Cats

It’s Labor Day weekend! I hope you all have awesome plans for this last weekend of summer — we’re just hanging out indoors enjoying the much-needed rain. Since we’re just hanging around the house, we thought we’d share a few things we’re currently loving around here…

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Fire Tees: Neil surprised me with a Fire Tee when I came home from my business trip last week. They were designed and printed by Colorado artists to raise money for those affected by the fires in Colorado this summer. After our trip was cancelled, we came across their site via a friend while looking for ways to contribute. We deeply love that area and hope to get back there soon! In case you’re wondering, Neil got this one.

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Yesterday’s News: I love my cats, but I hate traditional cat litter. Those little rocks get EVERYWHERE, and it sends my OCD into overdrive. I came across this cat litter a few months ago, and we’ve been hooked ever since. Not only is it easier to clean up after, but it’s made from recycled materials and is a much more sustainable approach in the area of cat “loo management” as we like to call it around here. And yes, I did just blog about cat litter.

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Poang chair covers by J Caroline Home!: A year ago, I stumbled upon two Ikea Poang chairs on Craigslist for $125. Despite being from Ikea, I love how comfortable these chairs are, so they have a place in our living room. The covers were pretty worn out, but I held off on replacing them because Ikea had limited color options. Earlier this summer, I came across J Caroline Home! and she had tons of awesome patterns for the Poang, as well as several other Ikea models. We ordered, and 6 weeks later our chairs have a new, fresh look. Love!

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Infuse Your Mood Tea: A few weeks ago, we received two boxes of this tea to try, and they are almost gone! I’m a green tea addict, and this eleuthero-infused green tea is delicious. I can’t tell if it’s boosting my mood or energy levels as it claims, but I feel pretty awesome.

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Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues: Completely random paperback that I came across at the library the other week. Breezed through it in about two days and it was actually pretty good. Not in a “change my world outlook” sort of way so much as a “you know I feel happy I ran across this book, it is deceptively well-written” kind of way. What I failed to notice until after I read it was that it was the second book in a series. I guess I have some more white trash zombie reading in my future. (BTW – Follow my reads on GoodReads!)

So that’s what’s going on around here, what’s going on in your neck of the woods?

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Smelling the flowers

by Jessica on August 2, 2012

in Cats, Funny

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I had just gotten home from the gym this morning when Felix meandered in, hoping for a snack. I looked down and immediately noticed a big splotch of yellow on his back. I immediately thought “great, one of rotten pups has finally peed on Felix.” I knelt down, picked him up to carry him to the sink, but stopped when I smelled…flowers?

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It took me a few minutes to realize that he’d been smelling and rubbing his whole body in my anniversary flowers from Neil and that he had not in fact been R. Kelly’d by the dogs. Cats live such a charmed life.

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Weekend of Sloth

by Jessica on February 28, 2012

in Cats, Dogs, Matilda, Weekend

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This weekend was particularly, slothy? While we got work done on freelance projects, it was mostly in our pajamas in between naps, recovering from a pretty intense WOD Friday after work — a 7-minute AMRAP of competition burpees. It was brutal.

This was no ordinary WOD. It was the first challenge for the CrossFit Open. Neil and I aren’t participating (we’re still newbs), but we wanted to give the challenge a try anyway, mainly so we can see how we progress throughout the year. I ended up with 80 burpees, and Neil did 90! Most of the competitors were in the 100′s, so I feel pretty good knowing I’ve only been doing CrossFit for a few months.

Even though I didn’t feel too hot after all those burpees (blame Endometriosis), I managed to make it to dinner with Lissa and Christa while Neil grabbed some take-out and vegged on the couch. Afterward, we both pulled on our PJ’s and spent the night playing computer games and watching videos of other people doing their burpees.

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Around 11 pm we decided to put together a crock of chili. As signs of spring continue to arrive more and more, I feel our chili days are numbered. Since it was Oscar weekend, we decided to make the reddest chili we could think of. Red carpet = red chili! Since our kitchen window is currently wide-open to the public, our neighbors must think we’re nuts. It didn’t help that we were dancing around and watching SNL episodes from the ’90s. (btw – recipe coming!)

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Saturday morning started bright and early with a client meeting at a coffee shop close to the house. Because most of our clients live out of state, this was a rare treat to conceptualize and receive feedback in person. We even lingered after the meeting was over and enjoyed breakfast since it was still early.

The rest of Saturday was spent doing work. I know, thrilling right? Around 8, we decided liven things up with a little cheat meal. Over the past six months (!!), we’ve kind of worked out a system for our cheats. We give ourselves one cheat day (3 meals or snacks total) a week. Early on, we tried to make the whole day a cheat, but rather than try to make consecutive meals “cheat,” we kind of use them whenever we need to throughout the week. Typically it ends up being one meal, and two snacks (ie soda, cookies, etc.). While some may be quick to say its indicative that our diet is restrictive, I think any balanced approach to eating would tell you to eat some things only sparingly, primarily processed foods and sugar.

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The cheat meal this week was calzones. We’ve made them before, and they are super easy and fun to customize. Neil’s choice picks at the grocery store included pepperoni, spinach, mozzarella and ricotta. While I still love good mozz, my love of ricotta has seemingly waned since going Paleo. I found myself eating around it and pushing it away with my fork. Weird!

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Sunday ended up being an impromptu all-day puppy play date. Anja and Steve needed a pup-sitter for Fred, so we spent the day watching pups and breaking up fights over toys.

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Tildy showed us a new side of her personality that we’ve dubbed “ball-busting feminist.” She dominated the toys and trapped poor Fred on the bed and wouldn’t let him down…

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Poor Fred!

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Clive doing what he does best: DESTROY!

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When she wasn’t being kind of a b*tch, she led the boys around on “expeditions” where they followed her around in total submission. Go Matilda!?

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Maybe we have an alpha female on our hands?

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Not to be outdone in the b*tch department, Libby joined in and planted herself around the house as an obstacle, attacking any unsuspecting dog that fell into her trap. Why have kids when you can spend hours creating creepy narrative for your pets?

And that was our weekend.

How did your weekend go?

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Slow Cooker Beef and Veggie Stew

January 31, 2012
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I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but it is WARM here. Last night I went running in shorts and a light jacket. It feels like spring, which is crazy because exactly one year ago we were buried in a blizzard! Even crazier? It snowed on Friday when I planned this [...]

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Slipper Thief

January 19, 2012
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Monday was the picture of spring. Temperatures climbed into the upper sixties! We had the heat off, the doors and windows open, it was surreal. We took Clive on a long walk, and left the screen door open and locked for the cats to enjoy. A little background. Felix gets weird when one or both [...]

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The Sleep Business

January 17, 2012
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Bedtime is serious business for the four-legged boys in our house. Every night after they’ve had their dinner, Felix and Clive immediately start trying to “motivate” us to go to bed. Clive whines incessantly, and Felix opens and slams kitchen cabinets. Eventually, Neil “reluctantly” makes his way downstairs and ends up laying in bed with [...]

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Our 2011 Christmas Recap

December 29, 2011
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I can’t believe the Holidays have come and gone! Everything went so fast this year that I feel like we barely had time to get excited or really enjoy it. Seemingly overnight, our house was filled and vacated by both of our families, and now it is quiet again, almost too quiet. I was able [...]

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