How Much Can you do in a President's Day Weekend?

Well, let me tell you a lot. Certainly enough that on 4 nights in a row, my 8 year-old nephew announced "I am going to sleep now" before 9:00 p.m. I consider that to be quite an accomplishment.

My brother and sister-in-law went out of town for Valentine's weekend, so I got to be with my valentine Trevor. I picked him up on Friday, right after school. Friday night was kind of uneventful, we just did the regular stuff...walk dogs, play outside (not regular for February, but it was warm!), dinner, watch "Space Buddies", and then off to bed.

Saturday, however, was a different story. I don't usually wake Trevor up when he is at my house. I usually let him sleep in while I attempt to do my normal weekend chores (laundry, dishes, and napping). This Saturday we had scheduled an early visit to the zoo with my friend Scott, so I had to wake Trevor up. But he is always happy to get up for Scott! To read about our trip to the zoo, complete with pictures, go here. We had a great time, and the zoo was very quiet in the morning. We also got to see lots of zoo staff feeding and caring for the animals.

Then of course, we went to Steak and Shake.

After lunch, Scott dropped us off and we took care of the doggies. We played with them for a while and took them on a walk. Then, they were off to the kennel for a couple of nights because we were headed to French Lick on Sunday morning.

On Sunday we were to pick up a friend at 9:30 a.m. and my Mom at 10:00 a.m. for a trip to French Lick. But first, Trevor and I decided we would go see the Boxer show at the Indy Winter Classic Dog Show that started at 8:00 a.m. With much enthusiasm, we left the house at 7:30 a.m. and headed for the fairgrounds. The dog show was interesting. I think Trevor enjoyed it too. It was interesting to see all the Boxers and their different markings and other characteristics. We could definitely tell how some dogs were related to one another. We stayed for about an hour, which got us through all the male dogs. Next year, we'll have to go again and plan on seeing the whole show.

Off to French Lick. Here we stayed busy at the pool, playing games, watching the Daytona 500, and just walking around the hotel. They have some pretty cool shops to browse around in. I know I had thought at some point about sitting in one of the beautiful lobbies and reading, but I don't think we slowed down enough to do that during the trip.

By the time I dropped everyone off, picked up the doggies and headed home it was about 7:30 p.m. on Monday night. Just enough time to get settled back in before my guests arrived at 9:00. I am a very lucky girl.

The Weekend Adventure and Recovery Zone

Yes, I did have that weekend adventure. And it turned out to be an adventure that I desperately needed.

Last week was an adventure all its own with a foot of snow here in the Hoosier State. On top of that, it was audit week at work, which equals long days with lunch usually coming out of a vending machine. When I used to work at a college, all of my co-workers would talk about how bad orientation week was for everyone working. I want to make sure that all of you know that every job has its orientation week. Accountants have tax season, retail has the holidays, and pharma companies have regulatory agency visits. None of them are fun, but if you do well and keep it together, things can be great when they are over.

So after working several long days last week, it seemed like I would get home and always have to shovel. I don't know how that worked out, but that is what happened. In the mix of it all, I aggravated an old knee injury (from the dark ages of 1987) and on Friday (luckily after the audit was over) my knee popped and it was out. I'm glad I had a Target shopping cart in hand when it happened. I hobbled around Friday night and tried to take the best care of it that I could. Aleve, ice packs, etc. But we had a family trip planned for the weekend, so I had to get it together.

Remember the work picnic when I won the great prize! That is right, we were headed to the Great Wolf Lodge this weekend. And, actually, I really needed it after the week I had. So, I packed up my cute little overnight bag that I got for Christmas (thanks Diane!) and got some rest.

I did feel better on Saturday morning, but it still took me awhile to get around. I was running about a half hour late to drop off doggies, pick up Mom, and then pick up Trevor and his parents. And then off to Ohio. The Lodge was actually great, terribly crowded, but great. I spent the majority of my water park time in the wave pool and the lazy river. I had to meet with an Athletic Trainer at work on Monday and he confirmed that spending time in the water was the best thing that I could have done over the weekend. So, I'm very glad I went. My knee felt great after I got home.

The coolest thing about the Lodge was that we stayed in what was called a "Kid Cabin" suite. The room has an area that looks like a cabin with 3 twin beds where Trevor, my Mom, and I slept. The other area of the room had a queen bed and a pull out couch. After dropping everyone off at home, I got home around 8 on Sunday. I had some dinner and headed to bed, missing the last play of the Super Bowl.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera. But maybe I'll get some pictures to post from my Mom. I'd love to figure out if there was a season when they weren't so busy.

The Obamicon

I got this link to create "Obamicons" from my friend Scott's blog. This morning, I was playing with it a little as the doggies nap after their breakfast. I'm headed off for adventure today, and maybe I'm a little too excited to sleep. Will fill you in on all that later.

For now, my Obamicons:

The Lucky Dog at The Lucky Dog Retreat

Yesterday, Tiger went to a doggie play group at The Lucky Dog Retreat. It was his first full day of daycare at this very cool place for very lucky dogs. Last week, he had a 2 hour "try out" to see if he was well-suited for the play group, and he passed with flying colors. He loved it, and all the folks there seemed to love him too.

I wanted Tiger to go on a relatively slow day for his first day, so I signed him up for a Saturday. Starting this Tuesday he will go every Tuesday unless I am out of town. You can catch him on their webcam here. They have a huge play room with a lot of kid toys, the big plastic kind that look like they were made by PlaySkool. I saw Tiger on the red steps when I checked in on him yesterday. At this place, they play all morning in the big playroom, then take a break for lunch and a nap. Then it is back to the playroom until I pick him up.

I was motivated to sign Tiger up for this due to the recent cold. It has been so cold lately that we haven't been able to go to our regular play place, the Broad Ripple Dog Park. Tiger doesn't like to be out in the cold too much. He tolerates it for a little bit because he wants the exercise, but he doesn't really like it. And, I don't think he would tolerate the sweater I have for him.

But now, my Tiger is sleeping. Playing all day has worn out my puppy. (That is the point of going.) So, it will be a lazy dog Sunday around here. I watched a movie and I'm doing laundry. Tiger has been watching it snow, "through his eye lids" as my Mom would say.

The Twitter Experiment

For the last couple of weeks or so, I have been using Twitter. I have had an account for a long time, but this last week was the first time I actually made my Twitter page my home page and it sort of "forced" me to update at least once a day. (Sometimes I still didn't update, because I think I'm pretty boring). But really, I realize that I only have 2 real followers, and one of them doesn't seem to have logged in for months. So...really, I have one person who reads my updates. Not really a following.

Twitter is sort of like instant messaging to the world. You have 140 characters to answer the question "What are you doing now?". And you answer it over and over as "tweets" to your followers. A lot of people use twitter as marketing, so sometimes twitter seems like spam that you have willingly signed up for. I learned this by signing up to follow the wrong people. They have since been blocked.

On Tuesday night after the inauguration, FoxNews reported on Barack Obama's tweets using Twitter. They reported incorrectly, but nonetheless, Twitter is becoming more popular. It is fun to follow some people like Greg Grunberg of Heroes. But, my twitter experiment is over. I may update Twitter on occasion, but really my Tweets have just become a conversation between me and my friend Scott. And really, I should just pick up the phone if I want to talk to Scott.

And really, who cares that I spent Friday night doing my taxes? Or should I even admit that on a live feed going out to the world?

The Best Brownies

I'm baking brownies right now. They smell really good. My nephew Josh and his wife Allie are home from California for the week and today is "hang out Saturday" at my brother's house. Sort of an open house for all of their friends. My sister-in-law is making food and she asked if I would bring brownies.

Brownies are a standby for me if I need to take sweets to an office party or someone's house. Everyone always loves my brownies. They always ask for the recipe, but I never really tell what it is that I do. Even my Mom has asked me for my recipe. Today, it will be revealed right here on the blog.

First, I go to the store and buy the absolute cheapest plain brownie mix I can find. Lately, I have been using the Marsh "Food Club" version. And next, and this is the important part....I follow the package instructions. Can you believe it? Yes folks, that is the big brownie secret. Now, my pan is over size, so I actually use 3 boxes of brownie mix, so that may make my brownies a little thicker. I also believe that my pan is magic, because everything made in that pan tastes good.

Sometimes I use embellishments for the brownies on top. Today I am using the mini-M and M's. But the topping really has nothing to do with the baking of the brownie.

So, that is it.

Meat Overload

This past Friday, I did the very vacationy activity of going to Fogo de Chao for lunch. Fogo is a Brazilian steakhouse that is a meat lover's paradise. One of those places that you really can't discuss with your vegetarian friends.

Fogo is an all you can eat grilled meat steakhouse, where men in gaucho pants come to your table and offer you servings of 15 different grilled and seasoned meats from the skewers that they carry with them. But then, this is the ironic thing. It is not the meat that I am now obsessing over, it is the salad bar and the polenta. The salad bar is huge and has what seem to be the freshest veggies ever. Really good tomatoes for January. Also, they have all sorts of cheeses. Fresh Mozzarella, some very good aged cheeses that I tried. Very good. And the polenta! was great! It reminded me of what my Mom used to make. She hasn't made it in years, but I'm almost inspired to get her to coach me on how to make it so that I can do it at home. The mashed potatoes were also very good and the rolls were fabulous.

And the meat was good. I tried some different things that I had not tried before (lamb), but my favorite was the pork rib. I also ate several different cuts of beef, and I don't ordinarily eat beef. One time when I was having a "vacation" meal in Vegas I decided to have the steak and ended up being sick for the next couple of days because my body couldn't really digest it. I have not had the same experience this time. It is definitely better prepared. It seems to be a lot better quality.

And so it goes. I noticed there were others in the restaurant who were there when we arrived and still grazing as we left. We decided they were probably experienced and knew how to pace themselves in an all you can eat meat place. While it was good, I don't think I will ever become that experienced.