Not Dead!

Man oh man! It's been a bit of a whirl wind since we got back to the States, but now that I finally had a chance to relax, I can bust out a lovely blog for you folks. Don't you feel special?

Ok, so we managed to finish up cleaning the house in Belgium and did our final walk through. 

Luckily, we got our 1,900 euro deposit back (thank gawd!) and proceeded to migrate over to our temporary apartment till it was time to catch our flight out of Amsterdam. The final few days were bitter sweet..not going to lie. We absolutely love Belgium, the travel opportunities and everything else that's awesome about Europe, but, we're ready to move on with our lives and get settled into our new home. 

If you're a frequent reader of my blog, or actually know me, you know that we have a small horde of dogs. By small, I mean five...and it's definitely interesting when it comes to transporting them, that's for sure. I had to do a "system check" on all the crates to make sure they were all up to snuff when it came to airline requirements. Luckily, all of my prepping paid off because the check-in crew for KLM were stoked that I had everything re-enforced, paperwork in hand, and anything & everything else you can think of that's required to ship a pet internationally. 

Of course, the dogs needed to get their beauty sleep before the big journey, so they made it a point to pretty much push us out of our own bed...

On our last day, Eric and I went on one last Belgian date day and went over to my favorite cafe to grab some awesome tomato soup with a side of cappachino. It was a little depressing, to be honest. I went there so often that the staff knew me, it's always mellow so you can sit & people watch...and their coffee was ALWAYS awesome. Hopefully we'll find a place like that in New Mexico..so that seems to be something to add to our "treasure hunt" in terms of things to find. 

The day had finally arrived for us to leave...it was pretty sad, although, we didn't really have much time to dwell on it en-route to the airport. Once we rolled our six pieces of luggage and five carriers full of dogs, we were immediately directed over to a special ticketing area that takes care of...uhhh...individuals like ourselves, lol. After an hour of checking in, getting the dogs all situated and grabbing a quick lunch, it was time to board the plane and head off to beautiful California! The flight actually went pretty fast, at least to me...it didn't feel like an eleven hour flight, lol. I suppose taking naps and watching all the various "The Real Housewives of blah blah blah" killed time for me. I'm just relieved that we were able to get a straight shot flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco without having to deal with a ton of layovers. Oh, and KLM, if you happen to see this..I love you and your airline ROCKS!

We got to unwind for a few days before Eric had to head out and take care of business in terms of the home we're in the midst of buying. Yes, I stayed here in California while he and John jetted off to brave New Mexico. As of today, we're officially the owners of a home! I'm so excited! Eric went through all the paperwork earlier this week and signed off on everything, including my part of the paperwork with a handy dandy POA...he was displeased with the amount of writing he was required to do in order to officially get the  house. Oh well..he got the keys today and that's all that matters! lol

All the while, we're enjoying our time at Casa de Vandegrift. Izzy and the other furballs have taken quite a liking to my suite and it's awesome bed. You'd think they had been roughing it their whole life or something by the way they burrow into the bed ...

I've been plugging around, meeting up with friends and hanging out with family since my time here is limited. I have about a month left till I need to head on out to New Mexico...well, I'm guessing a month, but it all depends on when my vehicle shows up. Once Big Blue arrives, it's time for me to mosey on out of here so I can start decorating my new house :) I'm sure Eric will be relieved once I'm outta here so I'll stop haunting the Le Creuset place in addition to the various antique places around here...lol. 

I ended up getting a killer deal on a cast iron skillet, oval skillet, 2.5 qt container and a pie bird (all from Le Creuset) for 30% off in addition to another 40%...can you blame me for jumping on that sort of deal??

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to start posting some more blogs as I run around California and throughout the trip to New Mexico for you guys. It's interesting trying to work on my iPad, then my Eee PC since my old faithful laptop isn't functioning at the moment...le sigh. 

Toodles!

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Happy Glutton Day!

'Tis that time of year again!

It's Thanksgiving! 

Or as well like to call it, "Gluttony Day". 

This years Thanksgiving is definitely low key since it's just Eric, John and myself. Last year, I actually decorated and set the dinner table since we had some close friends over in which I made a lot of grub. I think the only thing in "bulk" that was made this time around was bacon, lol

Every year, I make a different sort of "rub" for the bird since it's nice to always try something new. This time around, I made a thyme concoction in garlic infused olive oil, pureed it and did injections throughout the bird in addition to slathering it all over the skin. Of course, I let it sit over night so it'd soak in a little more. The bird itself weighs 25lbs. Yes..25lbs of turkey for three people. Just take a guess as to who picked it out... At least it'll give me a lot to work with when I make my awesome turkey chili. 

Bacon. 

Everything is better with bacon. Therefor, Thomas the turkey got wrapped up with all sorts of delicious bacon strips. I actually did a "basket weave" with all the piggy pieces ad secured them with toothpicks so they wouldn't fall off during the 6+ hours of baking. 

Eric did his part and packed the turkey silly with garlic infused stuffing:

Here's how it turned out:

We ended up removing the bacon and cooked the turkey for an additional hour and a half (for a total of 7 and a half hours) since the grease from the bacon basically basted the turkey AND the stuffing. By leaving the grease, it allowed the turkey to get nicely browned and kept it extremely moist. 

It came out SO nice! The meat was basically falling off the bird. When Eric grabbed one of the drum sticks, it fell right off without any resistance. Needless to say, I was pretty proud of myself, lol.

In addition to the turkey, I made bacon & scallion mashed potatoes and a tray of some biscuits. Oh, and some cans of jellied cranberries. LOL. I wasn't motivated to make an entire spread of food like I normally do because we just don't have the room in the fridge for tons & tons of leftovers. Plus, between my back and knee, I wasn't feeling up to cookin' my ass off all day. All Eric & John care about is the turkey, stuffing and cranberry jelly, so why over exert myself?

For dessert?
Hot chocolate! Yes, I'm sure that just warped your minds because the norm is to have pumpkin or pecan pie. Again, No room for it and it's not a high priority for us, lol. They're happy campers with toffee hot chocolate smothered in whipped cream.

So, I hope everyone has a fabulous Gluttony Day with their loved ones and cheers to the next!

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Privatized Blogging

Aye aye aye... 

To avoid the whole "private" thing, I changed my web address earlier this year due to some negative people...and apparently, that didn't work. I've refrained from making my blog private for a long time because I actually enjoy posting my random stories & adventures for people to read, but alas, the time has come. 

When I originally posted about the new link on my Facebook, I asked for people to keep it to themselves since I made a specific group who would be the only ones able to see what I posted...and my request was for them to keep it to themselves. Don't share it with people that they know have been purged from my life for a reason. That basically applied to people here at my current base and people we know mutually. 

Apparently, that wasn't honored. 

Over the course of several months, thanks to my handy dandy visitor tracker....there are specific people who are coming to my site who still read up on my life, despite the fact that they made a valiant effort to completely burn me to the ground, then promptly tell me to fuck off & to "not bother" contacting them once they were sure that they tarnished my name. I find it ironic and somewhat amusing that they wrecked house like they did, then have the gall to come check my blog for ideas, pictures and recipes. Not only do they check my blog, they have gone to my Pinterest site as well and have followed my activities. What the fuck is that about? The damage they did to me was not warranted in any way, shape or form, so it shook my foundation to the core because they were people I considered to be life long friends. I was wrong. So very, very wrong. True faces were shown and yet another lesson to add to my life. My walls are back up and  once again, it's hard for me to be easy going and welcome new people into my life with open arms. 

So, there ya have it. That's why I've made my blog private.

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We All Come Back Together

Early Thursday morning... Cali passed away. 

We actually had an appointment to take her in on Friday evening to relieve her of her pain, but she ended up leaving on her own terms, in our home & surrounded by all her loved ones. 

Once we were able to get our bearings straight, we managed to make contact with one of the Vet offices in town to see where we could have Cali cremated. After talking to the gal, she referred us to a place called "Dirk & Dogs", which is located out in a town called Lummen. Luckily, the place had a website we were able to check out in terms of what types of services they offered. I think the crazy thing is that it's a kennel in addition to a place that can do cremations..kinda like your one stop shop in a sense, right? Anyway, we made our way over there and staff was incredibly nice, understanding and very sweet when it came to making our arrangements for Cali. We opted to have her cremated by herself verses having her cremated with other animals in addition to picking out a nice little urn for her. It was extremely hard to leave her, but we felt she was in great hands...plus, we'd be able to pick her up on Saturday. 

While we were waiting to pick her back up, I did some hunting online to find some sort of paw impression memory kinda thing-a-majigg I could do as a memorial thing for her aside from the shadow box I'm working on. Mainly, it's something I wanted to get for Eric since he really wants something he can have with him at work aside from a paper weight. After doing some searching, I came across Mug Revolution. It's a site where you can get a beautiful ceramic mug custom made. I shot off an email to the owner who was incredibly nice & very helpful, then went ahead and ordered a 16oz mug in which I can have Cali's paw print put on it, a glaze called "Earth tone" which borders on the colors she had in addition to a little heart on the thumb rest since she had a heart design on her chest. When Monday rolls around, I'll ship off my paw imprint  to them so they can get the ball rolling..hopefully it'll show up in time for Eric's birthday that's later next month. If not, I'm sure it's the thought that counts. 

Picture provided by Mug Revolution

Saturday came around and we went to Dirk &Dogs to retrieve our girl. The staff was very nice and made sure we were happy with the urn we picked out, then sealed it up so it would be safe during transport. As sad as the situation was, Eric was VERY happy to have his girl back.

I hope it doesn't seem morbid that we're happy to have our cremated dog back, but, we have a particular mind frame when it comes to our family:

We all came together. We all come back together. No matter what.

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Endless Love

This is a really hard blog post...

If you know anything about me, you know that I absolutely LOVE animals. To be more precise, I love dogs.  In fact, we have five.

When I met Eric, I knew he was someone I wanted to keep in my life because he had Cali, a goofy Boxer who had the attention span of a three year old. The way someone treats their dog is the way they treat other people, and that's SO true! If you didn't know any better and he was talking to you about her, you'd think she was his child rather than his dog. 

When we lived in California, I'd take her to the doggy salon so she could get pampered and dolled up:

The day we brought Izzy home, Cali took care of her as if she were her own puppy & loved her to pieces....

....and usually ended up stealing Izzys bed.

Then when we brought Cole home, she did the same thing with him. They are INSEPARABLE! Basically, when one gets up and goes to another part of the house, the other follows. As of late, he's been extremely attentive to her, checks on her by giving her kisses then snuggles up to keep her company.

When John was younger, he liked to wrap her up and play "Hide the Cali", then rough house with her. Yes, she's a VERY patient dog! lol

She always brings us "presents", whether it's a sock, towel, or torn up toy..she always wiggles and gives you a present right when you walk in the door followed by a nice kick to your knee cap.

Whenever we had a chance, we'd let her loose over at the beach and she'd run herself ragged!

As we all know, time ticks on and we all age. Sadly, dogs aren't excluded from that. Cali is now teetering on fourteen years old...and you can tell the age is wearing on her. Eric still swears that she's five and not a year older. Her cataracts are making it very hard for her to see stuff that's put right in front of her face, she has (MAYBE) 4 decent teeth she can use to eat with..arthritis flares up really bad on her hips...agh..it's heart breaking. All she does now is sleep, which I can't say I blame her. Getting up to go outside is a massive challenge for her..and when she is standing, she's wobbly and her footing is failing. 

Eric is madly...madly in love with her and it completely breaks my heart because I know "the time" is upon us..and he's going to be a hot mess. Well, all of us are, but he's going to take it the worst. At the most, we have a week left with her and we don't want to prolong her suffering despite not wanting to let her go...

Back in December, I noticed her health wasn't doing all that well, so I came up with an idea to do "Puppy Portraits". Sounds silly, right? Well, I ended up arranging a photographer to get some pictures / portraits and they came out better than I could have hoped for:

Now that we have the pictures, I wanted to make some sort of "shadow box" for her. Me being me, I clicked around online for a bit to see if I could find something along the lines of what I was wanting to do and ended up finding this:

It's pretty cool, but runs about $35 a pop. Since I'll be making one for each dog, that'd come to $175 in total! That's a bit steep, especially since I can do it myself. After doing a little bit of research, I found some recipes to make "Dough Ornaments" or  "Easy Crafting Clay" so I can do molds of all the fur balls paws. 

So, Eric and I started working on those today, did a trial run and ended up making a few impressions "just in case" some cracked while baking or they didn't come out right. In the process of working on Cali, we figured we might as well do the other dogs paws since I can make theirs into little ornaments. 

 Cali and Macie prints before

Cali and Macie prints after

As much as I picked on Cali & her smushy face, I really love that googly dog. She always cuddled up when she knew I wasn't feeling good, a fantastic watch dog & let me know when someone was coming, always did the happy wiggle dance when anyone walked in the door, extremely patient when John would hang all over her or try to ride her like a pony...a very,very loving dog. I'm going to miss her crazy little nub nub go nuts when I look at her, her snoring which rivals Erics, and yes, even her lethal farts. Cali is so special that not only has she had one family love her more than words can say, but had a family before us who loved her dearly. How many dogs have that sort of luck? She's beyond lovable and has made many, many friends throughout her journey with us. 

Value your pets and love them with all your heart. 
They deserve it.

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Stefanie Elizabeth Photography

In case you missed it, I talked about a photoshoot (here), that Stefanie was gonna come up and do for me since I was really wanting to get some "Father & Daughter" style pictures done with my Dad. Well, she came this weekend and I was SO grateful , especially since I'm flying home in a few days!! 

If you ever look up pictures of Monterey, 90% of the time...you'll see Cypress trees. Hell, even the seal for Monterey County has a Cypress tree on it! So, it's not really a shocker that Dad and I wanted to have Cypress trees in our pictures since we both really love the coastline as well as the local trees:

There's a pendant that I'm almost always wearing that's a Cypress tree. Can you tell I'm rather fond of this place? Although, half the time people think it's a Bonsai tree...lol 

We went over to 17 Mile Drive, which is a VERY famous part of Monterey / Pacific Grove / Carmel here in gorgeous California. Think in terms of an amazing coastline, breath taking landscapes, Cypress trees growing on cliffs...and bazillion dollar mansions! Boy, they made me feel reallllly poor....but at least we were able to enjoy some fantastic sights while getting our pictures done! 

The Lone Cypress behind Dad:

Stef thought this would be a great shot while we were relaxing at Johnny Rocket's in Cannery Row:

Tell ya what...walking on rocks in heels should be a right of passage for some people. 

Overall, I'm VERY happy with how the pictures turned out. Although, after seeing myself...totally makes me wanna get back in the gym, lol. Stefanie did a fantastic job with the shoot and made it very VERY enjoyable for my Dad and I. So, if you live in the Santa Maria (California) area..definitely look her up!  

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