Cooking for Leo

As many of you know, I have a dog who has chronic health issues. I've recently decided that I wanted to try and get him off of being on antibiotics constantly and am looking for a more holistic approach of caring for him...or at least feeding him. I started with some dog food that I found that is ground, raw chicken meat, bones, innards, etc. with no grains or other fillers. It is then made into kibble shape and frozen. I was giving Leo this, and he loved it...sadly, one bag would last about 6 days and cost, well more than I pay for my own food.

I then decided that I would move away from the frozen kibble and acquired kibble from the same makers, but it is freeze-dried and comes in a regular bag with no special care instructions (the frozen had to stay frozen until ready to serve). However, I still want to give my baby something more than just kibble, so I am cooking for him as well. My first foray into cooking for him was chicken thighs cooked with potatoes and green peas and chicken stock. He was very happy with this, but it may have been a little rich for him. This week I boiled some chicken breasts, that I then chopped up, and cooked some brown rice in the same water that I boiled the chicken. I mixed it all up and added some shredded carrots:

He gets 2/3 cup of this each meal and it is supplemented with some kibble. I also will throw in some cherry tomatoes, or blueberries, or a couple of apple slices....I am thinking I need to start heating a scoop of this up for myself as well, because, in general it is pretty healthy....unfortunately, I didn't cook it with any seasoning and it tastes like sadness.

It does make me happy to see how happy he is when I put his food down for him. He practically dances for dinner these days.

Travels with ABBA

This morning I was getting ready in my hotel room and decided that I must be having a repeat of Monday...

I cut my knee while shaving...not a big deal and if that had been the only thing, but no, it was not. I get dressed, do my makeup, and dry my hair. I'm looking pretty fly for a white guy. I reach for the hairspray just to hold the do in place. I squirt here, I squirt there, I fluff and mold. And, then I stop and look at the bottle.....it would be a bottle of Febreze:

I then grab the bottle of Dove Hairspray, that was sitting right next to the Febreze,

 and attempt to correct the problem, to no avail. My hair was now soggy and limp and a strange greasy sheen to it (although it did smell fresh).

I quickly took off my shirt, grabbed a towel and shampoo and did a quick washing and drying of the hair, again. In the process, a managed to get water in my eye, thereby completely ruining one side of my makeup, which also had to be redone. Needless to say, it was a long day before the day even started.

(And in case you are wondering, I have moved the bottle of Febreze out of the bathroom so that I will not have a repeat of this issue tomorrow.)

Puppy Acupressure

As you know, I have a dog that I love very much. When you look at him, you will see that he has GREAT ears:

And, I admit, I love petting and rubbing his ears. I was doing this recently and recalled a scene from the movie The Truth About Cats and Dogs where the Janeane Garofalo character was explaining over the phone to the Ben Chaplin character how to calm down his recently acquired dog who was wearing roller skates. She said to slowly and consistently rub his ears from base to tip as these were acupressure points. I then did a search on dog acupressure and found many videos on how to do this, including this one, which speaks specifically to the ear region:

Sadly, though, it got me thinking about those dog breeds that typically will have their ears clipped because that is the "standard" of beauty (Dobermans, American Bull Terriers, Great Danes, etc.) and can only wonder about what they are losing out on if one of the calming pressure points have been removed. Makes me want to go rub my baby's ears just to make up for it.

What A Site!!

A couple of weeks ago as my sister and I were driving down to La Grange, I look out of the window and I see these fields of sunflowers.


Not My Photo

I had never really noticed these fields before. Typically, when driving through Texas, you would see corn or wheat or soybeans or cotton or some other grain that my Dad could name from a glance, but I would have no idea what it is. But, there were fields upon fields of sunflowers.

Then, last night as I was driving to meet Sara for our recurring pedicure and dinner catch up discussion, I look over and see more fields of sunflowers and cars pulled over with people getting out and taking their picture with them as the Texas sun was setting (and yes, Texas has a completely different sun than the rest of the world...deal with it). Seeing all of those sunflowers opened and blooming and faces up to the sky made me so very happy and I got to thinking about what joy simple flowers can bring to me...especially the unpretentious sunflower.


Not My Photo

I think if I ever get married, I wand to carry sunflowers in my bouquet.