Halloween

Halloween is a pretty big deal in our household. I really liked dressing up as a kid, there were a few bad year in between high school and the EX.
Thankfully I found someone who loves Halloween as much as I do, or he loves me enough to put up with all of it.
So this year we I decided to be Rapunzel from the Disney movie "Tangled". It all started that my 2 other girl friends were gonna be Cinderella and Belle. Josh and I will do separate costumes or coordinate depending on the year. He wanted to be a Zombie, but I think I annoyed him enough with the watching of Tangled to be Flynn Rider (the prince).
On a usual day-to-day basis I wear jeans, t-shirt and converse. So for Halloween I slut sexy it up. Even when I do dress up it is more on the conservative side.
So here is a walk down memory lane at our costumes from the last 4 years...

Year 1:



This was a last minute plan to even go out for Halloween. I wanted to be the Scottish girl, but they didn't have it anymore, so second best: "St. Paulie's Girl" which is what I was called all night. We went with our 2 friends who were dressed from the 70's.

Year 2:





He wanted to a Spartan, and I didn't want to spend money on a costume. I rummaged through my closet and came up with this. We went with the same couple from the last year and they were a kitty cat and Billy Mayes (which was by far the best costume ever!)

All of us

 

And here is Whiskey's costume debute: A ladybug!

 

Year 3:

Year 3 was the most fun. It was our largest group going out to celebrate, and we all coordinated. It all came together on a drinking night that we would go as characters from Super Mario Smash Bros. Josh and I were Zelda and Link. Also: my mom made about 80% of Josh and my costume.

All of us. 1 guy decided to be a pain and come as Frodo from Lord of the Rings, but he pulled it off well, so it was ok.

We had a separate costume for Whiskey. She was a hot dog (or as my dad called her: a bratwurst) and Josh and I were the condiments.

 

Year 4:



We did a total coordination this last year. I found Whiskey's costume a few days after Halloween #3 at Target for SUPER SALE and it all snowballed from there. I've ALWAYS wanted to be Alice to begin with so I liked it. Josh actually had a work when we went out, so I was Alice without my Mad Hatter at the bar, but we got dressed up again a few weeks later for the pictures.

 

Year 5:

As for this year, pictures will be up after this weekend.With the whole effect. But until then I have 1 picture for you as a teaser:

 

This is pascal, Rapunzel's sidekick. I am going to be making some minor adjustments to her costume to make it more chameleon-like

And as a final parting picture this is what we shall achieve this year. I am just a slightly sluttier sexy version. :)

Zoom Room

Hey y'all!

Hope everyone is doing well. I saw the 2013 corgi calendar that Kelly made, which looks amazing! I'm so upset with myself for not getting any entries in on time, but I can't wait to hang up the new calendar on my wall at work!! Congrats to all the winners!!!

You all may know about Whiskey's non-socialization. While at the pet store (sans Whiskey) I met a very nice lady with a mutt and a Sheba Inu and she told me about the Zoom Room. I did my research online and its like an indoor dog park/agility course/training center. I made a call to them and setup an evaluation to best decide what class to start her in. She know (most) of her basics: sit, stay, down, shake, so we decided on agility 101. The girl that did the evaluation said that with her having a task at hand to do, that it will help her dog aggression. We had our first class today. There are 4 other dogs (5 in total), I think she's the only girl and she is the senior citizen of the class being 5-years old (+/-). She is the 3rd smallest. There is a puff ball, poodle type dog, and a terrier of another being the 2 smallest. The other 2 are about the same age at just under 1 year, a Portuguese water dog and a golden receiver. Whiskey and the Golden were the first ones there, so I quickly explained to them we are working on Whiskey's socializing so to ease into the introduction. She got a little growly in the beginning with the Golden, but once we sniff searched the entire room she did better. We worked on the "table" command, which meant she had to hop on a square platform with all 4 paws and stay-then treat. The first obstacle was the "weave" bars, we started slow and wide apart and she did very well for the first time. Next was the "A"-frame, this she did like a trooper with her short little legs! Then we did a combination of tunnel and jump, which she did both very well! She will do anything for food! All the dogs in the class did very well for the first day, all the dogs completed all the obstacles. I cant wait to for next Tuesday! Its a 6-week class. By the end of the class she was more focused at the task than the other dogs.
Hopefully I will get pictures next week. I was there by myself this time and I can only do so much with 2 hands! :)

Projects

Hello all!!

In my last few post I mentioned something about converting a TV armorie into a bar. Well it is complete! YAY! I have place to store all our alcohol and glasses and have my dining room area back.
Here are pictures. Sorry I do not have an actual before picture of the whole TV unit. The before picture is the bottom half that is being used as a TV stand (it too has a makeover in its future). The bar is made from the top piece.

The boring dull original original

The pretty after 

You can barely see the "T" molding that Josh and I made for the glasses

The concave of the doors are painted with a metallic Martha Stewart copper

My pretty knobs!!!

In other news: I have a new project. I subscribe to the Food Network Magazine. I love them!! They have a lot of great info and recipes. I always flip through my new on going "Oh yum." "That looks good." "I need to try this one".....etc and eventually it gets forgotten and tossed on the pile of others. Well last night I sat with 4 of them and the post-it sticky tabs and tabbed all the ones I wanted to try. (Not as many as I thought) So on the weekend, I will pick 1 or 2 recipes from my tabs and make them, then I will blog about the recipe and how a slightly armature (but aspiring) cook does with them. This will probably be happening on my other blog, but I will try to update once a month with the highlights and links. Be sure to swing on by The Irish Chef, and try some of these, cause they look great! And leave comments of your own. :)

Nothing real new the animal world. I'm sorry I have forgotten about Whiskey. I am also falling behind on getting picture together for Kelly's calendar. Hopefully more soon!!!

Calendar Girl

I'm a little late with the post as the month is almost over! But July is Whiskey's calendar month, in 2 calendars! The Corgi with Blogs & Corgi Butts and friends.

Here are her pictures for July;

(screen snapshot of Kelly's at CorgiButts screen)

And Whiskey's butt along with her "pen pal" friends: Sadie (the black and tan) and Gibson (Kelly's tan and white). Whiskey is the one on the raft again. :)

Taken at my parent's pool.

Happy July everyone! Stay cool!!!!

Week 1 run training update

So it's been (give or take) 1 week since I started my 5K training. It been going pretty well. I have Josh going with me when he's not working late and we run/jog/walk just short of 3 miles. We go every other day, and I try to swim laps one day out of the week. I am trying for more of a structured run: walk 1.5 - 2 minutes, run/jog 1 minute. It seems to working well for me. Josh just willy-nillies it. We go to a park that is just down the road from the apartment and there is also a small/medium (for us in FL- FLat land) and we run that a few times. The park is really close by, and Josh and I have been meaning to get our bikes from my parents place. Today was that day. We did errands most of the afternoon and had a late lunch/early dinner so we'd figure let the food settle for a bit, go pick up the bikes (cause the FL rain had actually stopped) and ride the bikes the park, then run/jog/walk and ride back home. Got the bikes got ready and off we went. Because of all the rain we had today there were puddles everywhere. Just past our complex is a little intersection (non-lighted) that has a gas station,CVS... few other stores. I was trying to avoid one puddle and jumped down the sidewalk lip, saw a car turning who looked like he saw us and was stopping, but kept rolling so to avoid the car and another puddle I hit the other side of the sidewalk lip, and the bike went flying out from under me and I skimmed across the sidewalk on my shoulder and knee/calf. Pictures below:

They guy that basically caused this continued on his/her way. They car behind that had quite a show and rolled down the windows, at the point Josh was over me with hands held out while I mumbled "I'm fine". Which I was, the pain hadn't hit yet. It hit a few feet away while riding the bike. (You all are probably yelling at me, why I continued....I don't know why). Between the wind and the movement both scrapes began the burn. Work on through it. We got the park (its about a 2.5 mile ride- one way). Parked the bikes and went for a 30-45 minute run/jog/walk. Got back to the bikes, hopped back on and went the 2.5 miles back home. Home is where the pain hit hard! And water and cuts do NOT make friends. OUCH!!! I washed them as best as I could handle. Good thing I work at a medical supply company. Josh has a basic first aid kit that will get me though the night.
This is not going to detour me from continuing training, may slow it down a bit.
However the moral of the story (and I am guilty as well): cars please watch for bikers or even runners. Be considerate when turning. Share the road.
Even on the ride back home there were some "special"cars that saw us and still turned and went on their way like we were invisible, but had the right-away at the cross walk.
Bikers/runners: Be more cautious, people aren't as polite as you think.

In animal news: Whiskey got a new life jacket: pink :) from homegoods for $14. She also got a new frisbee toy that is all hard-ish rubber and she loves it. She also got a new squeaker kong (I know they are intended for puppies) but she loved them and they squeak, and it takes her the longest to kill.
Our cats have been "loving" our sofas, and not in a good way. They have make them their personal scratching post, EVEN though they have a 3 story cat tower that IS for them to scratch on. So they got nail covers :) and a few cat nip toy sticks.

In more other news: I am re-purposing a TV armoire into a bar. We usually store our alcohol above the fridge, but with being in a small kitchen we are running out of room (and yes, the small kitchen is my excuse). So the top half of the armoire is now going to become a bar. I love the color we now have it painted. And I'm excited to get onto some of the details. Josh made me some "T" molding (cause the real stuff cost $16 per a 30 inch piece or so) to hang my wine glasses, martini glasses, and margarita glasses. Pictures to come soon hopefully.

Still waiting on tips or strategies on the running thing, if anyone has any. Thanks!!!! :)

Run

I apologize for not being on here lately!!! I have been reading every one's blog on my phone. There has been a lot going on here, although not a lot dog related. Whiskey is doing very well tho in our apartment. She is getting along great with our cats, and chasing them more for fun and attack.

I do have some news and I hope I can log some of the progress on here. Josh and I are going to try 5k run. But not your ordinary 5k run. Its a 5k obstacle course run....with zombies!
Here is the site http://runforyourlives.com/ we are partaking in the Orlando, FL run in November. We are trying to get a few friend together for this and we can camp out the night before and after the run. It looks like a lot of fun. I have started my 5k run training this week. I am SORE today!!! But I am determined to do this. I imagine when I get there and I'm being chased down by zombies I will find more motivation.
I know a few of you that follow me have run 5k or more in the past and I can use all the help/tips I can get.
That's all for now. I am still in week 1 of my "couch to 5k" training so hopefully week 2 well be good as well!

Boyfriend's Birthday

I threw my 26 year old boyfriend a Star Wars theme birthday party this year. Now if you follow this blog, or my other one: ktjazz.blogspot.com you know that I make him a Star Wars birthday cake every year, usually trying to top the one from the previous year. I kind of screws myself this year, and peaked a little too early. I have NO IDEA how I am going to top this cake next year!!!

Here are some pictures on the cake assembly this year. I made a Death Star cake. I got the original idea from pintrest via here, although I simplified my process a little bit.

My mom and I did a trail run of making a 1/2 sphere cake last weekend and it turned out a lot better than predicted.

Each of the cake halves consisted of 1 and 1/2 box cake mix. The whole box was a yellow cake mix and 1/2 was chocolate swirled in. And baked in a medium pyrex bowl. It took a lot longer to bake than a normal cake, and we also had to adjust the temperature of the oven so not to burn the top, while the inside still cooked. (Again, trial and error)

To hold the 2 halved together I had thick (boba tea) straws- 4 of them stick in the middle of the bottom cake, a little bit of icing glue and shoved the top cake on top of the straws sticking out from the bottom. The middle section is (another cake) that was crumbled and mixed with icing so I could fill the little gap between the 2 to make a perfect globe.

If you know anything about the Death Star you know it has a "satalittlite" disk on the side that concave in a little. At this point of putting the 2 cakes together waiting for the middle "glue"and also being close to midnight, I forgot the hole. Screw it! I let the cake set over night in the fridge.

Next day I cut the hole. And I think it worked a little better than how I originally planned. The cake was cold and solid so it cam out in 1 perfect piece, and barely any crumbs. (You can see the marbling in the cake) For the icing I used regular canned Betty Crocker butter cream frosting, and dyed it with wilton black (sparkle) gel coloring.

The finished product! The "panel" pieces were from wilton sugar sheets, black, and we (my friend and I) piped on royal icing (also dyed the grey-ish color) to make the patterns. I then used Duff's edible food spray silver to give all the black pieces a little sheen. Note to self: sugar sheets bend, royal icing not so much. So when adhering the panels, some of the royal icing fell off, but I like the black color underneath so I kept some like that and re-piped some others.

Needless to say boyfriend was totally awe struck by his cake. We blindfolded him before it came out and, started signing "happy birthday" while the blindfold came off. I told him his cakes from now on are going to be publix cakes with "happy birthday" written on. I don't think he took that seriously! I guess I have a few more Star Wars characters to go through.