Settling...

Travis is settling into the house and routine, I am still adjusting to having to share my space, but it is a good thing.
He has been organizing his 'study', we put up a book case, and set up his computer desk, so he has a quiet place to study and read when his classes start in August.

Sharing a bathroom is new, it has been a while since I've had to do that. He hasn't yet spit toothpaste on the back of my head yet, so I think we're doing pretty good.


Last weekend we went to the Japanese Gardens, in the same area as the Portland Zoo. Beautiful place, very authentic according to all the literature. I would never have found it on my own, but I'm glad I went. It would make a supremely lovely place to host a wedding / reception. (Although I am sure it would cost you tons of money).

Travis is getting me to watch 'Queer as Folk', and I'm getting him to watch 'Dexter', so we are rubbing off on one another. We will eventually run out of episodes of Dexter, so now it will be a debate as to whether I torture him with 7 seasons of The West Wing, or if I slowly maneuver him into watching the 35 or so episodes of Twin Peaks. (He will watch TWW sooner or later, as its one of my faves, I tend to watch it in my regular rotation, although I don't 'power load' the episodes.)

Beau seems to be doing ok, I had to double his medication levels to keep him stable. The good news is that it seems to be working and he is clearing back up from his latest outbreaks. The bad news is that now the medication lasts only half as long, so it costs me twice as much. It really is a punch in the gut to shell out $320 per month on my dog for pills. (And that doesn't include the other pills he's on, plus his Rx food.) It is a good thing he's so cute. (He's been super stinky lately, his belches have cleared the living room twice now.... egads. How can something so cute create something so foul?)

Today is the weekly grocery shopping trek.

60 days until I take Travis to Alaska.

I can't wait!

Cheez and Whine

My company is hosting these huge series of events to celebrate 125 years of operation. As one of the events, they solicited all of the employees (myself included) to submit their favorite personal recipes. They were going to compile them, review them, and eventually put them together into a cookbook that will be for sale later this year, with the proceeds going to the company charitable foundation. (We give water, food, supplies, grants and donations to communities, projects, and disaster aid areas).

Out of 3,800 recipes, they picked 300 to go into the book.

The recipe I submitted was selected to go into the book.

Pretty cool, huh?

Except that now I have to have my picture taken to go with my recipe. Yuck.

My mother and I perfected a white wine cheese fondue recipe years ago, and that is what I submitted.
The secret ingredient?

That will cost you the purchase price of the cook book.

I'll let you all know when they are available. =)