Meet Bo

My goldfish died MONTHS ago....and I decided to wait awhile before getting another fish...


One of these days, I want a tank again, but not 'til I can afford the whole shebang and have time to clean it properly, etc.

In the meantime, I decided to get a Betta.

Meet Bo!

















Bo hides a lot. He has gotten more social in the last few days, and now comes out eagerly when he sees the food shaker coming closer....
















But mostly, he sits in the top floor of the little hiding house, and does just that, hides and watches!
















This past week, Laurie stayed with us for several days. I soaked up the sounds of my girls laughing and talking, amidst all the running around we had to do.

Here's a picture of Laurie, LeBoyfriend Jason and Karen, during a "Meeting before a Meeting"....at Starbucks, of course!
















and here's a picture of Allyse and Laurie, who had not been able to hang out together in several months (!) and took advantage of the opportunity!
















It was a great week!

Pumpkins!

My pumpkins were ready! I picked them last week when I wiped out most of my garden, and now I'm going to try to weed the whole thing over a few evenings this week, turn the soil a bit, and get ready for some cooler garden veggies....

Like spinach, kale, lettuce, broccoli, and some peas and beans....

It's all a great big experiment. If it doesn't work, who knows, maybe I'll give it one more year and then just raze the thing and plant ivy. Whatever!

Anyway, one of the pumpkins, just like this one pictured.....


















Gave me two loaves of pumpkin bread. That is, after I baked them, scraped out the insides, and strained the mush a bit!


Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

2 1/2 c. sugar
1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, soft
1/2 c. butter
4 eggs
1 (16 oz.) can pumpkin (I used 2 cups of the baked pumpkin mush)
3 1/2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 c. chopped nuts, optional (I didn't have, so omitted!)

Combine sugar, cream cheese and butter, mixing at medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in pumpkin. Add combined dry ingredients, mixing just until moist. Fold in nuts. Pour into 2 greased and floured loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees, 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes, then remove from pans.


Karen pronounced it a success. I'm going to split a loaf between Laurie's house, and her LeBoyfriend Jason..... Karen claimed the other loaf for herself and TiJae, Patrick and Cage! That is, if they get over the flu before it's gone!

Puppy porn alert!

Karen sat down on the sofa and ended up with an armload of squirming puppy love.....

Cake Class!

I had a long picture heavy blog post all done. And lost it.

And Blogger is really frosting me with this sudden "you can't drag and reposition pictures" thing. What's up with making me go into HTML to copy paste codes to move pictures? I'm in no mood for it.

Anyway.

The only thing I'm going to retype is this:

Cake Class was tonight. Lookie at our first attempt at Fondant!

The End!

The Story of Pocket...

About two weeks ago, Mr. B called me from his station and told me that he'd found another dog. I began my usual sputtering and protesting, because for Pete's Sake, we have five. Enough. More than. He told me he had found this little guy in the middle of traffic (as usual.....he drives for a living!) and took him to a vet right at that particular intersection. The vet said they'd keep him for a few days, and if no one in the neighborhood claimed him, he'd go to the pound.

At the pound, he'd have another three days to get checked out, processed, and would be put up for adoption.

And if he wasn't adopted, then it was curtains for him. Sigh.

For the next few days, Mr. B called the vet, and then called the pound. He printed the picture of the little guy off the pound website and showed it to me.... hoping I'd change my mind.

I won't go into all the reasons that getting a Sixth Dog would be wrong, on so many levels..... This blog is supposed to be my happy place.

Anyway, "son" Patrick came over in the middle of the computer crisis and Mr. B told him the story of this little dog. Patrick listened to Mr. B's impassioned tale about the little dog, took one look at Mr. B's picture of the puppy off the pound website, took another look at my glazed eyes and shaking hands (strange reaction I had every time this dog was mentioned) and he said,

"I'll go get him!"

I could have kissed his feet. I had a fleeting joyous moment, and then reality struck and I said, "Patrick, you don't have to do that....."

He said he had been talking with TiJae about getting a dog..... TiJae's son Cage, and TiJae both really wanted one.....This one looked like the right size, etc, etc, etc...... I zipped my lip and dared to hope that it might work out!

The next day Patrick came by to pick up some significant moolah from us (we were more than happy to loan them the $$$, cos getting a dog at the pound AIN'T cheap!) and he took TiJae down to meet him....

They fell in love. I dared to hope a little more! Maybe this dog was going to get the Forever Home he deserved! Patrick and TiJae paid the fees and went home to wait "two to ten days" for this puppy to be neutered, given shots, checked over, chipped, etc.

At one point TiJae posted this picture:

With the caption, "somethin's missin'!"

They waited, and waited, and waited...... and named him "POCKET" while they waited. Then they got The Call!!

Pocket's Home!!

We were invited to Patrick 'n TiJae's for dinner last Thursday - Mr. B got to hang out with Pocket and Patrick and catch up on all the news.

And TiJae and Patrick fed us an AWESOME dinner. (Karen was helping!)

TiJae made cordon bleu and Patrick grilled it along with some mighty fine hamburgers....

and there was cauliflour and carrots and stuffed mushrooms and mushroom gravy and cookies and YUM!! It was soooooooooo good....

At one point, the kids got into a phone comparison/calling match..... Karen's kinda happy with her Palm Pre, just in case anyone is asking....

But for the most part, we tried very hard to behave ourselves so we get invited back again. They make great dinners!

Thanks Patrick and TiJae!

** the post above this one will be a slide show of Pocket Pix - "Conehead" picture was taken after he was neutered....poor guy!**