2 Things Challenge: Paint/Corner

In a corner of my living room (and my bedroom and my office), it has recently come to my attention that my elderly bunny has developed a taste for paint chips. So long, deposit.

What is with our pets being so destructive?? We can't seem to catch her in the act. Everytime we hear chewing noises coming from Dee Dee's room I check on her, and she's behaving herself and chewing on her favorite wicker toy or rearranging her cardboard bunny cottage. She has plenty of safe, chewable objects and toys to choose from. But this is still happening.

I haven't noticed any change in her appetite or health, and her pellets are perfectly normal. So whatever she's getting out of this behavior doesn't seem to be harming her health. But I'm currently brainstorming for a way to bunny-proof baseboards, any suggestions you have are very welcome! And the wee culprit is confined to her room.

Blueberry Cake

A laid back Saturday. We had a buckwheat pancake breakfast and somehow I forgot about the very ripe, fresh blueberries that were sitting in the fridge waiting to be used. They were still waiting when I'd cleaned up the breakfast mess. After staring at them for a while, I went and looked up THIS recipe. And THIS is what came out of it. Very good, but a little heavier than I expected. I'm still working on getting baked goods to turn out at this altitude. I'll get it right sometime!

Warm from the oven, with a dollop of cinnamon dough ice cream. Aaaah, simple pleasures.

2 Things Challenge: Coffee/Tea

The first challenge of the new year! Yesterday, my hubby took me up to Sleepytime Drive in Boulder, to the Celestial Seasonings factory. Oh the sights and smells I wish I could share with you. But I wasn't allowed to take my camera onto the actual floor and I haven't figured out yet how to send smells electronically. And the factory itself wasn't "on" that day, all the machines were quiet and resting. But our very enthusiastic guide, Lydia, took us into "The Mint Room", where the menthol from peppermint, spearmint, and catnip overwhelmed our sinuses with it's smelly goodness. And we were introduced to all the machinery in the place that our guide Lydia had given first names to. Like I said, she was REALLY enthusiastic. ("Ruby" is the one I remember, the machine that looked like a giant yellow arm, that can suction cup a bunch of boxes and lift them onto a palate.) I learned that on a good day, they process about 10 million tea bags with a shelf life of about two years and ship them all over the world to 35 different countries. After years and years of sipping and loving this tea, I got to see where those colorful little boxes come from. So I'm not able to share images with you from INSIDE the facility, but while we were watching a ten minute C.S. film outside the entrance, I snapped a pic of.....the Sleepytime Bear! Looks like he's had one cup too many.

Here is the original sewing machine they used to make muslin tea bags, when the company was first starting out.

And for those of you into haute couture, here is an outfit made out of packaged tea bags. Some creative artistic type has a little too much time on their hands. It was behind glass and hard to get a decent shot of. I'd wear it!

And lastly, one of my favorite caffeinated C.S. teas is Bengal Spice. So when I noticed the artwork painted on the walls of the building, I just had to take this shot.

And as the final part of the challenge, here is a shot of my coffee cup this morning. Not very creative I know, but Shaun and I aren't big coffee drinkers. Usually when he wants a cup of coffee, I'm already halfway through my first cup of tea or vice versa. So instead of using a machine, we bust out my simple little one cupper. Mm, fair trade french roast.

Museums, Muffin Pans, and Midwinter Blues

Good gravy, it's been a rough few days into the new year. To keep the blues from settling, I decided to break in my new dough tamper and mini muffin pans, and try a new recipe. Ta da, jam tarts!

Some time ago, I came across this recipe over at Evil Shenanigans. I'm a little nervous anytime I'm doing anything with pastry dough, I end up with a lot of disasters. But these were a snap! This dough bakes into a buttery shortbread. Very good & VERY RICH. I experimented with the filling, using a generic strawberry jelly, some Crofter's organic blueberry jam I've been hoarding, and a seedless organic mixed berry conserve. They're going fast, I hope there are some left in the morning to take in to work. I used Earth Balance and soy milk to make it vegan for my co-worker, Ritch.

We went to see the King Tut exhibit at the Denver Art Museum on Sunday. I don't regret going but it was a little disappointing. The artifacts themselves were fascinating, but it was overcrowded and poorly organized. And of course there were a lot of thoughtless, self absorbed twits in the crowd. And the cheesy icing on the cake was being forced to have to exit through the tiny gift shop, which was a nightmare of merchandising and way too many small children running around. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures once we were let inside. There were sentries standing on every corner, like agents from The Matrix with their little earpieces. The security was understandable; there were some pretty cool artifacts and a lot of them were gold. There were statues of course, furniture the king used, gorgeous jewelry, a tiny carved set of traveling games, even a marble toilet seat! The sandals that his mummy wore were very thin pounded gold, I almost sobbed out loud wanting to take a picture! But this was the best I could do.

You can look here for more info about King Tut's cartouche.

Cold Snap

The first snow of the season showed up today and it's really coming down. We're expecting to get around ten inches overnight. Sigh, we're missing the fireplace we had at Worthington Park Blvd. in Ohio. I'm looking forward to a fantastic weekend: New Year's, possibly visiting Celestial Seasonings in Boulder, and we have tickets to the King Tut Exhibit on Sunday!

Romeo S. Dogpants is doing really well. He's got cabin fever, but his tummy is healing up just fine. He got his staples out on Tuesday. Now he's coming down off prescription painkillers, but don't worry, he's getting spoiled rotten.

These were a birthday present that got here yesterday. And they're juuuuust right. Yeah, I'm one of THOSE nerds.

A Rare Shadow

I was really looking forward to the lunar eclipse back on the 20th and I wasn't disappointed. I was watching the clock and running downstairs to look at the sky every five minutes, starting around 11:00 MST. At first, the air was really damp and the moon had a halo of vapor. When I took this photo, the eclipse had actually started, but you can barely make it out.

The first time I was able to get a decent photo was at this point. Got to see the whole thing pretty well, the vapor halo was really only an issue behind the lens. I took this shot at a couple of different angles, just because.

People from everywhere were watching the same thing from different angles. And just look at all the different perspectives! It really was a religious experience for nature and astronomy enthusiasts everywhere.

I wonder how cold an eclipse's shadow is.

Belated Romeo Update and Pics

First of all, happy Boxing Day everyone! So, if you are a friend or family member, you are probably aware of the drama that has been playing out the past month in our home. My adorable and emotionally unstable step-dog Romeo has been through some tough personal times recently. I purchased and put up a pet door to my office so that little old Sadie, a.k.a. "Squeaky Dee McGee" the bunny feels safe and secure in a dog-free room. We've never had any worries that he would hurt her, but pick on her, YES. She can come and go as she likes now, but Romeo can't come into her personal space and bully her. Before, we were always very careful to make sure my office door was shut (with Dee inside) when neither of us was home, and Romeo could come in while I was here. But the temptations for Romeo to come in, chew up her toys and help himself to her litterbox were too strong and he's sneaky. I was unhappy about it, Dee Dee was definitely upset about it, and since I frequently don't feel like putting up with his macho alpha dog moves, I decided enough was enough; much as I love Romeo "Stinky" Dog, Dee and I needed some dog-free boundaries. But even knowing his personality, I would never have guessed how Romeo would deal with the situation. I knew he'd be upset for a while, but he went to extremes to vent his frustration that caught Shaun and I off guard. While we were either out or asleep, Romeo ate a lot of a cotton bathroom rug. We thought he'd be fine, because Shaun managed to pull about ten feet of cotton string out of him. So, we thought we'd gotten it all out of him and we pulled up all the loose rugs and put them away, thinking we'd gotten lucky and he was through the phase. But a couple days later, Shaun noticed one of his computer speakers had had the wire severed. Poor Dee Dee took the rap for that one for a couple of days, but I thought something was fishy. She has only ever bitten one other non bunny proofed cord in all the time she's lived with me, and I thought it was strange that she'd go out of her way to dig out cords from behind Shaun's desk that aren't easy to get to and chew through only one wire. Well as it turns out, Romeo had eaten quite a lot of speaker wire. It isn't unusual for him to be broody for days at a time and finicky about eating, so at first we didn't realize what was wrong. But almost two days after the wire incident, we noticed he didn't seem to be feeling well and wasn't moving his bowels. So the next afternoon Shaun took him to the vet, not a moment too soon. He was rushed to emergency surgery. Here is what they found in his stomach, blocking his intestines. Yep, rug bits and speaker wire, the little bastard.

And here he is after Shaun brought him home, stoned on the pain drugs the vet gave him:

He wasn't allowed to jump up on the couch or bed when he first got home obviously, which are his usual comfort zones. So that sure didn't help make him any happier. But we made him as comfy as possible on his dog bed.

And a good thing too. I took these photos two days after he was home, when the bruising was the worst. They must have had his whole torso clamped open during surgery. Look at all those staples!

The whole situation was frustrating, nerve wracking, and pitiful. Romeo of course isn't able to put together the facts. He doesn't know that he was feeling bad, taken to the vet, and got cut open and stapled back together because of his previous destructive behavior.

Doggie DRUUUUGS! This is Romeo on opiates:

He couldn't handle kibble food. The vet suggested boiled chicken and rice. So I made Romeo a big batch of chicken soup with rice that he finished over the course of several days. Down the hatch!

And here he is the middle of last week, being his usual sneaky self. He got up on the couch without waking Shaun, using his mad stealth skillz. But cuddling is Romeo's forte, sometimes you aren't even conscious while you're getting puppy love!

Little twerp's staples come out this Tuesday. No reason to think that shouldn't go smoothly and then hopefully, things will be back to normal in the family here.

Visions of pork and vegetarians...

Happy/Merry Christmas! For your viewing pleasure, here is a nativity scene made of sauerkraut and pork that I randomly came across some time back. I have no idea where this picture came from or who it belongs to, but kudos to the creative cook. You will never look at sausage the same way again, after a look at the Baby Jesus as a cocktail weiner:

And now to cleanse your visual palette, here is today's scanned pic. This be my lil sis and mum at the Tower of London when we visited about ten years ago, almost to the day. This was also during the semester I spent at Roehampton University. My fam came to visit and we got to be tourists together over the holiday. I was going through a history nerd phase at the time of being obsessed with Restoration England and Charles II, but I didn't get a chance to take pics of the crown jewels. To view them, you had to stand on this little conveyor belt that didn't really give you a chance to check everything out. I was also extremely unimpressed by Whitehall...) Oooooh, if only I'd had a digital camera back then. If only...

2 Things Challenge: Unexpected/Order

Yesterday was my birthday. Can't remember the last time it fell on a Saturday! I had several ideas about how I wanted to spend the day and take pictures (The King Tut exhibit? The Botanical Gardens? Hammond's Candies? Or the tarantula exhibit?) and I had a hard time making a decision. I finally chose and we ended up visiting the The Butterfly Pavillion. I found unexpected order and beauty in the tiny indoor ecosystem...:

...and in the little beings who lived there:

2 Things Challenge: Step/Floor

My interpretation to this week's 2 Things Challenge is also pictures from Red Rocks.

Step:

Floor: