Buddy Update...

Gosh, Buddy keeps us on our toes!  After his little incident, we took him to the vet Saturday morning.  Luckily we were able to get him in to see his usual vet on such short notice.  Buddy suffered a stroke in his back which caused him not to be able to feel his right leg.  The x-rays showed that he had small herniated discs and a large lump in his stomach.  That was the big concern - the lump.  It could be cancer.  So we scheduled an ultrasound for that week.  The scary part was when the vet gave me his home phone and call him if something happens to Buddy over the weekend. 

Poor Buddy can't go on walks; no more going up or down stairs - he still manages to get across the house...slowly...resting in between.  He has figured out to sort of use his leg as a cruch. 

The ultrasound procedure was interesting; poor Buddy was put upside down on his back - he didn't like it.  He especially didn't like it when the doctor had to push the ultrasound thing into him - he was a little squirmy there and had sad eyes as he looked at me...I wanted to cry but of course I had to be strong and not cry in front of all these people!!

Luckily for Buddy, the area we were concerned about is just his adrenal glands that are larger than normal due to the Cushings Disease.  They are peanut shaped which is good, otherwise if it was just a large mass, then it would have been a tumor.  We have to look into seeing a specialist to determine whether we should change his medicine or increase the dosage...we still have the problem of him not opening his mouth all the way.....

Buddy, Buddy, Buddy....You are truly loved....

Devastated...

Who would have thought my week would end like this.  First, I was sick all week...sick since Sunday night.  It has not been fun.  I even took a sick day this week to recoup.  I missed 2 nights of dance class, barely made it through 1 dance class (got a little dizzy), missed dinner with friends Thur. night and was hoping I'd feel better for First Friday Art Walk.  My throat hurt a little today but I wasn't constantly sneezing.  I felt well enough to go to First Friday and have date night with Chris.  I called Chris on my way home from work and he was walking Buddy.  Unfortunately, the walk didn't go well.  A block away from home, Buddy couldn't walk.  Chris had to carry him home.  Not good.

I called Buddy over to me to see what was wrong with his leg and he couldn't even walk to me - it was as if his right back leg was stuck or frozen stiff.  I immediately called the vet to schedule the earliest appointment.  I hung up and cried off and on for 30 minutes.  It kills me to watch him try to get up and walk; he looks like he is going to fall over and break his leg in half.  I gave him a treat; he is SO excited and tries to get up for it but can't.  Then I give him the treat and he has a hard time eating it.  I don't know why he is having a hard time opening his mouth but he can still eat his meals every day.

I know people may say he is just a dog, but he is part of my family.  I just feel cheated in a way; I feel like his life is too short with me and that I haven't had him long enough.  I adopted him when he was 5, turning six in the winter.  Now he is just shy of his 10th birthday.  I never thought a 5 year old dog was "old."  It never really crossed my mind that dogs live 11-14 years.  Wishful thinking on my part I guess...hoping that he'd live a long time.

Chris did make me laugh through my tears; I guess he ran into a little girl on the way home carrying Buddy and she asked him if Buddy was lazy.  It was pretty funny for a sad situation.

I knew someday I would have to say good-bye to my sweet puppy, but I thought I had more time.  I am still hoping for good news tomorrow at the vet...maybe this is all just a small sprain???  Sigh...

Halibut

Parmesan Cheese Halibut

• 1/4 c grated parmesan cheese
• 2 T butter soften
• 1 T & 1 1/2 tsp mayo
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1 T & 1 1/2 tsp chopped onion
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3 splashes of hot pepper sauce
• sprinkle panko bread crumbs
• 1 lb. halibut

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven at 375 degrees.
2. Mix all ingredients except for the halibut in a bowl.
3. Place halibut on baking sheet and spread mixture over halibut.
4. Then lightly sprinkle panko bread crumbs over the mixture.
5. Bake 15 minutes and then broil for 2 min.  

Recipe from allrecipes.com

My Poor Blog....

I've been really neglecting my blog lately...whoops...a lot of my time has been spent on my school blog!
Since my last Aug. post, I've...

• performed three times with the salsa team
• helped throw a surprise party for Jeannie's belated birthday
• really been enjoying my class this year - they are so cute!!
• gotten sick the last day or so....stinkin' cold or something...a lot of pressure behind my eyes....
• taken Buddy to the vet...Buddy had to have an increase in his medicine - he is due for another blood test next week to see how he is doing
• been dancing like crazy!  :-)  I love it!

First Day Flowers

We made it!!

After three months of salsa lessons, Chris and I auditioned for ADP's Open Dance Salsa Team and we made it! We are pretty excited - I love learning new steps and choreography!  The intermediate/advance salsa patterns class is challenging but I love it!!  I am so eager to get it down, that after practice I have Chris practice with me some more after dinner!  You can tell how excited about salsa dancing by my excessive use of exclamation marks!

Anyway, school has been going pretty well; I really like my class and it has been less stressful than last year.  No fights the first week of school - yeah!!!  That is always a good sign.  :-)

Yan Can Not Cook Today...

I got up super early today since Buddy's meds have to consistent every day, and since normally I would be up by 7am, I try not to on the weekends but now I don't have a choice.  Good-bye sleeping in, hello afternoon naps!  ;-)  I haven't taken one yet today, but I'm a little tired from working at school.

So since I was up, I decide to make blueberry zucchini bread - FAILED!  I wrote down all these suggestions of substitutions and...well...I got a VERY mushy center.  I am thinking it was the extra cup of zucchini that one person suggested made their bread more moist...yes, mine was very moist as well, so moist that even though I cooked it for almost 2 hours, the center was still MUSHY!

I really tried to make it "healthier" and somewhere in the recipe I messed it up - apple sauce instead of oil, sugar cane instead of white sugar, used 1/2 wheat flour....and that extra cup of zucchini........made mush......  :-P

Waitressing all week....

Wow, have my legs have gotten a workout this week!  I have been working at the cafe last Friday and all this week - on top of that, I have been doing my regular exercise of Turbo Kick twice a week and salsa once a week.  My legs are TIRED!  The cafe has been pretty busy this week - I try to keep moving and be on it since there is no busser during the weekend.  I absolutely hate when customers sit on dirty tables.  Not only do I feel bad for them sitting at a dirty table, sometimes I cannot tell if they were there already and finished eating or if they are new!  I am just getting the hang of the weekday menu and punching it in the computer.  Yesterday, my big mess up was calling a lady a "sir."  Oops.  And then today I punched in "open meatloaf" when I wanted an "open turkey" but it is not called that in the computer.  I just quickly saw "open" and clicked it.  Darn.  But luckily the kitchen staff is quick to fix my mistake.  My bad.

So I am glad I have tomorrow off...sort of...we got a letter from the HOA about our trees so we have lawn work tomorrow.  BLAH....all part of being a homeowner, I guess...

Weddings!!

July was full of WEDDINGS!  My friends Amy, Stephanie, and Jennifer all were married this past July.  Unfortunately, I was only able to go to 2 out of the 3.  Stephanie's was in CT but I was able to see some great wedding pictures from her photographer!

First wedding of the month - Amy (photography by ME!) at the Denaina Center:

Walking Down the Aisle With Parents

Amy and Josh

Rose Wedding Cake

First Dance

First Dance

Then it was Stephanie's wedding the following weekend - these photos are from Pobke Photography - you can view these fabulous wedding photos at Stephanie's blog.

Then Jennifer ended the month of July with her wedding at Crow Creek Mine - also photos by ME!:

Beautiful Bride and her Stepfather

Going in for the kiss!  Photoshop: Poster edge

Going in for the kiss!  Photoshop: Fresco

The Peacock Wedding Cake

Cake Topper

Groom's Cake

Peacock Center piece

Cake Cutting

Party Tables

Bride's Bouquet

First Dance

We danced all night long thanks to salsa lessons!  :-)  Thanks ladies, for the fabulous wedding parties!!!

They are HERE!!!

Yup, I got my salsa shoes!!  I was told them to order 1 size smaller.  I guess it helps with dancing...just listening to the experts!!

Hm...a little behind this summer...

At the end of the school year, I always end up taking home a load of papers that I SWEAR I am going to sort throughout the summer and have it ready for when school starts.  Well, here is the crate sitting in its original spot, untouched since the end of May.

Here is my attempt last night while watching "Losing it With Jillian."

 I'm getting somewhere, right??? :-)

Graduation Party

Since my last post, a lot has happened since then!  My cousin left to Seattle to start her career as an optometrist.  Not to toot my own horn, but I was pretty creative with the decorations at her graduation dinner in town.  

Besides putting my scrapbooking skills to work on the poster board, I found this neat website that makes personalized eye charts to show a message.

Thanks to my friend Charlene and her creative holiday projects, I took her tag idea from Christmas and made photo tags with my cousin's graduation picture on them and tied them to all the silverware at the restaurant!  On the back of the tags are a bunch of optometry jokes.  I also printed off funny optometry comics and spread them around the table.

Here are just some of the jokes (watch out, they are very corn-ea, hahaha, corny and cornea?):

Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A: A fsh !

  

Q: What music do optometrists listen to?
A: itunes

Q: What was the lens's excuse to the policeman?
A: I've been framed officer

Q: How do you take over the globe?
A: With a contact lens

Q: What did the sailor say to the captain of the optometrist’s boat?
A: Eye-eye captain

Q: Where is the eye located?

A: Between the H and the J.

Q: What did the right eye say to the left eye? 
A: Between you and me, there's something that smells...

So You Think You Can Dance????????

Chris and I have completed 1 month of salsa lessons!  We're almost experts, LOL!  Well, okay, so we're not quite there but maybe after next month's lessons!  I really want salsa/ballroom shoes!  I have been wearing my black jazz shoes in class, and, well....I'M SHORT and those shoes don't help either - no heel.  There is only 1 guy in the class whose height is about mine.

Photo From Here

Speaking of dance, we've been following So You Think You Can Dance - one of my favorite reality TV shows! I've given up on American Idol and all those other talent competition shows.  This past week was amazing!  If you haven't seen Twitch and Alex's hip hop routine by NappyTabs, YOU MUST!

Photo Courtesy of Fox

Although I adore Kent's innocent personality, Alex is an all-star dancer!  A ballerina doing hip hop PERFECTLY?!?!?  Yes!  My favorite for the girls is Ashley.  Her performance was so beautiful and her facial expression work so well with the dance!

I've got a CRUSH on you...

So Chris and I have an addiction: Crush.  We have eaten there 6 times (well Chris 5, me 6) in two weeks, 3 times in 2 days.  Crazy, I know, but let me explain!  

(1) When we returned from vacation, we had no food in the house so we decided to go grab lunch at Crush before grocery shopping.  I rarely get a chance to have lunch at Crush because of work (but now they are opened on Saturday for lunch too!).  We tried the steak sandwich - SO GOOD!

(2) Well then a few days later, I ended up grabbing lunch with some of my co-workers who have never been to Crush, so I suggested there - I can't help myself - I must recommend good places to eat!  They were out of the steak sandwich so I had the grilled chicken on foccacia bread - very tasty!

(3) Weekend arrives - catching up with friends over a delicious meal at Crush.

(4) We needed to eat at a place downtown before seeing the musical Bark! so Crush was a convenient place to grab food!  We almost went to Sullivan's for their 1/2 off menu but it is always crowded there and hard to get a seat.  Crush has a new summer arugala salad - I think it might be even better than my favorite toasted goat cheese salad!   Dessert: they had watermelon cheesecake - WOW!!

(5) We made plans with Kristin and James to grab lunch, and since they haven't had lunch at Crush, well, that is where we went.  I had a steak sandwich (YUM!) with their potato soup.

(6) Since we had Crush so much, we thought maybe we'd change things up and go to Brewhouse, but then people had their hearts set on Crush, so again, we went to Crush.  Can't complain though since we love the food, and well, Chris loves their wine selection.  ;-)  I had their short ribs with mash potatoes garnished with garlic seeds - SO YUMMY!  It was fall off the bone, DELICIOUS!!  Too full for dessert, but that white chocolate cranberry bread pudding with caramel sauce is always tempting!  That is absolutely my favorite dessert there!

I think we've paid their rent for the month, LOL!  I wonder if they have stock....hahaha!  

Nails...what a pain...

Painting nails is SO frustrating!!  First I was fretting over what color I should paint them to match my teal dress.  After talking to a few people, purple was the ideal color.  So I go to Fred Meyers and pulled out a couple of shades of purple and it turns out the one I like is 50% off because it's being discontinued.

THERE IS A REASON WHY IT'S DISCONTINUED!  It's RUNNY!  It looks like a 3-year-old painted me nails!  Gross!  I didn't think I was that bad at painting nails!  This is why I PAY people to do my nails!  Ugh.  My nail polish remover isn't cooperating either.  It took me forever to take off the last color from when I got my nails done.

So now I'm debating whether to get my nails done tomorrow or not.  I like the color but I am not use to my nails being so dark, well at least my finger nails.

It is pretty silly that I am sitting here in front of my computer, fretting over my nails when there are bigger issues going on in the world.  Luckily, this is MY blog.  ;-)

Salsa, anyone?

No, not the kind you eat with chips - the dance kind!  This is Chris and I's second week at our salsa class.  I already wanted to go out and purchase salsa dance shoes after the first class!  The thing I like about this class is that it is a progressive workshop so every week we build on what we learned from the week before.  There are a lot of participants and enough men in the class that we don't have to dance with the air.  I still want salsa dance shoes...........

Starting FRESH!

I decided to start a FRESH new blog, hopefully combining my life adventures as well as my hobbies of dancing, Turbo Kicking, crafting, and cooking!

I recently returned from a 2 week vacation to California and Mexico (well...in Ensenada for 12.5 hrs - does that count?) which was tons of fun but I have to say, it was nice to come home (I missed my dog!).  I haven't been on that long of a vacation since my last trip to Hong Kong which was years ago!  Once I get through my photo files, I will definitely post and share some of my favorites!

When we returned, the following day I had my Turbo Kick Instructor Certification Training Class from 9-5pm.  What a workout that was!  My legs were sore from Saturday to Monday night!  Stairs were not my friend that weekend, and serving all Sunday at the cafe didn't help either!  My legs were TIRED - mainly the calves!  However, the training was FABULOUS - Russell did a great job training us all and it was a lot of fun!  How I've missed Turbo Kick!

It had been about 4 weeks since I last did Turbo Kick.  My injury from the boot camp class I took (my fault for pushing myself to keep up with everyone) kept me from Turbo and the triathalon, but now I'm back on my feet and back to working out again after some rest and physical therapy sessions!  I really wanted to hit up Turbo Kick and Hustle while I was in CA but it just didn't work out.  I was a little bummed.  I wish we had 24 Hour Fitness up here!  I did make it to the Powder Blue Productions office in Irvine - I didn't get a chance to meet Chalene, but I did meet her husband.  I stocked up on some cute Turbo wear!  :-)

I am quite proud of myself I made it to Turbo Kick today so early in the morning, even though it is SUMMER BREAK.  I figure, yes it is early, but if I am tired, I can take a nap whenever I want - it's SUMMER!  :-)  And...that was exactly when I did after I went to Turbo, ate breakfast, and showered...NAPPED!  Then it was off to my LAST physical therapy session and then lunch with my friend Esther.  Lunch with friends is always a good time!

Now I'm home - home sweet home - and it's time to get organized!  I have vacation stuff and school stuff I need to put away!

Will blog soon....