Good dog, bad puppy

I happened to make a comment to a friend of mine that the puppies have not been as destructive on our home now that they are not puppies. We've actually taken to letting them have the run of the house when we aren't there, which is a huge change from last fall.

Most days I find them basking in the sun, leaving my house alone.



However, they puppies haven't completely given up their puppy hood. The only comparison that comes to mind is in the form of biking wisdom. As any cyclist knows, the fateful words from one of your riding buddies that will guarantee a bad ride is, "I've never had a flat tire." Every time someone has said that before a bike ride, the entire group ends up on a shoulder somewhere patching a tube and the humbled rider has a lesson on changing their first flat tire. I have done the doggie equivalent. I made the fateful mistake of bragging about the puppies improvement and even mentioned how well they were doing with the dog bed. I told my friend that the dogs had stopped chewing as much.

About 20 minutes after that conversation, I came downstairs where it had snowed in my living room. There was doggie bed stuffing everywhere.

Lucy was very pleased with herself. This was actually taken after I had cleaned up the bulk of the stuffing. I had no idea how much stuffing that dog bed held!

How many engineers...

How many engineers does it take to figure out that the GFI plug in the garage flipped the power off to the water filter?

Apparently, two engineers is not the correct answer. It actually only takes one nice technician from the water filter company.

On the plus side, the other problems with the filter will be fixed, soon.

One habenero...

I love to cook. Anyone who knows me will agree to that. Whether I cook well or not is debatable, but I do enjoy trying new things.

My latest cooking experimentations have included peppers. In particular, spicier peppers. I've grilled peppers as a side dish and added them to mango salsa over shrimp. My most recent attempt was an oven roasted pepper dip. I've made this before with only sweet peppers, but I thought a little heat might add some depth.



I roast the peppers the night before and let them cool so I can peel the skins off. I treated all the peppers the same, including those 2 innocuous looking little orange peppers. Once I got the peppers and onions into the oven to roast, I cleaned up and washed my hands.

Once I had the peppers roasting, I decided to snack on a pluot we had picked up from the farmers market. About 15 minutes later, I noticed that my lips were burning. It took me a second, and I realized that the residue from the habenero must still be on my hands.

I scrubbed my hands like you would see an actor playing a doctor scrub for surgery and they still burned.

In the future, I will use gloves to handle the peppers.

Roasted pepper dip

1 sweet red pepper
1 sweet yellow pepper
1/4 sweet onion
1 or 2 habanero pepper
1 clove garlic
kosher salt
pepper
cooking oil
Cream cheese
Sour cream
juice of half a small lemon

The night before you want your dip, preheat your over to 400 degrees.

Lightly coat a large baking sheet with oil. Clean and cut peppers into quarters, throw out the seeds and veins. Lightly toss in oil. Spread out on the baking sheet and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cut the onion into rings (1/4 inch thick or so). Add to sheet, coat in oil and add salt and pepper. Place into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. Remove small habenero pepper from pan and continue to roast larger peppers for 20 minutes longer.

Place onions and peppers into a plastic container and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, peel the skins from the peppers.

Take the garlic clove and crush into a paste with some kosher salt. Add this to the bowl of your food processor. Add the peeled peppers and onions and mix to a coarse paste. Add 1 heaping Tablespoon of cream cheese and sour cream and mix. Add additional Cream cheese and sour cream until desired consistency is reached. Add fresh lemon juice from half of a small lemon.

Serve with chips!

The sound of....

I am fairly certain that whomever said "Silence is golden" did not live with a three year old.

Sometimes silence can mean that mommy will be very busy cleaning in the very near future.

Big N and his telescope

We've had some plumbing issues lately. Really, Pete has had plumbing issues, because I leave the pleasant surprises for him once they go beyond my level of capabilities.

Aren't I a wonderful wife?

More than once, we are surprised by a mass that will not flush. It has been discouraging to try to figure out what is going on. My poor daughter has suffered most of the blame due to the timing of her learning how to use the facilities and the timing of our issues. Little N is counting sheets of TP for each use.

I've started saving for her therapy later it life, really I have. And still, the plumbing issues persist.

Pete had to invest in a heavy duty snake with a very long cable. If you are not aware of what a snake is for, as far as it relates to plumbing, count your blessings.

This evening, Big N walked into the hall with a very concerned expression. In his hand was an empty roll of toilet paper. I helped him find a full roll and then reminded him to be careful with the amount he pulled off the new roll.

"But, Mommy, if I use the entire roll, I get a new telescope."

I sat there in silence for a minute, deciding how to address his telescope and thinking of the reoccurring incidents of major plumbing catastrophes. He proceeded to open the bottom drawer in the bathroom, which held 2 telescopes and showed me that it was empty of fresh rolls.

We worked on how to count sheets. We're working on counting up only as many as he is old.

Hopefully this works, for Pete's sake, but mostly for the sake of my bathroom floor.

Baking with a three year old

You might never know...

The bread we served was especially delicious with the strawberry rhubarb jam we made last summer.

I didn't bother shaping it into a loaf, instead making a rustic loaf baked on the pizza stone.

Special Ingredient

Little N was watching me make some bread dough. I am planning on proofing it over night and baking it tomorrow before we have dinner with Pete's mom and sister.

Little N reached into the bowl and yanked off a piece of dough. I didn't stop her, there weren't any eggs in the recipe and I had sampled it myself to make sure it wasn't too salty. I turned around for a second and looked back to see her patting the dough with a pretty grossed out expression.

"Yucky! I put it back!"

The question is, will I bake and forget to mention our special ingredient or start from scratch...

She won't be able to make any noise

We stopped by a nice little toy store about 45 minutes from home. Little N had her heart set on a kazoo. Pete was convinced that she wouldn't be able to make a sound out of it and talked me into buying it.

The little microphone on the camera does not do it justice.

Pig tails turned puppy toys

My daughter has finally grown enough hair for pig tails. However, she has not learned how to sit still while she has her pig tails put in, which means on the days she asks for 2, her ponies are not straight. Last Christmas, Santa gave her pony tail holders with long ribbons and she can finally keep them in her hair. She wore them for the first time over the weekend.



The ribbon pony tail holders on two ponies required a dance to show her enthusiasm. There was lots of jumping and shaking as she pranced and wiggled all over, shaking her head from side to side, giggling when her ribbons tickled her nose. Unfortunately, her dancing drew attention from the puppies as she walked out the back door and continued her dance for daddy.

I was not aware that we had pony tail attack dogs. My poor daughter was ambushed. She had a puppy on either pony the minute she walked out to the grass. With 6 lbs on one side and 7 lbs on the other, she went down on her back as the puppies wagged their tails and wiggled and played with their pony tail toys. It happened faster than you can say, "Bad dog! Bad dog!"



The morale of the story, I do not have to attach dog toys to my daughter's head to make the puppies like her.

I cannot follow directions

I have been searching for a vest pattern for my daughter and I thought I hit the jackpot. My friend Karin gave me this great yarn, Lambs Pride Bulky. The pattern called for 1 skein of bulky yarn. I of course started it over the weekend and it's coming along fast. That is until I begun to notice that I had not split out the sleeves and I didn't have a lot of yarn left. I have serious issues when I buy yarn, I'm so scared I'll run out that I always buy one skein extra. Meaning, running low, makes me panicky. It's so unlike me to not end up with a ton of extra yarn.

I finally noticed that I was 25 yards short and I put it down to figure out what I wanted to do. I could (A) pull it out, ball it up and put it back into my stash, or (B) keep going. I opted to keep going, but I modified the pattern just a little to try and save some of the yarn. I cut out one round and then I made the arm holes a little larger by binding off 8 stitches instead of 6. This makes me end up doing the cable twists on the wrong side. That's not so bad and it still looks ok. At least on size 10.5 needles, I should know soon that I need to pull it out.