Daisy's Big Adventure

*** WARNING this blog may contain way too many ridiculously cute animal photos. Proceed with caution.

Feels/looks like home.

I think it is safe to say that of the two kids, Otto is the adventurer of the family. From his homeless beginnings on an Indian reservation in Eastern WA, to his hiking adventures through the Rockies last year Otto has seen it all (or close)!  Daisy, however, doesn't get out much. I rescued her from PAWS (85th and Greenwood) drove her to the old MLK house where she stayed put until 2005. Then she drove straight to Beacon Hill where she has spent every night since. She's a homebody, really.

Usually when I go out of town for the weekend, I stick a bunch of food in bowl, tell her to try not to eat it all in the first hour, and head out, leaving her by herself for x number of days. If I go for longer, I'll have someone stop by every day or two to give her some food and some love (It's usually fine, except one time when raccoons broke into the house and terrified the poor thing - I didn't see her for days when I got back). Anyhow, now Daisy has a thyroid condition that requires pills twice a day. So, when I headed up to Hood Canal for three days, I thought maybe I would see what bringing her looked like. (I tried the same thing in July, but she caught wind of it and disappeared so completely I had to leave her at home at the last minute.).

We loaded up the car with cat food, cat litter and a cat, and headed out for the big adventure. And aside from the car trip and the first few terrifying hours at the cabin, I think she kind of liked it. In a little extra adventure, I carried her to the end of the yard to look at the canal a couple times. It's a little strange to think that Daisy has NEVER seen a large body of water. She found it a little terrifying and scratched herself out of my arms and ran quickly back to the cabin both times. Anyhow, some pictures of the weekend and Daisy's wild adventure!

Daisy loved the car ride!

The car trip was better than I thought it would be. I took the ferry on the way up and opened the box so she could see out. She stayed in the box and it all worked out. On the way home, I drove around. Again, I opened the box. She stayed in and/or peer out for about 60 miles when she decided to come on out and see what was going on. I think where she really wanted to be was by my feet. Since that wasn't an option, I became the crazy cat lady I am not even verging on being and held her in my lap for 20 miles or so.

Hiding in the bedroom in the first couple hours.

Exploring

Exploring x 2 

Hmm, maybe not so bad.

Mostly to torture my mom, I placed Daisy on various tables whenever possible. My mom was not impressed or amused.

An exciting trip out to the car port.

And back.

Windows with good views. 

Cosy places to sleep. I could live like this.

 In other exciting weekend news!

We picked black berries on the side of the road (Daisy did not join).

We looked really cute. 

We went to a farmer's market with very few farmers.

We ran into some Seahawks fans at the Belfair fun walk (Humane society fundraiser).

AND, we lay on our bed and watched the sun set.

Things that rock about my kitchen

As you can see I seem to be in a bit of a blog slump. Summer fun. High school reunions. 5 year blog anniversaries (!!). None of these seem to be inspiring a blog post. So, I have had this sitting in the wings for a while and I thought I would entertain you all (or at least my mom), with the things I most like about my kitchen. As you read you may notice a theme. Basically, the best thing about my kitchen is that there is a home for everything!  As my long time readers know, I am not a neat and tidy person. So it is nice to have a space that reduces the amount of crap I have to look at. Crap reduction, the perfect reason for a kitchen remodel!

1. Lots and lots of cupboards. In the new space everything fits in a cupboard or drawer, so I don't have shit hanging out the counters. This makes me oh so happy!  (That one thing hanging on the counter is my new crock for sauerkraut. I'll let you know in a couple weeks how it works).

2. Pantry!  My pantry, only 4 inches deep, took this tiny worthless spot of wall (there is a chimney behind it making the wall stick out about a foot) and turned it into an awesome storage space. All my extra crap goes in here. Plus daily supplements, bottles of wine, stuff I need but never use.

3. These beautiful tucked away drawers hold a. a much bigger junk drawer that can actually be opened and closed without a lot of tucking and manipulating b. the cuisinart and crock pot - so they don't live on the counter  and c. ?? the bottom drawer contains things so rarely used I don't even know what's there. Light bulbs I think. Maybe some linens.

4. Pantry x 2! Veggies in a drawer, which is awesome when you buy not so ripe avocados.

5. Baby drawers I thought I would never use, but it turns out they're perfect for sponges, plastic bags and bottles of kitchen cleansers.

6. Freezer!! The freezer in the new fridge is huge. All my meat. All my raw animal food. It all fits. Plus I have ice!

7. This is silly, but i love the grid in the sink. You can wash dishes and leave them there to dry. You can wash veggies and put them in the sink and know they aren't lying in all the dirt you just washed off them. You can own a stainless steel sink and not scratching it every two seconds.

8. Dishwasher. I had a dishwasher before but it was small and I never used it. Now I am actually using my dishwasher and it makes life so much easier!

9. This should really be #1, the compost container built into the counter is so cool - probably worth the price of the kitchen on it's own.

10. Spice rack drawer. I was hemming and hawing about what to do about spices - build something special? Buy something special?  Instead I took and idea from my friend Chris and used the drawer closest to the stove for spices. I still have way too much stuff in baggies, but it's so much easier to find everything than it was before.

11. Refrigerator. Just because it looks cool in its cabinet coat.

12. New plates and bowls. Before the remodel I owned two plates that could go in the dishwasher. (I owned more plates, but they had to be hand washed). To get in with the dishwasher program, I went to my favorite place, Posh in Chicago, and ordered this super basic restaurant china. It rocks, and looks so pretty on the black counter.

13. And finally, this RC was a present from my mom. Kitchen warmer!

A Weekend with a Champion - a story in pictures.

This weekend Penny's parents were out of town and Otto, Daisy and I got to host a blue ribbon winning bitch (see Dog Show). And what fun we had!

 Hi!  I'm Penny, My mom and dad are out of town and I'm a little concerned. Please be extra nice to me!  I'll do my best to look extra cute to help with the process.

I'd say this photo kind of sums of the weekend. Penny was a blur of motion and Otto was a little concerned by what was going on!

The weekend involved lots of events that never happen when the world is just Otto, Daisy and me. Here is an exciting trip to the dog park. It was about 100 degrees.

After the dog park we panted a lot. Well, Penny panted and drooled and panted and drooled. Otto and I wondered how the heck it was possible to pant so much!

Other fun weekend events

Meals were extra exciting as four eyes watched my every move and made sure I was performing properly (I think I see a tongue sticking out of Otto's mouth)

Penny pulled out every last one of Otto's toys. Otto has a full box of toys that he never (EVER) touches. It was nice to have them get some use. Here the green bone and zebra striped squeaky bone get their play debut!

We played!  Saturday morning the dogs were outside and I heard some strange noises. I went out side and found Otto playing!  As soon as he saw me he abruptly stopped. So I went inside and when it started up again I snuck pictures through the window!

We hiked!  We hiked 8.2 miles.

Mornings were extra fun. Everyone decided that they needed to join me on the bed (Penny actually slept with me - Otto doesn't) Penny decided that mornings on the bed needed to involve bone chewing, hmmmm.)

We went through the car wash, Penny wasn't too sure about that.

And finally, you're probably wondering what Daisy thought about all of this. Well, Daisy wasn't really pro Penny. She spent her weekend either sitting on this table (where i put her food). hissing or sleeping in the dirty clothes bin.

At one point she became super brave (or something) and decided she needed to venture out with the dogs. Penny rewarded her with her bravery by asking her to play. It didn't go over very well. (You'll notice that I decided to make sure I captured the event on film rather than making sure Daisy avoided the conflict).

That was the fun. Penny, come back any time!

New Kitchen Toy

So there is a new appliance in my kitchen. A new appliance which I will not name by name, because I don't want every fool with google access to stumble across my blog every time they want information on this particular appliance (see below for name). It's this cool hand held mini blender that is supposed to be great for making sauces, smoothies and the like.

Now, as you might notice in this picture, this appliance comes with an excess number of accessories. In fact, it comes with so many accessories, that multiple times I went to buy it and then talked myself out of it because I did (and do) not want 4 extra plastic cups and 4 extra plastic lids floating around my kitchen. But, very unfortunately, you cannot buy just the blender. You have to buy all the damn accoutrements as well!  Any, I finally bit the bullet (as it were) and bought blender plus extra plastic crap which will now float around in my cupboard for years, never used. (Yes, Goodwill would be a good option).

Anyhow, as usual, I digress. So, how is it you ask?  Well, it's actually pretty damn cool. I wanted it because every time I make some smaller amount of sauce I pull out my food processor then I have to wash a million things, just for a little sauce. This seemed like much less work.

So far I have used it twice.  Yesterday I made some magic mushroom powder.

This really just involved throwing in some dried porcini mushrooms and grinding for a bit. But it made the process super quick and saved lots of washing.

Then today I made some avo-ziki sauce. Avo-ziki sauce is a paleo/greek version of guacamole. Making it looks a bit like this.....

Again, my new little toy was awesome (though I would recommend not filling the cup completely to the top when trying to grind avocados). It's cool, because when the cup and blade are attached you can take them off the blender and shake. I don't know about you. But when I'm trying to blend thick stuff in a blender, I spend a lot of time trying to stick a spoon in and mix things up, so I'm not just blending the stuff in the bottom over and over again. With my new toy, it's easier and less messy to mix.

Anyhow, so far, aside from the excess plastic, I highly recommend this.... And, if you drink smoothies, you might even like the extra plastic accessories!

FLowers

Hello to all my devoted fans. Sorry, I don't seem to have hit upon a blog inspiration lately, but I have taken a couple pictures that I'm quite proud of and I thought I would share them until I am hit with a fit of genius for a legit post. (I am so hampered in my genius mode, that I had to look up how to ever spell genius. No it is not genious!)

Apologies to my instagram friends who had already seen these.

To come clean, this particular flower had a little photo shot help.

Love this one so much I had to like it myself on instagram (that's a lot of love).

And finally, this last picture, my mom picked a couple flowers to put on my sister birthday cake. She didn't end up using these three which at the time were buds. So I stumbled around with what the heck to do with them. I finally stuck them in this tiny mug. They were so thankful, that by today they were opened up and beautiful!

The Bounty of Nature

While we are still reveling in the glory that is my natural deodorant (can I mention that not one but TWO people want to try it out), let's take a minute and revel in some of nature's other bounties.

The biggest egg in the world from the skagit river ranch

Produced two yolks (two of the eggs in the dozen were this size and double yolked)!  Those are some extra productive chickens. The eggs were so big that the carton came rubber banded shut because it wouldn't stay closed otherwise! Why do people buy eggs from the grocery store?

I don't know if the picture fully captures it, but this blueberry bush is amazing. it belongs to a neighbor and every year it produces the most insane number of huge blackberries. Yes, that is one huge bush. I didn't even know the bushes could get so big (all my blueberry bushes die).

I too am producing bounty. This is my garden. With lots of sun, things are growing like crazy this year! (Don't judge the scraggly chard in the front, I think it's been too sunny for it.)

I have been eating kale out of my garden every day for weeks and I can't keep up with it.

And the broccoli just started up! It's extra tasty (tastier than it looks).

And everyone please note, how pretty everything is when photographed on my counter!  Whoop!