a chicken coop from amazon for just under $300, got our 4 hens at age 20 weeks old from a local farmer for about $20 each and after a trip to tractor supply for about $80 worth of feed and other supplies we were off! Within a month Suzy, Ruth, Penny and Rose were each laying an egg a day...4 eggs a day for us!  We try to eat eggs for breakfast a few days a week, but we found we quickly amassed many more eggs than we could eat just frying a few at a time for breakfast. We give about a dozen a week away (which I enjoy because people get so excited when they get some farm fresh eggs), but in an effort to get a little more bang for our chicken buck, I've been trying new dishes that incorporate eggs for dinner!! Check out my chickens and my recipes here.