(Temporary) Freedom

Posted by Gretchen on August 2, 2011 Posted in Dear Diary, Food, Pup Posts Tagged daxter, dogs, harry, oreo, photoshoot, puppies, sushi, weight loss

I wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to follow up yesterday’s trifecta of awesome. After all, having a hallelujah-Monday that consisted of entering a new decade of weight loss, a career move AND a new haircut (not necessarily in that order of importance) is hard to do!

And then I woke up to a vomiting dog and menstrual cramps (sorry to my 4.2 male readers, haha) and realized that maybe I’m not supposed to try to outdo it. But, while I may not be starting off this day with quite the same pizazz as yesterday, it is still a day where I got to sleep in until 9 AM (that is late for me these days!) because I’m taking some “me time” before starting my new job. Partly by choice, and partly because my new job’s start date is affected by the current government furlough of the FAA. Sooooo… it may end up being a little MORE me time than originally planned. Oh well. I love me so, it’ll be okay. Just a good life lesson in frugality over the next month perhaps.

Another good thing? I had an awesome bowl of overnight oats waiting for me in the fridge this morning (raw oats, chia seeds, coconut, almond milk, empty — sob — jar of Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.) So, all is not lost.

Plus, the sister and her hubs took Ben, Taylor and me out for sushi (what else?) last night to thank us for puppysitting this past week! Everybody’s a winner!

I love sushi.

Photos by Ben Powell

Pre-sushi, Ben and I attempted to take some photos of Oreo for my sister while he’s still in his supercute puppy phase. Unfortunately, being in his supercute puppy phase means he is a terrible photography subject. He doesn’t know how to “stay” yet, so it was basically 20 minutes of me wrestling him into place and then trying to jump out of the picture as quickly as possible. So it was kind of impossible to get any decent shots of the three dogs together, but he did get some pretty great ones of Oreo on his own (after editing my limbs out of the pictures, haha.) Observe!

Sufficiently pick-me-uppish? 😉

Don’t worry, I have plans to actually be productive during my days of (temporary) freedom — including that post on blogging that I’ve been promising for a while now!

Birthdays in India

Posted by Gretchen on July 28, 2011 Posted in Dear Diary, Food Tagged curry, dan, family dinner, indian food, jen, naan, oreo, puppy

Last night, the fam got together to celebrate birthdays a deux: my lovely and amazing sister, Jen, and her lovely and amazing hubby, Dan! Their birthdays are a mere 5 days apart (well, 5 days and a year) so we banged out both celebrations in one big family dinner at Haandi, a local Falls Church (what else?) Indian restaurant.

Thanks for taking the pic, Taylor! It was a veritable smorgasbord of spicy, saucy, Indian goodness. Nommm.

We started with an appetizer sampler plate (the samosas were huuuuge!) I always love the green tamarind-chutney-sauce-stuff (no idea what it’s called… help?)

And the garlic naan was to DIE for. Hopefully the feast to come made for a very happy birthday couple:

I know that my sister was just happy to receive the Oreo-lookalike (her new puppy) birthday cards!

My brother was content to let me play the lone photographer for once, while he nursed this behemoth:

Bahahaha.

Saffron-ish rice, naturally, served as a base. And then… it began:

Oh my goodness. There was palak paneer (spinach with cheese cubes), lamb korma (lamb in a creamy sauce), chicken tikka masala, some kind of spicy eggplant coconut curry, and channa (chickpeas) masala that I must have forgotten to photograph in my haste to, you know, eat. Hehe.

My plate:

Times like a thousand more pieces of naan to soak up all the curry goodness left in the bowls. Hehe. We were all so stuffed by the end of the meal, we couldn’t even bother with dessert. Ah well.

So speaking of Oreo, we’re puppysitting for my sis and her hubs while they go celebrate for REALS in Las Vegas this weekend! I’m so, so jealous. I haven’t been to LV since I was… 13? Not quite the experience I’m sure most of you have had in Sin City, ahahaha. So for me, this weekend will be a fast refresher of what puppy-ownership is like. Even though Daxter is only 1.5 years old, I’ve clearly already blocked some things out, haha! But it’s okay, because he’s so cute it all balances out in the end. I just hope my roommates see it that way, too… hehehe.

Photo by Ben Powell

See?

Also, and I tell you this because I am all about full disclosure on this blog, I may or may not but definitely am going to see Harry Potter for a fourth time this afternoon. NO JUDGING. I’m just trying to keep the magic alive! 😀

Family Fourth

Posted by Gretchen on July 4, 2011 Posted in Dear Diary, Pup Posts Tagged cookout, daxter, dog park, dogs, family, family weekend, harry, oreo

Hi everybody! I know that today I’ve already reported on hitting up the farmer’s market and going to Wolf Trap with Jennifer and Amanda, respectively, but I’m back to pick up where I left off and shove more self-indulgent pictures of my life in your face. You are welcome. 🙂

Sunday afternoon centered around a family trip to the dog park!

What with my sister’s new puppy down to visit, we decided it was time to introduce him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly ideal considering it was about a billion degrees outside, and Oreo seemed a little intimidated by all the wide open space at first.

He spent the first 15 minutes parked under the same tree until Jenny had to physically carry him over to the rest of us, haha!

He warmed up to the experience in no time though:

And it wasn’t long ’til he was officially part of the pack:

While we were there by ourselves for a chunk of our visit, we did have some fun visitors come by to play.

I can’t imagine how hot it was for Harry’s water buddy under all that fur!

When this biker came up to the gate, I thought he was just riding by to check out the dogs. I had no idea he had a tiny Yorkie hidden in his bicycle basket! If only Daxter were a few inches shorter… sigh. 😉

It really was unbearably hot though. The dogs kept going back and forth between playing and poopin’ out. At least they were nice and tired by the time we got home!

A really fun way to kill an hour or so in the afternoon though, and it certainly worked up our appetites for our big backyard cookout! Grilling was performed in between thunderstorms, hehe.

There was SO much food – steak, hot dogs (cooked flat-top style, mmm!), grilled veggies, pork, and corn! Fruit & cupcakes for dessert, too, hehe. Oh, and I discovered the most amazing way of grilling corn! I gotta remember to share it with you all soon – you will die of blissful deliciousness.

Hope you all had a fabulous Fourth of July weekend! We celebrated the actual Fourth today with more family hanging out and attending a cookout at Amanda‘s, and I prepared my fantabulous Mango Guacamole (which was a hit!) Recipe is coming tomorrow, don’t worry, along with what is sure to be a catastrophic weigh-in after all the holiday eating, hehe. Worth it!

OMG PUPPIEEEEZ!

Posted by Gretchen on June 21, 2011 Posted in Dear Diary, Pup Posts Tagged bikini confidence, daxter, dogs, harry, miniature schnauzers, oreo, pool, puppies

Warning: You may at some point during this post go into cuteness overload. Symptoms may include: cooing, scrunching of the face, speaking in baby-talk, and an incredible urge to touch soft things.

Heh.

But before we get to the overwhelming adorableness that is my sister and her husband’s new puppy (!!), let’s finish up the rest of the non-food related weekend, shall we?

I got to spend some time at the pool! Hooray! As you all know, I spent most of the weekend in Delaware visiting Steve for an early birthday celebration.

So we spent Saturday afternoon at his uncle’s super nice pool…

Aaaaand so did the pups. Bahahaha!

Now hold on, before you go on thinking that I’m a cruel, cruel dog owner (which, let’s face it, we all know just isn’t true.) Let me just preface this by saying that we weren’t risking their lives, we were just helping them broaden their horizons by giving them their first (and considering how much they hated it, probably their last) swimming lesson. Let the hilarity ensue:

See? No harm done other than a lot of post-pool shaking and wriggling. Well, to the dogs, at least. But to me, the experience was totally worth the ten bazillion scratches I have on my neck and shoulders now, hahaha.

And yes, this weekend’s pool trip also included another attempt to build up my bank of bikini confidence. I struggled with whether or not I wanted to post the following pic, but I’m sucking it up and going for it. After all, despite the misleading number of posts that center around my dogs, this really is supposed to be a weight loss blog, right? I figure that A) I really need to try to tie this post in at least SOMEWHAT to what my blog is about, and B) everybody get stomach rolls when they sit, right? RIGHT?!!?

So, the confidence is slowly coming. And even though I obviously still have a little ways to go yet, I strengthen my resolve that I really am going to get there this time. After all, just yesterday I was brought a little closer!

And now, to help you forget about having seen the above-posted flubbery, enjoy the following photo smörgåsbord (yep, that just happened) of Harry & Daxter’s new little cousin: Oreo!

Isn’t he adorable?! He’s a schnauzer-lab (schlabrador? Ha!) mix. So even though I was clearly HIGHLY-affronted that they didn’t go full-schnauzie (I don’t know if you could tell, but I kinda dig this breed), I think he is a perfect compromise for my sister, who loved the size and temperament of my babies, and her hubs, who is a manly, lab-owning kinda guy. We went up to Columbia Sunday night for Father’s Day dinner and to meet the little guy!

It took a second for Harry & Daxter to warm up to Oreo at first…

But eventually they were comfortable enough to play with him (Daxter) or moderately ignore him (Harry), hahaha:

Much to my mother’s delight:

And my father’s indifference:

Hahahaha. Puppies everywhere! But don’t worry boys, you’re still #1 for me:

Puptastic weekend: check. I love life. And I love you guys! And clearly based on the inordinate number of comments you left as entries for my giveaway, you guys LOVE Popchips! So I’m going to try to channel all this love by announcing the randomly selected winner:

Drumroll please…

Chloe!

Congratulations, Chloe! Email me ([email protected]gretchen.com) your full name and mailing address, and I’ll get the info to Popchips so they can send you your month’s supply!