Creative discipline? Abuse? You decide.

BBQ, Buzz, and Woody

Sassy turns 3 on Sunday, and it has been non-stop Toy Story for the last month at our house.  I'm going to attempt a Buzz Lightyear cake, so check back for pictures if you want a good laugh.  Maybe it will be good (or bad) enough to wind up here. 

Martha has a great from-scratch BBQ sauce I'm dying to try.  If you make it with the new HFCS-free ketchup, it's perfect!

There you have my weekend rambles.  We're in the middle of a small kitchen remodel, so I'm pretty strung out between that and the impending party.  And I have PMS.

Let's Try This Again

Well, it's only taken me four months to come back to blogging.  I started teaching again, which tends to cut down on free time (read: eliminate it completely), and life has been a bit of a whirlwind.  Also, we started streaming netflix throught our Wii, which has sucked me into marathon Lost watching with my husband.  I still am not sure my brain has switched to summer mode yet, but Sissy and Sassy are fully in the swing of summer:

Life is good.  I'm hoping to do some sewing, crafting, cooking this summer that I can share. 

  

This blogging break is being brought to you by a corneal abrasion. Please stand by.

In case you were wondering, I look nowhere near this cool.

Free dog = Good reason

I am one of those annoying people who like little, yappy dogs.  Before you decide to hate me, I promise I never loaded one into a purse and carried it around the mall, or anything.  I like tiny and cute.  I'm a girl, for Pete's sake, and the idea of one of my stuffed animals coming to life was long one of my most fervent fantasies when I was little.  As soon as I was old enough for pet ownership, I gravitated toward Chihuahuas.  Tiny and cute, right?

This is PJ, my first chihuahua.  Actually, she was a Chihuahua-Pomeranian mix.  She was a Chihuahuaranian.  Or a Pomehuahua, take your pick.

She was sooo fat and funny-looking.  Her hair was super fuzzy, and her body was roughly the size and shape of a small barrel.  Unfortunately, her head was about the size of an orange.  Strangers would laugh at her when we took her for a walk.  She had tracheal malaisia (sp?), which made her hack and gag and cough and spit like a cat with a hairball.  She was a mess, but she was even-tempered and sweet.  Never 100% house-broken, though.

Chihuahua #2--Mya.  Isn't she cute?  Good thing, because she is about 5 pounds of pure, unadulterated stupid.

Mya was free.  We traded a rabbit for her (don't ask).  PJ had gone to that great dog park in the sky, and I was on the prowl for tiny and cute again.  Mya is a full-blooded Chihuahua, which I thought would make her smarter and more well-adjusted than a mixed breed.  Little did I know that Chihuahua blood is rife with  crazy, so a full-blooded Chihuahua can be fully twice as insane as any mutt known to man.  She barks, and barks, and BARKS UNTIL YOU WANT TO POKE A STICK UP YOUR NOSE AND SCRAMBLE YOUR BRAIN LIKE AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SO THAT IT WILL PLEASE, PLEASE STOP.  We got her when she was 7 months old, and guess what?  She wasn't 100% housebroken.  She is tiny and cute, and I think I hate her (not really--not all the time, anyway).

Chihuahua #3--Sugar

I turned 35 this past summer.  At roughly the same time, Sassy turned 2, and stopped smelling like a baby and started smelling like a stinky little kid.  I was less than happy, so I started looking for another tiny cute thing to love on.  And I found Sugar.  When we got her at 6 weeks, she weighed exactly 1 pound.  She's now up to 2.2 lbs., so has remained tiny and cute, and thankfully is almost 100% housebroken.  She's not a barker, thank goodness, but she is a licker.  She will lay on the sofa, licking the same spot on the upholstery over and over until it looks like you  poured a glass of water there.  This is what Mya and Sugar spend roughly 90% of their time doing:

playing...I guess?  It always sounds like about a million angry bees, with occasional yelping.  Who knows?  I'm about to give up on tiny and cute.

Should I go for big and ugly next time?

Braving the Texas winter

We needed a little vitamin D therapy yesterday, so we hit the backyard.  Boy, it was rough out there in January--I think it was around 70 degrees or so.  Now, I fully admit there WILL be whining in July when it's 102 out and I'm praying that my 15 year-old A/C unit makes it through just...one...more...summer (please, please Lord, I implore you--just one more summer?  Just one?), but for now--I'm digging Texas.

Wordless Wednesday