Hachi

The movie Hachi was playing during the holidays, so I recorded it to watch later.  I read about it on IMDB and it brought me to tears.  The movie is about a professor who finds a lost puppy at a train station and the connection they have. 

Since I know how it ends, I couldn't watch it all at once.  I watched half of it so far and will watch the rest soon.  Animal stories always get to me.  

Rat Terrier's Allowed at Westminster

The Rat Terrier is finally being acknowledged as a breed at the Westminster show.  It is about time.  I think the Rat Terrier's are incredibly smart and have beautiful lines.  They can prance with the best of them, be rough and tumble, or be loving little lap dogs.  They are so versatile.  Yes, I am a bit biased because I have one in my household (and previously had another), but I hope that others finally see the fantastic traits of this breed.

Fitbit

Hubby bought me a Fitbit Flex several days ago.  I had been looking in to them for a while, but held off because of the cost.  I absolutely love my Fitbit.  It was super easy to set up and is very comfortable to wear.  I downloaded the app for my phone and  I find myself checking it regularly to make sure how close I am hitting my daily goal.  

I also have my weight loss goal listed and that constant reminder helps me to make better food choices.  

Farewell 2013

2013 hasn't been a bad year, but it hasn't been particularly great either.  I am looking forward to 2014 because I will finish my masters degree during this year.  We also plan to travel together, at least once, during 2014.  

Bring on the new year!!!!

Case of the Missing Ear Plugs

Hubby sleeps with earplugs at night and he hads (make that had) two pair of custom molded ear plugs.  They are more comfortable than anything you can buy over the counter.  He has been keeping one pair of ear plugs on the nightstand for the past three years and there has never been a problem.  Until recently.

One evening he notices that his ear plugs are gone.  We look everywhere imaginable and come up empty.  So, we start going over when we saw them last, etc.  We realized that they were laying in the middle of some of the Bob's soft mints (he keeps those on the nightstand too in case his blood sugar goes low) the night before.  One of our dogs, Riley the lab mix,  LOVE those silly mints. They are like doggie crack to her.  But we couldn't figure out how she could have gotten the ear plugs out without moving the mints or the cloth that was on the nightstand.  Why would she take the plugs and not just take the mints?  So we came to the conclusion that either she smelled the mints and took the ear plugs by mistake, that hubby accidentally threw them away (not likely, but you never know), or Abbie, the rat terrier, got up on the nightstand and took them.  Again, not sure how she would have done so without moving the mints or the cloth.  After exhausting all options, we decided that if either of them ate the ear plugs, we would know soon enough.  So, hubby pulled out his spare pair of ear plugs.

The next morning, hubby realized when he woke up that one of his ear plugs was missing.  Not both, just one of them.  He put them in that night and remembered taking one of them out and putting it on the nightstand during the night, but it was now gone.  Again, we did the search and came up empty.  We pulled the bed out, looked in pillow cases, looked in the bedding, looked under everything, in every corner; we literally took the bedroom apart and looked everywhere.  This time, the dogs were in their kennel, so where could this blasted ear plug have gone.  Now, we decided there was only one thing left to do...search the dog poop.  Yuck.

Later that day, we did our initial poop search and sure enough, we found the first pair of missing ear plugs.  The were eaten by Abbie, the rat terrier.  Somehow she managed to get them off of the nightstand without touching the mints or messing up the cloth that was on the nightstand.  No clue how she managed that, because I can't touch anything on those nightstands without messing up the cloth, but somehow she did.   We are still searching for the single missing ear plug.  This one has not revealed itself....yet.

Abbie is definitely keeping her status intact as my most expensive dog.

Feed Me!!

Hubby and I were out geocaching today and we came upon these guys in a little park.  As soon as they saw us they came swimming up looking for food.   Even when we went to a different part of the park they came over again.  They did not want us to leave without feeding them.  They came right up to the car door and even pecked the tires when we tried to back out.  I will have to go back with some bread for them.

Mini Pancake Maker Cookies

Last night hubby and I experimented with making sugar cookies in an electric mini pancake maker.  Last year, I bought a mini pancake and mini doughnut maker during the holidays and never really used them.  So, we decided to see if we could use them for something other than what the box indicated.

We took a basic sugar cookie recipe, dropped small little portions into each pancake area, and closed the lid for about a minute (depending on how crunchy or soft you want them).  They came out great.  They were slightly larger than a Nilla Wafer and tasted fantastic.

Now that we know that works, we could buy the refrigerator rolls of cookie dough and just make a small batch of a few cookies when we want them!