Kitty Update/Baking

Kitty went to the vet yesterday afternoon to figure out what's going on with her.  She got her blood drawn for testing, but the vet called this morning and said everything they tested for is normal.  So Kitty at least doesn't have diabetes.  What they think could be happening is she is developing early arthritis in her back right hip.  The vet felt each of the joints in Kitty's rear legs, and she had the strongest reaction to moving that joint around.  She didn't really have any reaction to the others, but she started growling and getting pretty angry when her right hip was played with.  I guess even though she is only five, pets are starting to develop arthritis at a younger age.  Since she is so young and isn't having any major movement problems (she can still easily get into her litter box, for example), they suggested putting her on a prescription joint diet to see if that helps.

Scott and I talked about it, and we are not going to try the diet quite yet.  The arthritis diagnosis doesn't seem to explain Kitty's sudden lack of appetite.  She went from begging for food all day, to barely touching what we gave her.  Also, there seemed to be no build-up to her leg problems, it just happened one day.  I think arthritis could explain her desire to just lie around all day and some of her jumping problems.  But she has started eating a little more the past couple days, and is moving around a lot more already (not as much as she does normally, but more than the weekend), so we are waiting to see if maybe she was just a little sore from something else, or just had a little bug that was making her feel a little under the weather.  I am just glad to here her blood work was fine and there is nothing major wrong.

On the baking front, last night I made some oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert, then after Scott went to bed I made some Irish soda bread to have for breakfast today and tomorrow (and probably dessert tonight, too).  I grabbed some raisins after I got off work on Monday, so I was trying to think of things I could make with raisins!  I put a bunch of extra cinnamon in the cookies and they were super delicious.  The dough was pretty darn good as well.  I had never made Irish soda bread before, so I used this recipe from allrecipes.  I halved the recipe to make only one loaf instead of two, and I used extra raisins instead of using raisins and currants.  I also didn't include the caraway seeds, and instead of apple cider vinegar I just used white vinegar, because that's what I had available.  It turned out pretty good!!  Here it is, after I already ate a piece, with some of the cookies:

Yum!!

I recently read Food Rules by Michael Pollan, and am currently working on one of his other books, The Omnivore's Dilemma.  He talks a lot about the dangers of processed or "industrial" foods.  I mean, I already knew processed food in general isn't good for us, but this has been sort of a wake-up call that I need to try harder to make things out of real ingredients.  So here's hoping Scott and I can continue to improve in what we eat.  Hopefully as a side effect I'll be magically ten pounds lighter next month!  Just pretend I didn't eat a bunch of cookies last night.  Hey, at least I made them myself with real butter and oats.  :)

Poor Kitty

I have three pillows on my side of the bed.  They are all supposed to be for me to sleep on, but in reality, I get the front pillow, and Kitty gets the two others, like so:

The little white pillow in front is what I sleep on.  Now, normally Kitty is a very social cat.  She'll always greet us at the door, sit on the lap of whoever is at a computer, hang out with us on the couch when we're watching TV, etc etc.  She is also usually very vocal, starting the minute someone walks in the door.  She wants to be noticed and make sure everyone is constantly paying attention to her!  The past few days, though, since she has not been feeling so well, she's been spending at least 20 hours a day on my pillows, if not more. She's barely making any noise at all.  It's so weird.  I scheduled a vet appointment for her for tomorrow afternoon.  I hope nothing is seriously wrong with her.  Her walking hasn't gotten any worse, but she still seems to be having trouble jumping up more than a foot or so, and she always seems to be just slightly off-balance.

This is Kitty's pathetic "Mommy, I don't feel good" face.  She just lies with her face in the pillow like it would take too much effort to lift her head up.  She's been making this face a lot over the past couple days.

Poor Kitty.  :(

On a happier note, I took a picture of my new shoes.  They have about 3.5 inch heels.

 

Fringe!

The Past Week

Last Monday, I went shopping for a dress to wear to Kelly M.'s wedding with Kelly R.  (Too many Kellys!)  We started at the outlet mall, and I ended up with this dress from the J. Crew outlet store for only sixty bucks:

I also got some goldish T-strap wedges with a bit of fringe of which I'll have to take a picture this week.  At Target I got a plain white cardigan to wear outside during the ceremony since it's only April and I have a feeling I'm going to get cold!  I know you're not supposed to wear white to a wedding, but I figured since it was just a cardigan that it should be okay.  Also at Target I got some earrings and a necklace that are mostly fake silver with a few fake pearls.  Hooray for cheap jewelry.

 The middle portion of my week was pretty boring and normal.  Pretty much the only noteworthy thing from the week was that I was totally craving Ats-a-Nice Pizza and ordered it twice in the same week, only two days apart.  And on that middle day I ate leftovers from the night before.  Yum, pizza!  Friday night I was out again with Kelly R. for some Applebee's.  I ate way too much and had way too many margaritas but it was definitely fun.  We always have a great time!

Saturday night I went with Scott and some of his coworkers to a Wolves game (they're the AHL team here).  After the first period, the score was 1-1, but the visiting team scored 5 times in the second period so the Wolves ended up losing 6-1.  I had been to see them one other time last season with some girls from work, and the home team won that game.  It was kind of disappointing to be there for a loss.  During the third period, when it was clear they were going to lose, the camera focused on one girl chugging her whole cup of beer so she was up on the big screen.  Everyone in the stands had a great reaction, so after that the camera crew found several more people holding beer, and when each was on the screen, he or she chugged his whole cup, much to the delight of the crowd.  I guess you have to find joy somehow when your team is losing.  Also, during one of the intermission games, there was a surprise proposal that a guy had all planned out for his girlfriend.  It was pretty cute!  So overall it was a fun night even though the home team got stomped.

In other news, Kitty is feeling a bit under the weather so I am going to have to call the vet tomorrow even though she was just there a couple weeks ago.  She has hardly been eating anything and has been super lethargic, both of which are polar opposites of her normal behavior.  Starting on Saturday, she seemed to be having some trouble walking steadily, whether from being off-balance or being in pain I am not sure.  She seems wary of even jumping on the bed, so she tends to just stay there all day long, lying on my pillows.  I'm pretty worried about her, but the vet was closed for the weekend, and I wasn't sure if it was really an "emergency," so I decided to wait to call until tomorrow (Monday).  She just turned 5 last week, so she seems too young to have any major health issues.  Guess we'll have to wait a few more hours and see what the vet says.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

*Today was St. Patrick's day.  I didn't do anything wild and crazy, but after work I went to Chili's with Kelly and Suzie for some yummy food and drinks.  No green beer for me, but I did have some green margaritas!  They were delicious, but I always order them when I am there so I don't know if they count as anything special for the holiday.  Later on we went to go see Rango.  Since it was after 10:00 on a Thursday night in Bolingbrook, we were the only people in the theater.  This was probably a good thing because I was definitely feeling the effects of my margaritas and was laughing hysterically at the previews and most everything in the movie.

*Last year I started keeping track of all the books I read on goodreads.com.  I think my mom is my only friend on there, but anyone can be my friend if they want to be!  Mostly I just wanted to be able to look at a list to see how many books I've been reading or where I left off in a series.  One of my resolutions this year is to read more books than I read last year, which shouldn't be too hard since I only finished nine books last year (sad, I know).  I've already read seven this year; I think having the nook is helping, especially since I can check out e-books from the library website and I don't have to go to the library branch in Lockport to get the books I want.

*I don't really keep track of what movies I watch but I watch a ton.  I definitely see more movies than I read books.  There's not a lot to do close-by our apartment besides eat, shop, and go see movies, so Scott and I do a lot of that, either with just us or with friends.  I also have Netflix to watch even more!  Okay, so I'm just trying to justify the fact that in the past week I saw Battle: Los Angeles and Rango and watched Scott Pilgrim vs. the World at home.  My favorite of the three was definitely Scott Pilgrim.  It was pretty awesome!

Work Wedding Shower for Kelly!

Note: I forgot to bring my camera so every picture in this post was stolen from Sabina's facebook.  I hope she doesn't mind my picture thievery.

Our friends Mike and Kelly (whose Super Bowl party we went to) are getting married on April 8th.  That's also the day my sister Amy turns 21.  Woot!  Last night Kelly R. and Helen hosted a little shindig for work people at the Ats-a-Nice Pizza banquet room so we could shower Kelly with fun gifts.  They have amazing pizza; Scott and I order it pretty much whenever we want pizza at home.  I ate way too much pizza, but it was sooo good that I don't care! 

After salad and pizza we had a cake from Caputo's (love that place too) with cannoli filling and whipped cream that was super yummy.  I really want to go get a ton of cannoli now.

Then presents!!  The silver bag in the back is from me.

Scott and I got a few little kitchen odds and ends for the shower.  I wasn't really sure how to wrap them, so I tied a ribbon around each one and put them in a bag.

Here is almost everyone - Marie, Helen, Kelly M., me, Sabina, and Kelly R.  Marianne was there but she took the picture.

It was so much fun and a big shout-out goes to Kelly R. for making it all happen.  We had cute little wedding dress favors with mints in them, too.  Loved them.  I am so excited for the actual wedding!  Mike and Kelly are awesome and they are a great couple.  They're getting married at Starved Rock State Park; we've already booked a room at the lodge for that night that we're gonna share with Kelly R.  I want to stay the next day and go hiking.  It's a really pretty place, but I've only been there once last summer with Scott, so there's a lot we didn't get to see.

In other news, today Kitty went to the vet for her yearly exam and shots and all that jazz.  She was super unhappy about it, and decided to thank me for spending over two hundred dollars on her by peeing in her cat carrier in the backseat on the way home.  It was just a little sport carrier, so it soaked through on to the seat.  So after going to the traumatic vet, Kitty also got to have a bath after we got home and I got to clean up her mess.  I wish I had taken a picture of her after her bath; she looks so hilarious wet!

Chicago Auto Show

First off, since my last post, Scott and I celebrated the fourth anniversary of our first date on the 9th, and then Valentine's Day a few days later.  It is hard to believe we were just little nineteen-year-old kids when we started dating.  Now we are super mature twenty three-year-olds!  Here are baby Scott and Emily in summer 2008:

That's my favorite picture of us, for the sole reason that it is the only picture in existence where we both look decent and have normal-looking faces.  Usually at least one of us has closed eyes or is making a face.

For our anniversary we went out to dinner at Outback (yum!) and then for Valentine's Day I gave Scott a super-awesome card and some cookies and candy, and he totally one-upped me and gave me a Nook Color to match the one he had recently procured for himself.  I think he was sick of me stealing his to play with all the time, but I was still super excited about it.  It's encouraging me to read more, too, I think.  So that's good.  Maybe I'll stop wasting so much time playing on the computer.

On the 12th, we went downtown to go to the Chicago Auto Show.  I took some pictures of cars.

A Silverado for Kelly R.:

Two green cars for Heather, a Porsche and a Camaro:

 

The Porsche looked a lot greener in person than it does in that picture.

My favorite car was (sadly for car-lovers everywhere) the Ford Fiesta, because it came in super cool colors!  My favorite was this purple-red color that I had never seen on a car before.  I want this car!

 

After looking at all the cars, I spied a booth selling fudge.  You could see the guys in the back making it.

We bought two varieties to take home and enjoy, Oreo and chocolate peanut butter.  We went to the parking garage to head toward home and food, because we were both hungry.  Unfortunately, we got stuck in the parking garage for over an hour, just sitting in the car, bored and getting hungrier and hungrier.  So of course I had to open up the fudge to try it out.  It was sooo good.

Hooray for fudge, saving the day!

Tuesday

This morning I went to Lifetime Fitness to work out with Kelly R. and Helen.  Kelly got me a 3-day guest pass to check the place out.  It is definitely waaayyy better than the "gym" at my apartment complex.  The gym here has exactly one treadmill, two stationary bikes, two stairsteppers, two ellipticals, three weight machines and some free weights.  I almost forgot what a real gym is like.  Lifetime is huge, and not only does it have a million machines, but there is a rock-climbing wall and the pool has water slides!  What gym has awesome water slides?  Too bad it's 60 bucks a month.  I don't really know if I can factor that into my budget anytime soon.  Also, Helen and Kelly made me feel like a little workout baby.  Helen is a machine on the elliptical, and Kelly had to show me how to use most of the weight machines since my gym doesn't have much of a variety.  And every time I used a machine after Kelly I had to move the weight down a notch (or two or three) because I am a weakling.  Clearly I need a real gym in my life.

After a shower at home, Kelly picked me up and we went to the Noodles in Naperville to meet her boyfriend Jeff. This was the first time I got to meet him.  He seems pretty nice.  Good job Kelly!

I got Bangkok curry with chicken.  It was delicious.  I got a small but I ate the whole bowl.

 

After lunch, Kelly and I went to Target.  I came home with these:

 

Scott and I are bad and we already ate all of them!