I Keep Getting Free Stuff...

.... And I LOVE it!

Last week thanks to one of my favorite bloggers, Emz, I won this...

All I did was introduce her to the wonders of my favorite Australian band, Sneaky Sound System.  She runs lots of marathons and needed some new tunes.  Check out her blog because she is super cool and totally inspirational!  AND how perfect is this gift card for helping me complete number 87 on my bucket list - Make an awesome running playlist!  Thank you Em!

Then yesterday in the mail I received this from REread!

It's a cute little deer brooch.  It was packaged in the most fun envelope made from pages of the Jungle Book. I always forget how great it is to get things in the mail!  It is so special especially in this day of the internet where you never get letters or packages in the mail - just bills.  Thank you ever so much!

Lastly, I received this....

It's a basket of tulips and a tomato plant from an old man named Bill who I talk to when I walk Heidi.  I will try to forget about the fact that the day before he said that I, "Didn't look like a vegetarian," because I'm "not skinny," but I'm "healthy looking and easy on the eye".  I will take this as a genuine welcome to the neighborhood and not an "I'm sorry I am an awkward old man" apology. He also flew the American flag outside his estate for me, and asked me to deliver a message to Obama for him....

So Mr. President, I'm not sure if you're a fan of Kelly Leigh Gets Busy, but if you are,  Bill would like me to tell you that he would very much appreciate it if you got the British troops out of the war.  Thanks!

100 Things to do Before I Die / The Bucket List

1. Be an extra in a movie or TV show
2. Run races.
• 5k race.
• 10k race.
• Half marathon.
• Full marathon.
3. Complete a Canicross event
4. Complete a Triathlon. 
5. Scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef
6. Get scuba certified.
7. Scuba dive a shipwreck.
8. See a whale shark in real life.
9. Finish knitting a scarf from start to finish.
10. Keep honey bees.  (they're going extinct you know?)
11. Ride elephants in Thailand.
12. Go on Safari in Africa.
13. Take the GRE
14. Get experience at a vet clinic.
15. Go to vet school.
16. Make a 6 figure salary for a year.
17. Sell a piece of artwork.  
18. Visit every continent. 
• North America
• South America
• Europe
• Asia
• Africa
• Australia
• Antarctica (Not too fussed about this one to be honest)
19. Have a photo shoot with my friends and pretend we are really very fabulous for a day.  Hey Friends - You game?
20. Take a photography class.
21. Ride in a hot air balloon. 
22. Own a horse.
23. Own chickens that lay fresh eggs and make an omelet.
24. Teach Heidi the Japanese Dog Catch.
25. Teach Heidi to clean up her toys.
26. Write a blog with 500 followers.
27. Go a whole month without taking a naps.  (silly I know but I suck at this).
28. St Patrick's day in Ireland.
29. Learn to skip stones - at least 4 bounces. 
30. Mardi Gras in New Orleans. 
31. Join a team.
32. Volunteer.
33. Road trip across the USA. 
34. Visit Amish country.  
35. Go to Disney world.
36. Read 12 books in a year. (suggestions welcome)
37. Find out if blondes really do have more fun. (ie: dye my hair - eeek)
38. Hitchhike somewhere even though it seems super scarey. 
39. Live in an organized home.  
40. Create one room in the house that is perfect.
41. Create a dream home.
42. Sew a dress from scratch.  
43. Go on a cupcake crawl in Chicago.  Amy, Liza, Sarah, Lisa - anyone game for this in August???
44. Catch a ball at a major league baseball game.
45. Complete a successful camping trip with Nick.  (must last 3 days, 2 nights minimum)
46. Create a family cookbook with famous family recipes (A little help here Suzy and mom?)
• I'm CRAVING Papa's rhubarb pie right now.  Anyone know the recipe?
47. Send my parents on a vacation to thank them for paying for my college education and my wedding and just tolerating me for so long.
48. Cook a meal using only food that I have grown or foraged.
49. Throw myself a birthday party.
50. Contribute something significant to saving a species from extinction.
51. Establish mutual friends/social circle with Nick.
52. Learn some Spanish. - complete Rosetta stone perhaps?
53. Show up at the airport/train station and take the first plane/train I can get.
54. Go vegan for a week.
55. See the cherry blossoms in Japan.
56. Give only handmade Christmas presents one year.
57. Spend Christmas money on completing one of the items on this list, instead of buying stupid gifts no one ever uses.
58. Host a holiday family gathering.
59. Visit a volcano.
60. Get featured in a newspaper for doing something cool.  Obituary doesn't count.  
61. Make friends with a stranger on the street.
62. Go dog sledding. 
63. See a moose.
64. Play 18 holes of golf proficiently. 
65. Ride a camel to the pyramids in Egypt.
66. Exercise 3 times a week. 
• For a week
• For a month
• For two months
• For three months
• For six months
• For a year
67. See pink river dolphins in the Amazon.
68. Wear a dress/skirt everyday for a month.
69. Write 52 postcards.  I will need your addresses for this.
70. Get Nick a complete surprise birthday present that he actually likes.
71. Build a really sweet tree house.
72. Have an awesome dress up collection.
73. Collect hats - 12 girly hats, 12 boyish hats, and a few unisex ones for good measure.
• 1 girl hat so far.  
74. Have dinner party and make the guests each wear said hats for the evening.
75. Figure out a way to give up facebook, or use it positively and not like an addiction.  
76. Acquire neat heirloom to pass down - do you think my wedding and engagement rings count?.
77. Be an audience member on a TV show.
78. See a burlesque show.
79. Attend a black tie gala (not as a waitress!)
80. Buy a cute outfit at a second hand store.
81. Watch baby turtles hatch and head for the ocean.
82. Make ice cream from scratch.
83. Make successful homemade vegetarian marshmallows.  
84. Have a wardrobe filled with things I love.
85. Learn to do a circus trick.
86. Sell all the crap in our house on ebay or donate it or throw it out.
87. Make an awesome running playlist 2 hours long.  (A stupid one but I always use shuffle and have been putting this off for a really long time).
88. Cook Nick breakfast everyday before work.  
• For a week
• For a month
• For three months
• For six months
• For a year
89. Attend a music festival.
90. Have creepy old fashioned portraits hanging in my hallway of every member of my immediate family.
• Mom
• Dad
• Dani
• Lizzie
• Nick
• Heidi
• Maddy
91. Go to a comedy show and laugh till I cry.
92. Go to the ballet.
93. Donate blood - I was never allowed to in college because I've been to Africa, but I think the ban is up!
94. Inspire someone else to make a 100 things to do / bucket list and then steal one of their ideas.
95. Put their idea here.
96. Go to an estate sale and buy something.
97. Write and illustrate a children's book.
98. Make a scrapbook.
99. Ride a mechanical bull.
100. Cross off all items from this list.

Hope you like my list friends!  The best way to keep me getting busy is to write items down and cross them off!  I'm sure you all know that I am a huge list maker by now, and even though I have lists going for lots of things, I didn't have a bucket list.  Seems pretty important don't you think?  It took me a lot longer to write this than I thought it would, especially the last 20 or so items.  It's still a bit of a work in progress so I reserve the right to edit it as I see fit.  I would love to read your lists if you have them too!  Also, does anyone want to do a bucket list challenge, ie first one to complete so many items wins 50 bucks or something similar?  I can always use a little extra motivation.  

Too American?

So yesterday the husband and I go out and take the dog for a hike as is our usual weekend ritual.  As we're walking Heidi, he looks at me and says,

"You really need some new pants.  You dress too American"

"Too American?  What does that even mean?"

He goes on to explain to me that we Americans run around in hoodies and sweatpants and that is perfectly acceptable in Ohio, but not so much in England.   Furthermore, he says in much kinder words that I basically have turned into a frumpy little housewife.  I was a bit offended, but I took a good hard look at myself and thought... 

"Am I currently wearing really old American Apparel leggings which are covered in paint and have holes in the ass?  Do I wear a variation of old sweatpants covered in paint and full of holes almost everyday?"

Guilty.

Shit.  He's right.  I'm frumpy as hell.  But here is where the problem lies.....I take the dog hiking every morning.  Every morning she runs into mud, and then jumps on me.  Then I come home, covered in mud, and spend most my days applying to jobs online.  Where is the incentive to get dolled up?  

The husband has a few theories regarding my current state of sweat pant loving.

1. It is affecting my self esteem.  Poor self-esteem is bad for employment.
2. Sweatpants are more acceptable in America, and in our very small town in England we need to be making good impressions all the time so we can establish ourselves here.  Sweatpants = bad first impression.
3. I have become so focused on promoting my inner qualities when applying for jobs, that I have forgotten that outside appearances are important too.  
4. If I look better I will feel better.

I think he's right.  Now this isn't a fashion blog, lets be honest, I ate way too many whole sticks of butter as a child to ever be trendy, and I promise you won't be seeing me and my big boned self doing outfit posts anytime soon, but I need your help.  I need to create a dog walking "uniform" that I can wear every day so I no longer look like a frumpy American housewife.  In fact, I'd like to go for the American MILF look if possible?  Oh right I guess I'm not a mom.  Well trophy wife in that case.  I would love it if any of you fashionistas out there could help me with my dog walking uniform.  I need something that makes me feel pretty, is comfy, something I won't mind too much if it gets dirty, and shoes I can hike in.   Thanks for your help!!!

A Good Sandwich for a Bad Day

So the first time I made this I was feeling rough.  I forget why.  It was just a bad day.  So I let myself go.  I let myself go ahead and eat this gooey butter mess of fabulousness and forget about the fact that maybe I shouldn't be doing such things because butter does nothing for my waistline.  Now I want to have a bad day everyday so I can have a good excuse to devour this....

I'll show you how to make it too in case you need a little pick me up in the form of grilled cheese.  But lets not get too technical here people it is grilled cheese after all.

Apple Cheddar Grilled Cheese

Ingredients

• 1 apple (sliced thin)
• 1 hunk of butter
• A few good pieces of cheddar cheese, I use a mild one, Red Leicester to be exact
• margarine 
• 2 slices of bread
• 1 -2 teaspoons of grey poupon mustard 

In a pan over medium heat, add your butter and apple and cook until it has softened up nicely.  Meanwhile, coat one side of each slice of bread with margarine (duh it's grilled cheese).  When your apples are ready pile them up on your bread (the non buttered side) and then add your cheese and a spoonful or two of mustard.    

Exhibit A:

Place the buttered side down in your pan and add the second slice on top buttered side up.  Cover your sandwich with a lid while it's cooking to help the cheese reach its optimal meltiness.  That is VERY important. Make sure you flip it when its nice and golden and do the same to the other side.

Then be ready for a taste explosion of pure happiness in your mouth.

It is SO good.

When I was a kid I used to make grilled cheese with my best friend ALL the time.  We used to want to open up a restaurant that only served variations of grilled cheese.  After eating this I think maybe we should look into that idea further.  Our other employment idea for "when we grew up" was working as elves in Santa's workshop.  For some reason the grilled cheese restaurant seems more viable.

Purple Broccoli with Orange Ginger Dressing

Look at this pretty purple broccoli we got from Riverford last week.  I've never even seen purple broccoli before so I really had no idea what to do with it.  But I wanted something light and springy for dinner tonight so I whipped up an orange ginger dressing for the broccoli and served it over cous cous. 

I used two big handfuls of purple sprouting broccoli, threw them into a pot of boiling water for about 3 minutes, and plunged them into ice water to stop them from cooking.  

Ingredients for Orange Ginger Dressing

• Freshly squeezed juice from two oranges
• Zest from 1 orange
• 1 shallot
• 1 inch piece of ginger
• 2 tablespoons of sour cream
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Mix all the ingredients for the dressing together.  

I made some couscous, cooking it with apple juice instead of water to make it extra fruity and flavorful. 

Put the broccoli on top of the couscous and then pour the dressing over the dish.

This dish felt totally fresh and clean and healthy.  The orange was the overwhelming flavor, but the ginger added a little something extra.  The only disappointing thing about this was the broccoli lost its vibrant purple color when it was cooked.  

Heads Up!

I keep seeing these fake taxidermy wall mounts all over the place and I feel like they'd be perfect for decorating our super duper boring insane asylum white walls.

Via Ruby's Lounge, on Etsy

Nick thinks they are pretty much hideous.  But I think they are so much fun!  Can you imagine what a good conversation starter one of these would be?  "Hey, where'd you get that alien head on your wall?"

Via Mornin Glori, on Etsy

Or how bout a white rabbit feltidermy?  It looks so happy just hanging out there.  

Via Girl Savage, on Etsy

Look even Anthropologie is selling them, meaning I must not be completely out of my mind, because anything Anthropologie sells is inherently cool, right? RIGHT?! 

Via Anthropologie

Ever since working with them, I've had a little obsession for rhinos so I am totally loving that rhino head.  But, for some reason on their website I can only find the giraffe and zebra for sale.  Not that it matters, as the husband has firmly put his foot down on heads in the house.  

Question - When will he learn that women do the decorating?  Maybe our relationship hasn't quite caught up to modern day equal man/woman relationships, but lets get real - he goes to work, I do the cooking, the ironing, and various other womanly tasks. (Apparently my husband has never heard of the women's lib movement, sorry Susan B. Anthony looks like you did all that work for nothin).  Anyways, I don't get why decorating needs to be a collaborative effort.  We don't have style, I have style.  And as long as he asks me if his ties match his shirts every morning then I should have free reign to decorate right?  I think so.

So what do YOU think?  To hang heads or not to hang heads?  That is the question!

*Note: my husband isn't actually as chauvinistic as I am making him out to be.  Our current separation of duties is a result of my FUNemployment, not him being an A-hole.  

Braised Leeks with Creamy Mustard Vinaigrette

Hey Friends!  Luckily for my silly ego not everything I made yesterday was a complete flop like my mallows.  I made this warm veggie dish with mustard vinaigrette that was pretty tasty and healthy, thanks to Deborah Madison and her fab cookbook that I seem to keep coming back to.  

Ingredients for the Veggies

• 5 Leeks
• 2 carrots
• 1 stalk of celery
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 bouquet garni (basically just a bundle of herbs, but you can buy them in teabag form if you're lazy like me)

Trim the dark green bits and the ends off the leeks and cut in half.  Slice carrots and celery thinly.  Throw everything in a large pot and bring to a boil, cooking for 15-25 minutes until everything is tender.  

Meanwhile, you can whip up this awesome dressing.

Ingredients

• Juice of one lemon
• 2 shallots, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons capers
• The recipe calls for these too but we didn't have them...
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley 
• 2 tablespoons chopped chives

Since we started getting all our veggies from an organic farm delivery scheme, sometimes we don't know what we're getting and sometimes we get stuff that we just wouldn't ordinarily use.  I find that things like celery and carrots are always the last to go as I never know what to do with them.  But they tasted great in this dish.  I have to tell you that the outermost layer of the leeks was a little tough, but I am a VERY impatient cook (it's my tragic flaw - well one of them anyways) so it's probably my fault.  The dressing was definitely the shining star of this and you could pretty much put it on anything and I think it would make it taste good.  It would be excellent for a potato salad to take on a little spring picnic!

Mallow Making : Take 2

After my last failure I've been searching high and low for a decent veggie mallow recipe.  One without too many weird ingredients and I came up with this.


I don't want to go into the details of the recipe.  But I followed it pretty much perfectly.  And I ended up what can only be described as a viscous milky liquid that resembles... well I won't say what it resembles because I am a lady you know... lets just call it stuff.

What I had was stuff.  With a crunchy layer of browned sugar on top.

Nothing even close to a marshmallow.  Just gross. Disgusting!  And now I'm sad.  Very very sad.

I just want a mallow!

A Mini Herb Garden

Ever since we moved here I've been wanting to plant a few herbs for cooking purposes.  Any food snob knows that having your own herb garden is pretty much essential.  Buying the herbs fresh from the grocery store is so expensive and some always go to waste.  But if they're planted the herbs will last ages.  So today Nick and I headed to our local nursery to pick up everything we need to create fresh and delicious spring dishes.  Carrying everything home without a car was pretty rough, but luckily my big super musclely husband carried the pot home!  Oh and all together, the compost, plants, and pot only costs £20!  Not bad, eh?

From top left clockwise we have our major contenders, French Parsley, Oregano, Purple Sage, Moroccan Mint, and my personal favorite Chocolate Peppermint!  Oh my gosh does that stuff smell good!

We're still missing a few of the big players, like Rosemary and Basil, but we're only so buff you know.  Maybe next weekend.

I hope they grow super fast so we can start using them!

ps.  What are your thoughts on garden gnomes?  The nursery had tons of them!  They also had a snow white.  What do you think, snow white and the seven dwarfs - the perfect garden accessories?

How Far Would YOU Go... For a Burrito?

Well, I for one, would jump through all sorts of hoops to get my hands on a semi decent burrito in jolly old England.  Unfortunately, authentic Mexican food is hard to come by here.  Not that you can blame the Brits, its not like they have any Mexicans swimming the English channel to get into the country.

But lucky for us, we have discovered a burrito joint in the middle of our local mall (and by local I mean it requires a bus journey AND a train journey to get there - we really do live in the country folks).  Maybe I never grew out of my tween before I got my drivers license phase, but I was pretty pleased my husband decided to take me on a Friday night date to the mall food court.

Chilango.... sound a bit like Chipotle?  Well it is! It's a complete knock off.  We don't mind though.  It's the best damn burrito this side of the Atlantic and we were happy....

So we chowed down.  Thank you Chilango!  I sure needed my burrito fix!

ps.  Is it just me or am I constantly stuffing my face lately?

Happy Birthday Sister!

Today is my little sister's 21st birthday!!  She's all grown up now I guess.  I wish I could post embarrassing pictures of our childhood together, but unfortunately those are all across the ocean.  So this will have to do...

Isn't she beautiful?

Clearly, she will have never had a drop of alcohol before tonight...

First time we got our littlest sister intoxicated off our great uncle's homemade kirsch.

Don't worry we were in France.  Stuff like that is legal there.  

This is my fave picture of them ever!  Aren't they so pretty?

Happy 21st Birthday (month) Princess!  

Love you!

Let's Talk about the Weather

People in England love to talk about the weather.  It's one of those British stereotypes that is just SO true (FYI the stereotype about their teeth is less true).  But to be honest, when it comes to British weather, there isn't much to talk about.  The weather in England is pretty much like the people here.  It's got a stiff upper lip and it never reveals much raw emotion.  Maybe I'm a bit of a Midwestern drama queen but I like my weather a little more extreme.  I like my snowstorms in the winter, and my cracking lightning and thunder with down pours of rain in the summer.  In England the weather is just so moderate *yawn*.  No natural disasters around here!

Anyways everyone across the globe seems to be bragging about spring lately, how the temperature is perfect and its sunny and beautiful.  Well we had one good spring day this weekend, but it's back to ever so ordinary grey skies and slightly chilly temperatures for now.  Fingers crossed we'll get more brag-worthy weather soon, but here are some pictures of spring in the English countryside.  Hope you like them!

The Endless Job Hunt

via weheartit

I totally fell for this bullshit.  My first year of college, we had this funny little man with bright yellow sneakers come in and talk to our class about just doing what you LOVE.  I was so into it.  At the end of that day I had scheduled an appointment to talk to the curator of large mammals at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  She was awesome.  Then somehow my mom's catering company started catering a function called Angels in Flight, for cheetah conservation.  Here my mom was introduced to a cheetah conservationist.  Before I knew it, I had applied to do a student internship in Namibia, at the Cheetah Conservation Fund and I was spending my summer hanging out with cheetahs and tracking leopards.  It was fabulous of course.

Tracking radio-collared mom and cubs in Namibia

Meanwhile, my dad was encouraging me to get a business degree and I was insisting that I just wanted to work with animals.  I started off studying biology, but I got so sick of hearing about the premed kids and their stupid MCAT, that I transferred my major to Environmental Science.  After a stint working with elephants and rhinos at the Cincinnati Zoo I concluded that while these animals were amazingly cool being a professional pooper scooper just wasn't for me.  I honestly enjoyed the physical labor, but I wanted to use more of my sciencey brain than I needed for that job.  I later decided that I wanted to go to vet school, so I ended up taking all the bio classes on top of my envi sci degree.

Which leads me to my current state of getting busy - the job hunt.  I chose my degree based on what I wanted to do, what I thought I would LOVE doing. Now can someone please tell me how the hell I find a job doing it?  Because at this point my magna cum laude Environmental Science degree from a prestigious-ish university is getting me absolutely nowhere as far as gainful employment goes.  Everyone kept telling me, "Kelly with your grades you'll land a great job!"  I'm not one to brag, but my GPA is quite high thanks to a year of studying abroad in Australia (70% and up transferred home to a 4.0 - cha-ching!)

Swimming with wild seals in Australia

Now I've forgotten finding a job I love, I'm on the hunt for just finding a job - ANY job.  But I can't even get an interview.  Surprisingly, "daily maintenance of elephant enclosures" just isn't relevant work experience.  So maybe those do what you love feel gooders are right - I've chosen a career path I LOVE, and from the looks of it, I'll never have to WORK another day because no one will HIRE me.

That business degree is looking good right about now.

Anyone want to read my resume?

A Lazy Boy and Girl

I have been replaced as Nick's chief snuggle partner.  I never thought it would happen this soon into our marriage.....

We've inherited a lazy boy from our bachelor landlord, and no couch.  We left our old one when we moved, because the back had to be cut out of it when a rat decided to make its home there (true story).  So we're on a hunt for a new couch, and we've spent many days Goldiloxing, but one is always too hard, too soft, too ugly, or too expensive.  We have yet to find one that is "just right."

Until we find a piece of furniture that is big enough for the three of us, I think this will be a common sight in our living room.

Look at her in that welcome sailor position! What a little skank!

My Peeps are Totally Failures!!

Hi Friends.  I need to apologize.  Last week I promised that I would have an amazing vegetarian peep recipe up and running.  Unfortunately, I've had a few pitfalls along the way.  I attempted to create vegetarian peeps using this recipe and this recipe, from who else - Martha Stewart of course!

Problem 1 : I needed to get my chubby little fingers on a candy thermometer.  Easier said than done.  After a couple days of fruitless searching, I ended up buying one off Amazon.

On Saturday it arrived so I headed to the kitchen with tons of enthusiasm!  I had purchased food coloring and a new piping set and I recruited the husband as sous chef and figured we would have great fun creating new peep animals.  I had an underwater theme in mind - peep octopus anyone???

First I used used my food coloring to color some sugar.  I only had red and yellow... But I do what I can.

Problem 2 : I added the gelling agent to the water.  I used agar flakes, to replace regular gelatin, and substituted them on a one to one ratio.  We didn't realize anything was wrong at this point, but looking back I don't think agar is a direct substitute for gelatin.

Next we boiled the sugar and water mixture, bringing it to the soft-ball stage as Martha instructs.

Check out our stove- how awful is that?

We took it off the heat, stirring, and then using a hand mixer to attempt to form soft marshmallowy peaks.

Problem 3 : Our hand mixer appears to have been made around the same time they invented electricity.  Thus, it doesn't move too fast, and no soft peaks were formed.  We transferred the syrupy mixture to our food processor with the whipping attachment in place, but no cigar.  We got a few bubbles in the syrup and thats pretty much it.

I'm totally devastated.  I feel like I lied to you, and I can't even eat my feelings with fresh peeps.  I just want to bite off their stale and delicious heads like the rest of omnivorous Christian society the week after Easter, but alas, I'm stuck with nothing more than a gooey pot of sugar water.  Martha has never let me down before, so I am blaming my appliances and agar gelatin replacement.  

I hope you can forgive me!!!

ps.  I found some gelatin free mallow recipes, but not for piping mallow, and none of them used agar.  I will be investigating this matter further.

One Eventful Walk

Everyday I take Heidi for a walk, and we usually hike in the woods along the river.  Today, like we do every weekend, Nick and I got up and took Heidi into the woods.  We were walking along as usual when this tiny little bird flitted past, and Heidi's gun dog genes kicked in.  The bird wasn't a very good flier, I'm not sure if it was a fledgling or it was injured, but it certainly couldn't fly properly and this made it look even more fun for a puppy to play with.  Luckily it jumped behind a fence where it was safe.... or so we thought.

Heidi stared at it intently and ran up and down the fence trying to get to it.  We didn't realize that the fencing stopped about a foot away from a CLIFF.  Heidi got behind the fence, and was chasing this poor little bird.  It was terrified and we were shouting at her to stop (I didn't want to see a bird murder today), but the bird flitted straight off the side of the cliff!  And SO DID HEIDI!

Right into the river!  (She is right in the middle of this picture)  Nick sprung into heroic mode and told me to stay and talk to her while he found a safe way down.  It was about a 20 foot drop!  She seemed to be limping and I was worried she was seriously injured.  So I talked to her and she kept trying to get to me, she even learned to swim!  Nick started to craw down the cliff on a slightly less steep part.  Meanwhile as I was trying to help him navigate his way down, I turn around to find my energetic puppy, who had somehow managed to climb her way back up this cliff!  

(Well not this cliff specifically, but this is near where we were walking)

We have no idea how the hell she managed to get back up!  But the next problem we had was trying to get Nick back up.  He is not a naturally born athlete like our dog.  Heidi was trying to go down and save him, but I wouldn't let her.  Luckily, he finally managed to climb back up.  We thought we'd have to rush straight to the vet, but Heidi had other ideas.  She just wanted to play.  In fact, she was absolutely fine, as demonstrated by this blurry photo...

Cool As a Cucumber

Spring has finally sprung here in England, and along with the house, I think my body can use a little spring cleaning too.  All of winters stodgy meals have taken it's toll on me, so for now, I'm trying to go back to the basics, (and back to my thighs NOT touching) by eating mostly fruit and veggie based dishes.  I will admit that the sugar in this recipe probably isn't the best for my spring cleaning regime, but give me a break will ya?

Ingredients

• 1 cucumber, sliced as thinly as possible
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 4 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp red chili flakes
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Mix salt, vinegar, sugar, chili flakes, and sesame seeds in a small bowl to make a dressing.  Pour over cucumber.  

Bingo, bango, bongo - DONE!

This cucumber salad hit all the right notes.  It's an excellent combination of sweet, sour, and spicy - though it was pretty fiery so you may want to use less chili flakes to tone it down a bit if you're not a real spice lover.