khan is back

Khan's health is fully back to normal!

He's up to his old shenanigans

and fetching like it's his job.

It's so good to have his spirited little personality "back."

Thank you for all your prayers and wishes!

I have some fun things coming up this week...

-Christmas cards (cutting it close!)

-A template for the cutest placecards ever

-An idea for gift tags (using the same template)

-And hopefully something I've been wanting to try for a long while

(crossing my fingers I get to it!)

the life of an acorn (according to Khan)

:: someone needs an attitude adjustment

Have you heard the old-fashioned phrase:

Cruisin' for a bruisin'?

After launching the "Pity Party for Genghis Khan" yesterday, I heard some commotion in the living room and went to see what was happening...

He ripped open the corners of his dog bed and pulled out the stuffing.

I think Khan has entered his adolescent years.

He is getting rather creative with expressing his displeasure.

:: khan has a complaint...

Fall semester starts today. That means fewer trips to the Reedy River Park, shorter jaunts around the neighborhood, and less time fetching sticks in the backyard kudzu. Poor Genghis. He would appreciate your pity from afar...

:)

sharing the batter beater...

When I finished a final exam and research paper the other day, I decided to celebrate by baking cookies. I pulled out my favorite cookie recipe, and I started to mix the awe-inspiring array of scrumptiousness: butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, coconut, toffee...

and as if they weren't decadent enough already, I added a cup of semi-sweet chocolate morsels.

When the time came to lick the beater, I didn't want to be selfish. So I shared with my sous chef:

I know cookie batter is arguably much worse for dogs than for young ladies like myself...

But Khan looked at the beater, then at me, longingly, as if to say,

"Aw, come on. A Boykin Spaniel only lives once!"

He seems to have emerged from the incident just fine... although later I found that he had knocked about 6 of the cooling cookies from the counter and gobbled them up. So, if he had suffered any cookie batter injuries, I think it would have been from his own ill behavior and not my generous offering of the batter beater.

______________________________________________________

(I'm having technical difficulties linking to the recipe. Go to http://www.hersheys.com/recipes and type "Oatmeal Toffee Cookies" into the little search box. )

this weekend....

We took a drive in the Blue Ridges,

I worked on my first paper for grad school,

Caught Khan posing for a glamour shot,


And we went to two different gatherings featuring bluegrass bands and BBQ (apparently it is the season for bluegrass in the Carolinas :)



One of the parties had this display on the fence, which I thought was a festive and simple reminder.

How was yours?

khan's best (with translations)

See the stick, smell the stick,

Get ready

(sit),

Get set

(stay),


GO!
(fetch!)

He is a fetching pro.

smoked paprika salmon with red berry glaze: the next installment of 101 ways to eat salmon

I have not posted many recipes lately because, frankly, I've been doing some scary cooking. I'm getting a little too adventurous in the kitchen. Many nights, Husband chokes down his supper insisting that it is "a very interesting dish."

However, husband and I agreed that this recipe was fantastic, easy, healthy, and fairly budget friendly. AND, I mostly made it up, using a little inspiration from elsewhere.

The Gist:

Season the salmon with pepper, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. Whisk together Raspberry vinegar and warm strawberry preserves. Cook salmon, serve over seasoned long grain and wild rice and top with Red Berry Glaze. It's delicious! I'm sure it would be good with white fish, too.

Find the printable recipe here.


Husband still plays with his food.



In other news, Khan got a new dog bed because he ransacked the stuffing from his old one and ate most of it. He loves his new one so much he didn't even sit under our feet while we ate dinner, hoping for a morsel of human food to fall to the floor (which usually does *accidentally* happen).

I guess he just wanted a nicer bed. What a brat :)

dogloos, watercress soup, and a whole city shutting down

2.5 years ago, Khan lived in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida where a January afternoon often consisted of a merry romp through salty waves and fetching seashells across the sand.

We then moved to Charlotte, where he has often wondered what happened to that place called the beach and why we don't take him there in the afternoon. No matter, he concludes. The Charlotte parks are fabulous havens for a dog.

So that's all fine, but now THIS, the Khan thought early Saturday morning.

What's this curious thing outside our front door?

So the brave Khan checked it out. And determined it was good.


We got barely enough snow to cover the ground by the time it was finished.

But that was enough reason for Charlotte to shut down.


There was hardly a soul out on the road or walking the streets downtown. The entire choir skipped church on Sunday and the lack of their leading voices caused the substitute pianist to cut the recessional hymn down to two verses instead of four to put the the thirty folks in the congregation out of their humiliating misery. We who came to church to hear a sermon and say a prayer just couldn't get the tune by ourselves. It left me very thankful for the choir.
And today, school is canceled indefinitely.


In the meantime, the colors that usually blend to make a harmonious palette of earthy tones and occasional hints of brighter, merrier colors, are popping out like fireworks against the snow.

It feels very wintry, indeed.

I havn't even noticed before now that Husband has not pulled his shriveled peppers from the ground, they blended so well in the dead grass.


Yes, Charlotte's population had a good time with this winter luxury, which the weather channel termed "ice pellets" rather than snow.



It crossed my mind to metamorphosize into a modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder and pour squashed strawberries and sugar into this bucket for nature-made slushies. A vague understanding of pollution and human filth was all that restrained me.

Khan noticed some things that brought him joy and enthusiasm as well.

He worked long, hard hours to excavate his favorite sticks from the snow.

And soon he resembled a frozen version of that dirty-nosed pup on the beach.

In honor of the cold, I made Julia's Watercress Soup.

And discovered I don't like watercress soup.

So,

I won't be making that again.

I did, however, like the peppermint mocha brownies I made to share at a cookout and a Bible study.

And Husband made a Dog-loo for Khan,

but couldn't force him inside

So he agreed to let him sit beside it and have his picture taken.

I also made a Linzer Torte:

Which wasn't exactly delicious,

But we ate it anyway because we were snowed in :)

It's been fun having a little snow this winter!