(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

This is Lilly.  She says "phbbt" to head collars.

This is Kip the wonder dog.  If you look closely, you'll notice only three legs.  Yep, Kip's a tripawd.  I love Kip and he loves me.

Don't you wish you lived here too?

Cheers,

the CilleyGirl

Random Thoughts for a Wednesday

1.  Having to extend your vacation unexpectedly can sometimes be a good thing.  Like,  "We've been selected to receive a free additional night's stay and I don't have to work tomorrow anyway, yay!"   Not so fun when it's "I almost couldn't get my car to go back into gear as I hurtled down a mountain pass in the dark at 65 mph and nobody is open on a weekend anymore for car repairs except for (luckily) the Aamco transmission service center (convenient since I needed a new master cylinder for my clutch as it was cracked and all the fluid had leaked out on my drive to Bend) but they can't get the part until maybe Tuesday) and I was supposed to go home on Monday, fuck me!"  Enforced idleness sucks rocks.

2.  So as you may have guessed, my three day relaxing weekend in Bend with friends turned into a somewhat stressful four day weekend in Bend with friends as I waited for news on my car.  But they had it done by noon on Tuesday at just over half of the original estimate, meaning I really should get my cats into the vet soon for their annual checkups.

3.  Welcome to the world, Prince George Alexander Louis.  I wanted to be on record to say, I bet they'll call him Alex.

4.  Despite the car drama, it was a good weekend.  My friend S had done the Whole30 with me earlier this year and discovered that life is better without wheat.  I ended up eating mostly gluten-free this weekend, at first inadvertently and then intentionally.  My stomach was much happier and a lot of the bloat started going away.  I'm working hard to continue with it.

5.  We also did some of their tour of homes, went on a lovely short hike, and floated the Deschutes River.  I'm a bit sunburned but mainly in the spots where I missed with the sunscreen.  I have some odd tan lines right now.  Happily we did the hike, with its great views of Mt. Bachelor and mumble mumble mumble before the latest fire down there took hold.  It was extremely hazy in Bend yesterday and it's not so great here in PDX either.

6.  Did I mention I've been reading Mark Sisson's 21 day Primal Challenge book?  While I will be going back to paleo/primal, I don't think I'm going to do the specific challenge.  "Go outside and do 20 jumping jacks then sprint for 30 seconds!"  "Fuck you!"  In other words, it's too much like personal training for my tastes, and you all know how I feel about personal training.  But I can do the eating and start moving again.  It felt great to be out hiking Monday night, although I need to carry my asthma inhaler with me for any exercise now.

7.  I'm going to hell (if there is one, that is).  Just read an article about a woman, the Guiness record holder for number of shoe-related items, was found dead in her pool, and her half-her-age boyfriend is suspected of her murder.  My first question of "Was her pool shoe-shaped too?" was not addressed in the article.  Details, people!

8.  Pretty sure Anthony Weiner needs therapy.  Is this man compelled to send texts of his junk?

9.  I've been craving Chinese food and that's a tough order when you (a) don't like a lot of vegetables in Chinese food and (b) really really really like all the fried/sugary sauce dishes.  Last night I discovered that Happy Family helps with all of that.  I picked out the celery and zucchini and had plenty left over with the mushrooms, water chestnuts, and carrots plus the protein of scallops, shrimp, chicken, and beef.  Probably not entirely gluten free (and I did have a few bites of rice and some sweet 'n sour sauce with a few slices of BBQ pork) but it's a helluva lot better than what I usually have.

And speaking of food, I hope lunch shows up soon...

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Working for a living

I think they've been working me way too hard at the office...

Are you excited to end another week?  Me too!  I am off to Bend to visit friends and their dogs for a couple of days and am looking forward to having Monday off.  As you may have guessed, things are not slow at the office.  This is actually my new office mate, Slim.  I don't think my boss has noticed him sitting across from my desk yet.

Plodding along with other stuff.  My body seems to think it has an abundance of sodium at the moment.  My fingers are extremely swollen and stiff.  I've been drinking fluids but so far no relief.  It's probably congestive heart failure or something like that.

After throwing away much too much food lately, I decided to try something a little different.  As a preface, remember the scene in Lethal Weapon II where Mel Gibson follows Patsy Kensit (the little blonde secretary from the South African embassy) to the market and they have a conversation where she says that she shops every day because she never knows what she'll be hungry for one day to the next.  I can relate.  I used to be able to plan and shop for meals for at least a week and then stick to that pretty well.  Not anymore.  I find myself going to the store a lot but instead of buying just for the short term I still shop like I'm going to follow through on planning ahead.  And I end up tossing a lot.  I swear I should just bring bananas into the house and immediately throw them in the garbage.

So my plan now is to think ahead no more than three days at a time.  This was my first week doing that and it actually turned out fairly well.  Last Friday I had made a big meatloaf and then on Saturday made a big potato salad.  Sunday evening I had enough leftover for dinner that night plus three lunches plus a bowl of potato salad leftover to have with another entree.  Monday and Tuesday I had the lunches.  One of those nights I had the rest of the potato salad plus some protein, a turkey burger patty I think.  Tuesday I wasn't hungry in the evening so I had turkey burger again and some fruit.  Wednesday I was in Salem on business and so had lunch out with my boss on the way back to Portland.  Wednesday evening on a whim I stopped at the store and picked up breakfast fixings for dinner and had that Wednesday and Thursday evening.  Yesterday I felt like sushi so I had that for lunch.  And now today I brought the last of the originally planned lunches which, had I stuck to the plan, would've been eaten before now.  Nothing tossed out, a little flexibility but not so much that I (a) spent a ton of money (maybe $25 between sushi lunch and two breakfast-for-dinners) and (b) ended up tossing stuff out.  I do though need to take a pint of strawberries, some romaine, and a cucumber with me to my friends to eat this weekend.  But still, not bad *and* I didn't eat a bunch of fast food either.

How often do you shop for groceries?  Like grocery shopping or hate it?  Do you go with a plan or where the whim takes you?

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Schilling for the kitties

I have very little to report on my own life so I thought I would take a moment to let you know about a cause that is near and dear to my heart -- helping shelter kitties!

I follow a blog out of the Tacoma area, the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee, by a woman who along with her husband and trusty grown cat Charlene Butterbean foster kittens for the Tacoma Humane Society.  Her pictures and stories are amazing and provide for some serious cuteness overload, lots of laughs, and not a few tears.

Each year in conjunction with Tacoma Humane's Dog-a-Thon, the IBKC does its own FUNdraiser for the cats.  In past years they have blown past their expectations and raised squillions and squillions of dollars for the shelter.  For me, not only have all of my pets as an adult been the product of animal rescue, but my last cat, Sammi, was fostered by and then adopted from this particular shelter when I lived in Tacoma.  I have been lucky enough to be able to donate to this cause since its inception.

If you have pets in your hearts, please check out the IBKC and if you have money in your wallet please consider making a donation.  This year's goal is $100 squillion dollars and they are more than halfway there.  Today every penny raised will not only go to the spay and neuter programs but will also be matched by a generous anonymous donor up to $3,000.

Jo as a foster for Redmond Humane.  So tiny!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

At least I think so.

If you've been following me for a while, you know that I have two crazy-busy times at work:  December and June.  As you might guess, I've been in the June crazy-busy for a while now.  Three weeks of six days in the office.  Really looking forward to this weekend when I will finally have more than one day off in a row.

On top of that, I had several client site inspections, we interviewed for and hired a new staffer to replace one that is leaving, and -- the most fun of all -- I had this weird thing going on for over a week where I was almost constantly nauseous.  I have a new appreciation for what morning sickness must be like and I didn't even have to be pregnant to get it.  That week SUCKED.  Or maybe it BLEW.  For about three days at the end of it I had to force myself to drink fluids because I got super dehydrated after even water made me sick and wasn't that a blast. 

Now we have a heat wave here in Portlandia.  It has been getting up to 92 degrees inside my apartment and not much below 80 degrees inside at night.  In the winter it's great that my apartment holds in the heat, but right now, not so much.  I think I have heat rash, which is just a grown up version of diaper rash. 

No gigantic plans for the holiday weekend, although I do have plans.  A long-time friend whom I have never actually met in person is on the west coast for vacation with her mom; we're having dinner Friday night.  I think I might use the occasion to make my own inaugural trip to Voodoo Donuts.  I know!  I've had their donuts but never actually been there.  Saturday I'm going to the Huey Lewis & the News show at the Zoo so if it's not too hot I'll do the zoo first (lesser flamingoes!) and concert second.  In between, I think I'll sleep.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl