Vacation

Well, obviously my vacation has been a blast since I haven't written yet right? Right. First off we had a long road trip.........8 hours in a car with my brothers sitting right by each other can get a little old. They fight, my parents yell, then we all get along again until the next little tiff. What family isn't like that though? I did get to knit on the trip which was nice but knitting a cable pattern hat in the car can be challenging.

I finished a couple days ago and it looks wonderful it just happens to be about 5 sizes too small. I guess I should heed the warnings the pattern gave me about coming out small. It doesn't even fit my youngest brother and he has a small head. Oh well. Some little girl will be happy, I just need to figure out which little girl.......any suggestions?

We went to Big Bear first before we came home and it was lovely. We only stayed there one night but what was fun was the next day, as we were at breakfast, this huge rain storm came through. It was super warm, bright blue skies and totally clear when all of a sudden the rain fell like there was no tomorrow and then there was lightning and thunder, it was awesome. We left and when we got to the desert we were welcomed by 115 degree weather.......it was like the surface of the sun. It took a while for me to get used to this weather again, especially all of the air conditioning. Outside it's sweltering but inside it's freezing. Unfortunately I picked up a sore throat because of it but it's not that bad yet. Actually I am drinking hot tea (yuck!) to try and ease the pain and heal it but I just ended up burning my tongue.

Throughout the week there was been a lot of lounging around, swimming in the jacuzzi sized pool and family time. When the weather is warm like this the pool feels like bath water, it's so nice when you can just hop in without the shock of the water temperature. My mom did treat me to a spa day yesterday. It was heavenly. This beautiful spa in La Quinta that had powder rooms, locker rooms (nice ones), showers, a steam room, jacuzzi, and lounging rooms. We both had a facial then we got our eyebrows waxed, took a couple minutes in the steam room before we couldn't breath and were drenched in sweat and enjoyed their super pressure showers. It was so nice, I love girl days. :) I do have this lovely picture of me and my mom in our spa robes but she said I couldn't post it cause she doesn't like how she looks in it. What a girl.

After that we went out for sushi. Now some of you are all wow, the spa and sushi, sounds great. Well, I don't like sushi but apparently my family has sushi Friday and so we all packed up and went to Sam's Sushi. I ordered Miso Soup and that's it......they made me try a mango, spicy tuna wrap and this was my reaction:

Needless to say, I didn't like it. Now we are getting ready to head to San Diego for a night. My parents are going to the taping of Sean Hannity and I am going to hang out with Brooke, Drew, and Whitney, good friends. :) I'm excited but now I have to go pack an over night bag and scout around for some throat lozenges. Talk to you tomorrow.

Last Minute

Alright, so it's still Sunday for me even though it's past midnight, but I still haven't gone to sleep yet so the day isn't over for me, meaning I made it in time for the second post this week. Phew! I have been running around the apartment cleaning all night. Why you ask? Because my family is coming into town tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah, I get to be around the people I grew up with who understand why I put my dishes in the dishwasher right away or why I like spicy food, because they taught me to. :) Another bonus of them coming into town tomorrow is that we no longer have to take care of Piper. Now I know that in an earlier post I raved about how adorable she is and how I was never going to give her back.......things changed. She is still completely adorable but after a couple weeks of "special surprises" in the apartment our friendship took a turn. Now I am looking forward to having just one dog to look after again, one where all I have to do is put the trash can and my knitting up before I leave and I am good for about 6 hours.

Until they arrive though, I have a million things to do. Laundry, present wrapping, dropping off Scram, packing and making dessert. Oh yeah, did I mention that I am tagging along with them as they head home? I'm so excited to visit with them for a week. We are going to hit up Big Bear and San Diego. I can't wait to relax and hang out with my lovely family. I hate to leave Dom, who can't go with me because his job sucks......I mean because he has work, but he will survive and it's always fun to come home to a food deprived husband, then my cooking tastes fantastical. Jk. I will seriously miss him and wish that he could come along. In the meantime our separation will be reminiscent of when we were dating, which is always fun. Well, time to get back to my tons of chores. Next time I write I will be back in my favorite place, Southern California. :)

How long will this last?

Alright, I never blog anymore. I should since I am home all day and don't have anything better to do but that's exactly the problem, I'm home all day! What could I possibly have to write about? How many Scramble hairs I found in my cereal? Or the number of times I actually left the couch? How about what time I actually changed out of my pajamas and brushed my teeth? See, nothing much to write about but I am going to try anyway. If it's too boring then you can peace out mid-paragraph and check back again later but I am going to try and post at least a couple times a week........I know right? A couple times a week, don't overexert yourself Candice. I know me though and I am innately lazy, a couple times a week is like practically asking me to throw together a novel for you.

I just want to warn you that my blog posts will be like my iTunes playlists, random. I might actually write about which TV show interested me the most that day or how many times I bump into that neighbor I am trying to avoid but I'm sure that once in a while, or at least I hope once in a while, I will write about something with substance, something that is worth while and when that happens you'll know that I actually left the apartment that day. Until then I leave you with this, don't hold me to it.

The Little Piper

My family goes to the Midwest each summer, for the whole summer. These past couple of years they have done a road trip on the way, which may take a week or two. This time around though, they have a new addition to think about, I'm talking about their new dog Piper. Well it's hard enough finding a hotel at the last minute anyway and making sure that they cater to dogs makes finding one at the last minute even harder.

Piper is a 10 month old Maltipoo, which is a cross between a Maltese and a Poodle. She is 8 lbs. and absolutely adorable. See for yourself. :)


It has been a bit more responsibility watching her in an apartment. Instead of just throwing her outside to go potty I now have to take a turn for both dogs. Oh well though, she is just too cute to care about all of that. It's such a change from having a big dog. You lose her so much easier just because she'll walk behind you and you didn't notice. Or she can step all over you and you barely feel it. I love being able to pick her up and snuggle next to her fluffy, little body.

Scramble gets a little jealous but I think he likes having someone to play with even if he thinks of her as a squirmy chew toy. We have had her for a month now but we'll have her until the end of August. I am going to be so sad to see her go and sometimes I just think I am not going to give her back but I am sure my mom will pry her from me somehow.

Nightmares

I hate nightmares. The ones where you think they are so real it takes you a minute to catch your breath and realize it was a dream, or the ones where you wake up and your face hurts because you were crying so hard. They don't always start out this dramatic but I feel like they gain in their potency with age. When I was little, I used to have weird, abstract nightmares. The earliest one I can remember was actually somewhat normal, I was five and dreamed that wolves were surrounding my bed trying to get me, but as long as I was under my covers I was safe. From this I developed a tick where I automatically raise my feet off the floor when I'm scared. My knees get cramped during scary movies because I have my legs tucked in so close to me, just in case something, or someone, claws at me from the end of the bed or from under the couch.

But then something changed and my nightmares went all Salvador Dali on me. I kept having these reoccurring nightmares with abstract objects floating in the air like I was in the middle of the universe and, for some reason, it freaked me out. I don't know when those stopped but the last nightmare I can remember from my childhood happened when I was about 10 and I dreamed that I was skiing and fell and then somehow turned into my skis, which were sort of buried under the snow, enough to where people kept skiing over them/me and I thought I was going to die. This one required a trip to moms room and her lying in bed with me until I calmed down and fell back asleep.

Since then my nightmares have become a little more realistic. I have had the traditional falling off a building and waking up before you hit the ground but that usually happens in the car. Going to the bathroom in public, these ones aren't so much terrifying as they are embarrassing, but that amount of embarrassment terrifies some people........me. Lately it's been more heights related, being on the top of a hundred story building while it sways heavily in the wind and I'm about to go over the edge. I've had quite a few of those recently, to my dislike. Or, being kidnapped. I had that one in high school and was pleased when dream Candice grabbed the wheel of the kidnapper's car in an attempt to save herself but in the end the effort was useless.

I would gladly take any one of those dreams over the heart-wrenching nightmares. The ones where you wake up drenched in sweat, crying about what just happened and you automatically need to check in with reality to make sure none of it was true. I'm talking about the ones where you lose a loved one, by any means. I have had a few where my mom has died. My face has never experience such pain as I sobbed in slumber and in reality over the loss of my mom. I immediately went to her room again in tears as she assured me she was alive or I have called her to make sure she was still around for the advice, hugs, laughs and love that I sill need from her. Each time she has made me feel better but the dream still leaves a little scar.

And, after last night, I have a new sort of dream to add to the heart-wrenching category. The betrayal of a husband, which I count as a loss. I dreamed that Dom cheated on me with someone I hadn't seen since Jr. High and the most awful thing about it was that dream Dom didn't seem to care, and he seemed to be in love with her in the most endearing way. They had pet names for each other! Gross! I can't remember his for her, something cutesy, but hers for him was "Big," like the character from Sex and the City. I could give you all the details of the dream but it's not important, besides they aren't fun to think about. Anyway, I woke up in shock and started crying like I was in the dream and even woke up Dom to calm me down. He felt awful about it and assured me that he never has and never will do anything like that, not that I needed any assuring because I already know this about him, but the sweet way that he said it did help. He held me until I felt better and we moved on but the loss that I felt was just as painful as losing my mom. The funny thing is that right before I went to bed I told Dom that I was tired of dramatic dreams and wanted a peaceful nights sleep, filled with dreams of friends, pretty colors or anything soothing..........oh well.

I am crossing my fingers for a better nights sleep tonight and that hopefully I can take away something from each of these nightmares, either the reminder that I truly love those closest to me or the simple lesson of facing my fears, I don't plan on going potty publicly anytime soon but maybe I could get over the heights thing. Well, cheers to a peaceful nights sleep.

Dog Park

Our little Scram has quite a bit of energy and, even though they said that this breed can get used to living in an apartment, he still needs to get out and flex his muscles. The way that we try to expend his energy is to take him somewhere with property for him to run around on. This includes:

Dom's parents house

This is their front yard

and the dog park

Lately, I have been trying to take him to the dog park more often so he can be a happy puppy and he loves it. For his birthday he got a tennis ball launcher:


and he goes crazy for that thing. If you have a dog who likes to play fetch at all, get yourself one of these. You fling it so far with less effort and your dog gets worn out twice as fast. If you really want to wear out your dog though, take him to the park when it's super hot out and use the launcher. They're done after about half an hour for the rest of the night. I was playing with Scram the other day in the heat and he all of a sudden jetted out of sight to go lay under a tree for shade. :) I think that my little guy gets to the happy exhausted point though, because he may be panting but his tail is still wagging. :)

Coffee

I am not a huge coffee person. I don't like the bitter taste and so when I do get coffee I like it exceptionally sweet. I'm a fan of caramel macchiatos, caramel frappachinos and such, pretty much anything dowsed in sweet, delicious caramel. When I make it at home though, it is just plain coffee and so I have to improvise. The way I go about this is to add enough milk to make it look like caramel and then add about a pound of sugar........not really but two to three table spoons of sugar. I tend to never finish my coffee and so Dom always tries to help me out by killing it for me. He drinks his coffee a little more plain because he's a man like that and so when he takes a sip of mine it takes him a minute or two to come back down from the sugar high. He says finishing off my coffee is his guilty pleasure. Well, this morning I went a little over board and am having trouble not puckering my lips after each sip. I can't wait to see Dom's face after he tries to finish this cup.