The Fox

Charlie recently took me to see The Lion King at The Fox Theatre. I love going to The Fox! It's my all time favorite building ever. Anyway, while I was there I snapped a few crappy photos from my phone (cause I stupidly forgot to bring my DSLR or what I call my "fancy camera"). It's beautiful inside. It looks like you're watching a play outdoors in some far eastern place under the night sky. There actually is a night sky above you complete with twinkling stars! I wanted us to get married there, but it was above my budget. We did have a few engagement photos taken outside of it though. If you've never been, I highly recommend a visit!

I apologize for the PDA, but I couldn't resist. 

Vegan Dog

It's Otis' birthday month! He's 6!! The adoption place we got him from didn't have an exact birthday for him, but they told us they thought he was born around April of 2008, so we always celebrate his birthday on tax day, April 15. I thought in honor of his birthday I'd share some of his favorite diet/chewing related things.

A lot of carnivores (non vegetarian or vegan peoples) that I know feel bad that Otis has to be vegan. They think he is deprived of all the meaty wonderfulness that dogs seem to love. I don't want the poor little fella to suffer or be teased by all the other doggies at the dog park, so we try our best to find vegan alternatives to popular dog items.

We feed Otis Nature's Recipe Healthy Skin Vegetarian Recipe dog food. More for convenience than anything, since this is the ONLY vegetarian dog food that our local pet store carries, and we haven't found any other great vegan/vegetarian options locally. He really seems to like it. Or at least he gets super excited when we say the words "dinner time".

As far as treats go, I surprisingly have awesome luck at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods, and Ross at finding vegan dog cookies. They normally always have a box of organic cookies in fruit, peanut butter, carob, pumpkin, or ginger flavor. Otis does seem to prefer some over others, but the brands are ever changing so I just go with whatever they have. Boxes of these are normally around $2.99 to $3.99 and they last us for several months. We normally give him a portion of a cookie whenever he comes back in from peeing or pooping outside, or right after we brush his hair or teeth, or wipe his face clean, as a reward for the torture that is grooming. The super adorable painting of Otis in the photo below was done by my best friend Bonnie. We LOVE it!!!

I always see a lot of what I call chewy treats on the market. By this I mean moist, chewy, not dry cookie type treats. I knew Otis would love them, but I never could find a vegan option... until recently. Otis really loves both brands listed below, which can both be found on Amazon.com. I'm pretty sure I purchased the Wag More Bark Less Soft & Chewy treats at Drugstore.com and the Lick Out Loud treats I think I found at Ross. The Lick-Out-Loud treats I purchased in Peanut Butter flavor. To me they smell a bit weird and they are tiny, but he seems to like them. The Wag More Bark Less Soft & Chewy treats he goes crazy for. We buy these in Pumpkin Pie flavor & Peanut Butter Cookie flavor. They last a long time unopened in the bag, so I normally stock up. I don't dare run out of these treats! We give him these whenever we have to crate him or right before we leave the house if we are leaving him un-crated. I'm pretty sure he's so spoiled now that if we tried to get him in his crate without a chewy treat he'd just stare at us.

Our vet recommended we give Otis a dental chew once a day to help keep his teeth clean. That's all fine and dandy if you've got a meat eating dog, but finding a vegan/vegetarian dental chew was crazy hard. I did finally find these C.E.T. VeggieDent Chews on Amazon.com. We've been through two bags of these now and I can say for a fact that Otis absolutely LOVES them!! We give him one around 7pm every night and if we forget he will stare us down until we remember. He actually sits himself directly in front of us and stares at us until we give him one. We buy the regular size dental chews instead of the small dog chews, because we are able to make them last longer that way. When we get the bag, we break up each regular sized chew into three smaller chews. I am always concerned about Otis' safety and we have watched him very closely with these to make sure he doesn't choke on them. Many months later he seems to be absolutely fine eating the regular size chews broken up. 

Dogs love bones and rawhide right? Well I did my best to find a solution to that. It's crazy frustrating how even the nylon/plastic type bones are flavored with beef and chicken. I finally found a couple that list peanut butter as the only ingredient. I had previously purchased a JW Pet Evertuff Bone Toy in peanut butter flavor which Otis absolutely loved, but I won't be purchasing one again because I found out they are made in China and I prefer to only buy treats and doggie edibles that aren't made in China. Ya dig? Anyway, I thought all was lost until I found these puppies (pun intended). Nylabone Dura Chew in allergen-free Peanut Butter flavor. Made in the USA. We just gave him his first one of these for his birthday and so far he seems to like it. I wish they had a smaller sized bone, but I didn't find one. This one is about twice as thick as the JW Pet Evertuff Bone and slightly longer. Otis doesn't seem to mind the size though. I laid both bones right beside each other in a brutal head to head battle to the death and Otis chose the Nylabone for the last three times. I'd say it's a definite winner.

Otis also loves fresh vegetables and fruit. We're careful not to give him anything not safe for doggie consumption. He goes crazy for lettuce, carrots, frozen blueberries, pumpkin, applesauce, and banana. We tried pineapple once, but I'm not sure he knew what to think about it. He also loves dehydrated sweet potatoes which we buy for him from time to time. I'd like to get a dehydrator sometime and dehydrate my own for him. 

Anyway, there's my incredibly long post on what my dog eats. Riveting stuff right?  

We love you Otis! 

Department Store Couponing - More $5 Fun!!

I recently received the coveted $10 off $10 coupon from Kohl's. I get so excited when I receive those in the mail!!

My hours were recently cut back at work, which means I'm not only making half the money I was a few months ago, but also paying my own health insurance (sad face).  This being said, I'm really trying to watch my spending at the moment. However, after going three months buying NOT ONE DARN THING, NOT EVEN ANYTHING FROM THE DOLLAR STORE, I'm about to lose my dang mind! My eye has started to twitch with wanting to buy something. I'm like a woman who is on a diet and has cut out all sweets and is about to metaphorically binge eat on some donuts (dollars). So, since my mental health is important to me (and my husband), I've decided that it's OK for me to buy a tiny something, no more than $15, here and there so that I don't wind up in the nut house.

Anyway, as I mentioned before in my previous department store couponing post, when I get these coupons I try to get as close to free as absolutely possible. I did not meet that goal this time, but I came in at a whopping $3.81 for something I've been needing, which does fall within my not spending over $5 with these coupons rule. Like I said before I walk around the store like a panther stalking her prey and weigh my options. Before I reveal my purchase I thought it might be cool to show what I didn't buy. Here were my first and second runners up...

I thought these sandals were really cute! They even had squishy soles which made them pretty comfy, but I think they made my feet look weird. I have issues. Otherwise, I would have walked away with these babies in either coral or navy for $1.99 plus tax.  These Kohl's coupons are great, because normally all items in the store are on "sale" and the coupons work on sale items. Always read the fine print. :)

My first runner up was also shoe related.  I have several pregnant friends right now, so these adorable Converse baby socks caught my eye. I thought the white and teal colors were pretty gender neutral, so they'd be a pretty safe bet. Had I known the gender of either munchkin, I might have picked up an outfit for them instead. I didn't get a photo of the sale price, but they were on sale from $15.50 for $11.62, so I would have paid $1.62 plus tax for a cute baby gift. 

However great a deal that might have been, my selfishness kicked in and I decided to buy something I've been needing/wanting for the house. I've been in full Spring cleaning mode and I've been itching to make over the pantry. So since I knew I already needed another OXO Pop container, that's what I got. I got one container in the 0.9 qt size. I think $3.81 (that includes tax) is a great deal for these especially considering I would have paid $15.99 plus tax for this guy. Soooo expensive! I've been lucky to receive a starter set of these for a wedding gift (thanks Mom!!) and have grown my collection since with coupons like these, outlet purchases, and finding the occasional one at TJ Maxx. I refuse to pay that price for a food container (although I do super love them!!).

It was a lot of fun finally getting to shop again and knowing I didn't break the bank. Can't wait for the next coupon. There might just be another OXO container in my future! 

I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph...

So Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away... Sing it with me!

This week I've been reading up on aperture, shutter speed, & ISO and really trying to improve my photography skills.  I've forced myself to use manual mode for a while now, but up until yesterday it was trial and error. This week I really tried to put everything together. Plus, I'd gotten really lazy lately and had pretty much defaulted back to automatic, which explains the crappy photos on the blog up until now. Please excuse them as technical difficulties. Anywho... for the past week I've been reading these posts from it's overflowing and they have helped me tremendously. Can't wait to delve into metering next!

This post will be pretty much all photos, but who doesn't love that??  So here are my straight out of the camera (with the exception of an added watermark) completely unedited photos from yesterday. It was overcast yesterday so I was working under less than sunny conditions.  I'm no expert and these aren't museum quality, but they are much better than the photos I have been taking lately. Here's hoping I never default to lazy automatic mode again!

Otis super loves his plastic peanut butter "bone". I think he'd marry it if he could.

Silly Otis!

So Fresh and So Clean Clean

Spring is here!! FINALLY!!!! And of course all I can think about is cleaning and yard work. I started my Spring cleaning last weekend, but all of that hard work wouldn't do me much good if I didn't maintain some level of cleanliness throughout the rest of the year. I have read on a lot of cleaning blogs that you should daily clean your kitchen. This always sounded like a ton of work to me. I mean, who wants to clean EVERY DAY??? Well, about a year ago I started doing a small tidy up in the kitchen when I got home from work every afternoon.... and you know what? It works!!

I'm not on of those ladies who cleans the counter top and sweeps the floor every single day. I do those maybe once a week. The kitchen isn't in a perpetual state of spotless, but if company comes over it's usually pretty decent. My routine is: every day after work I hand wash any dishes that aren't dishwasherable (that's totally a word), unload and reload the dishwasher, and do a general pickup/putting away of things. It doesn't take more than 20 - 25 minutes and it keeps the kitchen looking really great most days! And it makes deep cleaning sessions so much easier! If it is a day I have a few minutes extra, then I wipe down the counters or wipe out the microwave or the exterior of the fridge or whatever needs it at the moment. So far this plan is really working for us. I know my husband is so much happier cooking delicious meals for me with ample counter top space. And if the man is happy cooking for me, then I am a happy lady!!

Of course from time to time there comes a day when we just don't feel like doing even a quick kitchen tidy up. Maybe we were off work that day. Who wants to clean on a vacation day??? This happened to us recently, and since everyone (including me) loves photos of peoples messy houses, here's what our kitchen looked like after one day of neglect.

And after a super swift tidy up (maybe 15 minutes), the much better After!

A clean kitchen feels so good!