Crocuses!

So I thought I hit jackpot when I found direct gardening, then I found color blend. This site is fantastic if you need to order larger quantities of spring bulbs.
I found the coolest thing which will equal large quantities of crocuses. When we change out the rocks in the parking strip to grass I want to naturalize crocuses in the lawn so that in early spring it'll look like a whole other flower bed. Once the lawn is ready to mow all the crocuses will be dead and they won't be hurt with the mower.

Surprisingly John agreed to this (he doesn't like to branch out of the norm, he even has a hard time with trees in the front yard) so I've been looking for bulbs. The only downfall is that we can't sod until fall so I can plant the bulbs beforehand.

In other news, I'm not too proud to admit that I begged John to sheet rock the bathroom. Sorry no pictures, I tried and it just wasn't happening.
I asked his dad to come mud it so it would get done more on the time schedule I would like and because he's awesome he started that yesterday. The existing walls will need to be skim coated so that the awful texture will turn into smooth wonderfulness and then we can paint the bathroom light brown.
When I get back from California we'll pick out a new faucet and new light.
I think this is the first two month project! Now that I said that it'll be another year....

California here I come!

In a week and 2 days I’ll be on my way to California with Makoa to visit Dana! Then 4 days after I get home Enna will be on a plane heading to Texas to breed. This means lots of prep work. Enna and Makoa have an appointment to get back on heart worm (they ran out in December and since it’s not mosquito season I wasn’t too concerned) and I’m going to Petsmart tonight to get some flea and tick repellant.

California and Texas (especially Texas) don’t have strong cold periods like Utah so they have a bigger population of fleas, ticks and mosquitos and I don’t want my pups coming home with some yucky disease.
Makoa also needs a new bed and leash since he chewed up his (don’t ask about the leash, it was my brilliant idea that epically failed).

When I get home from Cali, Enna has an appointment to get her vaccines renewed and her flight exam done.
I know what you are all thinking; I’m crazy for putting my baby on a plane and sending her to a stranger for 5+ weeks, but do you remember the chaos we went through with the last breeding? Yes, it’ll break my heart to send my precious pup to Texas, but maybe this way she’ll actually come home pregnant and I won’t die of stomach ulcers from breeding worry.

I know Barbara will take really good care of her and she’ll love all the dogs she’ll get to play with…well before she goes into heat and only gets to see one for two weeks.
I do keep having nightmares though where it’ll be time for Barbara to send Enna back and she refuses or she sends the wrong dog claiming its Enna. Just Mama worries I guess.
Also I don’t care what the airport says, I’m carrying Enna in my arms into the airport (with a leash attached of course) until the final minutes where I have to put her in the crate and say goodbye. I wish I could explain to her what was happening and tell her that everything was going to be okay. Instead she’ll just lick my hand through the door making me fall to pieces and cry all the way home.

Everything will be good though and I’m over the moon excited to see Dana!

P.S. if you’re wondering why Makoa is going with my instead of Enna like originally planned let me explain.
Enna is supposed to go into heat at the end of April, but with our luck she’d go into heat while she was with me in Cali. So she’s staying home with John with her diaper on so that if she goes into heat while I’m gone (heaven forbid!) John can put her on the plane. It does suck a smidgen since I can no longer fly since taking Makoa would be an extra $400 on top of my ticket, but now we get to spend quality bonding time driving. Also Makoa is head over heels in love with Dana, way more than Enna, so he’ll be thrilled when he sees her.

How color changed my life

First off John has framed the new wall in the bathroom. It's not a very good picture because the room is too small now to take good pictures, but that's a good thing!

The next picture shows an outline of how the bathroom use to be shaped. It may have only given us two feet, but it was two feet too much in the bathroom.

He says he'll sheet rock this weekend, we'll see if that happens.

Now onto the title. Maybe it's a little dramatic, but I changed my nails. I've had french tips for the last four years and at my last appointment when my nail tech finished up my nails I decided that I was going to do something different.

 

The color is dark blue and I about passed out when she painted on the first coat. I was feeling very witch like when I left the salon, but I'm liking them now. I even stopped at Sally's on the way home to buy more colors.

Was this really blog worthy? It is when I've been doing the same thing for four years!!

Not in the stars

The breeder of our future boerboel puppy told me that they were expecting the puppies around this time, but I just got a sad email saying that the mother got an infection and all the puppies were lost. The mother is fine and will be bred again though.
I haven't spoken to John yet, but the breeder says that our deposit can transfer to any other liter we want and she's breeding another female next month.

I'm sure I said that it wouldn't be long before our next project

The bathroom downstairs is the dumbest shape ever and we always knew that we'd re-shape it out of it's triangleness.
Here is a very crude drawing of our bathroom:, you will be asking yourself, "Is their bathroom really that shape?" Sadly, yes it is.

Eventually the shower will be turned into a bathtub, but not at this time. The angled wall will be made straight, that's all. I'm also going to try to sneak in a new faucet and vanity light, but that's between us.

When I got home from work today John had already got to work.

 

John does all the work and I do all the picking of things, clean up and holding things above my head. Cross your fingers that this won't take many months to finish. 

To beautiful of a day to pass up a walk

Today was a perfect, almost spring day and when I told John that it was too beautiful to stay inside he suggested a walk with the pups to Tanner.
We didn't do one winter hike so the last time I had been there was in October when Dana came to visit. Shame, shame on me, but it's hard to get motivated to go when it's all by myself or knowing I'll have to push John into it. I need another Dana so that I'll actually take the dogs out often.
Good news is that I've gotten John into walking with me and the dogs every evening after work, we'll have to get use to it with a big dog coming into the family.

Anywho, Tanner was still a snowy, muddy mess (good thing I changed from flip flops to tennies) and everyone had the same idea as us. It was so nice being with other dog lovers and coming across all breeds of dogs.

So happy to be out in the sun shine leash free. We did have the trouble of getting him back on the leash again, all our training vanished, our fault for not taking him off leash for 5 months.

Enna's getting better with the water, but she's still no water hound like little Makoa.

 

Enna's trying to show this little pug that the waters not that scary. Poor thing would not get off the "shore", Enna went over and licked the pugs head and I caught her in the turn around. 

Makoa loves water fetch, in fact that's the only fetch he'll do :) He's waiting for John to throw the stick. 

Out of all the stick John threw in, Makoa found and brought back two :) they'd get lost in the water and we'd laugh our heads off at him while he tried to find them.

 

Face all wet and happy from his water adventures.

It was such a nice walk and from the looks of it they haven't closed off any of the Tanner trails yet. We didn't start out the back way just cause I thought it might be closed down so we went down the front, they way I hate. 

It's rocky, muddy, crowded and all on leash until the bottom. Looks like that's going to be the only way into the park...yay.

All in all it was a fantastic day and I loved spending the time with my hubby and puppies.

I've done some updates

I'm really trying to be better at movie updates, but I have done some on my other blog. I have a few in the drafts that are almost ready to post and a few in my head that need to be posted soon. Go check it out.  http://voshells1001movies.blogspot.com/

P.S. I'd like to give a shout out to Netflix, without them this wouldn't be possible. Also I wouldn't be able to watch weird movies that Tosh.O suggests on his show. Thank you Netflix, you're awesome.

It's a never ending headache

We got our tax return so John bought our surround sound. We got the Bose Lifestyle V25 and it looks fantastic. John had it installed really fast, but we hit a snag when we were setting up the system.

Every speaker played the test tone except the back left one, we tried moving speakers around thinking maybe it was the speaker and when that didn’t work I started to get a little worried.
You see, we ALWAYS hit a snag doing a project, but this one is supposed to be done, no snags, no problems, finite!

John suggested that maybe the wire is the problem which I had a hard time believing since it’s from the same reel as the rest of the wire, but I said that maybe we use the wire in the wall to fish new wire up to the speaker. By that time it was pushing 10:30 PM so John said he’d to it when he got off work the next day.

As our luck would have it, when he was trying to fish the wire he realized that the original wire was severed. He says the only way to get the wire hidden is to run it under the carpet and cut a hole in the wall to get the wire up. I hate this idea. I’m tired of seeing sheetrock, holes and dust. I wanted to go home and watch a movie with fantastic sound. Just once I’d like to NOT run into a huge problem with a project, just once!

Home made chinese food

John and I love Chinese food, in fact I could eat it 3 times a week and not be sick of it, but that wouldn't be good for our budget so instead I'll occasionally make it at home. Thought I'd share our favorite recipes.

Chicken

Ingredients

• 8 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 1/4 cups self-rising flour
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• (1/2 teaspoon Lemon Pepper for lemon chicken)
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups water

Directions

1. Combine flour, 2 tablespoons oil, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, salt, white pepper,(lemon pepper) and egg. Add 1 1/2 cups water gradually to make a thick batter. Stir to blend thoroughly. Add chicken pieces, and stir until chicken is well coated.
2. Fry chicken in deep fryer or wok for 10 minutes or until golden.

Sweet & Sour sauce
Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) can pineapple chunks, drained (juice reserved)
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 3/4 cups water, divided
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 2 drops orange food color
• 1 quart vegetable oil for frying
• 2 green bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces

Directions

1. In a saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups water, sugar, vinegar, reserved pineapple juice, and orange food coloring. Heat to boiling. Turn off heat. Combine 1/4 cup cornstarch and 1/4 cup water; slowly stir into saucepan. Continue stirring until mixture thickens.
2. When ready to serve, layer green peppers, pineapple chunks, and cooked chicken pieces on a platter. Pour hot sweet and sour sauce over top.

Lemon sauce
Ingredients

• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 4 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 lemon, sliced (Optional - I never do
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. In a medium bowl combine the sugar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, broth, lemon juice and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix together and add lemon slices. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in wok and slowly stir in lemon sauce mixture. Cook, stirring, until sauce is clear. Pour sauce over chicken and serve.

I also have a fantastic recipe for cream cheese wantons that's really easy (and better than the restaurant) so if you'd like that just ask!

I'll share to terrible story that happened last night because of deep frying soon.