Not again…help! March 23, 2008

We have mice…again!  It isn’t too bad yet, but I just found an area in the food pantry where the mice had chewed through a bag of food.  

This sucks.  We have been fighting this problem on and off for about a year.  We DO NOT want to harm the mice at all and have been taking preventative steps to keep them out of our kitchen.  We have two sound conditioners that are suppose to keep them out of a room of choice by emitting a horrible sound that disturbs and causes them to leave their nest.  We have humane traps up (though not active at the moment) everywhere with peanut butter inside to catch them and we release them at a park about a mile away from the house.  We keep almost all of our food in plastic containers to rid them of the smell that may draw them to the area, while making it harder (if not impossible) to chew through.  However, I’ve been a bit behind on that lately and just jammed them in the pantry.  Probably a big mistake. 

I thought we were doing everything we could.  Has anyone else had this problem?  What humane methods have you used? Am I missing something?  

I thought it was going to be a relaxing Sunday.  Now I’m going back to the kitchen to clean and disinfect absolutely everything.  We just got some new groceries for the pantry that I haven’t put away, so I will be organizing that into containers all day…

Birthday Cake March 23, 2008

My first official food picture on my blog. Cherie saw it coming. First and foremost, I do not take photos anywhere as beautiful as Cherie does on her blog. Her vision when taking photos is amazing and not one I can live up to.

Second, if I continue to post picture at all in the future (and this should go without saying), everything is completely vegan. I like to bake. Sundays are usually my day to bake. I find it really relaxing and it’s part of my ‘me’ time. I like to alter recipes however I see fit at the time. Sometimes I do the recipe exactly as listed. Sometimes I change it as to use whatever we have around or I might cut the fat and sugar out as much as possible. Just depends on my mood!

As for the cake I made yesterday, I did not alter it the cake itself. It was a birthday cake and I pretty much wanted to see what it would be like exactly as it was listed. I did change the frosting, however. I made a coconut cream cheese frosting. The cake is Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake from Vegan With a Vengeance (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz). If you do not know Isa and Terry’s work, you should get to know it. It’s soooo yummy! The cake is no exception. Delicious, very moist, and filled with yummy goodness. It’s somewhat heavy, but certainly not nearly as heavy as you might think. I mean, come on, it’s a carrot cake. It’s not going to be all light and fluffy with all that stuff in it.

Officially a Philly girl March 23, 2008

I just got a new phone and switched to a Philly number.  Rob said I’m officially a Philly girl now.  It’s not the driver’s license, not the address, not moving here that makes me a Philly resident.  It’s the 215 area code.  If I haven’t already called you (and I prob haven’t) and you want the new number, send me an email. 

Birthday stuff March 23, 2008

Yesterday was my birthday and to celebrate it, we decided to go with Sara and Alan for zydeco dancing lessons and to give it all a try.  Unfortunately, I fell while walking Buster and my knee hit a concrete block-ouch!  I had a hard enough time walking around, so dancing was out.  We went out anyway and really enjoyed watching everyone dance.  It might be something we will try in the future.When we got home, we had a very big surprise for us.  For those who do not know, Remy had been in and out of the vet lately with a very bad limp. We had x-rays and blood work done and found out he has a spot on his bone.  It might be a bone cyst,  but at this point, we don’t know.  We are taking him to an orthopedic surgeon this Thursday.  In the meantime, the vet gave us a bottle of pain pills to give him.  When we walked in last night, we found that same bottle of pain pills on the floor completely chewed open and absent of pills.  Buster had consumed approximately 14 pain pills, possibly right before we got home.  We went into a huge panic and got him in the car.  We got to the emergency vet at 11:30 or so last night and they had to induce vomiting.  Luckily, he still hadn’t digested his dinner so we think it may have filtered some of the meds he swallowed.  He’s still at the emergency vet under observation.  They have to keep him about 48 hours to insure he doesn’t go into kidney failure.  He’s doing really well so far and we’re hoping to take him home sometime tomorrow night.We currently have five animal under our care: Buster, Remy, and Chloe (the dogs) and Neko and Amelie (the rats).  Three of the five are currently sick.  Yeah.  We’re not feeling too good about all that!    

So I’m thinking March 19, 2008

about doing a little bit of a diet. Not like one that’s all strict and crazy. I just really started feeling squishy in places I don’t want to feel squishy. I think I want to start exercising more. We started construction of a new bathroom upstairs and it took over the exercise room so that we can’t use the equipment. I could definitely do some other things, but I think I’ve been lazy about it. My birthday is coming up, so I don’t want to start until after that. We’re going to eat at Horizons on Thursday and that’s not exactly low-fat. So after that, I’m going to try to cut down on some things and start exercising more. Nothing drastic. Just a little here and there. I don’t hate my body or anything, just want to be a little more fit.

NYC weekend March 19, 2008

Overall, NYC was fun! Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so no fun pictures. Oh well.

We got in Newark (where we were staying) in the early evening on Friday and planned to hear Richard Dawkins give a talk in NYC. However, traffic was nasty and we couldn’t get to the subway in enough time. We decided to blow that off and get food. Parking sucks in Newark, so we kind of took the car in circles until we could find a place with vegan food. We got Thai takeout and went back to the hotel. It was fun for us. We had takeout AND watched Sweeney Todd in a place where we didn’t have to do the dishes after OR cook the yummy food. Score.

The next morning, we slept in but I didn’t feel well when I finally moved. We stayed in bed a little longer then we should have, then headed out to the subway. We didn’t get into NYC until really late, so we missed out on meeting Jen. Ugh! That sucked. But we did see Ground Zero, which was really weird. We tried to see the Statue of Liberty, but we missed the last ferry but ONE MINUTE. So we walked up Broadway and just checked everything out.

Weirdest thing happened. I swear I walked straight by an old friend of mine from school, Justin Carter. I mean, I was in NYC and to happen to walk by someone I used to hang with in Iowa when I was a teenager…bizarre. I didn’t stop because I was a touch on the shocked side and now I have no way of contacting him to see if it was him. Last I heard from him he was living in Chicago, so it’s not a stretch that he might be in NYC or Brooklyn by now. Hmm. Hope he’s doing well. He was always a very sweet and talented person.

We decided to stop at Pure, a totally vegan and raw food restaurant. We ordered the five course dinner. At first we were really disappointed because we got dishes that had literally one or two bites to it. Although I realized it was a tasting menu, I thought there would be more. But over time, we found they were giving us more then five courses. We probably had more like eight courses, ending with a full dessert each. Yum! We liked it a lot, but probably not a place we would go to again. It was a tad on the expensive side for us. However, it was so interesting to see all of the amazing options for raw food.

After dinner, we went to see Doug Stanhope. If you didn’t hear, there was a horrible accident in the city that night. A crane fell and killed seven people and fifteen were injured. Because of the accident, the city was even more crazy then usual. It took us forever to get to the show and we walked in just as the show started. Unfortunately, two REALLY big jerks sat next to us. They talked all through Doug’s performance. Rob tried to get them to quiet down, but they were super rude and kept babbling. Apparently, they became argumentative at one point. We ended up leaving right after getting the check. I hate people that ruin your night and cause you to leave an awesome show.

So that was the weekend. Much more exciting then most of our weekends!

Weekend trip March 14, 2008

Work has been incredibly busy lately. We just started year two in our study, so that means I started traveling to universities to work on the study, meaning a long commute. The also means my hours have increased, which is a real drag. Since I’m a little burned out at the moment, and my birthday is next week, we decided to go to NYC for the weekend!

While we are there, we’re hoping to meet up with my friend, Jen. I don’t think I’ve seen her in two years! She moved to Albany with her boyfriend, Jake, to attend art school. Both are incredibly talented.Also while we’re there, Rob and I are going to see one of our favorite comedians,Doug Stanhope Seriously, check him out sometime. Awesome.

Pictures are being added… March 4, 2008

I found some pictures!! I love Yahoo!!!! Yahoo, my main email provider, keeps a list of all the pictures you send and receive. I’ve sent quite a few of the photos from my Dell to various friends and there’s a log of it. Now I just have to download them again and hopefully shrink them or they’ll be HUGE.

Look for new pictures in my previous posts. I’m just going to add them there.

Couple other bits of info March 3, 2008

I’m no longer the organizer of the Philadelphia Animal Rights Meetup Group. I stepped down for a variety of reasons. Rather then list them all out, I’ll just sum it up by saying things were incredibly stressful and now they aren’t. I’m very content with my decision and know that I will remain active with animal rights work in the future. Hopefully it will be with a wonderful group of people.

We also have completed our first term of pottery, but the second term was canceled. We’re now waiting for spring session II to start. Rob is taking a welded sculpture class and I’m taking a bookmaking class. Fun!

Also, here’s a picture of Chloe:

She’s adorable, right?!? It’s the only picture I have at the moment. I seriously need to take more.

…and this year so far March 3, 2008

As mentioned in my previous post, we brought in the New Year at Tracey’s house. We had a chance to spend time with her, some of her lovely neighbors, Tracey’s mom, Sara, Alan, John, and Cherie. Quite a good time!

(Left to right: Cherie, Sara, me, and Tracey)

Most of January and February has been spent working on the house. Rob has been working on the construction of the new bathroom, while I have been working on odds and ends in the house. Unfortunately, the construction has been put on a temporary hold as Rob found he has to do some rewiring…to the entire house! Ugh. It’s been less then pleasant. He’s been working like crazy on all the electrical work and it seems like it will never end. Poor guy.

Other then that, we had one big bit of news. Or, two rather. One good, one not good at all. So on with the good news!

We have a new addition to our little family. We adopted a rescue greyhound! Her name is Chloe and she’s adorable (and knows it, too). We didn’t plan on taking in another dog at all. Actually, we went to Petco to look at some new vegan dog food when I noticed a greyhound rescue organization was at the place that day. I mentioned it to Rob, then went down on one knee to play with the greyhounds, and the soon-to-be Chloe came right up to us. She won Rob’s affection immediately. He wanted to take her home right then! However, we decided to ask questions and go home to discuss and think about it. We went back and forth, but the next morning decided to make an appointment to see her with our dogs. As you can guess, everyone was on their best behavior and she was a perfect fit. We filled out the appropriate paperwork and picked her up the following weekend.

Since then, Chloe and Remy run around like best friends. She immediately fit in like she had lived there her entire life. It was amazing to us because, by the time she moved in, she had only been retired two weeks from the racing track. She didn’t even know how to use stairs and had to be carried up and down! We’ve made some adjustments and she’s learned some bad habits (like taking off with random objects and chewing on the corners of our coffee table), but overall we’re very happy to have her in our home.

Now the bad news…one of our rats, Neko, developed a large tumor under her left arm and has had some swelling in her left eyes. I took her to the vet and unfortunately, she has cancer in both areas. Although rats are prone to develop cancer, we hadn’t expected it so soon. We’ve only had Neko and Amelie about a year and thought this wouldn’t happen for around another year. The vet said she’s not in any pain at the moment, but she will be later as the tumor grow. He said we have a couple months to decide how we would like to approach this. We have an option to have the eye removed to try to minimize pain and prolong her life. However, it’s not guaranteed. It’s heartbreaking and something we will have to discuss further as time goes on.

So other then that, not much is going on. We’re considering going to NYC for a few days in March. We’d like to visit the city and see Doug Stanhope at Caroline’s that weekend. No other plans for travel at the moment because I’m starting an important part of the study at my job, so no time off for me until June.

Also, the Dell remains dead at the moment, so with that does the bulk of my photos. I’m trying to post something here and there. I don’t have many pictures on my Mac at this time.

Hope everyone is well!