Comfort

Posted by Gretchen on April 3, 2012 Posted in Dear Diary, Pup Posts Tagged bad day, daxter, harry, puppies, thai

Yesterday was not my favorite. It was just one of those no-good, rotten, stinking kind of days. For the first time since starting this job, I had a bad day at work. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had plenty of not-good days at work. There have been many days when I’ve been tired, cranky, stressed, or just bored, but overall I wouldn’t really consider them BAD days. Well, yesterday ended up being a bad day. And all I wanted to do when I got home (which took me twice as long as normal thanks to a lovely accident on Route 50) was buy out a store’s entire supply of Cadbury Creme Eggs and lapse into a sugar-induced coma.

Source: XKCD

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you see it), that didn’t happen. I made it as far as the CVS parking lot before mentally slapping myself across the face and coming to my senses. Instead of binge eating 1500 calories worth of fondant-filled chocolate, I simply whined to Sean about my le terrible day (he’s so lucky to have me, haha) and went about my business as usual. I went to the bank. I got my oil changed. I got my nails did.

Just call me Whasian Barbie.

And after all that, I indulged in a much less destructive way: with Thai food and puppies. (Schnauzers are good for the soul, I tell you!) And so another day is gone where I am reassured of how far I’ve come. I may not be making much progress on the general weight loss front lately (womp womp), but at least you can’t say I haven’t made personal progress in the past year.

Click through to view the video if you’re reading this via email subscription!

Much better.

Belated Birthday

Posted by Gretchen on January 24, 2012 Posted in Pup Posts Tagged bithday, daxter, dogs, puppies

So you are now all acquainted with what Chinese New Year is like in the Powell household, but I neglected to tell you about the other celebration that was held!

It was somebody’s birthday on Saturday, and being the crazy dog lady that I am, you know I couldn’t NOT make something of it! Fair warning: there are about to be a lot of pictures of some really cute dogs coming up.

It was a true puppy party! Daxter had the support of big bro Harry…

… as well as cousin Oreo to help him ring in the big 0-2!

Equipped with a giant rawhide from his aunt and cousin (which he immediately trotted away with) and a Busy Buddy from Harry and me, I think that he made out pretty well!

I picked up some pupcakes for the birthday gang from Dogma Bakery, and I think the rest of the photos will speak for themselves. Call me crazy if you like, but this ish makes me happy, okay? And I like to think that it made the birthday boy happy too. 😉

So put my mind at ease: am I the only crazy person who does this kind of birthday celebration for her pets? And do you judge me for it? I mean, even if you do, it’s not like it’ll stop me in the future. I’m just curious, hahaha.

Oh, he’s definitely judging me. But I don’t care. 🙂

Christmas Eve Eve

Posted by Gretchen on December 23, 2011 Posted in Dear Diary Tagged christmas, holiday, puppies

Happy Friday, folks!

At the last minute I decided to take today off from work and get a four-day holiday weekend out of Christmas (since I only actually get the 26th off). Huzzah!

Other than that though, I don’t really have much to report. Today will be spent making the gingerbread house, decorating cookies, and spending time with the fam. Can you believe that tomorrow is Christmas Eve?! Ahhhh! I LOVE IT.

And just in case you weren’t full of enough holiday merriment, I present the following video of sheer adorableness to you. Apologies if you’ve already seen it through my posting it on Facebook. Actually, I’m not sorry. It’s so cute, you know you want to watch it again!

(If you’re reading this via email subscription, be sure to click through to watch the video!)

What’s your Christmas Eve tradition? My family’s is to go to church, have a light dinner afterward (to ready ourselves for the actual Christmas ~~Beast~~ Feast), and open a single present before bed. SQUEE CHRISTMAS!!!

(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!

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]) your full name and mailing address, and I’ll get the info to Popchips so they can send you your month’s supply!