Rosie Update: 6 days in her new home

Rosie has been with us for almost a week now and I'd say she's almost acclimated to her new home. She only has one or two major experiences left to face - staying at home by herself for about 8 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays until the end of the semester, and traveling home to SC with us in the car for 8 hours.

Rosie is just a little sweetheart - she loves to cuddle on the couch and sleep next to us during the day. We haven't heard her bark yet, she just groans like an old man when she stretches and repositions in her sleep - it's the cutest thing! She loves wearing sweaters and her coat to go outside and her leash behavior is improving. When we got her on Tuesday she weighed 12.4 pounds. I weighed her last night and she's 13.4 - she's gained a pound! She's still finishing up her medicine to help fix her gastrointestinal issues she had two weeks ago resulting from worms, etc, but she's doing great now.

Some of Rosie's favorite things are:

-cuddling under her fleece blankets to stay warm
-tucking her nose in any little crevice while sleeping to stay warm
-playing with her squeaky ball
-playing with her kong toy
-laying on her dogbed
-going for walks & dashing up the stairs as fast as she can go
-meeting new people
-meeting new doggies
-chasing leaves tumbling in the wind
-peanut butter & pupperoni
-going to Petsmart to see other doggies and be petted by adoring shoppers
-getting her face washed at night
-having her belly rubbed
-a good massage behind the ears
-being held and carried
-watching TV
-listening to Christmas music

You may not be able to tell, but I'm no bigger than a cat!

I love my fleece blanket!

This is how I spend most of my day.

cuddler

in my new coat ready to go outside

She's getting pretty good at sitting on command, giving her toy when commanded to "give," and she will "wait" for her food to be placed in her bowl outside the kitchen and come when we say "ok" to enter and eat. She definitely understands the meaning of "no" and will stop doing whatever she's doing (wrong) when we say it sharply. She also knows to stay out of the dining area when we're at the table eating instead of sitting by us waiting for anything to drop from the table. She's going to be a great dog!

Rosie experiences her new home!

she loves her new bed!

she's spent about an hour in this posture watching tv and snoozing in Carlyle's lap

@~>~~ *Rosie Jackson* @~>~~

In case you haven't heard, we're getting a 4-month-old puppy this Tuesday! Her name is Rosie, and she's a twelve-pound tri-color beagle. We're so excited to bring her home! Carlyle & I keep looking at each other and saying "I'm thinking about Rosie, how about you?" We think and talk about her so much that I can't even imagine what it will be like when we're expecting a baby!

Carlyle picked out her bed, and it came with the bone-shaped squeaky toy and the red blanket on the right. We found the bone-print fleece at Target along with a rope toy. Her leash is a slate blue with pale pink and polka dotted ribbon.

We have a brush, claw trimmers, shampoo & conditioner for sensitive skin, and a puppy tooth brushing kit.

I don't know why this isn't rotated... but this is the kibble we got for her. 

Autumn & Redecorating

Last weekend Carlyle's parents came up to see us and we all had a great time together. The leaves were still hanging on and pretty vibrant still, so it was nice just driving around Bowie and Annapolis and DC seeing the leaves. Saturday we tried out a little seafood dive (well, I guess it was a little nicer than a dive, but still very home-style) in the middle of nowhere in Annapolis. It was called Cantler's and was at the end of a point on the water (some mouth of a creek I think that dumps into the Chesapeake). Carlyle's dad and I had been wanting to try Maryland-style crab cakes, and they were wonderful! 

The view from our porch a few weeks ago

the pumpkin we never carved lol...

beautiful flowers my husband brought me just because! 

Carlyle's mom helped me to recover my dining table chairs with new fabric that I bought. I'm in the middle of making new pillows for our couch that are from the same fabric family as the ones I bought for the chairs, so I'll post some of those soon, too. I've been super excited about sewing and making things since I bought a sewing machine a few weeks ago! I love it and I'm looking forward to trying new things. I look for excuses to sew - I've been checking all of our clothes for little holes or anything I could possibly mend so that I can pull it out and sew. :)

chairs before...

chairs after

one pillow made from the new fabric

The other fabric that will soon be made into pillows

Stuffed Pork chops we made one night - stuffing and apples and sage inside with honey-mustard on top - yum!

I tried making sugar cookies with royal icing on top. Some of them turned out okay, but they tasted great. It's just another medium of bakery art I'm trying to acquire...

more pizza... :)

I'm so behind now thanks to grad school that I can't even remember when we made this pizza - it was some time last week I think! I'm trying to catch up this weekend, but I don't have as much time/energy to cook these days! Anyway, here's pizza, round two:

Here's the pizza dough recipe that I used. It's from a little cookbook that was in my Cuisinart food processor. It couldn't be any easier to make, and I think you could just as easily make it by hand in a bowl. I made it earlier in the day, baked it off, and kept it in the refrigerator until the next day - so I would assume that you could do the same or maybe even freeze it until you're ready to make the pizza.

This recipe makes enough dough for a 12-inch pizza pan that we use. **Notice there's no rise time!** :-)

Ingredients:

1 package active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2/3 cup warm water

1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons oil
vegetable oil for pan (not necessary if you're using a non-stick pan)
1-1/2 tablespoons cornmeal for pan (I usually skip this too b/c it never sticks to the dough very well)

Stir yeast and sugar into warm water and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. (I put it all in a 2-cup measure and wait until it doubles or the foam reaches 1-1/2 cups)  Insert metal blade, put flour and salt in work bowl and turn on machine. Pour yeast mixture through feed tube and process about 45 seconds, until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. Add oil through feed tube and process 60 seconds longer.

If dough sticks to sides of bowl, add more flour, 1 Tbsp at a time, processing 10 seconds after each addition, until dough leaves sides of bowl but remains soft.

Roll dough on floured surface into circle (or a rectangle if you're using a sheet pan), rotating and turning dough often and using enough flour so it doesn't stick. If dough resists rolling, let it rest for a few minutes and try again. Roll dough into the size you need +1 inch (10 inch circle for a 9 inch round pan, etc).

Oil pans (if necessary), and sprinkle with cornmeal if you want. Transfer dough to pan (with rolling pin, or by folding with floured surfaces, whichever you feel most comfortable with). Turn under the 1 inch overhang and shape it into a rim. I poke holes in the dough with a fork (I think they call it "docking" in the pizza-making world) to help cut down on the bubbles. Also, I rub a little olive oil on the top of the crust to give it some color and help seal in moisture.

Bake the crust for 6 minutes in a 425 degree oven. Top as you wish and bake for 18 minutes at the same temperature.

Here are the toppings we used this time:

L-R, top - bottom: Roma tomatoes, roasted garlic, mozzarella, roasted chicken breast, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers

We sauced half of the pizza with pesto, and half with tomato sauce (we used hunt's). Chicken & mozzarella went all over the pizza, so did the tomatoes and roasted red pepper. The olives and garlic went on the tomato sauce half. The roasted garlic was sooo delicious and it was so easy to make! If you haven't ever had it, roasted garlic is very different from garlic that you just chop and saute and add to a sauce. It's much milder and has 10x more flavor. I learned to roast it by simply removing the cloves from their papers and putting them in a little foil with some olive oil. Just close up the foil and put it in your oven at 325-350 for like 25 minutes.  I did it at the same time while I roasted the chicken breasts (325 for 25 minutes - a little olive oil and salt and pepper).

It's so easy - you'll have to try it! It has great make-ahead potential and is fun to make.

Pizza pizza!

I wanted to put a quick post before I go to bed - I have a busy week ahead of me! I have exams in all of my classes this week, and I've been studying all day, but I took a break long enough tonight to make a great dinner for us.

We had homemade pizza with amazing flavor. It's so easy to make pizza and I love topping it with great flavors. I'll have to post more of the recipe later, but here's what I used tonight:

homemade pizza dough
EV Olive Oil on the dough before first baking
about half a can of Hunt's sauce - basil, oregano, and ... garlic?
fresh mozzarella
diced roasted chicken breast
sliced roma tomatoes
chopped kalamata olives (on my half)

sooooo delicious! We'll make a different one on Wednesday night and I'll post it too.

just a chill day

This morning we got up and just hung around the house a little. We went for a run at the pond and watched a little college football on TV. This afternoon we went out to Barnes & Noble to browse through books about traveling in the local area - particularly for the fall foliage and apples. We're thinking about going to Pennsylvania or Virginia for a day or weekend trip sometime soon to check out the mountains, hike a little, and get some apples and pumpkins or something. The leaves are starting to turn a little up here - mostly on the cherry & maple trees. We both love fall so much - the weather & trees are beautiful. A short little trip in a few weeks will help bring in the season for us. :-)

Tomorrow night we're finally using Carlyle's birthday present that I gave him. I got us tickets for a sight-seeing cruise in DC - and we're going tomorrow night for the "twilight" cruise. I'm sure we'll both have plenty of pictures that I'll post tomorrow.