Ain't Got No Baby Mama Drama...Preventing Teen Pregnancy

Did you know that your dog or cat can get pregnant as early as four months old. That is truly babies having babies. I have witnessed this happen many times and it just breaks my heart. So today, I took our baby, Bella, to get spayed.

We had to wait a little longer than 4 months because the doctor suggested we wait until she started getting adult teeth. So at 5 months, she has her teeth and we are not waiting any longer. She got her beautiful new adult teeth! (Proud mama over here.)

Atlanta Humane Society has a great low cost spay and neuter program that allows your dog or cat to get spayed, micro-chipped, and a rabies shot for the super low cost of $35 ($40 with pain medication.) All we had to do was sign-up and get an appointment.

Well as a worry wart mama, I was scared of the surgery even though I have gone through this many times before. She is my baby and I love her. We started the day at 6:00 in the morning, so that we could get there by 6:30. God must have been watching over me because the dang dog almost caused an accident when she tried to climb behind my back as I was driving! Then she proceeded to get in the back seat, where she threw up all over the floor! UGH!!!

When I finally got there, I signed in and then brought her in to await our time to go in the back room. She was not liking all of the new dogs and she could not sit still. I did, however, get a few pics of her before her surgery.

Mama, what are you doing?

A selfie with Bella Louise 

About to go in and be spayed

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So I go back to get her and was given the typical post-surgery instructions - give pain medicine, don't let her be around the other dogs, walk her on a leash only for ten days. And then we were off to home.

Or so I thought...Atlanta traffic was horrible as usual and it took us an hour of driving through the city to get home. Both Bella and I were exhausted and ready to get out of the car by the time we got home.

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It has now been two days since surgery and she is doing great. Anyone who has a puppy knows that you can't keep them still. We crate her mostly to keep her from playing, but those pitiful whines just hits my heart. She is going to heal nicely and no more worries about pregnancy.

I would like to partake to anyone reading this blog, the importance of spaying and neutering. There are 9,000 dogs and cats who die in America's shelters every day. Many of those are puppies and kittens who were born because their mom was not spayed. Living in a trailer park in South Carolina, I witnessed this over and over again. The dogs seemed to be pregnant every 6 months and no one took ownership of the dog or the pups. Many of them eventually getting picked up by the pound or getting hit by a car.

This is why I do what I do now in animal welfare because I want to Save Them All! As Bob Barker used to say, "Help control the pet population and have your pet spayed or neutered."

On a side note: Bob Barker was a HUGE animal lover and advocate all of his life. Here is a video about his work to save not only dogs and cats, but bears, large cats, and dolphins!

Talk soon, XOXO!
Crystal

Before I Kick the Bucket...List

Hola All!

It has been a very slow week for me. Work is filling up more and more time as I prepare to do marketing for two of Best Friends largest events, Pet Super Adoptions and Strut Your Mutt. If you are looking for a new fur baby or have a dog and want to find something fun to do with them, check out those events. Ok, enough of the shameless plug...lol. 

Other than work, Hubby and I have just been sitting around watching our favorite trash TV, looking for a new home, and dreaming of vacations. (I desperately need some beach in my life right now.) While sitting around, I decided to go through some of my old blogs and websites and check out how far I have progressed in life. In my search, I found the bucket list that I made in 2009. 

Let me tell you a little about 2009. I had taken a job in  Star, NC, the center of the state. It was in the middle of no where. It was a small town of about 800 people and I was like the only black person there. I was single, broke, unhappy, and not really sure why I had taken a position that had me so secluded. Let me preface, though, that the company I worked for was a great place. Starworks and Central Park NC is an organization that is really working to build a sustainable economy in the counties in central North Carolina. They actually employ lots of young and innovative people from all over the country. But in the end, it wasn't for me. 

Well there I was bored and broke - two of the worst things to be - and I decided to make my bucket list. I looked at many different websites and read others' bucket list and made the following list. I look at some of these things and find them very insightful and I look at others and wonder what the heck I was thinking. Well I have made some edits to my original bucket list and you will see them below.

100 Things I Want to Do in My Life...

(in no particular order)

1. Write the story of my life. (I guess I am on my way to this with this blog!)
2. Break a world record.
3. Go without a cell phone for a month.
4. Spend one month's paycheck on a pair of shoes.

(Louboutins here I come!!!)

5. Learn to play one song on a musical instrument.
6. Learn a different language and use it for a year.
7. Fly on a trapeze.
8. Swim with a dolphin...in its natural habitat, not in an aquarium or in captivity.
(Because I have learned so much about dolphins and other animals in captivity, I have now changed my viewpoint on how I want to do this.)
9. Ride on the world's tallest rollercoaster.
10. Pay for my sister's entire college education. Help my sister find the right college. 

(My little sister will be going into the military, so she won't need help paying for college (thankfully!) but she will need help finding the college that is right for her. I want to do the whole college tour with her like my parents did.)
11. Kiss a perfect stranger without telling them of my intentions. Learn how to do standing paddle boarding. 

(I have wanted to do this every since I saw this on a show about Hawaii. It probably is harder than it looks, so looking forward to doing this!)
12. Fast for one week and give the money that I would have spent on food to the church.
13. Run a marathon.
14. Test drive an expensive car that I can't afford.
15. Attend the Super Bowl.
16. Be in a movie.
17. Win a ballroom competition.
18. Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally. Stay in love and be married to the same person for a lifetime. 

(I have already found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, so the goal is to keep the promises that we make in our vows.)

19. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
20. Sing my favorite song in front of an audience.
21. Visit all 50 states.
(15 down already!)
22. Go to Carnival in Brazil.
23. Participate in La Tomatina in Valencia, Spain.
24. Get to my perfect weight then spend the next day eating junk food all day.
25. Dive off the Australian Great Barrier Reef.
26. Walk all of the stairs in the Statue of Liberty.
27. Play an entire 18 holes of golf.
28. Climb the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Visit the Great Pyramid of Giza. 

(Had to change this because it seems that it is illegal to climb the pyramids.)
29. Walk the entire Great Wall of China.
30. Eat a meal good enough to be my last. Be in a cooking competition. 

(I changed this because I have already had several meals that could have been my last. I want to give myself more of a challenge. Chopped here I come! Lol)
31. Elope in Vegas.
(Keeping this one. You never know what could happen...lol)
32. Spend New Year's Eve in New York.
33. Write an article for Lonely Planet.
34. Write all of my friends a letter in a single day.
35. Adopt 50 homeless shelter dogs. (Not all at once!)
36. Get my MBA...or my Masters degree. 
37. Go to an airport and buy a ticket to the next place leaving. 

(Gonna keep this on, but with the current airport security, this may lead to me being put in jail for suspicion of something. Lol)
38. Go camping for a week.
39. Be photographed professionally - naked.
40. Get a full body wax.
41. Get my mother to ride on a plane.
42. Drive to Mexico.
43. Take a Transatlantic cruise.
44. Become debt free.
45. Visit India.
46. Make an important speech on television.
47. Write a letter to the Editor of the New York Times.
48. Fill my iPod to the limit with songs.
49. Make a documentary.
50. Work a night at a suicide hotline.
51. Spend a week partying in Miami.
52. Be celibate for one year. Drive the Pacific Coast Highway in California. 

(Having visited California, I am very eager to explore more!)

53. Be the head of an organization.
54. Buy a house.
55. Buy 20 acres of land.
56. Donate to a charity anonymously.
57. Donate blood and plasma.
58. Suntan naked on a beach.
59. Make a large piece of art.
60. Read over 1000 books.
61. Swim in the Dead Sea.
62. Read the Bible from start to finish.
63. Watch a tornado.
64. Visit the world's largest farmer's market.
65. Make a cake from scratch. 

(OMG, I did this this weekend! I need to write a blog post about it!!!!)
66. Eat fish and chips in England.
67. Apologize in person to someone I have hurt greatly.
68. Forgive someone who has greatly hurt me.
69. Vacation at a nudist resort. Vacation on a private island. 

(After watching shows about nudist resorts, I have no interest in this! Don't know what I was thinking in 2009 with this.)
70. Participate in speed dating. Take a cross country road trip. 
(Hubby and I want to do this when we eventually move to San Diego.)
71. Drink champagne that is from IN the champagne region of France.
72. Spend an entire day making myself happy.
73. Buy an expensive pearl necklace.
74. Send a dozen roses to all of the women in my life.
75. Let a man sweep me off of my feet. Visit all of the U.S. National Parks. 

(Hubby does the original every day just by the way he treats me and the fur babies, so I wanted to make this something different. I have a love of national parks, so my new bucket task is to visit all of the U.S. National Parks, even the ones in Alaska!)
76. Have a child. Visit an orphanage and donate clothing for all of the kids there. 

(After contemplating life, I have decided that children are not something I want. Hubby and I agree on this, also. However, we love kids and want to make an impact in their lives, whether it is our friends' kids or kids we don't know.)
77. Make the perfect cornbread stuffing.
78. Dance with a stranger in the street.
79. Wash my hair in the first rain of spring.
80. Watch a music icon in concert.
81. Swim in Bora Bora.
82. Kiss someone until my lips get numb. Have a huge wine cellar with wines from all around the world. 

(I changed this one because the original was just boring and definitely was an indicator of how single I was in 2009...lol. Since I love wine so much, I think the new item is better for me.)
83. Become a vegetarian for a month. Develop a lifestyle of organic foods and clean eating. 

(I have deleted this because in 2009, I actually went vegetarian for 6 months. It wasn't for me. However, it did change my idea of how important good foods are to a diet, which is why I changed this.)
84. Eat an authentic Philly Cheesesteak.
85. Sleep in a zoo. Fully renovate a house.

(Because of my evolving views on animals in captivity, I took the original off the list. Lately, Hubby and I have tossed around the idea of buying a fixer-upper and fully renovating it ourselves. I would love to do this!)
86. Have a picnic in Central Park, NY.
87. Buy and sell stocks.
88. Hug a huge redwood tree.
89. Get my 401k to over $1 $2 million before I retire. 

(In today's economy, the original $1 would not have kept me through my first ten years of retirement. I am sure by the time I retire, this number will need to go to $4 million.)
90. Own all of my favorite movies.
91. Become certified in something.
92. Get a boob job.
93. Buy my mother a house.
94. Spend the day floating in a boat reading a book.
95. Kiss someone in the rain Hubby in a rainforest. 

(Changed this because anyone can be kissed in the rain, but it is more of a challenge to kiss in a rainforest.)
96. Fulfill a wish for someone.
97. Spend an entire day praying.
98. Give $100,000 to my church.
99. Take my little sister on vacation once every year until she no longer wants me to.
100. Eat real Paella in South America.

I think I like those changes. They reflect where I am in life now. Now I have something great to blog about for years to come as I knock out my bucket list. I hope you enjoy mine and make a list of your own!

Talk soon, XOXO!

Crystal

Pin-Up Steak - How Pinterest Made My Dinner Great!

Isn't that a beautiful sight? Definitely restaurant quality meal.

With Hubby home from a weekend away with his family and our precious Arty back at home after surgery on his broken leg, I figured that we had some celebrating to do. If you don't know it yet, I like to celebrate over EVERYTHING! So I went to Pinterest and started planning the ultimate meal. 

The inspiration for my meal was a bottle of Layer Cake's Primitivo that was recommended by my friend, Wendy. (Hi Wendy!) This wine is delicious! I love a good red, but Hubby is not as much a fan. He says that they are too tart for him. Well this was a little more palatable for him, since it had a sweetness to it that reduced that sharpness. Let me state though that this is not a sweet red. It is just a good Zinfandel that has a bit of sweetness. 

A review for Layer Cake's Primitivo states, "A balance of elegance and power, the wine impresses with inky black fruit, spice and white pepper, jammy black cherries, plums, truffles and espresso." I could definitely taste the cherries and the plum in the first sip, which gives it that sweetness. However, I don't remember the truffles or espresso being at the party at all. I think I should buy another bottle and try to find the other flavors. ;-)

So we have our inspiration red wine. Now we need a meal to equal this. What is the perfect dancing partner for a red wine? STEAK!

Lately, I have been on a health kick and my diet has consisted of fruits and lots of salads. I haven't had a good steak in almost 6 months. For a great steak, Hubby and I usually get dressed up and go to Fleming's, our favorite steakhouse. We celebrate our anniversaries and birthdays there and they know our name and treat us wonderfully! For this meal though, I wanted to try doing a steak myself. 

In the past, my trials at steak have resulted in very juicy tender steaks, but I could never get any temperature but well done. My challenge to myself was to find a recipe that let me get a good medium steak for Hubby and a medium-well for myself. Off I went to Pinterest to scour the thousands of steak recipes and found one that had the title, "How To Cook Perfect Steak in the Oven." With a title like that, I could not pass it up. This recipe was simple and to the point, but I wanted to take it to the next level, so I found this wonderful marinade to do the day before. 

I went to my favorite market here in Decatur, Dekalb Farmer's Market, and chose a huge, bone-in, 18oz, Angus ribeye steak. So many adjectives to describe a beautiful piece of beef and it was only $13! I only got one because I planned on cutting it in half, giving Hubby and I two good sized 9 oz steaks. I marinaded the steak for a full 24 hours and then proceeded in cooking according to the directions in the cooking recipe. 

The result was a juicy, perfectly cooked steak...but it was at a medium-rare! I did not take into consideration that my steak was thicker than the recipe. So after three more times under the broiler, I ended up with medium for Hubby and medium-well for me. YAY!!!! 

Close-up of my medium-well steak

Well with a mouthwatering steak, you need some awesome sides. I knew I wanted to do some type of potato because I had some in my pantry that needed to be used before they went bad. (I hate wasting food.) I did not want to do a plain baked potato, it just would not live up to the star of the show! So I again looked on Pinterest and found the recipe for a twice baked potato loaded with butter, green onions, and CHEESE!

Close-up of the cheesy goodness

I did the cheat that the recipe suggested where you do the first bake of the potato and fix it up, then put in the fridge and bake again the next day. I am glad that I did this because in the process of baking my potatoes, I forgot my timing and one of them exploded in the oven. What a mess! It scared the dogs and they spent the next 30 minutes barking their heads off. Needless to say, I had quite a mess to deal with. The next day, when I turned on the oven, it smelled like burnt french fries.

And finally, every good meal needs something green. Hubby and I were watching Chopped one day and saw a chef fail at doing bacon-wrapped asparagus. How a professional chef failed at something so simple, I don't know, but I was determined to make some. I did look up a recipe on trusty ole Pinterest, here, just to make sure I was doing it right. I must admit that I slightly overcooked the asparagus, but I wanted to make sure the bacon was done. 

So is the plural of asparagus, asparagi? Lol

So add all of those delicious things together and you have what could be last meal worthy. I ate and ate and ate. And I drank and drank and drank. In the end, I was stuffed, but incredibly happy. I hope you try these and let me know how yours came out. 

After my good meal, I spent the rest of the night kissing my precious Arty and enjoying having him home. 

Please ignore the hair!

Talk Soon, XOXO!

Crystal

Wine - Because No Great Story Started With Someone Eating A Salad

So hubby left me this weekend! He went home to see his family and the zoo and I were all alone. Yeah, how alone can you be with five dogs and one cat, right?

You will notice that I said one cat. Our poor Artie broke his leg on Friday and had to be taken to the vet. Based on the type of break, they needed to do surgery to put a pin in it. Poor baby! So he was stuck at the vet away from his mommy. We are picking him up today and I am going to give him all of my kisses.

So we were alone, I was stressed about my kitty, and there was absolutely nothing to do this weekend. So what does that mean? I was drinking lots of wine!

The wine was flowing like water and I was in my living room dancing off of silly songs like this. (Lord, pray for my walls)

In honor of my wine filled weekend, I will take the time to talk about my three favorite wines. Let me preface by saying that I am no wine expert or sommelier. And unless it is a very special occasion, I never buy wine over $20. Believe me though, these are yummy wines that are good for a night alone, a girls weekend, or just after a long day at the office. (I work from home and sometimes the commute from my bed to my desk can get rough.)

Jam Jar Wines: So I kept seeing people on my Facebook and Twitter talk about this wine. I looked in every wine store and finally came across it in my local market. I was so excited and when I tasted it, it was goooooood. There are two kinds - a Shiraz (red) and a Moscato (white). The red is definitely my favorite. It has the bite of a red, but with a sweetness. I have literally drank an entire bottle by myself, especially when I have good food and great TV to watch. The white is ok, not my favorite, a bit too sweet. If you like Moscato, then you will love this. And at about $8 a bottle, you can't beat the price. If anyone wants to drop a case of the red at my door, I would be your best friend for life...lol.

To help you realize how wonderful I think Jam Jar is, please see below photo after I downed an entire bottle.

I promise, the animals got none...lol. 

Charonge: Ok, so don't judge me, but I found this wine in the discount aisle of my local market for $3.99! It is a chardonnay that has hints of orange. When chilled, it is delicious. Don't worry, the orange flavor is not too heavy. It is a light sweetness. Close to a reisling, but still a chardonnay. Hubby and I choose this wine when we are doing a crab boil feast (crab, shrimp, smoked sausage, corn, potatoes, and onions.) It is the perfect complement to spicy, salty food.

Cantina Zaccagmini Montepulciano d'Aruzzo: This is a true Italian wine. It is a bold, dry red wine that will knock your socks off. I bought it for the first time when celebrating my friend Joyce's marriage at Chiapperelli's in Baltimore. (If you ever get to Baltimore, try this place. Some great Italian food!) I was in one of those large wine stores and picked it up because of the cute bottle with the grape stem attached. Well every since then, this has been my number one choice for a good red wine.

Those are my top picks! I think you should run out right now and get a bottle of all three. Hubby and I go to the Dekalb Farmer's Market every weekend and usually get the old familiars and try out a new one. I will do more posts on the good and the bad ones. This weekend, my new trial, Layer Cake's Primitivo, came from a suggestion from a Facebook friend. Didn't actually get a chance to crack it open, though. Planning on trying it tonight with Hubby with steak, potatoes, and salad. Yum!

Now enough of this blogging! I am going to get my poor injured kitty.

Talk soon, XOXO!
Crystal