Syd's New Habit & Zu's Seat Belt

Unattended drinking glasses are not safe in this house. Sydney has taken to drinking out of any that are left behind. If it weren't so cute, then I would be highly irritated that I have to use several new glasses a day now.

mmm...I'm so thirsty. That silly puppy drinks all of my water so I must do whatever it takes to survive.

What? I shouldn't be drinking out of your glass?

We recently invested in a puppy seat belt for Zulu. She can now cruise around safely and in style.

Yippee! Dad is taking me for a drive!

Little does he know...I'm going to pee in the seat before we make it back home! Hehehe

Pear Festival Poster Entry

Remember when I talked about taking pictures for a painting I was going to do? Well, I finally finished it! Just in time too...the deadline to enter the poster contest is April 1st.

I'm excited to drop this off and be done with it. As much as I enjoy painting, I really haven't had the energy to work on this very much. Somebody (some puppy) has been keeping me up all night and working on this has been kind of low on my list of priorities. But now I can veg out in front of the television every night and not feel guilty. Actually, I have a couple other craft projects to work on so I'm sure I'll stay busy. Cross your fingers for me!

Napa Valley Trail Run

This was my first trail run, well unless you count the old high school cross country days, but I can tell you with confidence: cross country was NOT the same. I had visions of running down dirt paths in a state park, but this was no "dirt path" running. This was hiking up a mountain and occasionally jogging on parts of the path that were safe enough to do so. It was awesome.

I ran the 10k, but they also had a marathon and a half marathon going on. I have NO idea how anyone could complete this half marathon, much less the full marathon, but they did and I was impressed.

It has been raining cats and dogs the past few weeks and most of the course involved running through several inches of mud. I cannot believe that I didn't fall down, though I came close more than once. There were also fallen trees to climb over and raging streams and rivers to cross. One was so extreme that people partnered up and held hands while crossing. I've definitely never needed to hold hands with someone during a race before. But the thing is, this wasn't really a "race". It was pretty impossible to pass people during most of it because the path was so narrow. But even if you could pass people, you probably wouldn't need or want to. It was nice to have people in front to guide the way. Also, nobody worries about how long it takes to finish because it's impossible to compare to any other race. While some road races are more challenging than others, it's completely different than hiking up a mountain and dealing with so many obstacles.

I loved running this thing and I can't wait to do another. Unfortunately, most of these races only allow for a couple hundred people and the ones within a two hour radius of where I live have already filled up so I might have to wait until next year to do another one. I'll definitely be on the lookout though.

Don't let this paved path fool you. This was the end of the race and only a small portion was paved.

I bought these shoes specifically for this race because they are made for trail running. I might need to clean them off a bit before the next race.

My Baby is 5!

Well, we don't actually know when her birthday is, but we got her about 4 years ago and the adoption company told us she was about a year old. My mom and I just recently decided that her birthday should be 3-21. I can't believe we've had her 4 years! She is such a wonderful little baby and my heart aches for her as she learns to adjust to the crazy puppy that's running around her domain. Although I selfishly want the puppy to calm down for my own sake, I desperately want her to calm down for Sydney's too. I miss the days when it was just the three of us. She would excitedly greet us at the door all the time and constantly climb up to the couch so we could love on her. Now she has to retreat to puppy free areas and cautiously moves around when she goes from one place to the next.

I know it will get better and I truly believe that one day they will be good friends, but until that day comes, I will continue to give her special attention and extra cat treats for putting up with crazy Zulu.Her grandma sent her special treats for her b-day: wet cat food and a pretty collar!

Sorry it's blurry. She was inhaling her food and wouldn't stay still, but it's the same collar that my mom's puppy has!

2nd Annual Olive Festival

You might remember when we went to the Olive Festival last year. We had a great time and found some yummy treats so we were really excited to go this year. Again, they didn't have many olives, but they had several types of olive oil. We had fun testing all the varieties. However, we made the mistake of purchasing one of the first ones we tried and then later found one we REALLY wanted, but we were all out of cash. We'll know better next time.


Here is our loot: We purchased two types of bread, spicy garlic, and garlic infused olive oil.


The red peppers in there were quite hot. Not habanero hot, but still quite spicy. They gave me hiccups.

Puppy Pictures

I'm sure you all (mom) have been missing pictures of Zulu the past couple of weeks. I finally got around to snapping a few of her yesterday. She's growing more and more every day. We had her spade almost 2 weeks ago and she will be going to the vet on Wednesday to have her stitches removed.


She's been quite the rascal lately. She's improving in some aspects and getting worse in others. She's more calm around the house and while we are constantly telling her "no" and shaking a can of change (the loud noise gets her to stop), she is getting much better at being out of her cubby and just hanging out around the house. She's asleep on the floor as I type this.


One thing that is actually getting worse is her sleeping habits. A few weeks ago she was only getting up once during the night and occasionally sleeping all the way through. Not so much anymore. She now wakes up at 3:00 or 4:00 and goes out to potty. Then she'll sleep for about an hour or so before deciding that it's time to get up. She barks off an on until we finally wake up and let her out. Actually getting up is tricky though. We don't want her to think we're getting up because she's barking so we have to wait for a lull in between the barks before we can get up and start our day at around 5:00 am. I usually get up between 5:30 and 6:00 anyway, but the barking is really taking a toll. We've been super exhausted lately due to our lack of sleep. I think we're going to start keeping ear plugs next to the bed.


She is still so cute though and very sweet so I guess we'll keep her around. Just look at that face!

My Current Favorite Anthro Items

Here are a few of my favorite things from my favorite store. I'll definitely be checking the clearance section for these items in the future. It's a really good think that I live two hours from the nearest Anthropologie.

Winking Wisecracker Jar

Spiral Vine Curtain

If...Then Pillow

Dream Menagerie Rug

Flamenco Shower Curtain

Weekend Review

We had really exciting plans this weekend to go to Alameda. We were going to go to a huge flea market that they have the first Sunday of each month, the pinball museum, and a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives location, but then we saw that rain was in the forecast for today. I'm assuming that rainy flea markets are not super fun so we changed our plans and decided our day of fun would be moved to Saturday and instead of Alameda we went to Santa Rosa.

I had to get some new running shoes and I needed some more vegan margarine from Whole Foods. My vegan margarine shopping turned into my weekly shopping trip though. I just couldn't resist all of the pretty organic vegetables!

On our way down to SR we stopped at the Salvation Army and I found a lot of goodies.

From left to right: Adidas running pants, American Eagle sweater, skirt from Talbots, Banana Republic tank top, khaki pants from Express, and a sweater from St. Johns.

I also found this cute bird picture. I have a huge thing for birds in terms of home decor, but I really really don't like birds in real life. They scare me. They just seem so unpredictable and could attack at any time.

Guess how much all of this cost? $30.75!!! Yep, awesome. This made me feel less guilty about all the money I spent on running shoes and Whole Foods groceries ;) Speaking of food, go to http://blazingburners.wordpress.com/ later today (mom still has to post her results) to see our latest dish: Three Spiced Potatoes