Before my lovely Harper came into this world, there was Mushi and he was king of everything.  Gary and I got Mushi a few months after we got married at the local pound. He’s pretty much the best dog ever.  He’s a sharpei, which are the only dogs I have ever had, aside from a basset hound once.  I even volunteer for a shar pei rescue – shar pei savers.  We had another Shar pei Taiko that died last Oct. I was about 3 months pregnant and totally hormonal, so I thought getting a puppy would be a good idea. I didn’t want another pei though, Taiko had racked up some serious medical bills, I just wanted a nice hearty mutt.  We ended up with Fonzie, who is actually a shepard/shar pei mix.


Fonzie will be the end of me. I love him, he’s a great running buddy, but he eats things, like towels and then poops them out or throws them up and almost chokes.  He ate our dining room chair the other day. I have to keep him crated whenever I leave. He’s scared of his own shadow and he has taken to nipping at people calves when they enter our house. Nice, huh. But look at that face, he’s a cutie. I have gotten all Cesar Milan on his ass and am trying my darnedest to train him. Running is part of the equation. As Cesar says in his sexy accent, a tired dog is a happy dog.  Yes I find Cesar and his big, fake teeth sexy.  What can I tell you, calm assertive works on me too!  I picked up a halti collar recently and that has helped on our walks a lot.  But since I switched to it, he’s gotten aggressive towards the dogs on the other side of the street, which was not a problem before the Halti.  It’s always something.  Sigh.  Sometimes I get really sick of them and think about how much easier life would be without any dogs, but then they cuddle up next to me to sleep or entertain me with their monkey antics.  I think I kind of prefer a loud, messy dog filled house.

Also can I just tell you that my spellchecked for Quickblog doesn’t have okay in it, it gives me orgy as the correct spelling.  I find that funny.  Yes I am immature.  I know!

Sunday was Gary’s birthday.  He started the day off by sleeping in.  While he was sleeping I couldn’t go to power yoga at the gym b/c Harper is sick and I can’t take her to the daycare. So, thanks to my AT&T Uverse cable I was able to do yoga at home.  Anyone else have this cable?  It’s the best. It took me a few months to find out, but if you go to Video on Demand (where you order pay per view) they have Free on Demand, which has excercise tv and over 100 excercise DVDs you can play for free!

He got up around 11, then we put up our Xmas tree. I have thought long and hard about holiday traditions. I used to love Xmas as a kid, but not so much anymore. I want Harper to love it like I did.  So, I want to come up with some traditions we carry on every year.  Two things stick out to me from my childhood.  #1 is that my Dad would let us open a gift on Xmas eve.  That was the best. You just never knew what you were going to get, what a gamble, you could end up with socks or a nintendo game!  #2 is stockings. My mom always went overboard in the stocking dept.  Our stockings were literally 3 feet tall.  We always opened out stockings first and mom put such great things in there, from CDs and lip gloss to candy and makeup.  You never knew what you would find.  What is your favorite holiday tradition?  One thing I came up with that I definitely want to do is get Harper a new ornament every year and then when she is 18 give them to her.  I took her to Target and just showed her ornaments until she had a good reaction to one, here is what we ended up with.  Voila:


 
Then we tortured our dogs a bit:





 After that we got cleaned up and headed to Mitchell’s Fish Market. Mitchell’s is a fabulously fresh delicious restaurant.  It is a small chain, I think there are like 5 locations, I know they have another one in Cincinnati.  We got here on birthdays and our anniversary specifically for the banana caramel bread pudding. It can be a pricey place to eat, so we have been known to eat dinner at home and then go sit at the bar and share this slice of mouth heaven.  We got all set up and got Harper squared away:

Ignore the snot, her nose is like a faucet right now, I can’t keep up with it.  Gary ordered one of the fish of the day, the Steelhead. He had never had it before, nor had I. It was good, but pretty much just like Salmon and a little fishy for my taste. It came with delicious garlic mash potatoes.  I ordered a cup of clam chowder and the vegetable plate which has balsamic grilled veggies (squash, eggplant, mushrooms, asparagus) with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese and some sticky rice. Mine was great. I shared my rice with Harper and she was really into that.  So, then it came time to order dessert and the horror!  The HORROR!  They no longer have our beloved bread pudding, gone, off the menu, never coming back. I shed a little tear and then we ordered a chocolate mousse cake. It was very good, but no bread pudding.  I have tried to make bread pudding before, but have never been successful, probably b/c I just can’t bring myself to cook with a ton of lard and butter.  For his birthday I gave Gary a coffee (well tea for him) mug with Harper’s picture on it and a Yoga for Golfers DVD. Harper gave Gary her first official crawling!


After Harper went to bed we watched a movie (Horsemen, not so good), well I messed around on ebay trying to win a Haiku bag. I will get one!!!!  I had 2 glasses of my fav wine – Blackstone Merlot and feel like crud today. I am just not cut out for drinking anymore.