Pack Leader

Over winter break, I watched lots of TV - well at least more than I normally do. I watched the first season of Heroes, which by the way, I became obsessed with. I also became obsessed with this man:

Cesar Millan! I watched it religiously (and catch it whenever possible now). I had heard a lot about him, but thought some of techniques may have been a bit harsh. But after watching the show, I now understand better the theory behind his techniques, and honestly, though they may seem tough, they make sense, and work!

So we've been using some of the techniques on Tessa. Tessa is generally a pretty good dog, but she has issues with some dogs (although eventually gets over it) and barks at the mailman. And she's also skeptical of new people. So we've employed the idea that when we come through the door, or any person walks through the door, you can't talk, touch or make eye contact with her until she is completely calm. This is also supposed to make her anxiety better. So far, she seems much more independent (will go and lay in a room that neither one of us are in - something she would never do before), is much calmer on walks, and will stay calm when I give her commands while the mailman comes by.

If I could meet this man to come work with Tessa, I would be thrilled. Until then, I'll keep working with Tessa!

Helping Where I Can

During my first semester, I can hardly believe that was only 5 months ago!, we were inundated with flyers in our mailboxes of various school clubs or organizations we could be a part of. Several seemed interesting to me, but I knew with the amount of work I knew I'd be handling during my first year, I truly limited myself as to what I would join. I narrowed it down to one in particular: Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (http://www.aldf.org/). I was appointed to the board as the social chair, which isn't all that important, but it gives me the opportunity to spread the word for different animal related activities in the area, or current animal issues.

Last semester we hosted a cutest pet contest to raise money and donate to a local animal shelter, and had an incredible speaker from Borne Free come and speak about various animal issues. We're currently coming up ideas for events. With all of my fellow pet owners that read my blog, I was hoping to get some ideas from you. Do you take your pets to any events? Clue me in when you hear of any opportunity that relates to animals. I want to spread the word!

And since I'm spreading the word, sign up for Baltimore's Annual March for the Animals!

Delicious

I am obsessed with Aquolina's Pink Sugar fragrance! My friend Lewis got me a small sample of it in a little gift pack from awhile back, and when I wear it, I want to lick my wrists where I put it on - it smells like cotton candy tastes. Delicious.

Groundhog Day

Since I've been back in school, it seems as if our weekends all blur together. We rarely have big events planned, simply because I spend most of the weekend reading. They go a little something like this: Friday afternoon before Ian gets home from work I fumble around for awhile and then get a couple hours of work done. Friday nights we normally get carryout or eat our somewhere. Saturdays I sleep in until about 9, lazily get out of bed at 9:15ish, eat some breakfast, then start reading. I take a break midway through the day to talk to Ian, run and errand or just lay around. Then read for another few hours and then take a shower and get takeout or go out to dinner. Occasionally we meet up with friends for dinner one of the nights. Sunday morning, same wakeup time as Saturday, then I start reading for the entire day. Monday - starts the week all over again.

As much as I love spending time with Ian - I'm feeling very much like we repeat the same weekend over and over again. We need to mix things up! Saturday we decided to call up a couple of my law school friends to go out to dinner. Getting a reservation for the 4 of us proved to be quite difficult considering it's restaurant week here in Baltimore. But finally, we managed to get a table at Edo Sushi in the Harbor. We tend to stay away from the Harbor as it's overpriced and touristy. It's been about a year since we've eaten there and holy crap, the prices are beyond outrageous. We ended up getting the restaurant week menu because otherwise we would've spent a whole lot of money. One of the rolls I used to get there, which is absolutely delicious, was $18.95 for 8 pieces?!!?!! No wonder why it's never super crowded in there. It's a beautiful spot on the water, and they have some great sushi - but we certainly won't be heading back there anytime soon! But we had a great time meeting up with people - that part, we'll do again.

So we're brainstorming for ideas to spice up our weekends a bit. What do you do on the weekends? Give us some ideas!

The Grades are In

Well - I had anxiously been awaiting my grades from my first semester of law school. I finally got the last one today. While I am not thrilled with 2 of my grades (one of them especially), I am very happy with 3 of them. Would I do anything differently? Yes! I've decided that I'm going to continue working my butt off to try to not get one of those 2 lesser grades for this spring semester. The question is, how am I going to do this?!

With so little sleep as it is (4.5 hours of sleep last night - shoot me!), and very little time in the day that isn't dedicated to schoolwork or classes, I'm trying to find how I can fit anything more into my schedule. I honestly don't think I can dedicate anymore time, simply because there isn't any left in the day to do so. So instead, I'm going to try different things that I didn't make time for last semester. Like study groups. I occasionally would get together to review something, but I certainly didn't make a habit out of it. This semester, I'm going to shoot to get together with someone about every two weeks to review each class and what we've covered over the last couple weeks. I think this will give me the opportunity to hear and learn from my peers about what they view to be important, and we can bounce ideas off of eachother.

Also in trying to improve things this semester, we rearranged two rooms in our house. The office had originally been upstairs in the 2nd bedroom, and the 2nd bedroom we had put in the basement. This was all fine and dandy, except I wasn't using the office to study! Over break we finally realized why I'm not into that room. First, there are sliding glass doors off the back bedroom that go onto our deck. During the fall when the afternoon sun would hit those doors, the room became a sauna. Now that it's about 20 degrees here, that room is brrrrr cold! I can't regulate the temperature in that room very well. Also, I'm a scare-dy cat and hate that there are two big glass windows that someone could see in at night. We do have partial shades on them, but it was creeping me out! So Ian began the process of switching the rooms over the weekend. Thanks to MrsTwink's hubby for coming over and helping Ian move furniture. Ian is finishing it up tonight, and I have to say, I already LOVE it so much more. I'll post pictures after we're finished.

And I don't feel I can end this post without recognizing how amazing yesterday was as a moment in our history. While I stay away from politics on here, I can understand that no matter who you voted for, I hope you can still see that yesterday was still quite a day. As a side note, Annie called to tell me that someone we knew growing up was on TV at the inauguration ball and had just proposed to his girlfriend. He also happens to go to my law school. Exciting times all around! Here's the story.

Homemade Chicken Soup

It takes freaking forever to make. I bought a whole chicken and thought I'd give it a try. Here's everything that went into it:

Whole chicken boiled in water until the meat is so tender if falls right off the bones. Then I've added to the water and chicken:

white potatoes
carrots
mushrooms
onions
celery
cannelini beans
kidney beans
peas
escarole
pepper
herbs de provence
parsley
basil
garlic

Then I will cook orzo on the side to add into each serving. Holy hell, it better taste freaking amazing after all of this!

An Animal Odd Couple

Something that made me smile today...

A Poll on Tipping

There's one thing I truly loved about my study abroad time in Spain, our trip to Greece, and generally being in Europe: you don't really have to worry about tipping. You don't have to sit and do math after a few glasses of wine, which I bet most of us have been in that moment where we have to have a friend or significant other check to make sure we did it right. Then there's the ever awkward moment when you're with friends or another couple who don't tip the same as you, whether that be they tip more, or they demand on tipping a certain percent that you think is too little. And do you tip on carryout orders?

A few months back in one of my Bon Appetit magazines, there was a small article specifically on this. It got me thinking about how our parents tip probably has an impact on how we tip. Personally, I've always been someone to tip between 18-20%. My feeling has always been, is that 1-5% REALLY going to make that much of a difference in my life? In the grand scheme of things, probably not, and I bet it would benefit the server a lot more than it would hurt me. So I make sure I tip well. Also, I'm sure that the majority of us have at some point worked as a server, bartender, or other service oriented industry. I was a bartender during the summers. And yes I can say I had bad nights or where I'd mess up an order. But honestly, 90% of the time I wasn't as on top of things, it was because we were short on people, or my employer hadn't hired enough bartenders for the amount of customers coming in. So this leads me to say that when I get bad service, or service is slow, I try to give the server the benefit of the doubt in that maybe someone called in sick and our server is working 2 sections - I would hate to be in that position, because I've been there and it's a terrible feeling.

Only once in a blue moon will I leave 15% - and that's if I'm very unhappy with something.

What are your thoughts on tipping? How much do you think is appropriate? Do you tip when you get carryout (we do normally, only 10% - hey, someone has to pack and make the food still)? How do you work through the awkward moment with friends/another couple?

Here's the article:

Dear BA Foodist,
Can you set me straight on tipping? I was once told that 20 percent is for great service, 15 percent for bad. Unless a waiter's gone overboard, I'm an 18 percenter, but I was recently accused of being stingy. Am I wrong, or wasn't 10 percent considered fair not too long ago? Give me a tip I can use.—Tipper G., Albuquerque

Dear Tipper G.,
Ah, the great tipping conundrum. You are not alone. At a meal's end, I often find myself staring at the blank lines of a credit-card receipt, concerned that the effects of too much wine and food will impair my basic algebra skills. (That's what a spouse is for: making sure it all adds up correctly.) Still, I think I can help.

The Foodist waited tables many years ago at a small, well-regarded spot in Brooklyn. (Incidentally, one evening he waited on a major food critic who later gave the restaurant a one-star review. The critic liked the food but described the service as "friendly but very slow and fumbling." Oh, well: If you can't serve 'em, join 'em.) Waiting tables is a job everyone should be forced to do at least once, if only to learn that it's not okay to snap your fingers when you want something, and also to find out what it's like to eke out a living on tips.
It's disappointing to receive anything less than 20 percent of the total bill. Most waiters at today's better restaurants expect that much for average service, and even more if they do it with a smile. So unless you're planning never to go to the same restaurant twice, the days of 10 percent tips—and even 15 percent tips—are long gone.

The BA Foodist's Tipping Rules

RULE NO. 1: Unless the server is rude, condescending, and/or completely absent, tip between 18 and 20 percent.

RULE NO. 2: Never tip on tax. Tip based on the subtotal. And if you're calculating your tip simply by doubling the tax, stop it—you're being cheap.

RULE NO. 3: Unless you drink like Dean Martin or have a taste for expensive wines (i.e., $40 or more, depending on your budget), it's best to include booze when calculating a tip. Bartenders expect a dollar tip per drink (which is usually about 20 percent of the drink's price), and it's no different with waiters.

RULE NO. 4: Never turn a blind eye when others are tipping—especially if they're unfamiliar with our tipping culture (i.e., Europeans). If you think your tablemate is lowballing the service, it's best to hand the waiter a few bills on the way out.

RULE NO. 5: If a few dollars here and there really matter that much to your bank account, perhaps you shouldn't be going out to eat in the first place.

Unusual

Since this week is my first week back at school, I'm adjusting back into school and have been making a point to still make it to the gym. Since I'm a little new to the whole fancy gym thing, I don't shower there. I get that many women do and while I am personally not comfortable enough to strip down naked in the middle of the locker room, I don't normally feel too uncomfortable with other women doing what they need to do.

However, yesterday just startled me. I got there right after class and went into one of the bathrooms to change into my gym clothes. As I was changing I heard a couple little kids voices having a conversation with their mom. I didn't think anything of it because occasionally I will see someone bring their child in while they quickly work out. But I came out of the stall and was startled as I turned the corner to walk towards the lockers, and the woman is butt naked, along with her 2 kids! I'm all for doing what you need to do, but maybe next time she could at least try to act like she's interested in getting dressed instead standing around talking with your kids!

Fill in the Blanks

So I realize that I haven't quite mentioned anything that happened while I stopped blogging. Honestly, it's a huge blur. But, there are some highlights:

• I turned 26 surrounded by lots of friends and loved ones. We had a party here at our house and had a blast! But holy moly did we have a lot of leftover desserts - I was sending goody bags home with everyone.
• I did a charity bikathon at a wonderful gym. My law school has a program that sends students to New Orleans and other areas closeby that area to help out the local public defense offices for a week over winter break. I had been really interested in going but couldn't make the decision. Instead, they held a 3 hour spinning class where I raised 1 dollar for every minute I was there. I was sore for days afterwards too!
• I joined the BEAUTIFUL gym where the bikathon was held! MAC Wellness. I had really been interested in joining a gym, and then I saw it and was convinced I wanted to join it. But the prices are outrageous! So I worked some negotiating skills and walked away when they gave me too high of a price. Within a week I got a call and they lowered the price per month, plus cut out about 75% of the enrollment fee. SCORE! Oh and if you're interested in joining me there, I can bring friends! Or if you want to be referred there and decide to join, use my name - it'll save you some money (and me too).
• I've gained a lot more weight. As in, since August or so, I've gained about 15-17 pounds. This one is not a highlight! It's incredibly frustrating. People - I am eating so healthy day in and day out, am managing to work out a few days a week. What is the deal?! This is what I ate yesterday: Breakfast - bowl of Kashi lean crunch cereal, 2 cups of coffee (no sugar - only 1 equal), Lunch - Salad with tomatoes and a couple chunks of feta with a vinegar dressing, side of 1 cup of carrots, Snack - protein bar, Snack - 1 slice of raisin toast, Dinner - steamed salmon (1/2 tsp of olive oil, salt pepper, basil, lemon) over salad. I did have dessert - 1/2 cup light vanilla ice cream. Anything sound crazy in there? Well that's about right for what I've been eating, but for dinner we normally switch it up a bit. I have bought a couple new pairs of pants because literally I've outgrown everything! All of this is also why doctors are searching for some answers.
• We picked out our wedding photos for our album. We are now just waiting to get the layout from our photographer!

I am sure I will come up with some other things to tell you. But really, my life has been overtaken by lots of school work. Exams came and went in a flash, although they were overwhelming at the time. We've gone out to some new and some of our favorite restaurants in the area like Cinghiale, Akbar, Regi's, Jack's Bistro, and probably many more I'm forgetting. Oh and I got a bike for Christmas. I don't feel comfortable enough riding it very far, but we've gone up to the park a few times and I'm loving it. It's been a pretty good few months!

Delurk Yourself!

I just read that today is delurking day which means that you should leave a comment! Don't be shy!

Road Trip in Photos

Here are some pictures from our trip to and time in Rochester:

We got 14 inches of snow while we were there! It looked beautiful! And also, that's Lauren's beautiful new house!

New Year's Eve Dinner:

And this is the only photo I took while visiting my brother. He and his fiance have a beautiful apartment in Hoboken that overlooks the NY skyline - right on the water.

And I think my favorite adjective of today's post is "beautiful".

Christmas Day in Pictures

Clearly I'm a little delayed in uploading photos!

Christmas Day Photos

I was busy playing my scratch-offs that were in my stocking. I only won $2 out of about 15 scratch-offs. Bad luck this year apparently!

This is where Tessa spent much of the day after exhausting herself from playing with new toys from Santa (aka Grandma):

My mom and I cooking!

The table all ready to go! The gang minus Ian. This was the beet salad - absolutely delicious!

Barium is Disgusting

Someone failed to mention that the stuff below that I had to drink this morning can act as a natural laxative in some people. Let's just say it wasn't a pleasant morning. I'm home now after much drama and the test is, thank goodness, OVER! I'll find out the results next week. For now, I'm taking a long nap and drinking plenty of water. Note to self (and any of you if you have to drink that dreadful stuff) - go to the doctors office prior to drinking that nastiness. Otherwise, the 1/2 hour drive is very uncomfortable:(

Mysterious Case

I visited the urologist on Tuesday to determine why I keep getting kidney infections/pain. They did a urinalysis and an ultrasound. The results are that my kidneys are functioning properly, look to have no stones in them, and nothing is out of the normal range. All good news!

The bad news is that they aren't sure why I keep getting the infections/pain. Just to be safe, I am going for a catscan of the abdomen/pelvis this morning. The doctor isn't suspecting that anything will come back abnormal, but just wants to be sure we are covering all the bases. Apparently it's not entirely abnormal for ladies in my age group, if you get one kidney infection, to get repeated ones. He said I'm probably one of the mysterious cases. At least it's not bad news!

Well, unfortunately, in order to do the catscan, I have to drink this:

It's barium EWWW!! Currently I have one bottle down, 1 to go. And I was shocked by how big the bottled are - 18 ounces each!! Yucky:( It tastes orangy, and the texture is like thick milk. Thick sour milk. 1/2 bottle to go down at 9:00, then another 1/2 bottle at 9:30 before I leave. Then 1/4 cup at the radiologist. I think I will reward myself afterwards with a yummy bagel from panera!

Ugly Naked Guy

Remember the ugly naked guy from Friends? Well, a situation came up that reminded me of that guy in Friends.

While visiting my friend Lauren, who bought her first house almost a year ago in a fantastic part of Rochester, we relaxed a lot. She and I both had colds and we got about 14 inches of snow the first 24 hours we were there, so we stayed indoors, all cozy and warm. While sitting in her living room, lounging around, we noticed several people going into the house next door to hers. We mentioned something about it to her because all of the people were carrying some type of bag (book bags, gym bags, etc.). She told us to look over to their porch to see if a flag was out. Sure enough there was a flag that read "Open Swim". On the door, there was a sign posted "Do no knock, please come in." We were intrigued. It looked like a normal house - how did they have open swim? Well it turns out, the owners of the house have a pool, hot tub and sauna in the basement. And by open swim, it's ADULT open swim. As in, all of those people we saw walking up to the house were showing up to swim naked in the pool. We searched on the internet and found the website, with full frontal pictures of the members of the pool. $8 for members, $12 for nonmembers. And apparently, there's a huge following that believe in "naturist" activities - nudey gyms, family activities, bbqs, etc. Can you imagine though?! It's a beautiful neighborhood in which you'd NEVER expect to find that. It sure made for some interesting people watching:) And, Lauren, she's left with her very own Ugly Naked Neighbors.

Happy 2009!

We had a fantastic Christmas that we hosted this year! My mom and Ian's parents joined us while my brother and his fiance stayed in NY for their Christmas. To start, we had beet salad with goat cheese and walnuts (minus the walnut for me), then continued with a whole roast of beef tenderloin, roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts, green beans, English stuffing, and bernaisse sauce on the side. To finish, we had a delicious peanut butter chocolate pie and Christmas (English) pudding. We drank lots of mimosas and wine and talked and laughed lots. It was quite lovely.



What was supposed to be my fabulous break from school has turned into something a little less than fabulous. Last Friday, I woke up with lots of pain in my back. By night time, I was very uncomfortable and started with major nausea. To Patient First we went where they determined I have another kidney infection and now a kidney stone. Now, I'm feeling better, not 100% but better. But it did require us to change our trip plans. We had planned on going on a big road trip to the New England area to visit my cousins and great aunt, then to Rochester to visit Lauren, then onto Hoboken to visit my brother and meet his fiance's family. We canceled the first leg of the trip and headed to Rochester once the kidney infection seemed to clear up a bit. We had a lovely time there and spent lots of time indoors after 14 inches of snow falling there on our first night. I then woke up with a cold that I seem to be getting over now. But all in all, Rochester was fantastic! Then we were off to Hoboken to visit my brother for a night. We met his fiance's family and it was great to see them all together.

We're glad to be home and have our pup back! Tomorrow, I head to a kidney specialist to figure out what is going on. This is about my 4th or 5th kidney infection in 2 years. They now suspect that I may have something wrong with the adrenal gland which attaches to the kidney. It controls many processes, including potassium, carb and sodium intake. This could also be why I have gained a whopping 17 pounds over the past several months for no apparent reason. Even with working out a few times per week and eating normally, I can't seem to stop gaining. Hoping tomorrow will give me some answers!

I have lots more to recap...I'll save more for my next post. In the meantime, I'm enjoying a very lazy Monday at home with Tessa!