Crushingly Expected Pupdate.

Bill and I lost Happy last night.

This means that 2018 has already kicked us in the face; I was hoping it wouldn’t do that.

I was unable to get to bed until about 1:00 am PST, and I’m writing this a mere four hours later. I was only able to sleep about three hours before I woke back up and tossed and turned for an hour. Once I realized it’d been an hour of tossing, I’d somehow wrenched my shoulder in my sleep, and my head was hurting from exhaustion and dehydration I gave up and took Kiki outside and started whatever amount of day I’m going to have today.

I started dehydrating spent grain. I turned on the electric kettle for water for tea.… Continue reading →

A Time for Everything

It’s a snow day here in Portland, Oregon. We got somewhere between six and nine inches of snow last night. Maybe even more, but given how bad I am at estimating sizes of things1, I won’t try harder to be sure.

It’s not the first snow day we’ve had, but somehow it feels more like a snow day than any other. Maybe it’s how damn much snow is out there, or maybe it’s how quiet it is inside. I’m not sure. Nor am I sure if I care to figure out the “why” rather than just experience things as they are. In this case, it’s a snow day kind of day. I have tea. I have an urge to write. My tea is in a new, fabulous mug from the fantastic Deb Cooperman, and it’s encouraging my tea-ing and writing.… Continue reading →

But Do It Anyway?

A month ago, I wrote about how much cooking has become a chore for me. And I made a pledge:

“In my next post, I’m going to tell you a little bit about how I am and am not overcoming that. I’d love to know your thoughts on what makes cooking hard or easy for you, or any tips or tricks you have for making it suck less.”

I wrote those words about a month ago, and I did get some good suggestions from my friend Lori in the comments and from folks on Facebook and Twitter. I’m super grateful, but I’m still struggling.

Maybe that’s obvious from the fact that my last post was over a month ago. Because the “next post” had to be about “how I am and am not overcoming” a feeling of cooking sucking.… Continue reading →

I bit off more than I can chew.

I just wasn’t prepared for dogs in Chicago winter. I really thought I was. And I was so wrong. And now I’m at my wits’ end, unsure if I’m doing the right thing for our furry friends.

I’m exhausted. Our alarm usually goes off at 7:00 am in the mornings. A little before 5:00 am, I woke up to the sounds of Kiki (quietly) in some distress, and no Bill in bed. At 4:55 am, Bill was back in bed, and I was telling him I was going to go take the dogs out, since clearly they needed it. And at 5:53 am, I was finally back inside, warming up.

In between, everything went sideways.

Starting at the beginning, I started prepping for going outside, with every intent to not let the dogs out of crates until I was totally ready to get booties on them and get out.… Continue reading →

Dog Booties.

I’d planned to write a post on Monday, to go up Tuesday. I have a few things in the pipeline. Some pumpkin beer bread. Some chili. Some thoughts on “teaffee”.

Instead, I spent Monday flipped out, frantic, desperately hoping my dogs wouldn’t be the center of a urine and fecal explosion roughly the size of my bedroom. It was a no good, horrible, terrible, very bad day.

They didn’t, thankfully, leave a trail of waste hither and fro. And then I, the next day, contemplated writing a post about that, but by then I had to work and then had to run around taking care of things like getting my hairs dyed for this wedding we had to attend (it’s in under 3 h)…

Anyway, my point is that blogging slipped a little, but I haven’t forgotten it.… Continue reading →