to new hair.  Or change.  Just got my hair cut again, asymetrical-style.  Woo!  Had highlights put in, too.  I feel like a flapper, which is great!

but I think I kind of miss Iowa.  Wait, scratch that.  I don’t think I miss Iowa per say, more like I really miss my friends and family from Iowa.  Guess it has been a year and a half now that I have lived in Philadelphia and I haven’t returned for a visit in a little over a year.   

To my friends and family that MIGHT be reading this blog, I miss you!  Please come for a visit sometime.

I got bored with the mostly white theme I had previously used.  Through my boredom, I managed to choose one of the less obnxious preloaded themes offered by WordPress.  If I knew how to design my own, I would do that.  For now, I suppose I will have to settle with what you see.

If you know me well, and probably if you know me only a little, you know that I love everything by Joss Whedon. I’m a HUGE fan of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. I’m freaking out waiting for the mid season release of Dollhouse. To hold me over until then, my friend Bob sent me a head’s up on Joss’s new endeavor Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog! It was so good!! Dr. Horrible is portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris, which for some reason, I really love him.  I couldn’t have been happier seeing him involved. One of my faves from the Whedonverse (or Buffyverse, whatever), Nathan Fillion, plays Captain Hammer and it was so good to see him in something new from Joss. Good ol’ Mal…

If you haven’t watched it, check it out if you can. It’s only on I-tunes now, I believe. You won’t regret it!

Oh, and just for geeking out purposes, did anyone check out Drew Goddard at the end? Haha!

Hey, got a new haircut! I love this salon!

I have naturally curly hair and for those of you that have the same, you know that it’s horrible to control without looking like a crazed white woman trying to sport an afro. Not my deal. So for years, I’ve been straightening it when it’s short. I’ve done insane things, like using a relaxer formula for African-American hair which then melted my hair (let’s not go there), to using a ceramic straightening iron.

After moving to Philadelphia, I looked for a place that used mostly, if not all, vegan products. If you are not familiar with Aveda, check it out. Their products are 99% vegan! In addition to not slaughtering animals and squishing bugs for the sake of vanity, the company uses products from countries needing a boost to their economy. However, their biggest seller would be how environmentally conscious they are. They use plant-based ingredients and alternative methods in which to produce their products. Lastly, they donate a percentage of their profits. How many companies can say all that?

Yeah, I sound like an advertisement. But I completely support the company! They say green is the new black this year… ;p

Back to my story. I finally found a kick-ass salon that uses only Aveda products in Manayunk called Art Plus Science.  Stylist extraordinaire Jason was recommended to me to work with my crazy curly hair and I could not be happier! If anyone I know actually comes to visit me sometime (not so subtle hint), I can take you there if you’d like. The place rocks.   They are moving soon to a new place on Main St, still in Manayunk, that will be ENTIRELY green. I love that place.

And I’ve just realized I have really turned into a girly girl. What the hell?

I’m going to try to keep this somewhat short. Ha, we’ll see!

We’ve had some problems concerning Remy’s health. In early March, we noticed Remy had a lump on his front left paw, which caused a limp. If you’ve met Remy, you know he’s incredibly hyperactive and does things that could cause an injury at any time. At first, we disregarded it as a crazy Remy injury. It seemed to get worse, so I took him to the vet. They found it to be some sort of soft tissue lump, but it need a biopsy.

We then started going to CARES in Langhorne, PA, about 45 minutes from our house. In total, he had three biopsies and several chest x-rays before it was determined that it was indeed cancer, but we were unsure what type of cancer. All the biopsies could confirm was it was a slow moving, non-invasive sarcoma that was intruding the joint and bone. We opted for a complete leg amputation as treatment, rather then chemo and/or radiation treatment.

Dr. David Puerto performed the operation. If you ever have an animal that needs this sort of care, I really recommend him! He’s wonderful, professional, and very caring to the animals under his care. We brought Remy in on a Wednesday and thought we would get him back on Saturday or Sunday. I received a call on Thursday morning from Dr. Puerto that Remy was doing very well and was able to go home! I left work and went there immediately. Before leaving, Dr. Puerto popped in and told me he saw his first two-legged urination from Remy. Less then 24 hours from having his leg amputated, he was balancing on two legs to pee like a boy! What a trooper.

Currently, Remy is still healing. He’s doing very well. His attitude is very positive and he walks fine around the house. He still climbs on our window ledge, which he’s NOT supposed to do, nu the manages it on three legs. His hair is growing back, slowly but growing. He gets along well with the other animals and there are no real issues. Overall, we are very happy with the outcome and are very, very happy to still have Remy alive, well, and happy.

Between the medical issues with Remy and my job keeping me very, very busy, I’ve fallen behind on so many things. I’ve lost touch with some friends and am now just catching up with everyone. Soon, Rob and I hope to start another blog. This one will be geared towards to foodies! We make so many meals, we thought, why not photograph it and share what we do? We got a lot of inspiration from Cherie’s blog, which is completely gorgeous. Hope to get that going by the end of the month. I’ll post it when I do!

So if I haven’t contacted you lately, you now know why. I hope to not get that out of touch again!

Hey everyone…sorry for not updating this in soooo long!  For those of you that have talked with me over the last couple months, you know things have been hectic.  Right now, I’m at the very end of a big part of our study at work and it consumes most of my time.  Once I have moved past that (sometime this week), I will catch up with everyone.

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…

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.

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.