You have to leave room in life to Dream.
~Buffy Sainte-Marie

Sunday, January 31, 2010

On My Own

Ben left Thursday for India. He'll be back next Sunday. So far, I have been keeping reasonably busy.
Thursday night I was going to poker (just to socialize, not play) but Zoey got sick again, so I decided to stay home.
Friday after work I took a nap and then went out to dinner with some friends. I had so much fun. And I laughed so much. We went to Pop restaurant in Minneapolis. The waiter brought us much amusement. When he came to the table he informed us that there was only one bowl of soup left and only one glass of a certain wine left. Ok. Seemed strange since it was still early for a Friday night, but whatever. After he took our order he came back a few minutes later to tell me that they only had one order of flautas left (I ordered two since it was an appetizer and he said it was small). So I changed my order to one order of flautas and one order of empanadas. A few minutes after that he came back to verify Heidi and Katie's orders. When the food arrived he discovered that he forgot to put Alyssa's order in. He told us he would treat us to dessert. I should also mention that he decided to speak Spanish to me... because I ordered Mexican food?!? Then he brought the dessert menus. We asked what he would recommend and he said the sampler. But since that was the most expensive dessert he told us he would chip in $5. Ok. I guess he didn't really mean that he was going to treat us to dessert. Whatever. But despite all that, we had a great time there. Actually, some of our laughs were around our waiter, so maybe without him it wouldn't have been so fun.
Saturday Zoey and I slept in until 7:30. We made some banana bread (ok, I made that) and I also cooked her some rice and chicken. Friday she only ate 1 cup of food instead of her normal 3 cups. When I got home from my dinner, she was more interested in sleeping than eating even though her stomach was growling like crazy. I figured maybe her stomach needed some easy food. She loved her breakfast. She kept asking for more. After that I met my mom at the mall to do some maternity shopping. I was only going to get a couple of pairs of work pants... but the sales lady and my mom got me to try on a whole bunch of stuff. I ended up with a bunch of clothes. But they should last until the baby comes. Hopefully Ben won't freak out too much when he sees the bill...
Sunday so far has been spent cleaning the kitchen. I washed dishes and cleaned off the counters. I washed all the cupboards, cleaned all the appliances and swept and mopped the floor. It looks nice. When I talked to Ben I told him he better be impressed. :) Now I'm trying to figure out what to eat this week so I can go to the grocery store.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Good Report

Zoey's vet appointment went well. Aside from the fact that she really did not want to be there. In the exam room she kept scratching at the door. Poor pup.

The vet we saw was super nice. I liked her a lot. She listened to Zoey's eating adventures as of late. Since the only thing "wrong" seems to be that Zoey is acting hungry, she suggested adding veggies to her food to help add more volume to her food without adding too many more calories. Everything else (ears, eyes, mouth, stomach, heart, lungs) was great. Her blood tests came back normal too.

The interesting thing is that apparently our little girl has been losing weight. Remarkable considering how much extra she has been getting lately. But surprising too since we weighed her just about two months ago and she hadn't lost anything. This didn't really click (timeline) when we were at the vet's so Ben and I will start to weigh her weekly and monitor her weight. If she continues to lose, we will call back into the vet to see what could be causing that. In the meantime, lucky girl gets veggies. :)

Monday, January 25, 2010

And the Doctor Said...

Friday night we went out to dinner with Grant and his current girl and David and Heather. We went to Loring Pasta Bar. It was the first time I had been there. I had been "craving" mac and cheese. I was so excited when it was on their menu. ( I put craving in quotes because this is a fairly common craving for me and has nothing to do with the little person inside of me). We had a great time at dinner.

Towards the end, I was getting very uncomfortable. I wasn't sure if I had to go to the bathroom, my pants were too tight or my body was tired of sitting. When we got home it hurt to walk. I wasn't too concerned and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and the pain was still there. I wasn't overly worried yet, but I decided I should tell Ben. He said I should call the doctor. Ok, fine. When I explained what I was feeling to the doctor, she said it sounded like just a pulled muscle and that unless it got worse, not to worry about it. So, instead of taking down the Christmas tree (yes, it's still up), I sat on the couch all day.

On Sunday Ben and I ran to the store together to buy some food for the big game. We made 1899 BBQ pulled chicken sandwiches, veggies and dip, chips and guacamole and brownies. Who knew that eating like it's 1899 could be so darn tasty? When we got home from the store I discovered an empty wrapper to a 300 gram (14 oz) chocolate bar in our bedroom. I called downstairs to Ben to see how much was actually left (I brought it home from my layover in Germany in the fall and he had slowly been eating the bars). He said there was a whole one. Yep, that's the wrapper I found.

After scolding Zoey, Ben ran down to the computer to see what we should do while I called the emergency vet. The vet said to induce vomiting with hydrogen peroxide. After she emptied her stomach we were to then bring her in to get some active charcoal (to help absorb the toxins). I hated the thought of giving her HP so I gave her an egg instead (that usually makes her puke). She ate it happily and didn't throw up. So, she got the HP anyway. Not a fun experience for any of us. But sure enough, a few minutes later she vomited outside. We didn't get the whole dose (2 oz) in her, so we decided to go ahead and finish the dose. She was expecting it and it was even more difficult to get any down her throat. After waiting 15 minutes with no results, we gave up and went upstairs.

Ben and I then debated if we should take her in. It wasn't a lethal dose. And I'm pretty sure the vet (who isn't our vet) wanted us to come in so we could pay them. As we were discussing what we should do, Zoey vomited again. This time a lot. On our carpet (on a side note - this is really gross, but it smelled like chocolate so for the first time in my life I didn't mind cleaning it up). We went to work cleaning it up. I think the carpet looks pretty good. Whew. I called our vet today (Zoey needs her annual check up anyway) and mentioned the chocolate episode. They did not seem worried about it based on her size and the size of the bar and that we were able to get her to vomit it back up. Poor little girl. But tomorrow at her appointment we will be talking about her eating habits.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Cruisin'

On January 8, Ben and I left for the annual Internet Marketers Cruise. Years ago we discovered the wisdom of arriving the day before a cruise in case of delays. Guess what? We were delayed. There was an issue with our main radio on the plane. The radio was fixed in not too long of time, but because of the delay, our flight crew would be over hours. So we got to deplane to wait for the new flight crew. In exchange we got $100 Delta vouchers, 2500 bonus miles, and we got to the hotel at 4 am instead of 11 pm of the night before. Oh, well.
Day 1: Cape Canaveral - It was cold! Temp was around 30. The line to get through security for the cruise ship is outside. We were all a little miserable. If I had known that it was going to be so cold, I would have brought my winter coat. Ben was sweet and tried to get me to skip ahead to get inside. But since you still can't really tell that I'm pregnant, I felt guilty because I know how much I hate line cutters. But we survived. Once we got on the boat we took a self-guided tour led by Tim. That night there was a social hour before dinner to connect with the other marketers. It was so nice to see friends from last year again. Sherry is super excited that I'm pregnant. After dinner, Tim and I went to the show. After that the put an inflatable laser tag arena on the stage. Somehow Chris talked me into playing. It was so much fun! And man! 5 minutes is a long time. I felt so out of shape. Ben and some others played after us (I surprised Ben by still being awake since I hardly slept the night before).
Day 2: At Sea - Cold and windy! It was funny to walk along the Lido deck and not see very many people. And what people were braving the elements were huddled in blankets. We watched an ice carving demonstration. Then went to part of the art auction. Ben had a meeting with the other marketers, so I sat in on some of the auction and poked around the ship.
Day 3: Cozumel - What's this I see? Could it be? The sun? But it was still super windy. Ben and I went for a run on the outdoor track. When you rounded the end of the ship you really had to push through the wind. But then once you headed the other way, you had to put on the breaks. It was a little strange. Due to this wonderful weather, we decided the beach was not the way to go. So we just went to downtown and window shopped. We did buy a necklace and earring set for me. :)
Day 4: Isla Roatan, Honduras - Slight drizzle. Fun. There was a beach party excursion only for the marketers. We hadn't signed up for it. Turns out a bunch hadn't. So those that didn't found our own transportation to the same beach. It was super cloudy - so cloudy I didn't get sunburned. But the temperature was in the upper 60's so it was comfortable. Our friend Max Action got his hair braided. Elisabeth and I worked on a sand sculpture of some fertility goddess (her idea). Overall it was a fun day.
Day 5: Belize - I was super excited to be in Belize. I have heard of the amazing diving and snorkeling. Unfortunately, no diving for me. So we decided to go snorkeling. We took a public water taxi to an island 45 minutes away from Belize City and walked through the quaint island to the public beach. The beach wasn't much of a beach. We sunscreened up and headed for the water. It was cold! We snorkeled across a channel and around some mangroves. I will admit that I freaked out. The visibility was pretty low. And so I started to imagine what else was in the water with us. I calmed down enough to somewhat enjoy the snorkel back to the beach, but we really didn't see much. We did see some rays and some barracuda, but that's about it. Once we got out of the water, we decided to call it a day. There looked to be a storm on the way. The water taxi is uncovered and neither one of us was interested in a rainy ride.
Day 6: Costa Maya, Mexico - Finally! A perfect day! Temps were in the 70's. The sky was clear and the sun was radiant! We got off the ship and headed to the taxis. We ended up running into our friend Joseph with a few of his buddies. They had the same plan as us - beach to snorkel. We shared a cab to the beach. A guy baited and hooked us with $20 per person for 1 hour of snorkeling and the lady goes free pitch. The snorkeling was fabulous! Not the best ever, but so cool! Saw tons of fish and other sea creatures. It was the perfect day.
Day 7: At Sea - Ben had meetings pretty much all day, so I was on my own. I did the 1 mile walk for breast cancer. It was windy on deck for this too. But it was fun. Had a nice chat about cruising with a lady from Canada.

This was a super short summary of our activities. Not listed are the antics at night with our friends. We had so much fun. A lot of fond memories to tide us over until next year!

Friday, January 8, 2010

Bread and Butter

I have no idea what is going on with our little girl. She used to be such an angel. But in the past few weeks, she has not been. But I'm not entirely sure it's her fault. Lately she seems to be hungry a lot. It used to be that she would eat when we fed her and if we forgot, no biggie. Now she is actually asking for food. And apparently she is getting hungry outside of meal time.

Before Christmas she ate a whole package of turtles (my fault - left the completely sealed package on the floor. Interestingly, she didn't touch the cashews). Thankfully the chocolate didn't make her sick.

The next week she managed to get into the pantry (the door was probably ajar) and ate a sleeve and a half of Saltine crackers and the rest of a bag of potato chips (we found an unopened sleeve of crackers in the spare bedroom - stash for later??).

Last night (while we were home) she managed to grab a new loaf of bread off the dining room table. Pretty much ate the entire thing. This morning I noticed that the butter dish was licked clean.

She has a vet appointment when we get back from vacation. I'll talk to the vet then about this. I'm just worried that we aren't feeding her enough. (But she hasn't been loosing weight). Poor girl!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

It's [was] the Holiday Season!

I love Christmas! Ben is such a dear and willingly turns the radio on during Christmas (something that he usually does not do) just so I can have Christmas tunes following me everywhere.

It started off that we weren't hosting anything this season. But then, Christmas magic happened and we were hosting three events. One was cancelled due to weather. So we were down to two - Christmas morning and a family gathering that took place last weekend. We love to host and it is nice not have to go anywhere. And now the house is clean. :)

Aside from enjoying time off, family time and Christmas, I also completed my 2009 Resolutions. I have made two new recipes every month. I have run 100 miles. It felt great to have goals that stretched the whole year to keep me motivated and going. Now I'm trying to determine some for this year. I had thought about keeping these ones, but does it really count as a resolution if you have already done it? Still pondering that one.