Pizza & Beer

Tonight Paul and I started our nightly vacation to by running to the shopette for wine, and we found Blue Moon! Finding beer other than the big brands (bud, bud light, coors, coors light, corona & michalob) are rare. Even Sam Adams is a welcome surprise here. So Blue Moon was exciting.

We were at the shopette getting drinks while waiting for the pizza dough in the bread machine.

The dough was created for a yummy pizza recipe I found last week at Smitten Kitchen, Smitten Kitchen is a very very good food blog that I have on my RSS feed. I have almost 90 of her recipes bookmarked. Tonight we had Shaved Asparagus Pizza

I had a hard time believing that someone could turn asparagus, one of my favorite veggies, into an incredible pizza. Seriously, I turned this:
Into this:

Amazingly delicious Asparagus Pizza!
Later this week I am going to try Breakfast Pizza (with sausage)!

Any dog owners out there can help?

Renji is about 7 months old, I feed him 3x a day a little more than 1/2 cup of dry food each time, exactly what the measurement on the bag says to feed him. yet when he eats he eats like he's never eaten before, like he is starving, famished, on the verge of death. he inhales his food in less than 30 seconds. I've tried feeding him less food, more often, but he still eats like it's his first meal in weeks. Is it okay to just let him eat like that? should i try to correct it? if so how? It's like he is always hungry.

just a little walk

On top of the rest of the exercise I am trying to get in, I'd like to start walking daily. This evening Paul and I walked down the big huge hill that nearly took my life last week while I pushed my bike up it.

sunset in one of the corner mirrors

looking towards Katsuren

looking into Gushikawa

neato little pot hole cover

looking up the monster hill, it doesn't look like much but trust me, it's terrible

how our pack of monsters has grown

For many years, more than I can remember right now, we have had one little monster:

He turned into a big monster:

Two years ago upon arrival to Okinawa we added another little monster:

And then we had the big monster

and the little monster

who got her monster love everywhere

for over a year we were a happy little monster family

Then, this year in a fit of madness we decided:

this monster

and this monster

needed this monster

and now we have a whole pack of monsters

after the rain

I hate the rain here, but the aftermath can be spectacular.

I almost put my leg into this little guys web while taking the above pictures, I think they bite so that would have been unfortunate for me.

(click for larger images)

Dear Food,

Dear Food,

How do I love thee, let me count the ways... 1. You give me nourishment and strength 2. you smell so nice 3. You help my love handles stay so lovely and large.... wait... whut? Okay so I may have a bit of food addiction, I think of it more as a love, I LOVE FOOD, it's super. Yeah it's good for you and all and food is great in moderation. I guess my problem is more willpower and not food, I really can't say no, I don't know when, or I don't want to stop. I am working on this problem. I however am having little luck. the last month the scale has moved about 4-5 pounds... in the wrong direction.

I'll do really good one week, on diet and exercise, then the next week I am back to my old ways, pizza for breakfast, Burger King for lunch, steak and potatoes for dinner. We've been really good this week and had red meat once. I had a portabella burger for lunch yesterday and i've had plenty of veggies almost every day. Today we had pizza, and tater tots. I needed it, really I did, one can only eat so much healthy before you need pizza. plus I ran out of chicken and didn't make it to the store today.

so anyway; Food & Willpower, I will defeat you, the right way, I will!

Keep on truckin

Things have been very busy here the last few weeks. Paul got word he has recruiting duty orders, currently he is set to report in August, but he's applied to have it pushed back to the following class that would be the end of October. About 4 weeks into the 7 week class we will find out where we are going, then Paul will be allowed to come back here and get me, and together we will move to wherever. I am totally nervous about it, and I want to be prepared and proactive, but how can I plan ANYTHING when I have no idea where we are going? Thewhole set up really sucks.

School is going well for me, I think I have 54 credits, I got an A in my last science class, that was really hard! I think I am going to take the summer off because they canceled my botany class and I have no backup plan, I also really would like to sit down and just read for pleasure, enjoy my time. I haven't had a real break from school in 2 years. just holiday breaks and breaks between classes so it's time for me to rest I think.

at the vet with the monsters

Today's vet stuff went very unexpected. Of all the animals to have a reaction, Taco did. Vaccines were given at about 1030 am, we were home by 1130 fixing to take Renji up for his sick appt at 130, well at about 1220 Taco made this terrible noise, sounded like he was in great pain, I jumped up just in time to see him begin to violently vomit all over the kitchen floor. I called the vet and was told to bring him back in, so we packed up Renji and Taco and we rushed up there. Taco is fine, they think it was stress induced vomiting, he got a shot just incase it was allergies and a anti-vomit shot. Renji got seen about his tummy, he has an abundance of normal bacteria in his tummy, so it's supposed to be there, he just has too much. Also they think he likely has a sensitive tummy, so we'll be switching him to a high quality (expensive) food once we wean him off of the bland diet next week. All in all today went well, Renji hopefully will be able to get his second round of vaccines sometime in the next two weeks and we'll get him microchipped then too. Lots of crazy going on here, but I think we are finally on the track to him being a healthy monster dog again.

Long day ahead.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, in the AM I have shot appts for Taco (cat) & Aiko. In the afternoon I have an appt to bring Renji to get checked out. He's been having vomit & regurgitation issues. He was doing well on chicken and rice, then we tried to reintroduce dry food and he lost it all, back to chicken and rice, and this morning he threw that up. When I called the vet they canceled his vaccine appt and rescheduled him for a sick call. He has kept dinner down tonight but he's a little extra sleepy.