photos from the backyard

My puppy n me



My garden. It's getting huuuuge. Tomatoes, jalapanos, marigolds, white eggplant, chives, cucumbers, zucchini, basil, rosemary.



My puppy dog is getting so big...



I have a tank full of chylids, a bloodthirsty boyfriend and roommate - this is the two of them ridiculously and giddily excited about feeding small fish to slightly larger fish.



grapefruit, lemons and cucumber from my yard/garden

knitting and my dogs...again!

I am slowly trying to go through my things and either find old projects to work on instead of buying new ones. I have sooo many half finished projects - 4 or 5 pairs of socks, gloves, scarves, beanies, latch hook rugs, cross stitch, oh man. So the other day I was just craving doing tiny clicking bamboo needle knitting, and I found a pair of knee length striped socks that weren't even half done - only about 3 inches of one leg was done! It's perfect. I've been working on it just for a day now, and I've already quadrupled the amount I had, and it's neat because I am obviously such a better knitter now than I was 5 years ago when I started.

I put aside the Juliana project for the time being. It's kind of mindless, what with needing to knit 3 feet of the same damn thing, but on the other hand, you also can't tune out completely or you'll wreck the pattern. So it's something I will resign myself to being an ongoing slow project that I will take with me to conferences and things where it's either knit that or knit nothing.

Yesterday was karate - my stomach was hurting so I didn't feel like I was paying good attention, or giving it my all, strength wise - so I tried to concentrate on technique. We did an exercise where we kicked through rebreakable boards - with two of them together instead of just one. My right snap kick is by far my strongest, and the first three were easy, but that darn brown rebreakable board gets me every time. I will work on this! I will also work on my side kicks and my hooking heel, so that when my next belt test comes along I'll be ready.

My puppy got her rabies shots last weekend, and has had enough cycles of her other shots so that I can start taking her places soon! I can't wait! I've been dying to get her on a leash so we can go walk through Central Park and go to the beach and stuff!!! She's such a sweetheart - she has two very distinct moods. There's the Crazy Eyes mood where here eyes roll back in her head and her teeth come out and she rolls around on her back trying to get her pearly whites on anything that will stay still. You have to watch your ankles when she is in that mood. Her other mood is her sweet, calm, loving mood where she follows me around throughout the house as I putter, and when I take a shower she comes and lies down on the shower step and when I do dishes she lies down on my feet! I love this dog. I can't believe how much I love this dog!

The big dog keeps chewing a hotspot on his back so he now officially has been CONED. This means you have to watch out because he doesn't know how wide or painful he is when he tries to brush by you. This also means I need to separate the two dogs because Juno likes to grab onto Rommel's cone and pull. Juno gets the backyard during the day (Rommel has the advantage of more years of house breaking) and Rommel gets the backyard at night (Rommel doesn't struggle with separation anxiety).

Let's see..what else... Adam graduates in...22 days! The week before he graduates, some of his academy friends, their husbands and wives, and me, will be going out to a fancy dinner. He told me a week ago that I need to decide what I am wearing SOON because he doesn't want to deal with my last minute what-to-wear panicking that I always do for every holiday or event. Hah. He knows me too well.

I've been doing a sparkpeople Sweatsuit to Swimsuit Challenge, and I am pleased to report that I haven't missed a day in 2 weeks! Coach Nicole's Cardio Blast DVD with 6 ten minute workouts have saved me so many times - when it's late and I don't feel like going to the gym and I don't even feel like doign 30 whole minutes of working out, I tell myself I am just going to do 1 ten minute segment, and invariably I end up doing more!

I feel like there is so much more I want to talk about, but really I'm just pining for my knitting and my puppy. My knitting is sitting on my desk next to me, and it's so hard not to do that, but I really need to go back to work. Ah! I am so glad this weekend is a three day weekend!

oh hey, my little sister is having her Gold Award Ceremony this weekend! HOW AMAZING IS THAT? REALLY AMAZING, that's what!

a long hollywood weekend

This weekend I took a group of 20 adults with developmental disabilities and 3 volunteers to Hollywood. We went to Griffith Observatory, the Wax Museum, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, stayed at the Ramada, and then got up in the morning and went on a Hollywood Stars tour, and then went to Universal Studios all day! It was fun and exhausting, as all A2A trips are. I was sick the whole time, and lost my voice by the end of the 2nd day. I left my house at 7:30am Saturday morning and got home at 10:00pm Sunday night.

I got home to a sparklingly clean house, thanks to my amazing boyfriend. It was so nice not to have to deal with the pile of dishes and dirty stove that I had left!!! Man, it's nice when someone else cleans for you. One day I will splurge and have a housekeeper come every so often and keep only the fun chores for myself (yes, I like some of them. I like cleaning the bathtub, for example. And the mirrors. I always liked cleaning the bathroom because there was a precise list of things to do, and it was a contained space that had a *finish* to the job. Unlike the living room or dining room which never ever seems totally clean).

I am soooo close to being done with my Moose at Sunset crosssitch - but I ran out of the last color I need, so I have to go to Joanne's before I can finish. So close!

Yesterday I walked to the store and bought dumbbells and created a new little fitness routine for myself, and today my legs are actually sore. It's a good feeling. I've been sick for so long I really need to get back into exercising regularly.

I have a bread machine and I've been baking bread pretty steadily. I need to find a weight watchers bread machine recipe though, because I keep baking this amazing french bread and eat loooaaavves of it by myself. Not too conducive with the whole weight loss thing.

Juno is amazing and wonderful and I love my crazy puppy so much. She makes me want to have kids. That maternal yearning which seems to start somewhere deep and seep into every pore has begun again. Watch out small children, Roya wants to take you home...

Also - I watched Twilight and it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be and I am not ashamed to say it. Last night I also watched Speed and it wasn't nearly as horrible as I'd been led to believe either!! I liked it! I stayed awake for the whole damn thing! I cared what happened to those people! I predicted everything and still gasped when exciting things happened!

Tonight I am going to see Avenue Q with Swasthi, Chrispy and Larry. YAYYYYY.

this weekend

I am surviving puppy-motherhood...she is asleep under my desk. My favorite times with her are when Adam gets home and we sit outside in white plastic chairs and watch the puppy and Rommel play tug o war with the chew toys, and watch as she bounces as high as she can t0 bite him the the face and then gets nervous and runs back to us and then goes to attack him again. There is also a pattern of her slowing down a little bit around 10pm while I am in the kitchen doing dishes and she comes and lays on my feet and chews on a treat while I make lunches and clean up.

Tomorrow I am working at a transition fair in the morning, and then I am working allll day long and then I have a staff meeting tomorrow night with my staff who are going on the Hollywood Trip with me. Wednesday I have the meeting with the clients who are going on that trip. It's going to be a very busy April for me...

but in any case, It's past 5 and I want to get home and get some bread started in my new bread machine! I also want to get the entertainment center my aunt Julie is giving me - because my house is beautimous right now. I made green and white curtains for the bedroom and bought a bedspread set that has green branches with flower blossoms all over it, and my room is one step closer to being like sleeping in a tree.

I have a bunch of tree branches in my trunk, which I will spray paint and use as curtain rods once I have time for that project. And I also plan on painting two of the walls a light green, and then buying some vinyl decorations from etsy.com - a tree sillouhette over the tv/dressers. ahhhhh yes. I love my bedroom. For a long time it had a "weird unliveable vibe" as Adam put it last night, and now it feels homey!

I am excited about speaking at the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference in San Diego. I haven't been around a whole group of unschoolers for quite some time. Rosie's birthday party doesn't quite count. ;)

Oh, really quickly - since I last wrote, I made new friends, ate huge calzones, sang loud karaoke, watched the production of Little Shop of Horrors that Roxana asst. directed, saw I Love You Man with said friends, had an A2A event (edison dance), and celebrated Naw Ruz with my family, had long and wonderful discussions with Adam, started watching a new tv show (East Bound and Down...?) made a casserole, scrubbed the bathroom, did 6 loads of laundry - actually, this is not "since I last wrote" but "what I did this weekend."

At some point I'd love to follow up with a friend's post that is titled "I can bake my cake and eat it too" about falling into gender roles, nurturing, doing domestic/household things and being thrilled to death by it, and what our fore-mothers think, etc.
But the time is not now.
Tonight I am going grocery shopping to get bread baking stuff, and going out to eat with Xp and Swasthi and picking up the entertainment center! woohoo!

The puppy is driving me insane, and when I stop and breathe I KNOW she's just being a regular puppy (well, a slightly high intensity puppy since she was bred that way) but I don't know how to encourage her natural puppiness and still retain my sanity (and clothing. and furniture. and shoes. and fingers.)

She chews. and chews. and chews. she has the sharpest teeth in the WORLD - so sharp that I wince just reaching to pet her or get the toy to throw. Her nails are sharp too. I am covered in well-meant scratches. I am trying to do what everyone says -ignore the bad and encourage the good and redirect when she chews the wrong thing, but she isn't INTERESTED in the right things! There are only so many stupid chew toys she'll pay attention to before going SHOES SHOES SHOES ROYA'S FEET ADAM'S HANDS CLOTHES SHOES BED PAPER BOOKS DVDS WIRES WIRES WIRES. She loves these dental dogbone things - it's the only thing she will actually sit and concentrate on until it's done (which usually lasts a whole half an hour) - but I am not sure how many of those I should give her in a day.

She's fine in her crate when we drive, but she hates going in it in the morning so I can take a shower and get ready for work. So I started putting her in the backyard so Rommel and her could play - but she jumps at the back door and scratches and whines and it has to bother the neighbors.

When I'm not home, she refuses to sleep at all. Last night I was out with a friend til 10pm, and Adam had to be in bed at like 8:00, and when I got home he was up with her, because she wouldn't sleep. Once I got there, she went in her crate and slept, no problem. ARGH.

Okay. so those things are frustrating. Here are the amazing bits

-she's house trained already. It took 4 days. Every time she goes outside on our lawn now she at least tries to pee, even if she doesn't have to. If she's inside, she heads to the front door and whimpers and I let her out and she pees. At work it's the same thing. It's awesome. She's so smart.

-When she's crying in her crate at night, she stops instantly if I stick my fingers in the holes in the crate. I think all she needs is to know I (someone?) is there. It's very sweet, and makes me feel needed.

-When she pushes her limits with Rommel (read: jumping next to him and biting his face) she turns around and runs as FASTASPOSSIBLE back to me for protection. She doesn't stay there long, but I am her off-limits-safe-place, apparently.

-She wants to eat grown up dog food rather than puppy food, which I find precocious.

-According to everything I've read, she is exhibiting all the signs of an "adolescent" dog - one many months older than her. All of the things that are frustrating are only because she's SO smart and SO driven. I am comparing this in my head to my sisters and I in school - or any really smart child who's bored to death sitting in a classroom. Instead of being annoyed that she won't sit still, I really need to give her more chances for her to expend that energy and use her smarts. I can't wait til she's had all her shots and I can take her everywhere. She'll be good at running with me, she'll love meeting new dogs, and I really, really, really, really, really can't wait to start obedience classes.

-I think obedience classes won't be enough for her. I also can't wait to start her on the Adlerhorst Police Training. She will learn to bite and to track and I will learn how to be good at having her.

I just wish I had more ideas about how to keep her interested in my office and at home. Regular old toys aren't really doing the trick. Maybe it's time for a trip to Petsmart to find something that lights up, squeaks, runs away from her and bounces. ....hm... maybe I could feed a lightbulb to a guinea pig.

I gave her an ice cube the other day. She liked that for about 45 minutes and 3 ice cubes. The fourth one melted somewhere in my living room without her interest.

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In non-puppy news..

...I have no non-puppy news.

man.

doggy and food

Well, Ronia's name is no longer Ronia. We don't know WHAT it is, but Adam and I decided that Ronia is too much like Rommel and the 3 syllable thing just doesn't work for a dog. So we're now trying to think of an Alaska-related name... something like Willow or Sitka or.. I don't know. Ideas?

In other news, I am trying to eat healthy and keep boyfriend eating healthy too. This is hard, as he is resistant to many of the "alternative" staples that I use.... so my mom and I got to talking about Monkey Platters and now I can hardly wait to see how that works out for us!

Last night I made a baked chicken dish with marmalade, soy sauce and bbq sauce, which I marinated the chicken in for a while, then baked in the oven and poured more of the sauce...then flipped the chicken and poured more of the sauce... and then served over brown rice with asparagus and a salad topped with brocolli slaw. It was a hit with Adam, and I like it too. The chicken was super juicy and yummy.

I also made Amish Friendship Bread, but the alternative version. The original recipe calls for 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of oil, along with the milk and eggs, etc. etc. So I substituted applesauce for oil, and splenda for sugar. The result is a little chewier than the other bread (texture reminded me of the crockpot banana bread I made last week) but it still tastes good. I also chopped up an apple and put that in, just for kicks. Next time I'll also try soy milk instead of regular milk, and maybe adding pumpkin.

The puppy formerly known as Ronia is asleep under my desk. I wish I could sleep. She's doing better sleeping throughout the night - I took her out to pee around 10pm, then again around 2am, then again at 4am, then again at 7:30. She peed every time, but doesn't cry in between that now. Phew. She cries the most when I put her in her crate after breakfast in the morning so I can take a shower and get ready for work. Poor doggy.

She's incredibly driven, very smart, and has endless energy. I am exhausted, but she is still cute enough to make up for it. ;) Her and Rommel have struck an understanding....she bounces around him and jumps up to get his attention, and he pays attention when he wants to. I saw him once put out a paw like, "puh-lease, must we?" It's funny. I never realized how BIG he was until I had her for contrast.

Ronia, the love of my life

I have turned into one of those all-consumed doting "parents" that I always made fun of. But on my gosh, my new puppy is so cute and so sweet and so smart! She is eight weeks 1 day old, she's amazing. She's house broken already (knock on wood) how do you get this cute??? How do you get so smart??? She's amazing amazing amazing.

ohhh stuff

So apparently my mom has a blog. And on this blog, she has a list of things to blog about when she runs out of other things to say. I am stealing the list! I feel badly that I haven't kept up with this blog. It doesn't take much - 5minutes a day, and I would really love to stay consistent.

I have been reading a lot lately - I read the 4 Twilight Books, Confessions of a Jane Austin Addict, Slum Dog Millionaire, and I am in the middle of Marley and Me (my Aunt Julie went on a books-to-movie kick, and I am borrowing the books from her..). I have been going to the gym or karate every day, and work has been ever-present. I've been dreaming about it. A lot.

Today we have a fundraiser at Acapulco, and a meeting at the Balearic Center for our Spring Fling Festival... this Saturday some of the wimminfolk in my family are going to a Spa for my mom's birthday, and on Sunday the karate studio is having a car wash. Next week I am getting my puppy!

Last night Adam and I realized that our crazy digging fish had HAD BABIES and now we have a gajillion tiny swimming things in our fish tank!!! No wonder those two striped fish were bonkers.

So here is the blogging list: I hope I remember to refer back to it!

The Story of My Most Serious Injury
The Person I Admire Most
This Will Be My Epitaph
Why I Love My Hometown
Why I Hate My Hometown
Why I Was a Childhood Bully
How I Shop
How I Choose to Spend My Money
I Wish I Spent Less Money on This
Why I’m in My Current Job
My Ideal Job
My High School Clique
My Worst Subject in School
If I Had a Super Power
Here’s Where My Opinion Differs From the Majority
Why I Voted the Way I Did in the Last Election
Why I Don’t Vote
The Cause I Really Believe In
Why I Came To Religion
Why I Don’t Believe Anymore
Where I Find Spirituality
My First Kiss
My Worst Kiss
The First Time I Had My Heart Broken
Why I Travel
Why I Don’t Travel
My Philosophy on Raising Children
Why I Chose My University Degree
My Favourite Place on the Planet
My Greatest Sin Against the Environment
Why I Married My Spouse
My Most Hated Movie
The Book That Changed My Life
My Unexpected Mentor
I Couldn’t Live Without This Song
If I Hear This Song Again, Radio Personalities Will Suffer
I Have the Craziest Uncle Ever
Why I Believe in Luck
Why I Don’t Believe in Luck
How I Earned My Worst Karma
Where I Volunteer
Why I Don’t Volunteer
My Favourite Item of Clothing Growing Up
If This Celebrity Knocked On My Door, I’d Run Away With Them
Why I Care About Celebrities
Why I Love This Sport
Why I Hate Sports
When I’m at My Most Self-Indulgent
How To Be Selfless
My Childhood Dreams, and How I’ve Fulfilled Them
How I Learned Patience
How My Hard Work Paid Off
I’ve Never Been More Surprised in My Life
What Scares the Shit Out of Me
The Only Thing I Can Teach You

christmas eve!

Today is shaping up to be a good christmas eve. Adam left this morning to go snowboarding, which is his favorite thing in the world to do, so I am glad he gets to today. I am at work until 2:30, then I am going home to CLEAN like crazy - which makes me doubly glad Adam is snowboarding, cuz it'll keep him out of my hair so I can actually do things. :) I need to finish wrapping the last presents, and make dinner, and then Adam and I are going to watch Love Actually and open presents.

Puppy fever is still going strong, but it's starting to be tempered with realism. I can't afford a puppy on my own right now - minimum is 500 just for the puppy, not for food or shots or toys or anything. I will have to wait at least til Jan 7th before I could afford it on my own. Adam says he will come up with money if his dad comes up with a good litter. We had the chance to have a bitch to breed with Rommel - Adam debated it all day yesterday but he was crazy to even consider it that much! What would I do with 8 german shepherd puppies? That'd be my full time job. Yeesh. But it's good to know his dad is looking out for us.

In other news, I've been having some crazy heart palpitations for the last two weeks or so. If they continue past the new year, I should go to the doctor. I've had ekg's, heart monitors, even an ultrasound of my heart, and my heart is structurally healthy, so all they've been able to tell me is don't drink caffeine, don't get stressed, and when I need to use an inhaler, use it two fingerspaces away. So I don't know if there's anything they can do for me, but it's uncomfortable. Occasionally painful, but usually it's just like living in a constant state of anxiety. It's so weird - my brain is not anxious about anything, but my physical reactions to things feel so nervous. My heart keeps jumping like it does when I get startled or scared, but for no good reason. Ahhhhhhggggg. I have to keep telling myself that I am calm and everything is fine. So very strange.

Anyhoo, hurrah for Christmas Eve. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

xmas, puppies, and...biopsies?

I always wonder just how personal to make this blog..and I go back and forth about which details to write and which not to write. But ya know, I've never been one to hold back, and honestly - you all saw me dressed up in 80's style hair/makeup, so I think we have no secrets anymore. I went to the doctor again today for a recurring issue that's caused a lot of pain for me for about a year. I've been so frustrated - I've seen I can't even tell you how many doctors how many times. I switched again, so today was the first day with this new specialist, and it was a little disconcerting because she shares an office with the last person I saw. She was younger, and had a lot of confidence. I really liked her - she seems like she is really taking control of my situation, rather than everyone else who all had a "wait and see..." attitude..for the last YEAR. So that's the good news. The bad news (well, sort of good news too I guess) is that I am having a biopsy in a couple of weeks. It's good because some sort of progress is being made, but it's bad because the idea of a biopsy is kind of freaking me out. So... I don't know. I think I am deciding to just be glad that she is doing something about it.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! I seem to be more enmeshed in Christmas than I ever have been in the past. Part of it is working in an office for the first time - so the amount of cards and candies and cookies is kind of staggering. Part of it is running an etsy site, I WANT people to be christmas-present-ing, and part of it is living with Adam and having a tree and putting up lights and getting presents for each other's families and everything. I believe that wonderful man o mine is going snowboarding during the day, but then we have a Christmas Eve date to watch Love Actually and open our presents. Christmas day is going to be a very very long family day, so I'm going to take a minute now and zen out so I remember that I love being with family, Adam gets overwhelmed sometimes by mine, and we won't all hang out again til Easter so I should soak it up now.

Oooooh the other big news, which deserves it's own post really, is that we are looking into getting a PUPPY!!! So exciting! We are going to get (ideally) a female german shepherd puppy, which I will be initially and primarily responsible for, since Adam already has Rommel and Adam will be starting Police Academy soon. I have puppy fever like crazy. I want want want want want and it's sort of driving me bonkers not being able to rush out and go GET one. We're waiting to hear from his dad, though, because as captain-something-or-other of the la-county-animal-something-or-other he has some ins and favors he could potentially call in to get us a catch on a new dog. SO EXCITED. WANT A PUPPY NOW.

I am so excited in fact, that I think this post deserves some puppy love in the form of photos of german shepherd puppies. Who doesn't love that??

AHHHhhhhh I die, I die, I die... must-have-puppy-NOW!

camping in big sur

So I went camping this weekend.....It was so much fun. Totally relaxing. Totally FREEZING. The best part was when we were crazy driving along these gnarly dirt roads, up on this ridge with sheer drops on either side....and we hear a clunking sound like something had just fallen out of the jeep. Turns out the drive shaft broke, and we spent the next three or four hours removing it (adam under the jeep, my foot on the break because of the incline we were at) then we managed to get down to our campsite, ate, slept, and dealt with it in the morning. We dealt with it by using 4 wheel drive to get up out of the valley and into Morro Bay, where we then spent the next 4 hours in an Autozone parking lot. But I was so impressed - Adam managed to spend only about 20 bucks and he FIXED the car. Totally fixed it. Man, my boyfriend is handy. So this picture is him "testing" the jeep around the parking lot. We stopped for a second in Cambria - last time we were there the male elephant seals were there in full force. This time of year there weren't as many elephant seals, but I got a few photos. They're so big. You don't even realize it til you're standing close to one.

This photo is my doggydog playing with me - he does this great POUNCE thing - and he was posing just long enough for me to get some photos.

I did a lot of drawing those 10ish hours while my foot was on the break. I came up with a few cup series that I want to do - I need to go to Aardvarks and invest in a high fire glaze pencil, I think. I'd love to be able to get across what I do on paper onto clay. I've never been good at that. I think I'll take some time to do it soon, because I'd like to start developing a portf0lio for an art therapy program.

So this weekend was a blast. Despite the car troubles, it was fun, relaxing, and wonderful. The cold was intense, but I was always fine at night (I have the most amazing sleeping bag ever) and it was so good to be where there were TREES and not a whole lot of people.

Adam and I also decided it's time to get a puppy. SO EXCITED. He's going to talk to his dad, and ideally we'll be getting a female german shephard. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.