What's on my mind this morning...

Over the years I have forgotten how fun and rewarding cooking can be. It's been tough to keep cooking in my life when my husband refuses to eat 90% of anything I'm interested in making. I've recently decided to start trying again - just because he doesn't like the recipes for chili and spaghetti that my mom passed down to me, doesn't mean we can't find other favorites to eat together! On Thursday I did some "zen" cooking with pork chops - I used a very basic recipe and improvised from there. I made a simpler version for Eric, and then went very fruity with my share. We swapped bites and he said he liked mine better - there's hope for him yet! :)

Yesterday I made some amazing Cherry Garcia Mini-Muffins from HealthyTastyChow. They are so moist and flavorful, not really like a muffin at all. Eric doesn't like cherries very much, so of course he didn't like them, but I didn't make them for him! :)

While I was out and about searching for cherries now that they're out of season (had to settle for dried cherries), I came across a dog left in a car. It was in the upper 80s at that point in the day, so the owner had left 2 windows cracked by maybe an inch, and the "moon roof" was propped open leaving a crack of 2-3 inches. I come across dogs left in hot cars about three times a year, and I'm always torn. Do I call the emergency hotline now, or wait until I'm done shopping? If the owner comes back before I'm done shopping, the dog will probably be ok. But if I come out and the owner still isn't back, that's a lot of time to have wasted on waiting before doing anything. The dog looked fine - it wasn't even panting - so I did my shopping. I was sooo relieved to come back out and the car was gone! Still, in situations like these, a little schooling may be in order.

I searched online and found these fliers, which I intend to print and keep handy in my car for future interventions. It is so frightening to find dogs like this knowing that, even with the windows cracked, it only takes 10 minutes for a car to go from 85 to 102 degrees. Within a half hour, the car is 120 degrees. We get a lot of mixed-weather days in Seattle, so I think a lot of people here don't think about it much. But lower temperatures can still be just as dangerous - it just adds a few more minutes before your dog has heat stroke. If you Google the topic, you'll find lots of information about how deadly hot cars can be to dogs. MyDogIsCool.com - where I found the fliers - has information on studies done to show how fast a car heats up in different situations.

Now it's time to wrap things up and start packing for my trip on Monday. California here I come! :)

What's on my mind

What's on my mind today...

I woke up this morning at the usual 6 a.m. to take my temperature and, sadly, after yesterday's spike it plummeted again. My temperature fluctuates so much, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm even ovulating at all.

Spiders invaded the house overnight - the only thing I don't love about Fall.

Spent all yesterday designing something a little more intricate than usual, for a friend. I hope she likes it!

I now have 4 finished designs sitting around waiting to be strung and completed. They're doing nobody any good sitting in their bead trays!

Last night Eric and I watched Tony Bourdain's "No Reservations from Beirut". This coming on the heels of watching "A Mighty Heart" about the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Normally I do not watch "war movies", but I told myself as I started watching "A Mighty Heart" that if it got too graphic, I would just turn it off. It never became too graphic, despite the subject. It was actually quite engaging, a bit of on-the-edge-of-your-seat, even when the action turned over to a scene back at the Pearl household where everyone was bored while waiting for news. Thank god they didn't re-enact the scene of his beheading. When they watched the video, I turned off the sound just in case, but all you saw was the glow of the TV reflected on the faces of all these people who had been so desperate to get him back. Angelina Jolie was incredible. If you think you know what the term "gut-wrenching" means, you haven't seen anything until you've seen her as Mariane finally breaking down at the news of Daniel's death.

The "No Reservations" episode from Beirut had a completely different feel to it, but it was still depressing and surreal. Tony and crew had the (un)luck to be taping a how about Lebanese cuisine in Beirut during July 2006 - they started filming the day before Hezbollah kidnapped some Israeli soldiers. That night there were Israeli fly-overs, and they woke up the next morning to learn the airport had been bombed. They spend the remainder of the episode living and filming from hotels, with nothing to do other than congregate by the pool with other stranded tourists and locals: there they catch what gossip they can about the situation, watch the bombing only a few kilometers away, and stare hopelessly at the helicopters air-lifting people out of the city as they wonder when it will be their turn to escape.

I've never been able to wrap my mind around what it must be like to live in the Middle East, where war and bombings are often a daily occurrence. Watching it through the eyes of culture-shocked Tony Bourdain and crew only left me more dumbfounded.

And on that note, it's time to get up off the sofa and check on the spider incursion.