Feeling a little blue today. I think it's a combination of lack of sleep (Don has a cold and was coughing all night), a slow build up of low grade stress, and a big pile of work to get through. I don't think I'm getting adequate enough nutrition either and I'm worried about catching Don's cold. Our health insurance goes away in two days which is another big stresser. I know I don't have much room to complain, there are bigger things to worry about. Unemployment is hard on spouses too. Even though we are taken care of, I've never liked being in the position of being the main breadwinner. So much responsibility. I don't feel like being responsible today.

Dogs

Cordy and the coveted Ball. Possession is 9/10 of the law.

Provocative Cordy

Are you gonna throw that? Are you? Are you?!

The camera adds 10 pouds. No, really...

Little Bunny Fu Fu

A wiener burrito on a cold February day.

Don't forget to wash behind the ear.

I think Cordy has snuck in some acting lessons since we moved to LA. Here she is working the camera in a desperate attempt to get some food. She's our little starving actress.

Potatoes of Evil

Don found these in our cupboard. It wasn't until he fondly nicknamed them "Potatoes of Evil" that I grabbed the camera and determined that these were going up on my blog.

Grandma and Grandpa

I finally updloaded the camera pics so here's a sampling of some of our recent pictureworthy events.

Lots of people asked how our visit was when Don's grandparents came down a couple of weekends ago. It was wonderful and a nice dosage of some much needed family time. So how did we spend our time? Drinking beer, eating pizza, and playing poker of course. Yep, Don's grandparents still got it! Grandma cleaned us out, Twice!







What a better way to follow up a night of poker playing than with a fresh batch of abelskivers. Grandma and Grandpa had never had them before so was fun to introduce them to a new treat. Unfortunately the camera ran out of battery before I could capture the finished product, but here Don is whipping up the batter.

Costco and Cooking

I've had some fun with the cooking blog this week. Looking for ways to stretch the budget and still get some healthy cooking in. Lunches are a bit easier now that Don's not on the road every day, but also means we need to stock the fridge a little better. I compiled some recipe groupings of items that we can prep ahead of time and freeze in individual lunch servings.

It took me three attempts but I finally successfully made my weekly trip to Costco. Tried to go on Saturday afternoon (Valentines Day) but it was so crazy I couldn't even find a parking spot and gave up. Then I went again this morning directly after church only to discover that I had left my Costco Card and Debit Card in my sweatshirt pocket that I was wearing yesterday. Good thing we don't live to far away, so back I went home to get the cards. At least I was able to gas up on my first trip out there.

Anyway, I picked up some chicken thighs and flank steak. I also bought a giant bag of chocolate chips. Figured lit would be good to have cookie ingredients on hand to keep us from splurging on desserts and other snacks. They also make a tasty but economical contribution to the potluck style dinners we're always having among friends. Also stocked up on coffee filters so we are good on those for the next year. But the real treat of the day was the splurge on the 12 pack of Costco chocolate muffins I picked up. I thought about getting the variety pack with the poppy seed and blueberry ones also, but why bother when all you really want is the chocolate. Don was so excited when I got home that he immediately went to work individually saran wrapping and repackaging each of them to preserve maximum freshness. We put the majority in the freezer. I'm thinking they'll make for a nice breakfast option or late night snack. I guess it's the little pleasures in life that keep us going. :)

So I've been busy all day doing kitchen prep work for the week. I started with a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. There was just enough dough to for two full cookie sheets with a tiny sample left over to toss in the freezer for an emergency craving. I also did all the prep work for Meal Plan #1 recently published on the Cooking Kama Sutras Blog. I prepared the Brunswick Stew and Braised Chicken Thighs according to the recipes and then boxed them up and stuck in the freezer for lunches. After the ones we ate for dinner tonight, we got 9 additional servings out of them. I also made two batches of the Asian Barbecue Chicken Marinade and tossed in the freezer to pull out when needed. I even had one small packet of chicken thighs left which I froze separately for a yet to be determined future use. Tomorrow I will tackle the flank steak according to Meal Plan #3. And then we will have a very pleasantly stocked freezer and easy week ahead of us.

So there's definitely more work and prep involved but I kind of enjoy the process. I'm looking forward to assembling some more meal plans so keep an eye out on the cooking blog.

Regrouping

Well, you could say we hit a small bump in our journey toward home ownership yesterday. Don became a statistic of the economy yesterday and was laid off along with 20% of his fellow Revchem employees. It was a bit of a blow although we were not completely blindsided. We knew it was a possibility and we planned for it. We've been through this before and are in a really good place to handle it. Overall, I feel pretty positive about it and am inclined to think that when things like this happen, a better opportunity usually comes along. We will be OK financially. Looking over our budget, I think we can get by without having to dip into our savings and may even be able to save a little more if we're really disciplined. I'm even thinking it might be nice for him to have a little "time off" to decompress and I have some pleasant fantasies about what it might be like to have a "house husband" for a while (Breakfast in bed anyone? :) The only real downers are putting off our home purchase for another year or two and Don having to walk away from a company that he committed four years of his life to and a clientele that he was proud to service. Oh yeah, and we won't have health insurance anymore, I guess that's a big one. So we will be eating health conscientiously, flossing our teeth every night, and driving extra cautiously for a while. But the truth is, and we may have to keep reminding ourselves of this, the future is wide open. All of our "needs" are covered and now Don just needs some time to figure out what his "wants" are.

Rain

The floodgates have opened. We are experiencing a massive downpour - four days of torrential rains. The kicker too is that Don's poor grandparents picked these four days out of the entire year to visit us from Idaho. Too bad for them, but as they said, they didn't come to see California, they came to see us. Regardless, we're happy they're here and enjoying our time. The rain though is awesome. It's so refreshing and cleansing. And every drop feels like such a precious commodity in a land where water is scarce. I hope it fills our reservoirs, washes away our smog, and brings us all back into respectful communion with mother nature. Bring on the showers.

Productivity

Finally, a productive weekend! It's Sunday night and the house is nice and clean. Dishes done and put away. All of the rooms are picked up and Don even tackled and conquored the laundry. Laundry baskets are empty and the clothes actually got put away too! I started the weekend off by getting all the grocery shopping done Saturday morning and then I even cooked a couple of big meals to package up for the week ready to eat (Tacos and Chili, Yummmmmmm). This morning I decided to go in to work and catch up on some much needed maintenance stuff - all the side tasks that I never have time to get to during the week. I try my best to avoid going in on the weekends which allows me to enjoy the luxury of uninterrupted time on the few occasions that I do. I spent about 4.5 hours and accomplished about 80% of what I wanted to. But I think the remaining 20% I can squeeze in during my work week. Then I came home and tackled my home office. I had a mound of papers piled up which I spent a good couple hours going through sorting into garbage, recycling, shred, filing, and things to do. I even organized my things to do into an "immediately before you go to bed pile," an "as soon as you can get to it pile," and a "when you have time pile." I accomplished everything in the first pile so those little tasks that have been eating at me for weeks like updating my address with the DMV, sending in Don's vehicle renewel check, and completing the registration for jury duty (yes, I got summoned) are no longer weighing me down. Man that feels good. And to top it off, I even did a little bit of minor rearranging and pulled my treadmill into my bedroom for easier access and less interruptions to prevent me from working out. Can this week get any better?

Oh, and in a follow up to my last email, I even went through my old files and discovered that the parking ticket reporting on my credit report was indeed paid and I have proof. So I will be getting that taken care of as well. That's why you keep records!

Credit Surprises

Moving forward with our goal of buying our first house, one of the preparatory things Don and I decided to do this weekend was order a free copy of our personal credit reports to make sure everything is in order for when we start applying for mortgages. We did discover a couple of things.

First, we have excellent credit. All of our accounts are in good standing with perfect payment history. Yes! Too bad the free report doesn't also give you a score but I'm quite sure we are in the 700s.

Second, apparently I have a parking ticket from Tacoma, outstanding since 2006. Oops, didn't even know about that one. So I'll have to make a couple of calls to get that one straightened out.

Third, while we were excited to be able to report to our potential mortgage lenders that we are 100% credit card debt free, we realized that our credit report doesn't exactly reflect this. Although we have paid off all our personal credit cards, turns out that since Don is an authorized signer on the DG credit cards, all of their credit card debt shows up on Don's personal credit report. Ouch! Don't know how I missed that one given that I'm a Credit Analyst for a living but for some reason never put it together. Well that's some new increased motivation to get those paid off even faster.

Finally, I was a little bit startled when I printed out my report and discovered the first two items on there were large credit cards that I didn't recognize. A little bit of investigating and I promptly figured out that these accounts belonged to my parents for which I was an authorized signer on their account. So I got to call my parents and ask them to take me off of their credit cards. I bet that was a fun call for them. It only took 31 years but I've finally achieved financial independence from my parents. I'm a big girl now!

Privacy

When Don and I switched over from Time Warner to AT&T service a few weeks ago, we ended up getting a new phone number. As soon as we got our new phone number, the solicitors were on us like flies to honey. It takes thirty days to process your information on the National Do Not Call Registry (which we promptly registered for) and in the mean time we were getting as many as 20 solicitations a day.

That was bad enough. Then yesterday, some girl started calling the house repeatedly asking for a guy named David, convinced that she spoke to him on our line a week ago and has been trying to reach him ever since. Although we explained to her that this is a new number and that we are the only ones that live here and that we have no idea who this person is, she has yet to get it through her thick skull. She continues to call back from a blocked phone number more than a dozen times by now hoping that David will answer the phone and immediately hangs up now when we answer it. The only thing I can think of is that she is a mentally deranged lunatic and this David guy her ex-boyfriend who we of course are hiding from her. What?!

So I called AT&T to find out what we can do about this and they came to the rescue with our new Privacy Manager phone service. Privacy Manager does not let unidentified callers through yoru line. Period. If someone calls from a blocked or unlisted phone number, our privacy manager picks up and explains to them that we do not accept unidentified calls. The caller either has to press a number to display their phone number or record a message saying who they are. Only then does our phone ring and it's not the caller directly, but the privacy manager who plays the message for us and asks us whether we would like to accept the call, reject the call, send them straight to voicemail, or option #4 (my favorite) if it is a solicitor we can play for them a prerecorded legal rejection notice instructing them to block our number from their registry or face a lawsuit! The service should be in effect by the end of the day. And although it normally costs a monthly fee of about $6.00 which I would have gladly paid, it turns out it's free with our phone package!

By the way, I'm also told that it directs out of area calls (which I'm hoping includes 800 numbers) through the privacy manager so if you are calling us from out of town, I apologize for the extra steps but please record a brief greeting and we look forward to accepting your call promptly! I'm sooooooooo excited to have control over our phone in our own house again. Is nice!

Detox Day

I need a detox day. I haven't been eating all that great lately but I think the biggest thing is my total lack of hydration. I've hardly been drinking any water, but, rather, in it's place, soda, beer, wine and coffee. One cannot live on these things and as I cannot seem to moderate myself, I think I'll have to nix them all for an extended time. Well, all of them except coffee which I will allow myself once a day. My new best friends are going to be milk, water, and iced tea, which should get my body well on track to feeling better.

When it comes to diet, I've certainly been snacking more than I need to, but I'm also trying to find the best way to eat healthy while also saving money. Don and I have cut our food budget way down while we are working on our house savings. We're trying different things like eating discounted frozen foods a few times a week to cut costs and we even bought lunch boxes and started packing our lunches every day. Some things have worked and some haven't. The frozen dinners are certainly a luxury when it comes to the convenience of cooking and cleaning which also helps a lot with curbing our impulse to eat out on nights that we don't feel like cooking, but I definitely don't feel like I'm getting the same nutritional value as when we were cooking with fresh foods every night. So this week I think I'll try cooking a couple of big bulk meals that aren't too expensive like Sausage Spinach Soup and Tacos and that way we'll have leftovers to carry us through most of the weak. Also packing lunches has worked really well for me considering that I have access to a full kitchen at work so can easily bring leftovers and convenience foods to reheat, but it has been a little bit of a struggle to get up early enough in the morning to make ready to eat foods that Don can take with him in the car. So we've figured out the balance. I will try to take my lunch most days, and we will pack him some snacks, sides and drinks so that all he has to do is pick up a sandwich or burger every day which should keep us pretty close to our $25 week lunch budget. I think for us, the big thing we've discovered when budgeting is to set realistic goals. If something costs a little bit more, but we know we can stick to it, it ends up being cheaper for us in the long run because where we tend to waste the most money is when we aren't prepared or doing something impulsive.

And lastly, on the note of detoxation, I need a detox from television. I've definitely been getting sucked in to the black hole of the boob tube and I'm pretty darn sick of it. I'm really getting to the point where I wish we didn't have television anymore. It seems like more and more of our social gatherings are centered around the television instead of more interactive games and visiting. I waste a lot of time watching programing that I really wouldn't miss if we didn't have it and when it comes to television, Don and I have different tastes and different interests anyway so we end up spending more time apart than we normally would in different rooms of our own house which obviously leads to less husband and wife activities of every kind. I miss the days where all we had was Netflix and we would choose our shows and watch the seasons through from start to finish and it was an event to look forward to at the end of the day together. So blah for television. I think the only reason I'm not ready to push giving it up just yet is because it was such a major pain going through the process recently to get everything switched over from Time Warner to AT&T that it would feel like such a waste to discontinue now after all that effort. Additionally, the one and only show I do really care about right now is Battlestar Gallactica which is in the final season. I think I am willing to stick it out through the rest of the season, but as soon as it's over, I'm really hoping Don will be open to the idea of saying goodbye to cable hopefully for the last time, and welcome back our beloved Netflix lifestyle.

Chris Angel is a Douche Bag

Best Title of a Supernatural Episode ever. Don and I are just starting the program now. Don't even care if it turns out to be a good episode or not. We've already gotten plenty of amusement out of the title alone. Love this show!

Getting Up

Enough of this sleeping in business. The dogs and I were up at 6 am this morning and got in a 3.5 mile walk. And it felt great! Such a nice way to start the day. Why is it such a battle every morning when the alarm goes off whether to sleep in or get some exercise? I always feel better when I chose the latter. It's just hard to remember that when you're buried in plush warm blankets.

Sleeping In

This is what the dogs get to do every morning while Don and I have to get up and get ready for work. Can you say "Not Fair"?

Cordy & Seumas' Trip to Griffith Park

Don and I headed out to Griffith Park today to get a little sunshine and exercise. It was a nice hike, good shade, nice rolling hills. It is a huge park and lots of other avenues to explore so we will surely be back. Here are some videos of our little adventure, as seen through the eyes of Cordy and Seumas.

Windy Picnic

I know you all have been waiting on edge for pictures of our picnic. It was a very fun afternoon but sooooooooooooo windy. Not windy cold, just knock you over windy and tie everything down windy. No, I did not accomplish everything on the list but that's OK. We made it work anyway. It was a very fun outing and hopefully the first of many.

Camille and Matt doing his Gold Digging expression - as in Precious Metals Mining, not the Girls Next Door. But that could work too.

Nathan and Camille - with the unfortunate downwind position.

Paige and Katy, flash back to the eighties.

The dogs were so cute with their ears flapping in the wind. They had a great time.

Isn't she sweet? Don't be fooled. She'll kick your @$$ at Bootcamp!


Feed the Birds. Toppins a bag.

Countdown to the picnic

Things to do before our picnic today:

1. Shower and get dressed
2. Charge the camera battery
3. Go to Target and get some supplies
4. Pick up Groceries
5. Pick up some cash for the Farmer's Market
6. Sort and start the laundry
7. Pack our lunches
8. Pack our outdoor games, blankets/towels, camera, sunblock, etc.
9. Find the dog tie outs in the garage somewhere, pack water dish
10. Light housecleaning

I have two hours. Think I can do it all? Ready, set, go!

Dog Days

There is no doubt about it. Don and I have been neglecting the dogs. We've definitely been laxed with the whole dog walking thing over the last couple of winter months. And by laxed, I mean nigh on nonexistent. No excuses either. I don't care if it gets dark earlier and it's a few degrees cooler. It's not like there is rain to contend with and we live in a super safe neighborhood. So it basically comes down to our sheer wussiness and lazy behavior.

So we are making it up to the pups by trying to cram in a months worth of excitement in one, beautiful weekend. With the Santa Anna winds blowing through and temps this weekend in the 70s and 80s, Don and I are as itching to blow off this cabin fever as the dogs. You already know from my previous blog that we have a lovely picnic planned for tomorrow which of course we'll be bringing the dogs to.

Today we decided to make the most of the day by getting in some exercise and errands at the same time. Seumas could barely contain himself in the minutes before we left when he "sensed" that we were getting ready to go for a walk and was bound and determined not to be left behind. We started off with a walk to Subway for a nice healthy lunch and a cup of water for the dogs. Then we cut through the park and over to the bank to deposit some checks for our house savings. After that we cut back through the park and saw a few people out with their small dogs and decided to join them for a little puppy play time.

It turned out to be purebread pairs day at the park. We of course were representing the Wiener Dogs. There was another couple there with two little Jack Russels, a lady with two Pomeranians, and eventually another guy showed up with his four Scottish Terriers. All the dogs got along great and Seumas ran himself ragged playing fetch and impressing everyone with how fast he could run and how high he could jump.

All of the dog owners were nice and fun people, and I have to comment that it was nice for once to be around other purebread owners. Sometimes I feel like going to the dog park is a bit like going to the pound. Everyone has their rescue dog and this great story about how they gave a condemned dog a second chance at life. Don't get me wrong. I think that is a wonderful thing and I applaud everyone who does it. I may even be one of those people some day. But I also understand what it is like to love a breed and to want that experience of bringing a pup home from the litter and raising it "from scratch" so to speak. It was nice for once to enjoy being around other dog owners without feeling like a criminal for owning a purebread. At the end of the day, we got the dogs that we did because we loved them and they were the right fit for our family just like everyone else, not because of any pricetag or certificate that they came with, and I wouldn't trade them for any other dogs in the world.

On the walk back home, we passed a guy who had a nickname for our dogs that I'd never heard before. Of course the common ones are wiener dogs, sausage dogs, and hot dogs. But as he passed by and pointed at Cordy and Seumas he commented in his thick accent, English clearly not being his first language, "Twinkies!" This of course has already become my new favorite nickname for the dogs. As we walked away, as soon as the guy was out of earshot, Don commented that with her winter weight Cordy looks more like a Ding Dong right now than a Twinkie. Alas it is true. But hopefully with this change in weather, in no time we should have them back in Twinkie Shape again.

Our total trip today was about 4 miles all together and that's not including all of the running around at the park. Right now both Cordy and Seumas are having the best nap of their lives.

Ladybug Picnic

The weather is taking a nice up turn this week. We've actually had several weeks now of 50-60 degrees which our Northern friends will make fun of us about, but it is chilly for us in our drafty, uninsulated California Bungalo. So I was so thrilled when I looked at the forecast for 80 degrees on Sunday that I immediately took the opportunity to do something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Plan a picnic! Don't know who all is going to make it yet, but we'll meet at the awesome Farmer's Market in Encino, pick up a few fresh produce snacks, and then head over to the park for a relaxing afternoon in the sun. I can hardly wait. And the best part of the afternoon is that for all the fun to be had, it's an activity that doesn't cost a bunch of money so we'll be saving money for down payment! Hopefully I'll even remember to take my camera and get some fun new pics for the blog!

Now how did that Sesame Street Song used to go.... "One, Two, Three.... Four, Five, Six.... Seven, Eight, Nine... Ten, Eleven, Twelve... And they all had fun, at the Ladybug Picnic!"

Weighing In

I'm sorry to inform you that I am not the Biggest Loser. But our contest finally ended at work yesterday and overall I lost 3.5 pounds. I'm pretty happy with my results. Congratulations to my co-worker Karen who won the contest losing 10 pounds in 10 weeks! But she does have a wedding to prepare for. Can you say "motivation"?! I've been enjoying my Bodybugg Armband that Don got me for Christmas. It measures your calories burned and then you go on the website and log in everything you eat so you can see whether you have a calorie surplus or defecit for the day. It definitely takes the guess work out of dieting. And the immediate feedback and visual results are pretty inspiring.