What I've Been Up To

First of all, thanks for all your thoughts and kind words on my last post. It felt good to finally share what was going on with all of you and your support is amazing. Totally made my day and made me feel a lot better about the whole situation.

Now on to what I've been up to lately.

1. I've been craving fried pickles off and on since we moved to Italy. Finally I caved, looked on Pinterest and decided to make them myself. What resulted was a mind-blowing experience of fried (well actually baked) pickles and homemade ranch dressing. Here's the link: Fried Pickles.

A few notes about the pickles: One, I used the stackers pickles instead of the rounds. Two, I halved the recipe. Three, I didn't use the recipe for ranch that they did. Instead I did equal parts of mayo and buttermilk mixed with a package of Hidden Valley ranch.

2. Several weeks ago I bought Adobe Lightroom 3 to compliment my Adobe Photoshop Elements that I already had. I'm still waiting on the manual that I ordered for Lightroom 3 so I can learn how to use it, but I've already used it a few times to reduce the noise in several pictures I took last summer in Greece and it is AMAZING. So, so glad I bought it.

3. It's my Min-Pin, Boomers, birthday today. He is 4! I'm one of those people that celebrate my pets' birthdays. So yeseterday he had part of a Happy Meal as his birthday treat. Here is a picture I took of him this morning.

4. I still haven't gotten all my Denmark pictures edited. Mainly because I just took some portraits of a friend the other day and I've been editing those pictures. I'm very pleased with how her pictures turned out. Here are a few samples. On a related note, if any blog readers in the Vicenza area would like some photos done, just let me know.

5. I bought my ticket home for Christmas this year. I'm super excited about it, especially since I missed Christmas at home last year, but the only downside is that Sean isn't able to come with. With tickets coming in just under $1000 per person, it's not feasible for us both to go home. So, being the great husband that he is, Sean told me to go home. I think he's pretty pumped about being off work at that time and doing whatever he wants, although I don't have any doubts that he's going to miss me.

So...that's what I've been up to lately!

Always An Adventure

Time for another post about Boomer aka The Naughtiest Min-Pin EVER!



For those of you on my FB, you've already heard this story, so please excuse me retelling it on here.

So, after weighing Boomer the other day and finding out he gained about 3 lbs in the last year, Sean and I decided to put Boomer on a diet. We've been bad about letting him eat people food, so we decided to stop feeding him things he didn't need.

Needless to say, he hasn't been taking this well. In fact, I think it's made him a little crazy.

Yesterday I took Sean to post to drop him off to catch the bus to Germany. When I left, Boomer was still in bed. There was at tied off trash can in our kitchen that I was going to dispose of later in the day, but I thought it was safe since Boomer was still asleep. Lo and behold I come home to find an empty tuna can and a pork chop bone in my bed. Of course the pork chop had to have some kind of sauce on it, which resulted in me changing the sheets and blanket on the bed.

I thought the naughty actions were done for the day, but I should have known better. I went to dinner with a friend and when I returned I found wrapping paper and a half eaten bag of treats on my bed. Boomer had rummaged around under the tree, found a gift of his, unwrapped it and then ate half the treats. By that time, I was pretty much done with the naughty behavior and took him to bed.

I have to say, at least he keeps things interesting!

Blog Promoting and Boomer

Thank you to everyone who replied to my blog yesterday with well wishes, hang in theres or advice. You have no idea how much I appreciate my support system on here.

I'm just going to take this day by day and see what happens. I know that in the end everything will work out for the best. It always has in my life, even when I wondered how it could.

I wanted to participate in WWWAT today, but yet again I forgot to get on the ball and take pictures. However, American Mum has some great shots of four generations and the cutest little girls room I've ever seen for her daughter Chloe so you should head over there and take a peek.

I know I've mentioned Cake Wrecks before on my blog, but if you haven't checked them out yet, you must! They had a Curious George cupcake creation on there that I seriously laughed about for 10 minutes. Cake Wrecks is a must read, trust me!

Have I mentioned before I have the naughtiest dog known to man? I'm pretty sure I have. He is into anything and everything. I know most of that could be solved by putting him in his carrier during the day, but now that's he's house-trained I hate doing that to him. I informed Sean the other day that we need to have the British dog-trainer off of Animal Planet to come train him. I love watching her show! I think my main problem with Boomer is that he's so anti-social. He LOVES Sean and I, but anyone else that comes to our door is his sworn enemy and he barks and barks at them. It's annoying for us and the guest. I wish I knew how to get him to stop it, any suggestions out there? I'll give this to Boomer though, he makes Sean and I laugh everyday. He's the smartest dog I've ever owned and some his antics are beyond hilarious. His new favorite thing is when I'm in the kitchen he likes to stand on his hind legs and walk around like a person. Sometimes it's a bit freaky to be chopping onions or something and see this little two foot tall dog walking around like a little person. I need to get it on video so everyone can see how hilarious it is!

Sean is doing ranges this week which puts our evening hours on a weird schedule. He's not sure what time he'll be done tonight and suggested I bring home some food. Problem with that is since he doesn't know what time he'll be done the food could be cold and honestly what fast food tastes good when re-heated. My solution was to stop by the comissary and get some Marie Callendar microwave dinners. If you have yet to try these and you eat frozen dinners from time to time then you should check these out. I know some of the Army wives prefer low-maintenance dinners with our husbands are gone to the field or are deployed.

The other day I had a chicken breast with poblano pepper sauce meal complete with corn and black bean mix and rice and it was amazing, the chicken is good quality and doesn't taste funky which is very important to me. Here's a link to browse some of their offerings. Just try it, I promise you'll be impressed.

Wow, I did a lot of promoting in my blog today. What can I say? I like sharing good things with others.