He Likes it!

BzzAgent update!!  
It's official - my dog loves this and has remained fart-free!  :)

He is super picky when it comes to dog food, so this is really something!  He eats it and digests it too.  I'm impressed that Science Diet came out with a dog food this great.  Frankly, their other dog foods aren't that great and filled with, well, fillers.  Congrats Science Diet for stepping up to the plate and making a food really meant for dogs and not mutant semi-carnivorous cows.

Remember, I'm a BzzAgent and got a bag of this for free.

Become a BzzAgent too!  It's fun, you discover new products, and get to spread the Bzz (good or bad)  http://www.bzzagent.com/

Science Diet Bzz Campaign

I'm in a new Bzz Campaign! Gonna try some new dog food. I'm pretty picky about what dog food I buy. It can't have soy for sure because dogs can't digest it so it's a waste of money filler. Also (and maybe even more importantly) it (and most grains) makes dogs fart. A farting dog is not a fun dog to have in the room. Luckily Science Diet now has a grain-free version of this dog food, yay!

I just ordered it and will report back if my picky dog will eat it and if he farts after :)

Go to the Science Diet site and you can get a rebate to try it free for yourself, well your dog can try it... unless you're into that sort of thing.
http://www.hillspet.com/ideal-balance/ideal-balance-home.html

The Perfect Bed *Update*

It's perfect! Peoples of the world, you do not need to spend a fortune on a pillow top, everything squishy built in to it mattress!

The Super Snooze 5-inch 230 Thread Count Baffled Featherbed came from Overstock and I finally put it on the bed and *a moment of silence for the incredible awesomeness* it is awesome! Complete opposite of the fiberfill polyester back-breaking lumpfest that will soon be re-fashioned into floor or body pillows.

The featherbed feels puffy and silky to sleep on. It's definitely more comfortable than sleeping directly on the memory foam - cooler and works with the foam to mold to your body, but adds a bit more gentle, movable support.

The beauty of this is when the foam, featherbed, or mattress wear out, I can replace just that part, not an entire $2000 mattress with the foam and feathers built in. I love a good bargain!!

Fava Beans part 1

Our family has recently started receiving organic, local produce deliveries weekly. Let me tell you, it is amazing. In case you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, here's the one that we use: Albert and Eve.

One of the happy perks is that we get to try all kinds of new fruits and veggies that we probably wouldn't have purchased at the supermarket. This week we signed up to receive fava beans, mostly unheard of aside from the clip above (sad, I know).


Fava beans come inside their little pod like peas and have to be shelled. The pod itself is edible, but apparently doesn't taste very good.


The instructions I read said to use a knife and cut vertically. This worked out horribly and I wouldn't recommend it.


Instead, I used my knife and cut horizontally in the middle, between beans. You can also just snap them apart with your fingers, but that can be a bit more challenging.


Now you can see that there are little beans inside! How cute. They look like a cross between lima beans and brains. Aww! Okay, maybe that isn't too cute. Nevermind.


You can quite easily tear along the seam and the beans will just pop right out.


Pretty soon you'll have a nice little pile going. The photo shows beans from about 3-4 pods.


Pods: ready to be tossed or composted.


You know you've been shelling for too long when you start saving beans and naming them momma bean and baby bean.


After about 20 minutes, you go from this...


To this!

Stay tuned for part two: cooking the beans!

What I do at one in the morning

You've probably realized by now that this isn't going to be one of those blogs that makes its writers look really good.


This isn't going to be big on dignity, as the Doctor would say.


Just in case you're wondering who the Doctor is.


But at least it's clean now? Just ignore the mug on the table in the background. I know I am!

Shake the Shock

I have been horribly lax in writing lately. I think it was the shock and awe news that were are going to move several states away very soon! It's still freaking me out. How do you cool off a freak out? The perfect milkshake, of course! Without further ado here it is.
Here's what you need. Any vanilla ice cream (not the best, not the crappiest), chocolate sorbet, and malted milk.
Don't forget the milk. I'm using the best, healthiest milk ever. Not necessary, but very tasty.
Scoop half a carton of the vanilla into the blender (yes, that much).
The sorbet was a bit hard, but I managed.
Scoop half of the sorbet in too.
Add lots of malted milk. I like it really malty, so I probably put in about 1/2 cup.
Pour in some milk. I used about 1 cup total adding a little at a time and while pulsing the blender and coaxing the ice cream and sorbet to the bottom with a spoon (in between the pulsing because licking milkshake off the wall just doesn't taste as good).
Caution, constant nagging about when it will be ready can be heard over the sound of the blender.
And not just from the kids...
Blend and coax until it is mixed and almost pours.
Perfect! So creamy and frosty and malty and just the right chocolaty! As it melts, it becomes thinner and easier to drink through a straw, but who wants to wait for that?
Kid approved! Assuming you'll share. Pour and give away cups before you taste it or you might send them to bed and drink the entire batch yourself - really - it's that good.

So, I'm moving (slurp) really far away (slurp) in a very short amount of time (slurp). There's so much to do (slurp) and no certain time frame yet (slurp) - no worries - I'll manage somehow (slurp, slurp, aah). Yep, it shakes the shock.

Here's to sharing shock absorbers!
Pam

The Quest for the Perfect Bed

I have recovered from the exhausting work of cleaning out the drink cabinet, heh-heh, so I can tell you the tale of my quest for the perfect bed.

Brad Pitt says to get a regular firm mattress and put a memory foam topper on it for the perfect mattress. I thought, if Brad and Angie sleep on it, it must be pretty awesome, so I will too - er, only not with them, in my house... So after about 10 years on a very comfortable queen size bed with feather topper, we were finally ready to get a, gasp, king size.

Since moving a king bed is a similar experience to getting a root canal only without the drugs, I wanted some more portable options, so I found a steel frame that doubles as a box spring and folds up. Very cool! It's been great and the storage room is fantastic and it makes a great place to hide while playing hide-n-seek. Sleep Master King Steel Mattress Foundation from Kmart.
Then I went to Overstock and looked around. Bingo! There was the Adjust-A-Coil Plush 1-inch Foam Top King Mattress. A 8" firm mattress that comes in three pieces with a zippered cover to contain them. It is really weird and comfortable and amazing. Below you can see one of the spring segments oozing out of the twin size or maybe the someone gave up wrestling to put it in. They were a tight fit and we wrestled them a bit - and won!

They had plenty of memory foam pads too. I settled on a 4" 5.3 density. I wasn't sure how I'd like it since they have a reputation for making you sweaty and immobile and I don't need any help in either of those areas. It's been great! I can roll over, but I don't really want to and so far no more sweatier than normal. I was going to post a picture, but I think you know what a king size piece of 4" yellow foam looks like. I got this one: 4-inch Accu-Gold Visco Elastic Memory Foam Bed Topper

I dearly loved my featherbed on my old mattress, but they were fairly expensive, so I got a fiberbed figuring there has been lots of innovation there, I'll save some money and it'll be great. It's not. It is a lumpy, back-breaking disaster! It's like putting a bunch of small, firm polyester pillows on your bed 3- 4 inches apart. No... no, it's like sleeping on a large cobblestone road - while getting run over by a truck - not comfy!!

This is the one not to get, unless you like teetering on poofs of demon polyester that you can't return once you try it; Gusseted 300 Thread Count Antimicrobial Fiberbed. It's sold out now - those poor unfortunate souls. On the bright side, we're going to refashion it into some very awesome pillows - stay tuned.

In that last photo you got a glimpse of 'my precious'. Comforter shopping was disappointing and exhausting. Just when I was about to give up and get the next tacky piece of crap I saw, I decided to just get this one I had my eye on at Overstock. Both Annissa and I liked it based on the one photo and description, so I figured one of us was bound to find it acceptable. It's mine!!!! Lovely, well made, opulent thing of beauty. Wait... Okay, I'm back from lovingly gazing at it and stroking it gently.

The shams are to die for! It's perfect. It's this one, if you're looking for one; Westone Grace Embroidered 4-piece Comforter Set (pictures make it appear a little darker and yellower than actual do to the romantic lighting in that room. Okay, well kinda dim bulbs and a CFL in the ceiling fan, but let's call it romantic mood lighting.) The embroidery is so beautiful!

I've decided to replace the fiberbed from hell with this featherbed: Super Snooze 5-inch 230 Thread Count Baffled Featherbed. I figure it'll replace my much loved, now too small, one and protect against the potential for summer sweatiness on the foam. I'll let you know how this works out.

A box-springless, firm mattress with a memory foam topper and a featherbed. Maybe it's what George Clooney thinks is the perfect bed - yeah, that's it...

Sweet dreams!
Pam