Care for a trip to the dog park?

The other day, okay it was a couple weeks ago now, and is was BEAUTIFUL outside for a change.  The dogs were aching for some exercise and "socialization."  So we loaded them up and headed to the dog park.  I decided to tote my camera along and halfway to our destination got inspired to document the entire trip.  That means that I ended up taking 50+ pictures on a short 5 mile ride.  That's the way I roll... hahaha.

We simply hop on 4th Street and take it all the way downtown where it turns into 3rd street.  Roll through downtown, see some really great buildings, pass a weirdo rock house and then you're at the Bark Park!

So call me your personal tour guide for the next couple of minutes...

Our delightful chauffeur...

Hey!  It's the Blue Dome!  And road construction!  I don't know which signifies Tulsa more...

Ahh yes... Spring is finally...uhh springing!  

And City Hall looking as cool and glassy as ever...

Some of my favorite Tulsa buildings... refurbished ole warehouse, the Mid-Continent Tower, and a building I regretfully don't know the name of...

Oh hey!  It's the PAC...

And the cool sculpture in front of it...

Ahh yes, the BOK Tower, the tallest building in Oklahoma...

The side of the Crowne Plaza with the Mayfest murals...love that...

Ha!  Yes, the Williams Towers, and our alarm company's truck...

It's a federal building ya'll... I think...

The BOK Center...

Hello new Convention Center...

Hello cute pup riding next to us...

Hey, it's the weird Cave House...

Finally!  It's Joe Station Bark Park!  This is where the dogs have fun...

See?  This is Brownie having "fun"  

And Belle having fun... She's a little more social than Brown Dog...

See?  Social.  

Social.

And that's the dog park.  Ha!

And then we head back home.  I hope you enjoyed the short, sweet tour.  You have to come visit to see more....

Guaranteed Laugh

Do you need a good laugh?  I'm sure you do.  Everyone can always use a good laugh.

Here's a photo that ALWAYS makes me laugh when I see it:

I mean look at those ears!  That is a dog on the move!  

That is also a dog that refuses to run on his new rock pathway...

~Peace

Lovely Landscapes

Because it's the first day of Spring, and because there's a blizzard outside and because I'm cuddled up inside in my flannels with a cup of hot chocolate... I'm going to talk about what we got yesterday.

First, let me introduce you to Wade Jones:

Wade is a  buddy of ours who is the owner of Greenstreet Landscapes in Tulsa.  Wade isn't just any landscaper.  As you can tell by his website project galleries, Wade takes ho-hum landscaped yards, and puts a little creative energy into the end all project.  He makes his work really stand out.  He's super creative, and totally understands the environment and what will grow and survive in what light and setting.  He knows everything about trees and plants and if you have any doubt of what to put in a certain place, Wade can give you a suggestion.  And you will end up with something that is truly unique.  I'm really not aware of anybody else who could create a complete oasis out of nothing like he can.  The after pics on the website were shot by mine truly.  Wade has helped us over the past year with taking an overgrown, neglected yard into a place that is uniquely beautiful and that we enjoy.  

So here's my story about what we got yesterday:

Shane laid some sod in our mini-backyard last spring.  Then the dogs created this chic pathway leading from our deck to the dog's backyard.  It's quite beautiful isn't it... I do hope you're sensing the sarcasm.  This picture was taken in the Fall... and after this harsh, wet winter, this pathway became much wider and much muddier.  

So to help prevent muddy dog footprints in my house, our yard had a little makeover yesterday, the day before Spring.

This isn't part of the makeover, but look at how thick my lamb's ear already is.  If you think you would like some of this in  your own garden, let me know!  I will be thinning it out soon (after the snow melts). It's so care free, you don't even have to water it after you transplant it.  It will grow like wild fire and look awesome.  

ANYWAY...

 So yesterday, the day before Spring, we had a lil' project going on... Installing a sandstone pathway.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day, 71 degrees and all sunshiney.  

And when I came home from work, this is what I found.  A freshly watered down and grass seeded pathway.  Wade seeded the entire  yard and the dirt in the pathway with grass, so it will grow and become less muddy and more luscious.  

We're really happy with this path and can't wait for the grass to grow.

Wade also just finished a complete overhaul of our neighbors' flower beds.  If you're thinking about doing a project in your yard this spring and don't know where to start... consider Greenstreet Landscapes.  He is great to work with and provides great results.  

Now, on this first day of Spring, lemme go find my snow shovel....

Weirdo. Dawg.

We have a family of four you see.  Two people and two dogs.  This ratio of human to dog works for us right now.  It's what we prefer really.  You see, right now, I can leave for 4 hours, crate the dogs, come home and not go to jail for leaving my dogs in a crate by themselves.  It doesn't quite work that way with kids does it?

Sometimes our dogs do crazy things.  For instance, Brownie likes to spin circles mid air while he's running to the back door if you ask him, "Brownie,  you wanna go out?"  I wish I got the same kind of high from going outside that Brownie does.

Sometimes, okay most of the time, Belle likes to lay down.  That's right.  That's her thing.  Laying down.  Sometimes we have to lock her out of our room where her bed is just so she will do something else besides lay down.  The other day while we were training our dog-sitter/ house-sitter/ beautician/ assistant (don't ask) on what to expect while she was dog-sitting the other weekend, I heard a weird scratching sound.  Belle was locked out of her room at this point mind you...

So I walk to the back of the house to find this:

Belle in a laundry basket.  She freely climbed inside, you guessed it, to LAY DOWN.  Oy.  There was like 2 pillow cases in the bottom of which she was ruffling around to make a comfy "bed."  Why must they embarrass me so?  

Like I said, WEIRDO.  

Before and After... Door Knobs.

Do you ever think about doing something and then you just HAVE to do it.  Right away.  This happened to me a few weeks ago.  You see, over a year ago we bought a house.  Not just any house, an old house, build in 1935.  Why?  Because of the charm, the character, and.... the projects.  Before we moved in, we spent every day painting.  Shane would paint the walls of one room while I was at work, then I'd come home from work and paint the trim of that room.  This went on for an entire week.  There was still plenty of work to be done though.  As with any old house, there are plenty of things that can always be improved.  And  with any old house, there are things that previous owners have done that will drive you nuts.  

Like this.  Over the years apparently someone once decided to paint the entire door knob... of every door.  Then every one that lived in the house after that decided to just continue painting over the entire knob.... you know... because why would you try to refurbish and improve?  

So anyway.  A couple of weeks ago I made it my mission to strip the paint off the door handles and backplates in our house.  

So glad the doors weren't this color when we bought the house... YUCK!  

They even painted over this.  Now this is the only glass knob in the house.  Kind of breaks my heart a bit.  Look at the scrolling in the metal.  

Like any old house homeowner, we are now subscribers to the "This Old House" magazine.  It seams that whatever we are currently focusing on or thinking about doing to our house, they cover in this magazine.  Yes.  They had an article on how to easily strip paint from your door hardware.  And while I failed to take pictures of the process ( I know.  I don't know what I was thinking!) I did get some before and after shots.  Above are the before shots.

So what was the process?  Well we bought a cheap used crock pot at Goodwill.  Then filled it with water and a 1/2 cup of laundry detergent.  Then turned it on high.  Then put all the door hardware that I wanted to strip the paint off of into the crock pot.  Put the lid on and wait about 3-6 hours.  This old house says to wait over night... I think.  But I'm not that patient.  :)  After the waiting period, take the hardware out with tongs... the paint just peels off.  So easy.  I had to scrape and scrub a little, but the end product looked like this...

Which explains why somebody thought painting them was a good idea lol.  This is not the end product I had envisioned when I wanted to strip paint off the door hardware.  I was hoping for either brass or bronze... but I got some kind of weird aluminum or something.  So the next step?  A trip to Lowe's of course.  And after picking out some native grasses and other plants we didn't intend to purchase that day, we picked out some dark bronze spray paint.  

With a metallic finish, the dark bronze paint was what I'd hoped the metal looked like to begin with.  

So Shane set me up with a painting station in the garage.  Note the tarps and lights.  He says you need lots of light.  :)

And some hangers to hook the knobs onto while painting.  This worked really well actually.  In order to keep the spray paint from dripping, you should lightly "dust" the object back and forth, holding the spray can about a foot away from the object.  

Next problem?  Old Screws.  Because I didn't feel like painting the screws the new color of the hardware and because the old screws were in horrible shape, I headed to my local hardware store to buy some new screws.  So I picked one of each kind that I needed and counted how many I would need.  

These were the three different types I needed.  While they didn't have "dark bronze" they did have black, which pretty much is identical to dark bronze in the world of screws...  

And this is the final product!  Just the way I wanted.  And....

Man I wish I had more of these in the house.  I absolutely love how the door knobs and backplates turned out.  

Some questions I still have:  why did I run out of one type of screw and why do I have 3 door knobs and 3 backplates left but no doors to put them on?  I think the boy has something to do with this....  

Next must-do project:  painting our inside doors.  This is something we've been putting off and putting off.  When we finally do it, I will be taking all of the hardware off first.  

~Peace. 

Yo! Fajitas!!

The other day I was at the grocery store and found myself in the meat department.  I found beef cut into strips for fajitas.  Yes.  And I thought, "well that's easy!"  haha.  That's right, I'm the sucker they were thinking of when they thought of packaging fresh, pre-cut strips of beef to sell.  Oh well.

I figured I'd give the "marinate" function of our FoodSaver a try.  We got it for Christmas.  I couldn't locate the owner's manual, so I took a wild guess on how to do it.

It hooks up something like this.  I mixed up a packet of fajita marinade and put it in with the meat.  Then I pushed the marinate button.  But enough about that, let's get to the good stuff...

Bell peppers.  I love them so much.  

I just wanna chop them up in strips....

And sauté them in a pan!  

Truthfully, if it were acceptable, I would have eaten all of the bell peppers raw, all by myself.  I love the crunchiness, the greenness of the green ones, and the sweetness of the red ones.  The yellow ones are great too, with another flavor of its own.  Anyway...

This was the final product.  We just slapped some of my guac on top....YUM!!!

The FoodSaver marinate function?  Meh....  Maybe if I locate that owner's manual...

Easy Schmeezy Beautiful...GUACAMOLE!

I love guac!! Yep.  I love to order the overpriced guacamole at any mexican restaurant we visit.  AND.  I love to make it at home for much, much cheaper.  You can buy one avocado for 50 cents at the grocery store after all!

So when I sought out to find the best guacamole recipe I found all kinds of interesting concoctions.  I never knew you could make it in so many ways.... to be honest the whole "making it at home" thing is a pretty recent discovery of mine.  Anyway.  So all the recipes consisted of avocados but the rest of the ingredients varied.  Here are a few random ingredients from some different guacamole recipes:  salsa, sour cream, chilies, cilantro (LOVE cilantro!), cumin, onions, that crazy powder mix at the grocery store... I could go on and on.  You know what?  The best guac I've made to date, I made up myself.  And you know what else?  It has 3 ingredients.  Yep.  3.

Ingredient #1:  2 Avocados

ice cream! ha!  just kidding....

Ingredient #2:  1 Roma tomato, diced

Ingredient #3:  Garlic Salt.

The process is all very easy.  First cut the avocados around in half, twist the two halves apart and then spoon the seed out.  I also read some crazy stuff about whacking the seed with a sharp knife, but I'm not crazy.  Then spoon the avocado out of the skin and into a bowl.  I just use a cereal bowl.  Then get your fork and mash the avocados til they're kinda creamy.  Then add the diced Roma tomato to the mashed avocados.  Keep mixing with that trusty fork.  Then take the Garlic Salt and sprinkle it over the mixture until it's lightly dusted, I'd say about 1/2 a Tablespoon if you're the measuring type.  You can add more or less garlic salt to your taste.  You want just enough for it to bring out the wonderfulness of the avocados...  

BAM!  

That's some guacamole!  It's really the easiest version I've found.  It's easy and oh so fresh.  There's not so many ingredients that you lose sight of what you're eating.  :)  But there are enough ingredients to make you appreciate each and every one of them.  Hello, avocados, your garlicy friend makes you taste so goooooood.  Hello, Roma, I love your color and texture....

And I'm done!  You should always be done when  you start talking to your food...