A new family favorite

A new favorite in our house is Stuffed Pepper Soup, this recipe after reading it over reminded me of how my mom use to make stuffed green peppers as a kid.  After cooking it as directed the first time, I realized it needed a few fixes to meet what we prefer.  So instead of 2 cans of diced tomatoes I will use one, instead of only one pepper I will use several as well as more rice.  Overall the first go at this soup was delicious.  I let it simmer for the directed amount of time.

I made this soup 2 days ago, with the changes mentioned above and a few more.  I basically doubled the recipe this time, but still only using one can of diced tomatoes.  It seems, though no matter how much tomato sauce or soup I add it still comes out as a stew.  

 

 

Monday morning scare

When thinking about a dog what comes to mind?  For me it is; family, furbaby, life long companion, loyalty and much more.   In the Draino home our dogs are our kids, our furbabies as we call them.

Monday morning started as any regular Monday morning.  I walked all 3 furbabies, fed them, made myself a pot of coffee and relaxed for a bit.  I put Zeus out in the yard on the tie out and then Rocky.  I was enjoying my cup of coffee when Zeus started acting really weird, he thinks he is a lap dog and will come lay on me at anytime when I am on the couch or on the bed, but never at the dining room table.  Zeus was jumping on me, barking, whining and kept pacing from me to the back door.   I go to let Rocky in and see what Zeus' problem was and Rocky was gone, there laid his harness on the ground.

PANIC, struck over me.  We have only lived in the new house a few weeks, he does not know where home is, what if he was hit by a car...a million thoughts ran through my mind staring at that empty harness laying on the ground.  I gathered my thoughts and went down to the police station to file a missing dog report.  The secretary must have thought someone died with how emotional I was that Rocky was missing.  I gave all important information, started tearing up, said thank you and walked out the door crying.  I also called the Grundy county animal control.  At this point Rocky had been gone about 45 minutes, the scary thoughts were creeping back in.  I had to focus, I got in the car and drove the neighborhood for about 30 minutes.  I realized I was getting nowhere, I headed home to get a better game plan and to get out of my pajamas.

At home I thought about the Lost Dogs Illinois facebook page.  I went there and did a "lost" report.  Within 30 minutes Rocky's missing flier had "200+ likes, 80+ shares and a bunch of warm wishes for a safe return".   While home I also got a picture of him, I asked everyone that was outside and showed his picture, no hits, not a single person saw a dog running the neighborhood.

I continued to drive around town and ask everybody, I was starting to lose hope.  Thinking that we would never see our Rocky again, then my phone rang it was a Coal City number and one that I did not recognize  on the other end was a woman who saw my "lost" report on the facebook page.  She said "I just saw your dog running west on Gordon Street, headed toward the Coal City high school".  I thanked her a thousand times and headed that way.  I drove up and down Gordon St. and in that area for what seemed like an eternity, with no sign of Rocky.  I stayed in that area, thinking he should be close, I turned down a dead end street where the bike trail starts and there he was, a HUGE sigh of relief came over me.  I called for him and started running towards him, he started running to me, I was thinking this it, I found him we can go home, then he turns and darts in the opposite direction.  I sped off of the dead end, around the corner and down a mile or so and I find him again.  I threw the car into park and ran to him, I have never in my life been so excited to see our dog, our old man.  I was crying hysterically with excitement that he was safe, not injured and coming home.

Rocky's "home at last" post from the Lost Dogs Illinois page. 

Where to start?

Oh boy, it has been since January that I last posted.  I have been inspired by my September 2012 wives group friends to maybe keep an updated blog.  If I can manage to do so I will try and recall the past few months that we have been through and give you the day to day stuff.  I will tell you now, this is not an exciting life I lead. 

"The move"

When Bill and I started dating he lived in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house.  The kitchen was small enough that if my arms were extended I could touch cabinet to cabinet.  It had an amazing backyard for our fur babies to play.  Then in May 2011 I moved in and this already small house became even smaller.  I brought myself, my 100 pound dog and a whole bunch of stuff, I slowly made his house into our house.  Fast forward to Jan 2013 almost 2 years later and we are busting at the seems with too much stuff and no room for when it comes time to expand our family.  So, we went on the house hunt, looking for something that met all our criteria; large yard, large kitchen, garage, at least 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms would be nice and in a nice neighborhood, under $1,200 and allows pets.  Sounds pretty easy, until you are on the searching end of this hunt, we would find the perfect place in pictures, then we read the description "no pets" or the description would read "pets ok" but be out of our budget.  We searched high and low for the perfect place that met all our criteria, it does not exist.   While on Facebook one of Bill's friends posted that he had a house for rent in Coal City.

Bill asked for details, the guy said "just go look at the outside and see if it is something you guys want".  So we did, as we are driving to go look at the outside of this house I get the "we are only looking at the outside, we are not going in there are tenants still living there so do not ask".  Okay baby, I got it.  We pull up to this awesome bungalow or at least I believe it is a bungalow.  It is so BIG looking on the outside, but there is no fenced in yard.  My mind starts going a mile a minute "I could walk dogs, I would not mind that, they would like that I could daily exercise, we could make not having a fence work".  We are sitting in the car discussing the outside, when it happened the current tenant stepped out onto the back deck and asked if she could help us "ladies".  Then I did it, I asked if she would mind showing us the inside.  She agreed and gave us a great tour.  I fell in instant love with this 4 bedroom, 2bathroom, living room, dining room, mud room, all original wood work house.  It had hardwood floors all throughout, nice size bedrooms and enough space for that expanding family we are wishing for and it was below our max budget of $1,200!!

We decide we were going to take it, this was on March 26th he said okay move in is either the 1st or the 5th.  We chose the 5th, we needed time to pack and get a game plan.   We moved in on Wednesday April 3rd which was also our first night in the new place.  I had great help from my friend Trisha, she came and helped me clean and organize things.   We have officially been in the new place one week.  I LOVE IT!!  It has been a lot of work trying to move, unpack and decorate.  It is a work in progress and I know there are quite a few people waiting to see pictures.  Walking the dogs is awesome, they love it and so do I, it jump starts my day when they each go for 15-20 min walks every morning.

I have put some before pictures up and as the rooms get decorated I will post the afters.  These are just the first floor rooms.  My/our office will be upstairs as well as the nursery for when that time comes.  


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The out side of the house.

Walking in from the front porch, into the living room. "Before"

A view of the living room at a different angle. "Before"

The dining room "Before"

One view of the kitchen, there's Trisha cleaning cabinets. "Before"

This goes into the hallway off the dining room. Straight will bring you into the bathroom, left into the guest bedroom and right into our bedroom. 

Going right from the hall brings you to our bedroom. "before"

Going right from the hall brings you to our bedroom, with a different view "before"

Going left from the hall brings you to what will be the guest bedroom/playroom for the nieces and nephews. The previous tenants used this as a walk in closet.  I will be removing the closet rods and shelving.  "before"

Going left from the hall brings you to what will be the guest bedroom/playroom for the nieces and nephews. The previous tenants used this as a walk in closet.  I will be removing the closet rods and shelving, another view.  "before"

This seems to be a pretty long post, so I will say so long for now.  Thanks for visiting.