Thursday, July 9
When I took Hannah out this morning, it started raining on us. Hard. I got her to do her business, we raced home, the rain stopped 30 seconds later, and it rained no more for the rest of the day. Just our luck, I guess. I had to dry Hannah off with a towel and we made it into a game where I covered her and asked "where's my puppy?" and her little tail would wag and she would throw the towel off. I'd cover her again and the whole thing would repeat.
When I took Hannah out this morning, it started raining on us. Hard. I got her to do her business, we raced home, the rain stopped 30 seconds later, and it rained no more for the rest of the day. Just our luck, I guess. I had to dry Hannah off with a towel and we made it into a game where I covered her and asked "where's my puppy?" and her little tail would wag and she would throw the towel off. I'd cover her again and the whole thing would repeat.
I follow a lot of pet rescue places on social media and there have been a lot of "look at my rescue dog coming out of its shell" posts recently and, while I am so happy these dogs are happy, I sometimes wonder if Hannah might have been better off in a family with kids and other dogs and less neurotic humans. But then she plays with me like this and realize that Hannah is better off with us than she would be with so many other people. But I still wish she didn't look so worried all the time.
Friday, July 10
Whoops. I forgot to take a photo. Enjoy a picture of lilies I took on Saturday instead.
Saturday, July 12
I had to pick up Zelda's steroid at the vet and as I was coming home, the gas tank fell below a quarter of a tank, which is when I feel like I need to fill up, as a responsible adult human. This was in the parking lot of the gas station where I stopped. USA! USA! Ugh.
Sunday, July 13
I see that I keep forgetting I'm doing this photo every day exercise. I finished the graphic novel Raised by Ghosts today. The only photo I took all day was of the artwork at the front of the book. I love a pig, you know?
Monday, July 14
There have been some very lame photos this week, so let's try some better ones? Maybe better ones?
First up, sunrise over the Rock! There's a mama duck with her ducklings. I was cooing over the ducklings. Hannah was not impressed. (We are standing on a dock. This is as close to the water as Hannah will get.)
It's crazy hot here this week and Hannah does this thing where she pretends she's super excited for a walk, but as soon as we get to our neighbor's yard, she lays down. IN THE DIRECT SUNLIGHT. When it's in the 90s. What a dog. For anyone keeping track, note how Hannah is once again refusing to make eye contact with me.
Who made homemade ice cream this weekend?! IT WAS ME!! YOU GUYS, IT WAS SO EASY. We have a KitchenAid bowl thingy and I chilled that bowl for about 48 hours. Then I made the ice cream base which I took from a random Reddit comment: 1.5 cups milk (I used whole), 1.5 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 2ish tablespoons vanilla extract (measure with your heart). For fun, I also split open two vanilla beans and threw them in. Heat this over medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves. Then you let that base chill for at least three hours. I put a piece of saran wrap right on top of the liquid mixture and then covered the bowl with a lid.
When it was done chilling, I took off the saran wrap and the gross film stuck to the saran wrap! Win! Then I put the freezing KitchenAid bowl thingy on the KitchenAid and turned it on to speed 1. I dumped in the base and let it churn for 23 minutes. It was probably done at 20, but I wanted to be certain. It was a very soft serve at that point, so I popped it into a freezer safe container and froze it overnight before I took it to book club.
It's a LONG process, but it's very very easy.
Tuesday, July 14
This is what I saw as I was leaving for work today. MY PRECIOUS BABY GIRL. May we all be as relaxed as my cat someday.
Sometimes people ask me if the dog and cat get along and I have to say that they sort of coexist in each other's world without much interaction except for when we first come downstairs in the morning and we greet them and Hannah gets so excited that she tries to stick her muzzle in Zelda's belly. Zelda does not care for that. But, look, if the cat were scared of Hannah, she would not be passed out like this at a height that Hannah could easily get her.
LOOK AT HER BELLY. (It's a trap. Don't touch it. You will get bit and/or scratched. She has all her teeth and all her claws and she's not afraid to use them.)
Wednesday, July 15
I went to the bookstore after work. I got a book. And some tiny books!
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Have you ever made homemade ice cream? What's your favorite recipe? Do you buy a lot of books? What's the last book you bought?
That fuzzy belly would be hard to resist! My fluffy girl doesn't mind belly rubs most days- but it's a gamble. My plush boy loves them.
ReplyDeleteI use the ice cream recipe on the box of Mortons rock salt for vanilla and also add mint flavoring and chocolate chips for mint chip . I found a simple recipe from Taste of Hone for chocolate- tastes just like chocolate soft serve. I'm not messing around cooking custard- I like easy.
I buy only a few books a year- ones I can share usually ( Louise Penny, T Kingfisher) or ebooks of sone series I can't get elsewhere. Also have bought ebooks when trying to get kids to read a special one- like Project Hail Mary.
I can pet Zelda with exactly two swipes on her belly and then she will go to war. That's okay. I don't really like my belly messed with either, if I'm honest.
DeleteYes, the custard situation seems much harder. I found the easiest recipe possible and it seemed to work, so I think I will stick with that at first and add easy mix-ins to jazz it up.
We’ve made ice cream with the Ziploc bag method- basically you put cream and sugar and vanilla in a bag, seal it, then put it in another bag that’s filled with ice and salt (to keep the ice cold.). Then you shake it really hard for fifteen minutes (or more) til ice cream is made. It’s best to do it with a buddy (or two or three) because shaking is cold and tiring. The ice cream is pretty soft. It’s a fun experiment. Not something I’d put into our regular rotation, though.
ReplyDeleteI don’t usually buy books, but I went a little crazy on our reading retreat and bought a whole stack. And a few times a year I’ll go to our Friends of the Library used bookstore and pick something up. Oh I do buy books for CBBC because I want to be sure to have the book. And I guess I have an Audible subscription, so that counts as buying books, right? Maybe I buy books more than I thought? I rarely but new books.
The beauty of the KitchenAid system is that I don't have to do any of that exhausting shaking. The machine does it all! And it doesn't require more than a pinch of salt. It feels like cheating, but it's a cheat I'm willing to do.
DeleteI rarely buy books, either. Maybe 2-3 times a year. But that's what the library is for! I really want our new bookstore to succeed, though, so I've been going there and buying greeting cards and other things.
I make homemade ice cream all the time! I love doing it and my family loves eating it. I can't remember when I got the ice cream maker - it's a Cuisinart, the kind where you freeze the bowl and then it just does all the churning - but it's probably been ten years and it's still going strong. Sometimes I get creative, sometimes it's just old favourites. I think right now we have vanilla gelato with caramel swirl, mint with fudge swirl, and...something else. I don't know, I have all these super cute silicone containers to keep ice cream in and it makes me feel like an actual old-timey ice cream soda jerk. I also do a thing where I freeze banana chunks and then food process them with cocoa or peanut butter and make a "soft serve." We like our frozen treats, is what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteI think Hannah is so happy with you, Engie. She loves you so much. You are the perfect family for her. Also, I love covering Rex with a towel after the rain, he loves it too.
I am interested in gelato, but as soon as you start bringing eggs into the recipe, it gets so much more complicated!! I am interested in your silicone containers. Are they oval? Are they just like little tiny pint jars with colored lids?
DeleteI love when dogs play with towels. It's like getting dried off makes every dog a puppy again.
There are no eggs in my gelato recipe! Just more milk and less cream, and it gets cooked with cornstarch to thicken. Which is more complicated but less so than with eggs. The silicone containers are cylinders with different coloured lids, not that I colour code them but I COULD.
DeleteLook at all the wee books! Yay!
ReplyDeleteCompared to Piper, Zelda looks so slim, even with all her gorgeous fluffs. Piper weighs 17 pounds! He is bigger than the Thanksgiving turkey I get each year.
I buy books all the time. The latest are Land by Maggie O'Farrell, The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, and Whistler by Ann Patchett. I'm starting Land today (hopefully! it's been a very busy and exhausting week), having already read the other two.
Hannah is definitely with the right pet parents. You are unfailingly patient and consistent with her as well as showing her so much love.
Zelda is about 10.7 pounds at last weigh in. She's been as high as 12.5 and as low as just under 8. I'd like it if she were closer to 10 because she's having trouble grooming and we've had to do a lot of cutting out of mats in her rear area and that sucks because I feel mean doing it and then she has a bad haircut. BUT. The vet wants her a little heavier because of her stomach issues.
DeleteHannah is probably not with the right family, but I wouldn't trade her to that family because she's my best dog. What would I do without her?
I agree with the other commenters- Hannah is with her perfect family. I've always thought that. And, it sounds like Hannah and Zelda get along just fine- with some cats, peaceful coexistence is the best you can hope for.
ReplyDeleteI actually have an ice cream maker which I've forgotten all about. I did use it to make vegan ice cream a couple times and it was GOOD. Hmm. Maybe I should try to remember where I put that.
Yeah, I think Zelda mostly just wants everyone in the family to worship her. So that's what we do!
DeleteYES! Make homemade ice cream. Imagine the quality of life improvement.
I have never made ice cream. I consider getting to the grocery store to purchase some a triumph. #kidding
ReplyDeleteI should stop at an over-priced ice cream parlor at least once day this summer just because.
This is the first time I've ever made homemade ice cream. It was easier than I thought, but mostly because the machine did all the hard work.
DeleteWe used to have an ice cream maker and I had grand designs about making homemade ice cream, but we only did it a couple of times, and then my husband realized that his tummy and dairy are not really friends and then he got diabetes and my daughter had an eating disorder and OMG, we were NEVER going to make ice cream, so I got rid of it. (I gave it away on Buy Nothing, and I hope the people LOVE it and get lots of use out of it.)
ReplyDeleteOh Hannah, you are so cute in your towel game! She is obviously so happy with you. Maybe she would be a friskier dog if she had playmates, and maybe not. Impossible to know. I love following those groups too, though, and seeing the dogs playing. Made me wish I had a place for Mulder to play when we had him. He was fine around other dogs, but the only place we could really go was the dog park which would start out well but then he’d get bullied and end up hiding behind me and we’d just stop going.
When I was a kid we had a dog and some cats, and mostly they ignored each other, but sometimes they would cuddle and it was so so amazing. She adopted 2 of our cats, meaning she was mostly an outside dog (it was the 70s and that’s generally how it was) and when they showed up she let them eat her food and sleep with her until we gave up and adopted them. She was a once in a lifetime dog, truly. Going on more about my dog in your comment section - she had 27 puppies in 2 litters. When I came home from school and couldn’t find her, I found her giving birth in her doghouse. I climbed in with her, and when most dogs would not have wanted that, she just gave me a kiss and got back to business. RIP Samantha, you darling, darling girl.
I've never made ice cream, but I've always been interested. Seeing how easy it is (plus the fact that we have a KitchenAid mixer), I might just have to give it a try.
ReplyDeleteI don't buy books often, but we wanted to support Tattooed Tree, so I picked up a copy of "Beautyland" there recently.
My sister-in-law makes wonderful homemade ice cream with an electric maker that uses ice and salt. I've often wondered if the Kitchen Aid ice cream bowl would be worth it, and I'd say it must be! I could make sugar free ice cream! Your bag of tiny books looks delightful! I don't buy many paper books any more. I think the last one I bought was Nicole's.
ReplyDelete