Guess Who's Back, Back Again? Part One

It has been a long time since I've posted here. There has been an incredible whirlwind rush of crazy going on in our lives since I last posted. I think it started out with a definite feeling of being overwhelmed from taking on too much too soon with this blog and the accompanying Facebook page. Then my son began teething at about four months old and continued with horribly fussy teething until about eight months old (he is now 11 months old). Then I started my own photography company. Shortly after that, Nate's parents informed us that they would be buying us a house. Much celebration commenced as, at the time, we were living in a 546 square foot, one bedroom, rental house- two kids, two adults, five cats, and a dog squeezed into such a tiny space. And since the bedroom was filled with the clothing of four people, we couldn't spend much time in there, other than to sleep, and even that was cramped. My daughter slept on a pullout couch in the living room and all of the kids "stuff" (swing, bouncer, jumperoo, toys, toys, more toys, etc...) was located in the living room too. The kitchen was just big enough to barely cook in. So we spent all of our time in one miniscule corner of the living room, falling over each other. So we started looking for houses in good neighborhoods (the in-laws aren't a fan of Saint Paul proper apparently), with good schools nearby (almost impossible in this metro), and within the financial limits set for us. Nate's parents found an amazing three plus bedroom, three bathroom, 2000 square foot home in the quiet, yet conveniently located suburb of North Saint Paul. And then we had to wait for the closing. And then we had to wait for all the necessary work to be done on the house. And then we had to wait for the rooms to be painted and small cosmetic issues to be fixed. And then one day it got really, REALLY hot inside our tiny rental house and I demanded that we move in to the new house immediately or I was going to suffer some sort of nervous breakdown. Then we had to physically move all of our stuff into the new house and organize our most needed possessions. Anyone who has ever moved a multi-person household knows how much of a pain this can be. Also, about a month before we moved, someone poisoned our dog. Twice. The first time we caught it and got him treated. The second time, he died a horrible death. Whoever did this threw bakers chocolate laced with rat poison into our backyard. The police didn't seem too concerned, which was strange to me as any child in our neighborhood could have wandered into our backyard and consumed the chocolate. There are so many children on that block and there have been quite a few times where I had gone into the backyard to find one or more of the neighborhood children digging in the dirt alone and unsupervised. I don't have a problem with that, but when there is poisoned candy being thrown into said backyard I do have a problem. Shortly after we moved in to our new home, my friend Mary came to stay with us for a week, went home for a week and a half and then came back for another week and a half. Add in family get-togethers (the Fourth of July and the annual All Girl Pool Party), my own long stint with bronchitis (I am finally starting to feel better after two weeks of being violently ill and having asthma attacks, which I hadn't had since I was nine years old), and now Parker's ear infection, double eye infection, dog bite, and vaccine reaction. I've been crazy busy. I've been yearning to get back to blogging, even going so far as to consider creating an online journal and going back to my high school era diary style writing. So here I am. I promise, I'll try not to go away for this long again.

Healthy & Homemade Pet Food

Dylan (left) and Squishy (right)

wait impatiently for their lunch.

Today we ran out of pet food.  We're short on money until Monday, so I went to my wise uncle who always has all the answers to every question I could possibly need to ask.  Uncle Google told me that I could make my own pet food out of meat, eggs, grains, and vegetables. 

So I grabbed the steak Nate bought months ago out of the freezer, cooked it up to a nice medium rare and added brown rice, hard boiled eggs, and carrots.

Voila!

Tasty, healthy, high protein pet food! The best part is that you actually know what's in it, unlike with some of the discount pet foods at the grocery store. Considering my cats jumped up on the counter and started eating the food as I was stirring it all together, I would say it was a hit! My dog finished his bowl in record time and we had to put him outside so he wouldn't eat the cats food too.

Here is the recipe I used:

• 2 pounds beef steak cut into small pieces and cooked medium rare.
• 8 eggs, hardboiled.
• 1 can sliced carrots.
• A medium sauce pan full of brown rice (cooked).

I put everything (except the rice) through a blender until it was the consistency of a grainy mix.   I blended half of the rice into a rough puree and then mixed the non blended rice with the blended rice. I then mixed half the rice with the rest of the ingredients. You need to make sure you mix it well as some animals will pick the pieces they want and leave the rest. 

I gave some of that mixture as is to the cats and added some of the extra rice to the dogs bowl as dogs need more grains than cats. I refrigerated the unused portion. Make sure you cover it well as partly rare steak and eggs do not smell good together.

NoCans.com has some great cat and dog food recipes, as well as recipes for treats.  I checked out their recipes to get the basic idea (as well as their list of foods that pets can't have) and then created my own recipe using what I had on hand.

I think we will be making more home cooked meals for our pets as its healthier for them and I will actually know what's going into my furbabies mouths!

Plankton sleeping off his

large bowl of yum-yums.

PS:  He's totally a Momma's Boy