Time for that rottweiler......

Jer and I have been discussing getting a larger dog; he wants jogging partner that can keep up (sadly Pekoe and I don't fit the bill), I would like to try out obedience and weight pull again and have a dog I can take roller blading, plus we have been thinking that it might be safer with the type of neighborhood that we live in. Well we were right on the latter to be sure!

Last night around 2am I was just drifting off to sleep on the living room floor (Jer was snoring away in the bed as usual) when the neighbors American Bulldog started barking incessantly. I have never really heard her bark like that before but I figured maybe it was a cat or opossum in alley so I ignored her for a few moments hoping she would settle down. Finally when it became apparent that she wasn't going to pipe down anytime soon I opened the back door and yelled for her to be quiet. Just then I looked over and noticed that both the front doors were open on our car. We had done laundry that day but surely Jeramie hadn't left the doors open when he brought the clothes in, he is very good about that kind of thing. So I went over to inspect the car and immediately noticed that the front window was busted out and the stereo was torn out of the console; we had been robbed! I went straight into the house and called the police.

Meanwhile, our neighboor (owner of the dog) came out to see what all the ruckus was about and saw the perps hiding behind the neighbors house (they must have hid when they saw my house lights come on but where unable to run until I went back into the house) he actually took his gun and a flashlight and when after them when they lit off across the traintracks but was unable to chatch them. He filled me in on what he saw and I apoligized profusly for yelling at his dog who was doing a very good job of watching out for us! I feel like I owe her a bone or something since thanks to her I was alterted and they were interupted. If they hadnt been I am sure that they would taken more items from the car such as my camera; which I am very grateful to still have in my possesion.

After talking with the neighbor for a few moments I went in and woke Jeramie to tell him what had happened. The officer arrived a few minutes later and I have to say that he was one of the worst officers I have ever met. He parked way out in front of our neighbors house no where near where the incident had occured, no flashing lights.... nothing. He wasnt even going to bother looking at the crime scene or writing a report unless we really wanted him too...those were his exact words too!! Ofcourse I insisted that he do his job. What ever happened to protect and serve? I mean seriously, he gets paid to take care of citizens in need and I got the distinct feeling that that he didn't give a flying you know what about protecting or serving us in any way.

So now we have no radio/cd player, a chewed up center console, a broken window to replace on our already tight budget right now and I don't know how I will sleep nights. I am worried that if they are willing to bust into our car then surely our home isn't off limits either! We are pretty fortunate to have nice neighbors directly on each side of us, but I guess we have been pretty naive about the crime in our neighborhood as a whole. So, we immediately talked to the landlord about dead-bolts on our doors and a flood light on the back of our house. We also have decided to definitely get a bigger dog as soon as we can afford one. Also until we can afford alarm systems on the vehicles we wont get another cd player in the car. We took everything value able out of both the rigs and are just going to park them with the doors unlocked; at least that way we don't have to pay for another window if someone else decides that they want to rummage through our vehicles.

Nap time

Just a few random pictures of my lazy family.... :)

Cooking Cuban

Jeremy and I have been talking about trying new foods and eating healthier so we went to the library and checked out a bunch of cookbooks, Cuban, Thai, Indian, Italian, Vegetarian, American etc.. We are going to try and cook a meal together once a week and so yesterday we cooked our first meal.

We decided to try a few recipes from the Cuban cookbook "Cooking the Cuban Way" for our first meal. As most of my friends know, I am a vegetarian (although I break the rules occasionally for certain types of fish), but Jer is a meat eater so I frequently include a meat dish in our meals. I am proud to announce that while he wont go completely vegi with me, Jer has given up pork and cut back on other red meats in an effort to eat healthier. So, for our recipes last night we choose: garbanzo bean salad (ensalada de garbanzos), Cuban white rice (arroz de Cubano), and garlicky shrimp (I don't know the Spanish for that one :D).

The rice was really just long grain white rice cooked w/olive oil and sauteed fresh garlic, the garbanzo bean salad was fairly simple as well: a mixture of peppers, red onions, home-made dressing and of course garbanzos. The shrimp was a little more complicated however since neither one of use had ever cooked shrimp before. We had no idea how to "peel and de-vein" shrimp, lol. At first we thought maybe they were already peeled but soon discovered that was not the case! Thankfully there was some written instructions in the cookbook and how to perform the "procedure". It is a gross process as shrimp are ugly little things and the vein that you cut out looks like a string of fish poop....I'm not making this meal sound very good am I? Haha! I was surprised that they didn't smell too bad, as I hate the smell of seafood, but we decided that the fact that they were fresh wild-caught had a lot to do with it.

After the shrimp were all prepared we sauteed them in a pan with 6 cloves of garlic, fresh lime juice and various seasonings to taste. Then we spooned them over the rice and served them with the chilled garbanzo salad on the side; and it was time to eat. I did nibble a little bite of the shrimp but found it to be just as awful as I remembered seafood being (the last time I hate seafood was over 10 years ago), but I thought the rice was pretty good and I loved the garbanzo bean salad. Being the opposites that we are, Jeramie of course liked the shrimp and rice but didn't care for the salad. All in all we thought the meal was okay, but I don't think we will be adding it to our recipe box.

Note to self: the whole house did end up stinking like rotten seafood for hours after we cooked.....no more cooking of seafood indoors!!

Leather head....

Apparently the guys at work made a deal with Jeramie -he shaves his head, and they will shave theirs. So last night we clipped off all his hair and then shaved it smooth with a razor. I actually thought it was pretty cute clipped really short but the naked head is, well, naked! LOL. Every time I turn around its like looking at a stranger! When Wookie (our cat) saw him for the first time all her hair stood up and she hunched up her back like he was an alien that was going to eat her. It was so funny I laughed till me eyes teared! Human heads fell weird when they are naked, kind of like pigskin....I must admit I am glad that his hair grows fast, and I am hoping he wont decide he likes this look :-0

PetSmart

On Sunday we (Jeramie, Pekoe and I) all went down to Petsmart to get some fish for the tank that Jeramie gave me for Valentines day. I already have a few fish in it but we are buying them a little at time. I already knew what type of fish I wanted so it was just a matter of locating them and waiting our turn in line so that someone could "fish" them out for us. I ended up getting 3 Gouramies, one red, one powder blue, and one non-hybrid coloration. They are only about 2 inches long at maturaty but so far will be the biggest fish in my tank.

In addition to having a fish tank set up in our house we have also had a terrarium (reptile cage) set up for a little while now (it was my gift to Jer) we just haven't put anything in it yet. So after getting fish we decided to go and take a look at the lizards. Jeramie has been wanting a Bearded Dragon for a while now (I must confess that I think they are pretty cool too) but we just haven't had the money to buy one so we do a lot of window shopping.

So, as we usually do we headed over to check out the baby "beardies" and we ended up seeing this one little guy at the top that was really neat. Long story short - he was a really good price and Jer fell in love with him so we now officially have a bearded dragon.

We brought our new little beardie home right away since they are dessert dwellers and cant be out of the heat for too long. He looked so tiny in his terrarium (its 75 gals.) but at an adult size of 18 - 22 in. he will grow into it quick! It was amusing to watch him check out his new habitat and especially cool to watch him chase down and eat the little baby crickets that we brought home for him. Boy can the little fella eat; he ate 6 crickets in one evening! Pekoe and Wookie were especially interested in the latest addition and sat peering into his cage for hours. I am sure that they both think he would be a great play thing and or tasty snack so we will have to keep him safe until he is a little bigger :)
We watched him for a while until he was all settled in basking under the lamp on his sandstone and then we left him to his self while we worried about which movie to watch with dinner.

P.S. we named him "Sid" after the sloth on Ice Age but we figure it could also be short for Sidney if 'he' turns out to be a 'she'... Sidney is the capital of Australia -which is where Bearded Dragons come from :)

Proud Little Me...

Last Thursday in English class the teacher announced that she had her first A this semester (she is really tough to even get a B out of) and she asked if anyone would mind having their paper read aloud because she wasn't going to identify the writer. No-one minded and so she started reading... I was shocked when I realized it was my paper! I have been so frustrated with that class being so much harder then I ever remember English being when I was in HS that it was just the boost I needed to re-interest me and keep me going. It was just a short descriptive paragraph that was supposed to describe a place without movement, really it was very simple and I only thought it was okay, but I am glad she liked it.

Math is going fine. I don't think I have gotten lower then an 85% on any test, quiz, or homework. Most of them are in the 90's, some even 100%. Its crazy....I thought I couldn't do math! Spanish is a repeat of 102 so it hasn't been too difficult either; and I got an 84% on my first Art Appreciation test. Man that was a hard test; so much memorization!

Well I guess that's a wrap on school stuff for now. :)

moving ahead

Well I just sold my trailer last night...boo hoo...but now I have some money to put some furniture into our new place and will buy a new trailer again next fall. I am still working hard to get everything done in the little cottage...then I will post pics for you all to see. :)