Long time…no post

So, what’s it been?  Over 2 years?! 🤪🤣

Ronald and I visited a brewery Sunday evening, and we ran into a couple and had some great discussion.  Turns out they love beer (hence at a brewery), are home brewers and are about to transition into full time RVers.  They shared their web address with me, and it got me thinking about blogging again.  So, here I am.  Hopefully…more consistently… 🙄🤞🏻

I find that I often think about writing posts…but then I just do things and forget to “document” it.  Lately, life has mostly consisted of a daily obsession with my Nespresso machine.  I’ve been trying to get to the gym more regularly 🏋🏻‍♂️.  I’m still taking regular agility classes with my pups.  We have an actual agility trial coming up next weekend.  I’m terrible when it comes to entering trials…I guess I’m just not that interested in pursuing the competitive aspect.

Of course, I’m still brewing.  I have a little experiment going at the moment…a small batch oatmeal stout with some rum soaked raisins, vanilla beans, and cinnamon sticks in the secondary.

🤓 sous vide bag of rum, raisins, vanilla beans, and cinnamon stick

Last holiday season,  Ronald and I made a 5 gallon batch of oatmeal cookie stout…and it was just toooooo much beer.  This time, I decided to just make an oatmeal stout in my PicoBrew and tweak how the additions went.  I’ll have to update how that turns out.

Love my Joule

Also, I’ve always got some kind of cooking things going on.  Lately, I’m into meals that offer the most “bang for your buck”.  For me, that means the best tastes for the least effort 😬.  This morning, I threw some chicken breast in to sous vide.  I have two with teriyaki sauce and one plain.  (OMG ❤️ Soy Vay Veri Veri Teriyaki…)  This will give me some easy access protein options later.  I’ve been on a Monday red beans and rice kick too.  I have a pretty great, it’s so easy it’s ridiculous red beans InstantPot recipe.  I’ll have to post it separately.  I made that last night, and there are delicious leftovers in the fridge.

Ok, that’s it for now.  I gotta get ready for the gym.  Back soon (hopefully…hahahahah).

 

 

beer coma, carb coma, and other pressing weekend issues

Alinof Timer 29 seconds left!Since I didn’t complete a 30 minute post yesterday,  I suppose that means this new resolution of mine isn’t a daily thing…or maybe Sunday will just be an off day.

I’ll start this session off with two things –

  • I need to amend my Saturday “to do” list with: make my own beer
  • If you need a timer application for Mac here’s a decent free one – Alinof Timer – https://itun.es/us/tD5IE.m  I’m using it right now 😀

Hey...it's only 87 now!Moving on – Ronald and I had a pretty eventful uneventful weekend.  See what I did there…I love paradox…har har.  Anyway, we’ve been exercising/playing with the dogs early to avoid the near 100º heat throughout the day.  I think this week is going to be the consistently hottest so far this summer.  We’ve actually been fairly lucky this July with rain and unusually less than 100º temps.  We try to get them their activity time early so they don’t mind being indoors for a LOOOOOONG time the rest of the day.  Seems to be working so far.  Saturday we tried a new place for brunch and ventured out to the Flying Saucer by the lake to add some beers to my list.  I don’t remember much after the beer coma.  We didn’t get active again until later in the evening.  I walked both dogs (give or take a mile each).  While walking Cooper, I decided to jog a little and got the hair-brained idea to actually workout on my own when we finished.  I invited Ronald along with me and we did the pretty easy walk/jog 30 minute combo that is the couch to 5k week 1 day 1 workout.  I’m thinking either tonight or tomorrow night – I’ll tackle day 2.  I’m not even going to say I’ll get all the way through the program, but for now – at least it’s something.  Sunday morning – we awoke to discover that our downstairs A/C unit didn’t seem to be working.  BOO ON THAT.  Fortunately, we were able to get someone out same day & they were able to make the necessary replacement to get us up and running again.  It did get a little warm – but not too bad.  We also had working A/C upstairs and that kept things from getting out of control.  So, we spent most of the day working that issue out and then headed South (as is starting to be our Sunday afternoon custom) to fill our growlers at Craft & Growler.  We also had a Sunday repeat from last week – visiting the Lakewood location of Cane Rosso for pizza.  If Saturday was beer coma, Sunday was carb coma.  I had to nap off my Neapolitan crust when we got home.  Then we watched some more episodes of Game of Thrones.  We finally bought into all the hype & started watching this show.  We really liked season 1, and we’re now almost finished with season 2.  I can’t say this 2nd season has really impressed me much…we’ll see if it picks up again in season 3.  I’m pretty sure the books are WAY better, but I don’t know if they’re my kind of reads…especially now that I know a lot of the story line.  My understanding is the tv show is fairly faithful to the books’ storyline.

It’s been my experience that spa business sometimes slows down in the summer.  I haven’t really experienced the slow down yet – but I’m not so busy this week.  We’ve got agility classes this week and Cooper has a private lesson (think we’re going to work on his jumping competition height now).  Looks like I have a work conflict with Cooper’s obedience class this week, but maybe we’ll find another time to make up for it.  Other than that, it seems this weekend we might have a little family get together at Canyon Lake (us, my parents, my brothers & their girlfriends).  Should be a fun time.  I asked my brother to bring some shrimp for us to cook (I’m thinking scampi style seasoning)…and we’ll have to come up with some other grill worthy choices.

I’m feeling pretty accomplished already this morning.  I got 1 mile in with Cooper (Ronald took Hendrix on her morning mile) and I’ve already put in my 30 min!  I have no illusions that my life is tough…  Monday is my usual day off – the only other things set on the agenda are my nail appointment and movie night.  I’m gonna see 2 Guns. I probably need to go to the grocery store, too.

Stream of conscious random add on – I watched an episode of something like Hoarders – Buried Alive yesterday.  That seriously scares me…the piled up tchotchkes everywhere…it makes me shudder.  I don’t claim to be a neat freak…but just wow.  CRAZY.

Commence the 30 minute posts!

944592_10201198926429515_1757899013_nOk.  I’m always telling myself I need to write more or blog more.  (Honestly, I’m always telling myself I need to do a lot of things more.  Workout more, read more…eat better more…etc.)  I digress.  So, THIS is my new (*cough* we’ll see how long it lasts *cough*) attempt at writing/blogging more.  Setting aside 30 minutes and just putting something out here.  I set a timer and everything.  At this point, can’t say I’m even sure if this is a plan to do 30 min daily, 4x week, weekly…or what.  I guess I’ll figure that out as I go.

Today, I’ve got lots of things swirling around in my head about what I want/need to do.  I feel like there are so many things swimming around and I never capture them (write down/remember).  So, I’ll just rattle on a  list –

  • make youtube channel/commercials for my business (improve SEO & attract more new customers)
  • eventually redesign my web site
  • speaking of above – a whole host of skills I want to take some classes regarding are: photography, Photoshop (actually the whole Adobe Creative Suite)
  • there’s a continuing education photography class at Collin County Community College starting in October…gonna do my best to get in on that action
  • make a “Rox Skin Studio, LLC” sign to hang in my window at the studio as well as some menu of service cards
  • enter a hunt test with Cooper before next summer (probably HRC Started)…I’d also like to run my brother’s dog Tara for either an AKC Junior Hunter or Senior Hunter test
  • finish out Hendrix’ Open Agility and  Open Agility Jumper titles – hopefully by the end of the year…she has one leg in standard and 2 in jumpers and we’re entered in two trials (only one day each trial) so far in September
  • continue to focus on having at least one short focused play session one on one with Hendrix & Cooper – you know to remember life with the dogs is fun 😀
  • Couch 2 5k – man, I hate even writing that down…Ronald & I just did the Week 1 Day 1 workout together and it wasn’t too hard.  However, this is like the 3rd/4th time I’ve started the program.  Haven’t finished it – always stall out somewhere around week 5.  Today, I just sort of jumped on it…not so much because I want to do the program but for the structure of what to do for a not too tough 30 minute workout.  I definitely need some cardiovascular exercise injected into my life on a more regular basis.
  • buy some kettle bells
  • make eclairs – or something with choux pastry (the incongruence of this following the previous two bullet points is not lost on me)
  • think about taking on some creative writing (like short story or fiction)…remember college?
  • plan a trip in the next 2 years to Hawaii
  • get 1-2 IPL photofacials (for redness/rosacea and to lighten that strange sun spot that I can’t really figure out when it officially appeared prominently under the corner of my right eye)
  • spend more time productively less time on facebook and my iOS devices
  • I’m on beer 146/200 at the Flying Saucer – gotta knock out those last 54 beers!
  • read more – make a list of what to read (start with finishing Lanny Bassham’s “With Winning in Mind”)
  • teach Hendrix more tricks – I think that’s her favorite thing of all…maybe I need a book of tricks because my ideas are kind of dried up
  • I seriously need to buy myself some more clothes.  I hate buying clothes.
  • I already tackled & finished a recent closet clean out, but I need to organize some more cleaning and actually attempt to “decorate” more of the house.
  • repaint & put to use (probably in the studio) the curio cabinet sitting empty upstairs
  • ignoring previously mentioned spend less time on fb – leverage fb better for the business and build up a fb for theroxlife.com

Wow.  30 minutes goes pretty fast.  I’ll have to go back and compare, but I’m pretty sure some of these items are repeats of ones I wrote down at the beginning of 2013.  I guess putting it out there on the internet where no one is reading it (but could at any moment) might help make me more accountable.  Until my next 30 minute post…I’m feeling a little like small steps in the right direction were made today.  I want to keep that forward momentum.  It’s actually almost midnight, but I think I will read some of that Bassham book before turning it in for the evening.

I’m thinking I should accompany each 30 minute post with a picture from the day…related or not.  Here’s a link to some great pics of the pups swimming with their pal Tugger this morning.  Picture above is from brunch at R+D Kitchen earlier today.