I’m A Year Old!

Behind Stripes and Spots

Really I turned a year old last month but my birthday present camed a few weeks ago! Daddy bringed me home this cool tower to climb all over and watch the stuff on the porch-TV screens. It’s also comfy for sleeping on and it has guest places so my sisters can come out too. But sometimes they’re mean and I don’t want to share.

There's room for my sisters sometimes too.

I looked up that word in the dictionary. I hadda do it in a dog dictionary because I couldn’t find it in a real dictionary. It means to give something to a dog! “Share means to give something you have to another dog. It's fun and makes your humans happy.” I don’t get it and when I asked Carla she told me that I needa read better books. See if I let her sleep on my birthday present.

High-End Groceries

That heavenly salad was my lunch today made possible by a 9AM bus ride to the new high-class Kroger in Maumee. Oh, that’s not my snotty opinion about the newer Kroger being high-end, that’s Kroger’s stand. I got this knowledge from one of the workers at the store I usually go to and it all started with a coupon!

I had a coupon, actually 2, for Sargento Tastings. Tastings are small “tastes” of specialty or gourmet cheeses. They had the little Havarti right on the coupon; it was screaming for me to try! It was a Kroger coupon, specifically find this at Kroger. I’d tried several times to find out where in the store it was. The dairy sent me to the deli, the deli sent me to the dairy; I couldn’t find them anywhere. Finally David looked and couldn’t get a good location from asking either, and guys don’t like asking where things are. He wrote “where?” on the coupon he was holding and threw it on the customer service counter.

The last time I was shopping on my own there was someone stocking cheese in dairy. I needed help getting yogurt off the top shelf so when I went to ask him for help, I also asked him if he’d ever heard of the “Sargento pieces of cheese…” I couldn’t remember the name at the time. He finished the sentence, “Tastings, I know what they are, but we don’t carry them. They have them at the Maumee store.” Hmph. I asked why they only had them at one but not the other. That’s when I found out our nearest 2 Krogers were Kroger Value Stores and the new one in Maumee is a Kroger Specialty Store. Our nearest store concentrates on value and lower prices while the new store targets variety and harder to find items. I found the Sargento Tastings in Maumee and my favorite balsamic vinaigrette that they don’t carry at the Value store. I also took my bags over to the in-store Starbucks ad had a latte while I waited for my bus.

The bus drivers had been asking if I tried the new Kroger and I hadn’t because it wasn’t as close. Several have encouraged me because it’s the same $2 if I go a mile or 10. The prices are comparable for items both types of stores carry and the specialty items do have specialty pricing. I got all my veggies, some flavors of yogurt I can’t get at the other store and a bag of black beans for soup which was the same price either location. Still, I looked over the receipt while I sipped my Starbucks latte to figure out where I spent roughly $25 more than I usually do for my biweekly grocery trip. My conclusion is that I’ll shop my usual store twice for every once I shop at the specialty store. That puts the overage at roughly $8 and change per trip. Ah, but that piece of Sharp Wisconsin Cheddar with lunch was good!

I was going to tell you about the new cat-tower David got for the kids but Marco is yanking on my arm because he want to tell about it. So stay tuned!

Book Review: Real Vampires Have Curves by Gerry Bartlett

Finished July 14, 2014

Synopsis at Good Reads

Gloriana St. Clair is an eternally "full-figured" vampire-she just happened to be bloating when a sexy Scotsman sank his teeth into her. She and said Scot- Angus Jeremiah Campbell III, aka Jeremy Blade-have been on and off again for centuries, currently off. A couple hundred years has taught them how to press each other's buttons-in good ways and bad.

Glory's headed for Austin and a new business venture: Vintage Vamp's Emporium. After all, she loves clothes, and she is an antique. Only problem is, there's a billionaire techno-freak vampire hunter on the loose. Blade's in total he- vampire mode, and wants Glory to move in with him so he can "protect" her. But it's time for this vamp to explore her own powers.


My review at Good Reads

3.5 of 5 stars

This is not my usual kind of book but it sounded interesting, it sounded fun. And it was fun! It's very light reading. But the characters are developed well and you do feel like you know them, all 400+ years of them. It also does a wonderful job of making bad guy about as bad as bad gets.

Vampires are portrayed as sexy or sexual beings, maybe more than was necessary. But the story was fun, at times intense and the people in the story we developed well enough to make you wonder, "maybe."

All in all for light reading I thought it was a good book. At the end of the book includes a sample chapter from the next book and it's possible somewhere down the road I may pick that one up too. If you like vampire stories, a decent amount of sex, and characters you might even want to hang out with as long as you're wearing a turtleneck, pick up Real Vampires Have Curves it's a fun quick read.

Happy Fourth!

Happy Independence Day!

Holiday Time!

I hope everyone had a great Canada Day yesterday! As a border-baby, born just 5 minutes away from Canada, Canada Day has always been the start of a month of celebration for me ending with my Birthday Festival. When I was a kid the Freedom Festival was a festival in Detroit and Windsor celebrating both Canada Day and Independence Day with carnivals and a huge fireworks display from a boat in the Detroit River. Of course it was an open border and no one ever needed a passport to cross from one side of the festival to the other. It’s not so difficult to get to Canada now, but needing a passport to cross the border is sad. It’s kinda like having to get someone’s permission to see your sister.


Yesterday was also my brother-in-law, Ben’s, birthday. David’s baby brother turned the same age my baby brother will be in September. It’s mean how they keep getting older and force us to stay ahead. ;)

We’re enjoying a holiday weekend starting today since people who work in media don’t get regular holidays. David will be working Saturday. We toyed with thoughts of going out of town for three days but ended up opting for sleeping in this morning. Sleeping in here means we woke up when my third snooze on the alarm went off at 7:20. If you’d have told me that would ever be “sleeping in” when I was 17, I’d have called you crazy!

I sent David out to photograph some local trains while I continue to recover from physical therapy yesterday. I was just stiff yesterday. The therapist I was working with noted that and asked if I was affected by the weather. Well, duh! I always remember that AFTER I say “what is wrong with me today?” I usually ask that question on the cloudy, rainy days or when the humidity is still up after a heavy rain. So today I’m just a little sore and slow, but when I’m sitting I don’t really feel pain, but the mild stretching at home reminds me of the pain. The steroid shot didn’t make the pain go away but it does seem that it helped and it may be time to think about doing it again. I didn’t really notice that the second one was a huge difference at the beginning of the year, although the first one was noticeable, so maybe 2 a year 6 months apart is what I need. I’ll have to give the pain doc a call next week.

Today is the first day of the 27th week of 2014, or the half-way point. I know this well because in my Random 2014 project I keep my notes in weekly files and then sort those files into quarters so I can access them if I need to. I’m a little OCD like that. But one of the plusses of condensing and organizing all of my files is that it takes less time and less scrolling to find things which takes it easier on my hands.

Now, in a 365 day year today is the top of the hill and there have been 182 days of 2014 before today and 182 to go. I’ve been thinking about doing a full 2-page spread for today and starting the rest of the weeks with Thursdays. That OCD sides doesn’t like that at all because it makes the first and second halves of the same year different. But then what do I do with the extra day? Put it in the extra box in Week 52? But what if I want to do a special section for goals for 2015 or a wrap-up of 2014 in that section?

Wednesday is still the first day of the weeks of 2014. I’d confuse myself if I changed it.