Random Thoughts + Recent Favorites

Hello hello! I haven’t done an entirely random post in ages and ages, and that’s all I’ve got right now. I swear on the days I didn’t have uninterrupted writing time this week, I had a cohesive post in my head. But alas, that post has vanished. And here I am with some thoughts floating around and the need to put them somewhere.

So, today you get a combination of a Thinking Out Loud and a Five Friday Favorites, because that is how life is shaking out right this second. That is, my pup decided to stop sleeping halfway through writing a post for Thursday and it then became a post for Friday.

1.) I think my Fitbit is dying and I’m not happy about it. To be fair, I’ve had it for a long time, so I don’t blame the quality. Still, they no longer make Fitbit Ones, and I like mine, and I don’t like change. No, it’s actually just that I have a hard time believing that the fact that I talk with my hands and move my arms around while cooking and cleaning and such won’t add a ton of steps to my daily count and affect the accuracy. Convince me otherwise! I’ll buy an Alta or something and probably fall in love with it.

2.) Ben and I started training last week and for a good three days after, he was a nightmare. He dramatically increased his people-biting and decreased his listening. His people bites are gentle, but he clings onto whatever object he bites. Frankly, he treated it like a game. “Oh, I get a treat when I stop doing the thing? Then I will do the thing, and stop when asked!” He’d listen for a few rounds, and then get so riled up that he stopped listening and kept doing the bad things. I texted the trainer to seek help and she said to mostly stop rewarding him with anything other than toys, praise, and clicks of his clicker. 

He just wanted treats. As if he doesn’t get enough already.

3.) When we went to the vet for his last round of puppy shots on Tuesday, Ben was an angel puppy, naturally. Our vet is so sweet and tried to get him to bite at her, but he just sat perfectly straight, as he does. She also suggested replacing some of his puppy treats with something less palatable, like Cheerios. But mostly everyone just fawned over how little and cute he is.

4.) After leaving Ben with a friend when we were in Chicago because he was too young to board, I knew I wanted to try boarding him when we go on vacation in July. 

Pippa is good to stay at home and chill all the time, and would hate being surrounded by barking, playing dogs all the time. Ben, on the other hand, requires either constant play, tough-to-chew treats, or naps. On Wednesday, he had an “interview” for boarding at the place where his trainer works, and he loved it!

The poor little dude had to be carried away from me at 10am, but when I picked him up six hours later, he had played a ton and was passed out on a little puppy cot. I’m so glad he loved it and did well, because I feel good knowing he’ll get worn out every day and get to meet new pups and that my cousin staying with Pippa won’t have her hands nearly as full.

Also, Ben was passed out for the evening after day camp, so that’s good information for days when I’m busy but I want him to have fun.

5.) I’ve made a whole bunch of yummy food lately! Some winners include:

• This double chocolate zucchini bread
• These blueberry crumb bars
• This peach cobbler (it’s a little more like a crisp, but we liked it better than this cobbler)
• These chicken salad-stuffed avocados
• This chopped Thai salad (with shrimp instead of edamame)
• These pickled onions

And one night I realized our cherries had gone very bad, very quickly so my intended cherry cucumber salad and pork chops with cherry barbecue sauce were out of the question. I improvised mustardy pork chops and creamy cucumber salad and it worked. Some kitchen wisdom from me to you: if you like mustard, take advantage of the fact that it goes with everything. It works in salad dressing. It works as a meat marinade. It calms down sweetness and richness in sauces. And you don’t need a ton of other ingredients to add flavor because it has so much.

Recent Faves

That header definitely said “recent faces” until I reviewed it. Anyway.

bA1 Sensory Rings

I have this desperate need to fidget with something when I’m reading, writing, or even just watching TV. The answer to this can sometimes be my fidget cube, but part of my thing is that I need to fidget with something a little scratchy. Is that weird? Yeah, I know. Basically, I need to rub a scratchy thing between my fingers in order to focus properly. Otherwise, I end up scratching the skin off my fingertips. Enter these sensory rings. They’re $9 for 10 of them on Amazon, and I adore them. They aren’t exactly rings you can wear comfortably because they’re thick and your hand wouldn’t close properly, but I roll them up and down my fingers and between them. They’re spiky (but not sharp!) and stretchy and fun to play with.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

This book (I listened to it on Audible) is hilarious and heart-wrenching. I had heard good things about it and honestly wasn’t that enticed by the description. See, I hate awkwardness. I want to avoid it at all costs. I want to help people out of awkward scenarios whenever I see them struggling. I do not want to read a book of one awkward situation after another because the main character is awkward herself. But I decided to give it a shot anyway, and I loved it. I think the key is that there’s an excellent story behind why Eleanor is the way she is, and she’s lovable despite being a bit frustrating. 

Quick Walks 

So, we still have some nightmarish evenings with Ben. He gets super riled up, wants to bite everything, wants to bark, etc. However, I’ve found that indulging his “requests” for walks more often helps a lot. When I was reading about puppies, everything I found said they don’t need lots of walking time. Just take them out to pee and walk them once for 15-20 minutes.

Okay, well that does not work for little Ben. He has too much energy!

I’ve been taking him out for two or three walks throughout the day, plus one in the evening, and that’s helped quite a bit. I’m used to Pippa’s 45-minute walks and didn’t want to get into the habit of a bunch of those every day, but he usually turns me around about 10 minutes from home and passes out afterward. It’s still a little hard to feel like I’m accomplishing much when I go out for a minimum of four walks a day, but if it’s what he needs while he’s a pup, we can make that work. Also, more podcast/audiobook time for me.

Camp Bow Wow

This where we’re doing Ben’s training and also where he’ll be staying while we’re in North Carolina. I so wish there was one closer to where I’ll be living come August because it would be nice to have him go occasionally to run out some of his energy while I’m at work.

It works really well for him because he’s a puppy who loves to be out and play and socialize. Pippa would hate it because she just wants to be left alone to sleep. They separate the dogs by size (I assume that’s standard), and since Ben is just above 15lbs, he’s technically “small”, rather than “teacup”, but they recognized that he might get overwhelmed by the bigger dogs (~40lbs) in the small play yard and let him hang in the teacup yard as much as he wanted, which was most of the time. I appreciate that, because I’ve definitely seen him show interest in bigger dogs and then almost immediately sit back with his ears pressed against his head and a frantic/scared look in his eyes.

Anyway, he really liked it and I like the setup, the fact that our trainer will be there part of the time, and that I can see him play via a live webcam. I probably won’t use it much, but I’ll totally check it out. Duh. I’ll miss my pup. (How cute would he be on the beach? But alas, our house isn’t pet friendly.)

Michael Pollan on Pyschedelics

Don’t confuse this for “Michael Pollan while he his on psychedelics”. I’ve never met Michael Pollan and have no idea what it would be like to interact with him while he’s on a trip. On Monday, I went to look at the week’s EconTalk because my podcast app has decided to always show me the oldest EconTalk, not the newest, and was surprised to see it was an interview with Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Food Rules, etc.) about psychedelics. It didn’t seem to fit his brand. Honestly, it still doesn’t.

However, it was all sorts of fascinating.

All I knew about psychedelics before came from a couple college friends and my AP US History class and can basically be summed up by “tripping on a long train ride makes it go by really fast… or really slow… it kinda depends” and “LSD will cause you to walk out a window decades later”. You can guess which information came from which sources.

Anyway.

I never would have guessed that psychedelics aren’t addictive or dangerous, or that they appear to change your brain in a similar way to years of practiced meditation. It was a strange and informative interview, and it was very different from most of Michael Pollan’s work!

And that’s all from me for the week! Have a wonderful weekend!

Your turn:

Talk me into a wrist fitness tracker!

What are you eating lately?

Are you a fidgeter?