On to something less serious...

Spiders and pirates!

Pugfest 2007. I couldn't get Bridget to hold still long enough to take a good picture. Unfortunately, Frankie was pretty ill yesterday, so we didn't get to stay for long. We went early, and she was just about the only dog in a homemade costume. We figure that most people were keeping their costumes "under wraps" until closer to the costume contest. You've never seen competitive until you've seen how all-out some people go to win this thing!

Pirate Cap'n Frankie.

Cap'n Frankie at playgroup. Argghhh!

The house on Grady Place

We went back to see the house again today. Some investors put in an offer yesterday, so we're having to move fast. The realtor selling the house is having the bank wait to respond to this offer until Monday so that we have a chance to throw something into the pot. Apparently the other offer is from an investor who lowballed it, so if we offer like $90k, we'd have a good chance of going under contract. We're nervous not because of the neighborhood itself, but because it's such a gamble to buy a house not knowing what's going to happen with the market and what's going to happen with home values in this neighborhood. We do love the place, but it's still scary when you get this close to potentially taking out another mortgage. Please let us know what you think ASAP!

House hunting, yet again.

We found absolutely one of THE most amazing homes I've ever seen in my life today. Really, amazing is about the only word to describe it. Built in 1920, it has 12 foot ceilings, 4 original fireplaces (3 with original gorgeous wood mantles,) french doors, huge rooms, a huge deck, a gigantic attic with 12 foot ceilings that could be finished to provide MORE living space (the house is probably 2000 square feet on the main level.) There's just one problem...it's in Historic West End, which doesn't have the best reputation ever, but it is improving. I know, you're thinking about Gutbusters and the West End Mall. Well, keep driving down Abernathy...past the funeral home, the ginormous Baptist church (which is really cool, btw), and past the Wren's Nest, and you'll come to a few streets with some of the coolest historic homes you've ever seen. The area was hit by mortgage fraud really hard, and a lot of the homes have struggled, but people are starting to buy up again. The houses are as nice or nicer than the houses in Inman Park (fancy expensive old homes for those of you not in the area) but they do need some love. The house costs a paltry $109k, and since it's bank owned, we could probably get it for about 100k, which is a steal for a house this great. But still....

What do you think?

Videos!

Frankie likes to give open mouth kisses. We're still working on that puckering thing.

Frankie also likes to play this little game where we exchange squeaks. Maybe he'll be a singer? I love boy soprano :)
...and as a bonus, listen to Bridget joining in on this fun.

Back to the blog.

I took a week off from blogging last week. I just wasn't feeling it. Subsequently, I have a small backlog of stuff. Here goes.

I'm making Bridget's spider costume this Halloween. (PugFest is on Saturday!) We've never purchased a costume for our dog; it just seems sillier to make one, however, it usually ends up costing more money to make one. This year I'm going for a spider because I saw a baby wearing a costume like this online and thought I could easily adapt it to Bridget. In this image, we have the spider legs, or black men's socks from the $1 store stuffed with Buffalo Snow (aka cheapo bagged fake snow.) I've never been so glad to see Christmas stuff out before Halloween - what else was I going to use to stuff those socks?

I still can't seem to get the shirt size quite right. Here's Bridget in one version, demonstrating one of her legs. I might need to put wire into the legs to give them some shape. Hopefully she'll be so miserable in her costume that she won't attack the spider legs.

On to Frankie...one of his favorite new activities is pushing his high chair across the kitchen. In this photo, he's combined two of his favorite things - playing with pots and sitting under his misplaced high chair. Good times.

Last week, when I was at the Salvation Army buying Halloween costume stuff, I came across this dump truck and Frankie had to have it. He was throwing a temper tantrum - I didn't think that he could do that yet! Luckily it was only 49 cents, so it didn't set me back too much. Yesterday he decided that it would be a good idea to take a ride and Juston snapped some photos of him crowded into the bed of the dump truck.

Climbing. Yikes.

Website

A couple of people have wondered why I decided to buy the domain name cookingwithfeminists.com. It comes from a segment on an episode of The Colbert Report about a year ago. Here's a link to the segment on Comedy Central's website. And by the way, I'm really in no hurry to develop a website. That placeholder will probably be there for a long time to come.

Water Conservation

So, if you live in the Southeast, you're painfully aware of the level 4 drought, which means no outside watering at all. So much for those plants...or should we give up on them yet? I've decided to start recycling shower water to keep my pansies alive, and it's working so far! I made 'buckets' out of three old gallon milk jugs, and I use them to collect runoff when I'm waiting for the water to heat up. I also use them to get water when I'm doing things like washing my hair or other things that don't require standing directly under the shower head. (Juston's not too fond of this new showering arrangement.) Georgia governor Sonny Perdue has declared October "take a shorter shower month," and keeping showers under four minutes is the best way to be water concious.

These jugs have been fantastic, because I also use them to scoop up Frankie's used bath water to water plants. I've been using Frankie's bath water for my container plants all summer and now I've expanded its use to planted bushes. At least we can have our grass go dormant this time of year and be reasonably sure that it'll grow back next Spring, rain pending.

A few other things I do to conserve water is to try to wipe my dishes with a sponge instead of rinsing them before putting them in the dishwasher, I've put an empty two-liter bottle, weighted down, inside of my toilet tank to reduce the amount of water used per flush, and, well, we don't flush as often (just when necessary - you know what I mean.) I only do laundry/wash dishes when I have a full load, but I pretty much have always done that. I try to take whatever water is left in sippy cups and water glasses at the end of the day and use it to water container plants. My car lives without a car wash, but that's nothing new; I've always been lazy. What are you doing to conserve water? Please share any good ideas - I'm always looking for new ones!

How do you say delicious?

Like this!

Thanks, Jan, for introducing me to the Cinnabon Copycat. I made them for the first time today, substituting half of the flour for whole wheat flour. They are so tasty! Find the recipe here.

Yes, we love Bridget! We especially love adorning her with stuff!

So I was surfing the web the other day (ummm...don't I do that every day?) and I came across some really cute dog collars on etsy.com. I decided to get one since Bridget is getting, well, a bit snug around the neck. This one is by a woman who calls her collars "Lucky Fiona" and it's a Halloween-inspired color palate. Doesn't Bridget look chic?

Last night I decided to pull out the sewing machine and make a little doggie shirt for Miss Bridg out of an old t-shirt. Unfortunately, I cut the fabric just a leeeetle on the snug side, hence the muscle shirt look she has going on here. Luckily this one was just an experiment as I've never made a dog shirt before. At least I know now that Bridget needs a bit of give since she's a bit on the, um, 'fluffy' side.

How to make a child temporarily happy

Balloons: the answer to "I refuse to take a nap so I'm cranky as all else!"

October Atlanta Pug Meetup

I thought I'd experiment with a slide show, since I had 11 pictures I wanted to post from this morning's annual pug meetup costume contest. We haven't taken Bridget to Pug Meetup in almost a year. She has anxiety problems around large groups of dogs and starts acting skittish, hiding behind people and foaming at the mouth. Today, however, she was perfectly fine and even played with some of the other dogs. Perhaps things are looking up! And you will notice, she is not wearing a costume - we're saving that big reveal for PugFest on October 27th! Let me know what you think of the slide show - if it's as annoying as I think it is, I won't do it again.

You'd think they'd just won the lottery, the way they're carrying on...

...maybe they hit the Daddy jackpot! Also listen at the very beginning, Frankie is making barking noises. I think it's some secret communcation pattern that he's formed with Bridget and they use it to discuss making mischief. And yes, that is my child wearing only a diaper. At the end of the day, I just can't be bothered trying to dress him again if I have to remove his food-crusted t-shirt.

Frankie's exceptionally clean (well, sometimes)

The Swiffer is Frankie's absolute favorite toy, which is a really odd choice for a favorite toy until you realize that Juston's always had an abnormally unhealthy love of vacuum cleaners. This is one reason I had kids - housework and child labor - but he still has to learn to do my taxes before my parenting wishes are fulfilled.

He also cleans up really well!

You know, just in case

This link might come in handy for some of you younger ladies (and gents) when you need that moral support and you just don't think you'll make it much longer.

(Link should work now!)

Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Images of Women

If you have 34 minutes to kill, you should watch this - especially if you are a woman. I promise that you will learn something. I love Jean Kilbourne's book; this is like an updated, condensed version. It's almost 10 years outdated and I hope that a fourth film is made, possibly addressing digital advertising along with print advertising. Basically, this film is much like a lecture, with Kilbourne discussing advertisements and how the subtly affect our lives, making women feel as though they can never live up to unrealistic ideals all while objectifying us. Oh believe me, it's pretty infuriating. I'm also amazed at how Special K's advertising campaign has changed in the last 8 years, from being proactive to being a diet plan. Yeesh.

(Here's your fair warning - some of the ads she shows are graphic, but they are ads from fashion magazines...you've probably seen most of them before.)