all-inclusive

For someone who got an Easter basket well into her twenties, this was a decidedly non-Easter-y Easter.

(To be fair, it should be noted that those Easter baskets would have ceased much sooner, were it not for the fact that my brother is so much younger than I am.  The Easter Bunny had to keep up appearances, of course.)

The pendulum has swung the other way, so there were no chocolate bunnies or peeps.  That's ok with me.  There was guacamole, so I'm good.

We also watched political coverage on TV, as we do on Sunday mornings. This week's panel of pundits for one show was assembled specifically to discuss the role of religion in public life, so we got to hear the more conservative folks insinuate subtly and not so subtly that we're immoral and generally not-good people because we lack strong faith in a higher power.  So that was fun.

While I may not miss the religious or confectionary aspects of the holiday, I do hope that all of you who do celebrate had a wonderful day. 

No, wait, not just those who celebrate.  Let's go for broke here: a wonderful day for all!

thirty-three

I'm 33 years old now, you guys!

My birthday was yesterday, and it was delightful.  I did have to work, but otherwise it was sunny* and warm(ish), and I was bombarded -- in the best possible way -- with good wishes from friends and family.

I haven't had many opportunities to cook dinner lately, so I whipped up a batch of shrimp fried rice* that turned out to be quite tasty.  Even more delicious was the chocolate truffle cheesecake The Awesome Husband had made for me.  He separated eggs and baked a springform pan in a water bath for me.  That's true love, folks.

*Key highlights of my birthday include it being nice enough outside to hang laundry on the clothesline and cooking my own dinner.  I genuinely enjoyed both.   Perhaps I'll refrain from speculating as to what that says about my personality.

naptime (which is most of the time)

That's our kitchen floor and the leg of our dining table.  Mr. Cecil brought his cushion in here and conked out while we were eating dinner.

Lying on the floor near or under the table during meals is commonplace for him.  Maybe he added the cushion for extra cuteness so I'd post about him again.

If that's what it was, he's not thinking about it now.  He's out like a light, and snoring.

I just hope I don't have to shovel tomorrow.

Here in New England, we had spring-like weather (approaching summer-like, even) while it was still technically winter.  Spring has officially arrived on the calendar, but this week we've had cold temperatures and bracing winds.  The forecast for tomorrow includes snow.

Sorry, folks.  This may be my fault. 

I may have gotten carried away and brought the wrath of Murphy's Law down on all of us northeasterners.  I planted radish, carrot, and kale seeds in the garden last week.  Basil, cucumber, and butternut squash seeds went in peat pots and are sitting in a south facing windowsill.

Over the weekend, my husband's seven year old niece came over and we planted zinnias, marigolds, peppers, broccoli, radishes, and rainbow chard for her to bring home.  I'm hoping to get some updates on her plants, because I'm interested to find out what happens when you plant vegetable seeds all mixed together, and when you pour an entire seed packet of marigolds into one four-inch pot.

I'm crossing my fingers that what happens is you get a whole lot of marigolds.

Boring

I haven't been posting much lately, and that's kind of bumming me out.  There simply hasn't been that much interesting stuff to say.

"I was sick for two days, and then dealt with a lingering cough for two weeks after that."

"I've been working a lot."

"Our dog is still awesome and cute."

See?  Boring.

I'll be starting seeds for the garden this weekend, though, so soon I should have some riveting pictures of seedlings with which to usher in another season of gardening posts.  So there's that.

Funny how that works.

This is the best weekend I've had in a long time.

Saturday morning, The Awesome Husband came home from being out for a few hours to find me in a whirlwind of productivity.  I'd washed dishes and laundry, swept the house, cleaned all the surfaces in the refrigerator, taken out the trash, started dinner marinating, and made a batch of pancakes.  (When I noted that I hadn't yet had coffee, his response was "... I'm scared."  It probably was a tad overwhelming.)

I did manage to tone it down for most of the rest of the weekend.  We spent time with friends, and I got to dance (dancing, for me, pretty much guarantees a good weekend).  We watched quite a bit of TV.  We braved today's 35 degree weather and our lack of proper training to run a 5k.

Amazingly, it wasn't until noon today, Sunday, that it hit me, why my essentially ordinary -- productive, pleasant, but not extraordinary -- weekend has been filling me with so much joy: it's the first weekend in a while that I haven't put in any time at work. 

Hmm, perhaps there's a correlation, eh?

tasty vittles

Have I mentioned that we've become those people? The kind of people who feed their dog raw food, to be exact.

It's actually much easier than the few months when we were cooking his food. Oh, that was a nightmare. Every few weeks we'd run out of puppy meatloaf at the end of the day and realize that a new batch needed to be baked up before we could go to sleep.

With raw food, it's just a matter of taking a few tupperware containers out of the fridge and putting some of the contents of each into his dish. Some chicken livers. A bit of butternut squash (what? it helps his tummy stay happy). A few pieces of raw meat with bones in it (emphasis on raw, as cooked bones can be dangerous).

YUM!

Every time the meat portion of his meal involves a drumstick, a little part of me thinks we should have an oil painting commissioned of Mr. Cecil in Henry VIII garb...

But I digress.

It's working out really well for us so far. He has more energy (though I suppose it's tough to compare to when he had heartworms in his system), and he doesn't EVER turn up his nose at meals anymore. The sound of chicken bones being crushed by the force of his jaws and teeth has certainly taken some getting used to, though, I will say that.

Incidentally, we got past a lot of our concerns by reading this book that our vet recommended. (I won't get any benefit whatsoever if you buy the book through that link, it was just the easiest way to show it to you.)

But that's not to say that you have to go the raw food route in order to be a good pet owner. I mean, our cat eats dry food from the grocery store.

... hmm. Maybe that's why she hates Cecil.