Puppy Treats

When we first got married, the hunt for an apartment began. We knew two things. 1 - We were moving to a college town, and 2 - We wanted a dog.

We found an apartment that accepted pets and put a deposit on it so nobody else could swipe it from us. It was a bad move on our part, but that's a completely different story.

Allen was adamant that we were getting a Husky, and I just wanted a puppy.

One day while I was at school, my sweet husband suddenly had the idea to go to the animal shelter without me. I was mad, and an hour away, so I skipped my last class and went to a different animal shelter on the hunt for our new furry child. I walked straight past the little black puppy surrounded by a swarm of people in the lobby, and straight to the rows of dogs in the back. There were several that looked at me with their big eyes and stole my heart, and I even snapped a picture of one to send to my husband.

I walked back out to the lobby to try to get signal on my phone to send it to him and noticed the swarm of people was gone, and so was the little black puppy.

As I wandered around trying to catch the signal, I caught a glimpse of her. A family had taken the little puppy into the bonding room (or whatever it's called) to play with her and she was chowing down on a treat. A boy escaped from the room and I said, "That puppy is so cute! Are you guys taking it home?" he told me no. I watched through the glass as the family played with her and they beckoned me in. I snapped a picture of her cute little baby face, and the family left. She fell asleep on my shoe, and I sat there for a good twenty minutes waiting for her to wake up. I sent this picture to Allen, and somehow it went right through. He fell in love instantly.

 

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Next thing I knew, I was swiping my card and loading this little girl into the car. She really wanted to be close to me, so she tried climbing on my head as I was driving on the freeway.

 

By the time we were home, she already had a name.

 

Princess Leia.

 

She slept for the first month and has been awake and crazy ever since.

 

 

Baby Leia

Last week, as I was perusing KSL's ad's, I found this handsome guy. He's a husky mix, and his owner just didn't have time for him anymore.

I, of couse, called immediately. The owner didn't pick up. So I called like 7 more times. He called back finally, and next thing I knew, we were on our way to meet a cute little guy named Timber. He snuggled right up to us, and then got slightly distracted when he spotted a golf ball. We loved him immediately, and brought him home with us.

Being a couple years old already, we didn't want to confuse him by giving him a new name, so we just changed it a little bit. Instead of Timber, he's now

Darth Tymbur

So now we're in love with both of our furry friends and we seem to be going through treats really fast around here. I stumbled across a really simple recipe on pinterest for doggie treats, and decided to change the recipe around a little bit. (Original Recipe found HERE)

 

Behold, the easiest recipe you will ever make.

 

 

Ingredients:

 

Baby Food (I used the Gerber Carrot 3.5 oz one)

1 cup Stone ground rice flour (the rice flour is easier on puppy tummies)

water

 

And that's it. I mixed the baby food and the flour and added water bit by bit until it was the consistency of a good rollable cookie dough.

 

I would recommend rolling it out, but I don't have a rolling pin (My birthday is in September, cough cough) so I just pounded it out on the floured counter til it was about 1/4" thick.

 

I cut the shapes and arranged them on a pan and baked them in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

These dogs are the closest thing my mom has to grandchildren at this moment, so she spoils them. That's the reason the only cookie cutter I own is shaped like a dog treat. You can use other shapes and it will work just fine.

 

Let them cool before feeding them to your pup.

Store in a paper bag. They're crunchy.

 

If you use a different kind of baby food, make sure that there aren't any extras in there. The carrot one has carrots and water listed on the ingredients.

Onions and Garlic are poisonous to dogs along with grapes and raisins and chocolate. Don't mix any of those in!

 

 

The great thing about this is that it didn't smell bad! Allen was watching Psych during the whole process and commented that whatever I was making smelled good. I offered him one, but he declined.

Leia, on the other hand eats hers and then tries to steal Tymbur's from him.

 

Let me know if you have any other yummy puppy treats for me to spoil my babies with!

because i'm behind on the times.

We took these almost a year ago, so I figured it was time to share them on the neglected blog.

 

Hope you love them as much as I do.

 

 

 

 

 

The Plan

I have a plan.

It's a top secret plan. Don't tell my husband.

Our current bookshelf is tiny. It reaches my hips, and my hips are wider than it. I could seriously take a fork to this thing and swallow it in one bite. Almost.

Now, I know it's pretty much a sin, but when we moved to Cedar City I didn't take my whole collection of books with. Don't tell Meggie from Inkheart. She would be heartbroken. (Great book, by the way. Read it. It's magical.) I lived for a miserable 4 months without any of my beloved books. (I worked at a bookstore... Don't feel too bad for me.)

So now my husband thinks that it's acceptable to only have this little bite sized bookshelf in our house and it's just not. These books are essential. I need them in my life. On a beautiful shelf. In my tiny apartment.

So here's the plan.

I'm going to pull my books out one by one and put them on my snack-sized shelf. It will happen slowly. He wont even see it coming. And then one day the tiny shelf will just not be enough. I wont be able to part with a single book on the shelf, so we'll have to get a bigger shelf, and then a bigger one. And then one day I'll have a Belle sized library and life will be wonderful.

 

 

I imagine my shelf looking something like this, besides the fact that my house has far less brick than this one.

p.s. my sweet husband is not a book-hating jerk. He just prefers his books to be on a screen.

I can't write with people reading over my shoulder.

Prepare yourself for an unorganized blog post.

-It's a new year, so I feel like that should mean that I need to rededicate myself to blogging, but I'm not going to do that because I don't want to let you or me down.

-I really do love writing, but I feel awkward when my husband peeks at what I'm saying while I'm saying it. Or anybody, for that matter. Nobody gets to watch me blog. Ever.
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-We have lived in this apartment for a week and so far we have the TV unpacked and that's about it. I really hate unpacking.

-Now that I'm not working 60 hours a week, I need friends of the female variety. My mom and my husband's mom are lovely ladies to hang out with, but I need someone my own age to do craft projects with on occasion too. Any takers?

-I'm very excited for a Monday through Friday job. I've never had one of those before. I'll even be home in time to cook dinner and be a housewife. I love cooking dinner (If I ever get the kitchen unpacked...)

-Lindt milk chocolate truffles are amazing. I ate my last one today

-If you try a new hobby, you might find that you enjoy it. I never thought I'd read any Star Wars books, but long drives can turn into learning all about the ways of the Sith and it's actually kind of cool. I'm a little afraid to admit this on the internet.

-Having a husband is buckets of fun, especially if it's my husband. Be jealous.

Coconut Curry Hawaiian Haystacks

I really enjoy finding recipes on pinterest and then not following them. I can't be the only one that does this. Usually it turns out good, sometimes not.

The hubby came back from snowboarding with his face looking very sun-kissed (or sun-slapped) So I decided to make something tropical to feed the poor sore man.

So here's a recipe for you.

Coconut Curry Hawaiian Haystacks

This is my Mom's recipe, with a Toni Spin.

I always seem to end up on the phone with her when I'm cooking. The conversations usually go: So I'm making (insert food) for dinner. What do I do?


Haystack Sauce:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Olive Oil
Lemon Pepper
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 can milk
1 packet chicken gravy mix (mixed according to directions)
1 tsp Curry


Cut up your chicken breast into small chunks.

Cook your chicken chunks in a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkled with lemon pepper in a skillet on your stove. (Do I measure things, Nahh.)

When the chicken is cooked through, add your can of cream of chicken soup, Rinse out the rest of the soup by filling that can up about halfway with milk. Add that to the mixture.

Mix your packet of chicken gravy with the water (mine called for a cup) and add to the mixture on the stove.

Add 1 tsp of Curry and Lemon Pepper to taste.

Cook on low for a few minutes.



Coconut Rice

This isn't my mom's recipe. She uses regular rice, which is delicious. I wanted to be adventurous, so I decided to make coconut rice. If you don't like coconut, use regular rice!

I believe that the ratio for white rice is 1 cup rice to 2 cups water, so I switched things around and just substituted coconut milk for water. Simple as that!

2 cups rice
1 can coconut milk (it was almost 2 cups)
2 cups water
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt

Simmer for 18-20 minutes or until the water is soaked into the rice.

If you're cooking in a rice cooker, you'll have to look elsewhere for how to make coconut rice in a rice cooker, because I don't know. On a slightly related tangent, I could use a rice cooker for Christmas.

Serve the Sauce over the coconut rice and top with shredded cheese and whatever you want

We usually do some of these:

Pineapple tidbits
Mandarin Oranges
Chinese Noodles
Toasted Almonds
Tomatoes
Shredded Coconut


It's delightful. I'm glad we have leftovers. :)
 

Cinnamon Apple Scented Puppy Fluffs

I've always loved fall. The leaves changing colors, the days getting colder, and the smell of cinnamon in the air.

My husband forgot to inform me that he doesn't like the smell of cinnamon in the air, so my dreams of cinnamon pinecones have been dashed into a million pieces.

Unfortunately, after much debate and sniffing of the glade scents in Walmart I talked him into a lovely smelling apple cinnamon spray. (I meant to say unfortunately, just so you know.) We keep it handy for when our furry little puppy unknowingly uses her skunk-like scent against us. The poor thing doesn't realize she does it, so when we go running from the room (and I mean RUNNING), she just gives us a confused look and runs with us. She doesn't eat any human food, and we switched her puppy food to hopefully remedy the problem to no avail. So now our house frequently smells like cinnamon apple scented puppy fluffs. Delightful. I really hope that I can still enjoy cinnamon scents later in life, but for now it always seems to be paired with the smell of butt. What can you do?

Even though I frequently have to run from the room in my house thanks to my dog, I had a lot of fun decorating for Halloween. Too bad for you, I'm lame and I didn't do tutorials. I'm always too excited to get the project done to take pictures during the process. I'll try to work on that, don't worry.

Here's a sample of October's fun for you to enjoy:  
 
 
 

 



My sweet husband tried to make his own Halloween costume. I took pictures afterwards, but I can't post them on the internet because modest is hottest and he made it short enough that people would have made fun of him for years to come. I made round two, and it seemed to go over much better.

 

 

Amazon is a great place if you're searching for strange nerdy items like the ocarina that Allen has tucked into his belt. Unfortunately, my cute yellow belt is no more thanks to our smelly little monster.

 

Sancta Mortis is Latin for "Deathly Hallows" according to my source. If not, I have some strange words written in Latin on one of my cute Halloween Books.

Nerds for the win.

 

 

The process for my cute jars was quite simple.

 

Materials:

 

Hot Glue Gun

Jars of Various Sizes

Black Matte Spray Paint

Silver Paint

Paper Towel

 

I just drew my designs on the jar with my hot glue gun *not as easy as you think it is* I only peeled it off 10 times before I gave up.

 

Then I spray painted the whole thing and waited for it to dry.

 

I then dipped my paper towel in a little bit of silver paint and rubbed it all over til I was satisfied.

I think they're cute :)

I'm not even going to pretend like this wreath deserves a tutorial. It turned out cute, but trial and error is the way to go. I couldn't remake it if I tried.

 

Not being artistic in any way, I was pretty proud of my haunted house. I sat it on my front porch to display in my apartment complex. Our apartments are pretty spaced out, so we pretty much never get anyone walking past that isn't on their way to our apartment, so I peeked out the window when I saw a shadow passing by  a few days ago. A cute little boy walked up to my pumpkin and I watched him sound out the letters to figure out what exactly it said. It was really cute. Then he stole our newspaper and ran away, and I haven't seen him since.

And some adorable floating witches hats for you.

 

 

Also, I made some great little cinnamon apple chips too. They smelled and tasted delightful. It was just sliced apples, cinnamon, and sugar on a baking sheet and then you baked them at the lowest temperature until they're dry. I made a pretty small batch.

 

 

Just don't attempt to cut off your finger halfway through slicing apples and you'll be able to make a batch big enough to share.

 

 

 

getting a facelift

Excuse our mess. The blog is getting a facelift.