The Daily Pixel: Gearing up

Creamy and healthy-ish. Click here for the recipe.

Bonus points for me. I cleaned the office and it's more or less still tidy two weeks later.

A few years ago, Goliath had some dental work done. And by dental work, I mean he had 10 teeth pulled. (Brush your puppies' teeth, people!) He still retains most of his chompers, but some of his lower fronts now seem to point every which way. That is, until he knocked one out last week! Of course, he probably saved this bad dog mommy a bunch of money since the tooth was already loose and painful. I'm still traumatized from the experience, but G seems to be just fine.

Sooommmeeeeonnnneeee doesn't like rug shopping.

Despite daytime temperature swings (90-50-80 over the last two weeks), the Fall fleurs seem to be happy.

The first big storm of the season called for fire, of course. I made super tasty veggie chowder and T conjured flames. (Eagle eyes: Yes, that is a nose on our fire place.)

T survived the trip to Home Goods where we found this pretty patterned rug. And then we set up the new bed frame that we bought in, oh, August. Slowly by surely!

A quick trip to Phoenix for me. I guest lectured in a friend's class last week, teaching for the first time since April. I almost forgot how much I like the classroom!

Soooo, I might have called Mr. T to assess whether or not we had enough dog left to justify buying 42 pounds of kibble at Costco. I mean, Goliath is turning 13 (or 14?) this year... T responded that I probably just killed the dog. Actually he said I was "stabbing him in the little doggy heart" with my words and he warned me not to be surprised if Goliath croaked during my shopping trip. You would think I'd have learned not to tempt fate by now, but no.

Survived my 18th (or 19th?) blood donation. Have I mentioned that it's easy? And you get snacks? Learn more about visiting the "vampires" here.

Not only did these brownies--comprised of a shortbread cookie layer, brownie layer, caramel layer and chocolate fudge layer--take forever, they turned out not even "okay." Thanks to a rock hard sheet of caramel, these buggers were impossible to cut and eat without falling apart or getting severely irritated. Grrrrr! Though I must admit, we took them on a picnic the next day (quaint, right? Taking your brownies on a picnic?). After leaving them in the sun for 20 minutes, they became edible and even tasty. If I make them again, I will use the caramel trick from Pioneer Woman's Knock-You-Naked brownies. Or I'll just make those again!

We visited Amador County with friends and enjoyed a lovely picnic of lemon-thyme pasta salad (more on that later), fresh fruit, hummus, a variety of cheeses, crackers and breads, and melty Twix brownies.

After wearing shorts and flip flops in our 80-degree picnic weather, I almost forgot it was Fall until I spotted this remarkable tree in our neighborhood.

Labels: bedroom, Blood donation, brownies, color, Cooking, decorating, Fall, flying, Goliath, mac and cheese, Mr. T, personal, photography, photos, picnic, The Daily Pixel, Travel