weekend recap

• Friday night was spent playing games with janne and Thomas at their place. it was a low key evening but still loads of fun



• Saturday was spent running errands most of the day. it was janne's birthday and she was having a party in the evening. we spent most of the time looking for a present for her



• the original store we were going to get something from, a store she loves, had relocated but hasn't reopened yet.



• we felt doomed and were forced to search around.



• be braked for lunch in the middle of the day still empty handed. we ate at a soup and sandwich bar.



• best.soup.ever. the sandwich was pretty good too.



• feeling refreshed, we continued on our pursuit for a gift. we finally decided on getting a gift certificate at a sporting good store, because we knew she needed/was planning on buying things there and then a little something quirky from an antique store to round out the originality of the gift.



• we ended up getting her a beautiful set of deer book ends from the antique store and i was very jealous of them.



• her party was fun. lots of food, good friends and a fire late in the evening.



• theres nothing better than cool summer nights around a fire.



• Sunday was spent sleeping most the day. it rained the entire day and was very depressing.



• we gave Roxy a bath and now she's fluffy and squeaky clean.



• we went to the 8pm showing of shrek 3. it was hilarious! i didn't think it would be totally awesome, being the third and all. but it was really good! we had such a great time watching it and eating nachos.



• the rest of the evening was spent all 3 huddled up on the couch watching bad TV.



• although, i did learn where, when, how and why silly putty was invented.



• thank you history channel.

some pictures from janne's party:

my white trash news paper wrapped gift

strawberry flavored rice krispie treats with candy sprinkles on top. not tastey.

gregory and thomas feasting on sanwiches. jk-their making sandwiches

gregory enjoying the fire

domesticated living

Gregory hates broccoli but i had bought some and was determined to get him to eat it. i didn't want to do the ole "drown it in cheese" standby so i looked up a new recipes on allrecipies.com.
i found one without cheese in it, looked simple, and i already had the ingredients.
it was a "garlic sauce" but i didn't taste too much of the garlic in it because the soy sauce over powered it. that's rice, soy sauce as well. it also included brown sugar, white vinegar, butter and pepper.
it looked a little crazy so i was afraid it wasn't going to be good but Gregory loved it! and so did i.
with it i had also made breaded chicken for him and breaded scampi for me.
it was a delicious lunch if i do say so myself.

Gregory and i are trying to eat more healthy, and though with the sauce and bread this wasn't the healthiest meal on the planet, but i was still proud because i was trying to come up with something creative and i think i accomplished that. it wasn't just a chicken breast on top of rice with green beans. this week alone Gregory and i have eaten more vegetables in quantity and in variety than we have in any other given week. we usually have alot of starch with our meals be it pasta, rice or potatoes; whatever it is, its usually the staple of the meal. we've been trying to eliminate as much starch as we can which has been extremely hard considering that's all we ever eat! we haven't done ok this week i think. i think we can do better though. but for dinners I've been adding 2 vegetables instead of a starch and both of us agree that we don't even miss the potato or rice or what have you.


in other news, Gregory finally called the vet about Roxy, who had been in heat for about 5-6 weeks. apparently, in Belgium, pets don't get sterilized until after their first heat cycle anyway, which i think is very weird. so Gregory told her how long she was in heat for and the vet said that she should be sterilized if it had gone on that long, because sometime down the road she could have complications. which made me glad that the vet told Gregory it should be done for health reasons anyway because , it not being very common in Belgium to sterilize pets, i think he was feeling a little weird about it. they're not allowed to be fixed until 2 months after the first heat cycle, so the end of august she'll be ready to have surgery. it'll cost 300 euros! no wonder its not so common, it costs a small fortune!

we'll finally be able to return to puppy school on Sunday. her manners are starting to go down hill so she needs it.
i let her go to a field last night to run and when i called her back she didn't listen and instead ran further away. she needs to relearn to listen when we tell her to come for sure!

readjusting to Belgian time

after two weeks in the mother land, it was time to return to Belgium. i always seem to have a hard time readjusting to Belgium time. i usually nap in the middle of the day, even after going to bed early and sleeping in late. this time i put in a serious effort to just get used to the time, like I'm able to do in America.
the first few days while in America i awoke at 4am and the had a full productive day, retiring to bed around 10pm. once i became accustomed to the time i began waking at 7.30-8am. a perfect time, if you ask me-not too early, not too late.
so back in Belgium its been 5 days and I'm still screwed up! though I've been waking up at a "normal" hour (around 8am) and going to bed around 11-11.30, I'm still bone tired. 11 comes around and I'm not tired, I've been sleeping terrible so by the time morning arrives all i want to do is sleep! last night we hit the hay about 12pm and no matter how hard i tried i couldn't pull myself up when i was suppose to. 9.10am rolled around and Gregory had to get up to make it for work. i lingered in bed a few minutes longer, only to move to the couch. i napped until 10am! this is not what i had in mind at all!
i was hoping to return and get right back into the swing. i had goals to be very ambitious, waking early to walk Roxy, do my chores with plenty of time left over for other things. but it hasn't happened that way at all. I've been walking Roxy in the middle of the day, doing some chores and i haven't even made it to the gym. never mind the gym, i haven't gone to class yesterday or today. though yesterday wasn't entirely my fault, Gregory's car wouldn't start but i reeeeally didn't want to go anyway.
i hope next week will be better.