1.09.2012

Meet Annie

Perhaps you've already met.  If not, let me introduce you.

Annie is a little dog that showed up on our porch many years ago.  We (my former roomies and I) were having our annual Elf party in December - an evening when friends from far and wide gather to watch Elf and eat candy, candy canes, candy corn and syrup.  Some guests were leaving the party and they returned saying, "you might want to come out here."  Sitting on a pile of snow and ice was our little Annie, completely overgrown and scared to death.  We took her in, cleaned her up, and made unsuccessful attempts to find her home.

After that, she became our dog.  We named her Annie, after Orphan Annie.  She's a dainty 8 pound, white, curly-haired, poodle-like pet who loves nothing more than unending amounts of human affection.  And she's just about the quirkiest thing you've ever seen. 

For example:

1) Annie used to take my roommates socks and bury them in the house plants.  We would carry on and water the plants as normal, only to find a fossilized sock in there months later.

2)  She's always leaving food in our bed.  Always.  It's rare to walk in my room and not find two or three pieces of her dog food sitting on top of the comforter.  Annie usually tries to nuzzle it onto a wrinkle in the fabric.  She'll work on it for quite a while, seemingly making very little progress and then all of a sudden she decides her food is sufficiently buried and moves on to her main task of vying for human affection.  Keep in mind her food is no more buried than when she first placed it on the bed.

3) Annie is a very obnoxious combination of coward/bully.  She does not care for other dogs.  Can't stand bigger dogs.  Will tolerate dogs her size, but doesn't like them.  Basically she becomes a huge snob.  With bigger dogs, Annie will run up behind them and bark when their backs are turned.  But as soon as the bigger dog turns to face her, she'll run and hide behind someones skirt.  This makes my manly, marine husband crazy.  "No dog in my house is going to pick fights with some dog twice her size only to run away like a coward!"  Just kidding.  He never said that, but I can see him thinking it.  When Annie is around smaller dogs, she is no better.  My parents have a dog named Maggie that is about Annie's size.  I don't think I've ever seen this, but my parents tell me that every so often Maggie will just be standing around innocently and Annie will run up behind her and head butt her in the tush.  How rude!

Mr. T is very good with his little ward, but she still has her quirks.  I'm nervous that its reflective of my poor parenting skills, which is why I'm already praying now that none of our children will do any of the three aforementioned actions.     

1.05.2012

High Quality

Below are a few things in life that are well worth the money. 
After all, sometimes they DO "make 'em like they used to."
And sometimes they make 'em even better.




Thermos brand mugs.  It's gotta be the Thermos brand.  I've only seen them at Target and they are a little pricey - around the $25 mark.  But they work great!  They do not leak and your beverage will stay nice and hot for hours.  It's simply mind-boggling.


 





Harvestland brand chicken.  This is the closest I can find to healthy chicken in our grocery stores here.  It's not organic, but it abides by USDA standards of:





*No Antibiotics Ever
*Fed All Vegetarian Diet
*No Animal By-Products
*Humanely Raised
*Raised Cage Free
And it does taste much better.  If I don't get this chicken I always regret it because all the other chicken tastes like rubber in comparison.  Plus, the other day I got a whole Harvestland chicken and cooked it in the crock pot (per suggestion of my delightful friend Darci) and it was yummy-licious.  A little butter under the skin, olive oil on the outside, onion, rosemary and thyme in the cavity and wa-la!  A whole chicken was much cheaper and it made about three meals.  I'm a fan.



Oreck brand vacuum cleaners.  I don't actually have one of these because we don't really have carpet in our house.  Just some on the stairs and a rug here and there.  So our vacuum is a cheap one from Wal-Mart that works just fine.  Actually, I purchased another little one for $8 at a Black Friday sale that is also really cool and works a little better.  Anyway, I used Oreck vacuums when I cleaned houses in college.  They are my favorite and if I lived in a land of carpet, I wouldn't want anything else.  They work well and are lightweight.  I don't enjoy lugging vacuums around so "lightweight" is the main selling point.  I don't think many Oreck vacuums have that hose part that comes off so you can get dirt in the corners.  That's the biggest downside, I suppose. 
We like hardwood floors, so I doubt I'll ever need a nice vacuum, but if we do Oreck is the way to go. 

1.04.2012

When An Orange And A Lemon Really Love Each Other

I have a love/hate relationship with Wal-Mart.  They really do have just about everything and it is pretty convenient.  But it is often over crowded and for some reason there is an air of grumpiness about the place and the cashiers can be a little slow at times and the produce department isn't quite up to snuff.

Well, at least it didn't seem so when I first moved here.  It seems better now.  I think because I've forgotten what big city produce departments are like.  Anyway, that doesn't matter.  What I'm trying to say is this:

The other day I picked up a box of Cuties (little oranges / easy to peel / you'll never go back to regular oranges) and went around the produce department to get the rest of the items I needed.  I then spotted a bag of GIANT oranges that looked very yummy - as it has been some time since I thought to buy an actual, hard to peel orange since they have cuties now.  You know how sometimes if oranges have really thick peels then they aren't as hard to manage...well, that's what I was thinking with these.  So I skipped the Cuties and went with the oranges.  And I was right.  They are easy to peel. 

They just aren't easy to eat.

I'm not exactly sure what happened. 

I suspect it had something to do with love. 
Like how Romeo and Juliet were from different circles and not supposed to get together. 
I believe an orange (Rome-e-orange) and a lemon (Ju-lie-emon) met. 
And there was winking, and eye batting, and sweet nothings whispered and all of a sudden a romance bloomed.  And as you know, when an orange and a lemon really love each other, they make a baby. 

And that baby ended up at the produce department in Wal-Mart where it got adopted by a sweet and innocent girl who took it home and decided to have it for a late night snack, only to discover her face beginning to contort into weird shapes, complete with a lip pucker that was in no way intended to be flirtatious to her husband who was not even remotely interested even if it was flirtatious because the face contortions made her slightly less desirable, but all together funny - and that's when she realized that she just adopted the world's biggest lemon!

Not really, but it's the sourest orange ever!!! 

I have a whole bag at my house that I doubt I'll be able to eat, so come over and try one for yourself.