I had to do some shopping for my pets today and needed to pick up a few things for my little hamster.  I got Teddy a run about ball and new bag of food and treats etc, and then picked up this small bag of freeze dried raw food for the pups to try.  They are already eating the Nulo brand and have been doing extremely well on them, so hopefully this could be a great little treat for them!

Last night was food prepping day for the pups.  Because of how busy I am, I try to buy in bulk and cook a batch of food that would last them through 2-3 days, that means just about two cooking days in a week and they can have some fresh food everyday!

I tried out a local discount store yesterday, while the environment wasn't exactly super fancy, the price was shockingly good, to my surprise, 3 lbs of ground beef and 6 lbs of chicken plus two bags of veggie costed just under $20.  It's more than enough meat for the pups for a week!

My recipe is super simple, about half meat and half veggie mixed well and cooked together.

I always mix some kibble with fresh cooked food in their bowl because I'm afraid that maybe homemade food is not a complete diet, but my pups love home prepared fresh food so I try to make as often as possible for them!

Everyone just waits around the stove while I'm preparing the food.  Bella looks like a white cloud on my floor here:)

It's hard to see on the pictures but one package of ground beef plus 1.5 bag of veggie made a huge amount food and the left overs went into a couple containers that will be eaten by the pups for the next couple of days!  

Once in a while I find a huge lot of vintage ring on ebay for 20 bucks, sometimes more than a dozen come in a little envelop in the mail and me and my friends always have a lot of fun with them.  I usually clean them in my ultrasonic jewelry cleaner so they come out sparkle like new again, it's always a fun jewelry party when I get these and we pick through them to see who likes what, and we get totally sparkled up for a fun night out.  These things are so cheap by the time we get through the night dancing and laughing, half of the stones have already gone missing but we have so much fun with it, just the laugh alone is worth the money!

It's been sort of a busy week at work and I had to make myself presentable in front of clients, usually I love a sleek dress with heels and adding on a vintage brooch from my personal collection.  Today I'm wearing a 1950s Schreiner of NY pin that I got last year, they have matching earrings too but somehow the clips are too painful to wear all day long.

My favorite pin lady is none other than Madeleine Albright.  She uses her pins to reflect on a particular issue that she's working on at a given moment or simply to reflect her mood of the day.  I highly recommend her book Read My Pins, which is autobiographical yet at the same time with stories and reflections anchored on each particular jewelry from her collection.

I find her stories so fascinating and it gives me a lot of courage and confidence to pursue my own career.  It's so interesting to read stories about her life dealing with tough political situations yet she shows a feminine side through her choice of jewelry, as a woman I find that quality very relatable.  Sometimes I think life is such a adventure if you face life's challenges with some humor and courage, and it's really the only way!  Wearing a little pin is a daily reminder that as a woman you can go out in the world, be your own person and pursue your dreams!

I completely forgot that I have a flickr account with lots of photos, I found some nice traveling photos and good pictures of Bobby that I really like.

Also spotted some McDonald's lover on there too!

Few days ago I gave all the little animals a bath, washing four dogs is no small task and I almost broke my back but now everyone is very good smelling and super soft.  Uggie used to suffer from food allergies but since I switched him to Nulo salmon kibble, all the skin and eye irritations disappeared, his ears have cleared up completely as well.  He still gets a good amount of homemade food mixed in but for the most part, the kibble seems to be keeping him in good health.

I had half a day off Sunday morning so I made myself breakfast and coffee and each pup got a tiny bite piece of cooked bacon as a treat.  It was nice to enjoy a little bit of relaxing morning but then it was time to hustle again.  It's been a peculiar year, a friend of mine and I were just talking about how odd it was that we were both going through a stressful time and everything seems to be breaking down at the same time.  Kelly's health scare definitely threw my budget off balance, it was $700 to ran the initial tests and plus $2300 for surgery, so $3000 was gone within the first few hours at the emergency clinic, and then the continuous treatments ran anywhere between $800-$900 a day at my regular vet to $600-$700 a night at the after hour clinic.  The total cost came out to over $7000 by the time she was done with her hospital stay.  The more scary thing was that had I not have the money on hand in the middle of night, she would have died because the vet wouldn't treat your pet unless you pay for the whole procedure upfront.

It just got me thinking how important it is to have an emergency fund for your pet in case there's a medical emergency, because when it comes down to the nitty gritty, having money truly made the difference between life and death, and with four pets and most of them getting older in age, I really have to be prepared.

Recently I've had friends and family that encourage me to get back into playing the piano, and honestly, after so many years of not playing it, it is kind of refreshing to go through a piece and see what new things I have discovered.  I've been finding half an hour or an hour here or there everyday to practice, and slowly my technique is getting back to me again.  The best way to get back into playing the piano is starting with scales, and I almost spend all the time going through them before trying out small part in a piece.  There were times in my life when I hated playing the piano, it seemed like a trivial thing to do when there are real life events out there like finding a boyfriend or getting married!  Now that I've been through a marriage and a divorce, having some individuality and be in touch with music and arts actually feel so amazing.  It took me years to be able to find myself again and I'm really looking forward to getting back into piano and perhaps developing some more hobbies that I truly enjoy.  

I also can't wait for the summer to be here so I can relax a little and maybe go on a road trip or two, going on camping at the beach and just relax a little, it's definitely been a while since I've gone on a vacation and I really miss traveling!