A bit of holiday shopping and Christmas cards are out.. mostly!

Not the pups' Christmas presents but they badly needed some new bedding because I had to tossed a couple of them in the trash this weekend.  I've been buying all their beddings from HomeGoods for years, simply because they are the cheapest and quality is very good.  I bought two beds and blankets but it's not enough so I will have to go back for a couple more.  There's always a buzz of excitement when new beddings or toys are brought in and everyone take their turn to try things out.  I got a few fuzzy teddy toys and treats for them for Christmas but for now they are hiding under the Christmas tree!

For their dinner last night I cooked last of the left over food from couple nights ago mixed with eggs, they eat eggs about once a week and absolute love them!

I did a good amount of holiday cards this past weekend and also a little bit of holiday shopping last night.  In fact, for the coming new year I plan to go more card writing because people don't do it so much anymore and it's always so special to receive a thank you note or birthday card in the mail!  I'm a terrible gifter and never seem to know what to get for people, so I opted for some boxes of See's chocolate and called it a day.  The problem with going into the chocolate store is I end up eating a lot of samples and buying way too much candy for myself!

Even without much change in temperature in Southern California, signs of Fall is still everywhere, showing colors in sunlight and falling leaves, and I can already smell the fresh autumn air!

I always say when the temperature cools down it will be a happy change but still sad to see the last bit of summer go.

It's been two weekends in a row that I took the pups to the dog park.  We go after the sun is down so I don't have to bake under the sunlight and get a tan.  They just ran around and barked and played with other pups, I want Bella to be a little more socialized with the other pups and everybody else just plain had fun!  It's kind of hard to believe that a few months ago Kelly was so sick and I had such a stressful time trying to take care of her, and yet here she is again, living a normal healthy life!

I spent the weekend catching up on lots of sleep and taking care of my puppies.  Sometimes doing nothing is a real luxury in life, all I did was cleaning the house, watering the garden and cooking for myself and my puppies, I think they are happy that I'm home with them because they got extra walks and a lot more treats during the day!

I also made my way back to the gym again, it's been such a hectic month and I barely used my gym card at all and I can really feel the difference in my energy level.  I like to set goals for myself at the beginning of every week because otherwise a week would fly by without much being accomplished.  My goal for this week is to at least hit the gym every other day and take a class.  A couple of weeks ago I got this pretty pink Reebok gym bag from Marshall's for $14, it's too cute and too cheap to pass up and now I get to enjoy working out in pink!

Who's got a case of Mondays?  Not me after being supercharged from a weekend of rest and relaxation!

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!  

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!

Kelly's staples came out yesterday!  I took her in a few days late but that was just because the cut looked so scary I was afraid it would pop open, of course it wouldn't, or would it??

I was up super early this morning so I spent ten minutes throwing some chicken legs in the instant pot and made bone broth for the pups.  My bone broth recipe is super simple, just a pack of organic chicken legs from Trader Joe's, I think the cost for a pack of legs is a little over $3, which mixed with kibble last about two to three meals for my four pups!  I also added in half a stalk of celery and one carrot chopped up.  Set it on stew for 45 minutes and I'm ready to go back in bed for some morning snuggle with Kelly!  By the time I got ready for work the bone broth was ready to be served, the meat was so tender it just fell off the bones and the pups have freshly made food for the day!

Well, it certainly has been a while since I checked in here, but today feels like the right time to pick it up again!  Mostly I miss writing down tidbits of my life without causing a big deal on social media. 

Kelly had a major health scare recently.  It started with me coming home late one night and noticing that her belly was bloated and she wasn't moving at all.  I decided to check her into an emergency vet clinic in case something was wrong and to my shock the vet told me to put her down.  Either that or I had the option for surgery but she might not survive the surgery.  She ended up being operated on around mid night to have her uterus removed, and she stayed hospitalized for three days and three nights.  Since the emergency clinic closes at 7:30 am, for several days I was responsible for transferring her between two different clinics day and night so she could be monitored.  

The first night she came home with me I honestly thought she wasn't going to make it and just to my luck the power was out in my neighborhood for hours so I sat in the dark with a dying puppy making scary noises I'd never heard before with her tongue stretched out under a little flicker of candle light.  The next morning I found Kelly sleeping next to me and was actually making some movements and she seemed to be gaining a bit of energy.  She's still got 22 staples on her little belly and we are going to get another vet check in a week or so, but she is slowly making some progress.

In any case, after a whole lot of that going on it just seemed like a good idea to deep clean the house to get all that stressful energy out.  I was up at the crack of dawn this morning and it was drizzling rain outside, and I just started going from room to room changing off beddings and curtains and throwing away medical syringes and pill bottles and whatever stuff that came home with Kelly from the vet.  It seems like home is a great place to start if you want to shift the energy in your life.  

Something weight heavily on my mind the past few weeks.  I found two pin sized lump under Kelly's nipple and decided to take her in to get it checked out.  After taking her to two veterinarians for different opinions, both recommended surgical removal.  One vet also very firmly said she should get spayed at the same time, which to me just seemed way too aggressive to have surgical procedures at two different locations at the same time.  I eventually opted for removal of the lumps and having her teeth cleaned at the same time with the second vet.  

Leading up to the day of her surgery I was a nervous wreck.  She couldn't eat anything the night before and we had to get to the vet first thing in the morning to get prepped.  I waited an hour and half until her blood work and x rates are looked at by the vet and made sure she was ok to proceed.  Turned out she had to have one of her nipple carved out completely, and the cut was almost two inches.  When I picked her up after the surgery it really hit me hard because the large cut was so scary looking and she was totally spaced out.

After I got her home I cooked some chicken mixed with oatmeal and veggie and she was a good little eater and gobbled it all up. We just sort of watched movies and hangout on the couch without doing much.  Honestly by early evening I was pretty exhausted too.

Yesterday the lab results came out and the two tiny tumors were benign, so I just breathed a long sigh of relief.  We all got a bit shaken up this week and with both me and my pups in pretty poor shape lately, it's really got me to think about how I can maybe improve the quality of our health a bit.

I have to be very budget conscious nowadays and try to eat at home as much as possible, and my pup's dinner also made it to the spending cut.  I've switched them on kibbles plus part of cooked food instead of all homemade food to keep costs down, but anyhow, still I think they are getting a good amount of fresh veggie and meat.

This recipe is what I call the "poor dog's meal,"  because it's relatively cheap and better than having a pack of sad dogs chewing dry bland kibbles while looking angrily at me.

So the easiest store with the cheapest option near me is Target, they have a produce section that often have eggs or meat on sale for very cheap, sometimes a pack of 80% lean ground beef only cost $3, and a bag of coleslaw mix is about $1.60, so for about $5 I can cook a batch of fresh meat and veggie mix meal for my pups.  I don't know what is cheaper than that, I mean a latte at Starbucks cost just as much, a medium sized one... not even a large latte, and all you get is one oz of espresso and frosted milk.

I usually cook one package of ground beef with 2/3 bag of coleslaw mix, adding a little water until the veggie is soft and meat is cooked through.  Some people feed their dog raw meat with cooked vegetable, I feed my pups cooked meat and that's just how I have it done at my house.

So I serve dinner with a mixture of kibble and the meat and veggie meal, sometimes if I'm feeling extra fancy I will add in a spoonful of whole fat organic yogurt.  After all that I will have enough left over for another batch in the morning for their breakfast.  My pups look forward to their walk and meals all day long so I try to supply as much as I can.

Summer is approaching, though I have no time to do any of the fun summer activities.  It's come to the point that life has no more stories except work, work and work.  I would love to go on a couple of road trips this year and just improve my overall quality of life and be more active and healthy, in fact, I think that will be my resolution for the second half of the year.

Usually after work I cannot wait to get home and snuggle up to my pupsters,  I go straight home unless I'm out of ingredients to cook dog dinner, then I would make a quick stop at the grocery store. After dinner, if the meal was extra tasty, Kelly would get into a really good mood, and she would pick up a plush toy and dances around and tries to get my attention.  It's one of my favorite thing to watch, since she is usually not interested in toys, it's just super cute!

I would say having a little dog definitely makes a home more wholesome, it's not for everyone for sure, but if patience and long term commitment is in the picture, there's nothing better than having a little fury friend to share your home with you!

Sunday was spent watching chick flicks with my puppies, went for some vintage shopping and ate delicious cuban food.  I really feel recharged and refreshed after some good rest.

And of course, when you have puppies you find silly things like bunnies and pink tennis balls on the couch, it's like a little kiss right on my heart!  

Fie Fie's first picture of 2017!  He politely requested that I gave him my bunny as his toy so he got it!

I had been working for weeks without a break and I was utterly exhausted.  Today I got a break and it happen to be raining heavily and I was in heaven!

I took Fie Fie to the dog park and after I dropped him off at home I went to explore new shops and areas, something I haven't done in a long time!  I finally found a knitting group that I think I will enjoy and checked out some holiday decorations and put up my Christmas tree.  I also ate ramen at Mitsuwa and walked around in the bookstore.  I have so many knitting books and projects that were gathering dust, now that I found a knitting group I feel like they are coming back to life.

My conclusion at end of day was that a human being needs rest, and that's all I have to say about that!

At night I cooked dinner for the pups,  and Kelly after having had her warm meal on a cold day was particularly happy.  Whenever she's in a super good mood she picks up a fluffy bear, and squeaks and show me that she's got a bear.  It's very special because Kelly usually has no interest in games or toys, so I always thinks it's super funny when she brings one to the sofa or her bed.

I took my little guy out for a drive and showed him off at work.  I recently got him this little stripy sweater and it looked so good on him, I literally think he's the dog version of a hipster.

Kelly is a little dog who's afraid of thunder and rain, so when we had thunder storm last night she forgot about the embarrassment  of snuggling with her human and jumped under the cover with me!