Lets Talk Dogs

I am a self admitted dog obsessed nut. I like (most) other animals, though I have to admit that I am not, in any way, shape or form, a cat person. They make me sneeze, and they always give me the impression that YOU are in THEIR house, not the other way around. For some reason that really bugs me.
Anyway, I'm a serious rescue advocate - "Adopt, don't shop" is my motto and has been for a long time. I'm going to bet this blog is going to get me a lot of flack, but please remember when reading that I have never crucified you for your beliefs, and I never will.
I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart believe that breeders are wrong. With the overflow of pets in shelters right now, especially Pit Bulls, you have no business continuing to breed dogs, for pleasure or profit, it wouldn't kill you to wait until the USA is able to do something about its homeless pet population. Millions of dogs are euthanized every year and its senseless. Its because someone didn't spay or neuter their pet.
That is not to say there is no such thing as a responsible breeder (or as responsible as possible when you're adding to the unwanted pet population) - there are responsible breeders out there who have contracts saying the pup is to go back to the breeder should the owner be unable to keep it, breeders who health and temperament test, and make sure that each pup has a home before its even born. Breeders like this are few and far between, and they're wonderful people who actually care about the dog world, but I think there needs to be a cap on how many litters can be bred per year, etc. I also would love to see some breeder licencing, and for those of you screaming "NO NO NO!" in your heads, why the hell not? What do you have to hide that would prevent you from getting licensed? Why does it bother you so much that someone might check in on you? It should, if anything, make you happy that others who are wrecking breed standards and over breeding these dogs will be out of the picture.
Back yard breeders and puppy mills are what piss me off more than anything. Hearing about these bastards absolutely makes my blood boil. A puppy mill is an awful place - cages on top of cages on top of cages of dogs who never see the outside world, never know what a loving caress feels like, and are pee'd and pooped on daily by their cage mates, and there are plenty of cage mates. Puppy mills send their puppies to pet stores all over the country. Don't be fooled into believing that the dogs in the pet store came from "a small, local breeder." Its fucking bull shit. Those dogs are sold to the pet stores for triple what they're worth before they're old enough to leave their mothers and are unhealthy as all get out. Unfortunately, I know more than one person who's bought a pup from a pet store and had it pass away within weeks - everything from hypoglycemia to parvovirus and everything in between. Don't buy from puppy mills, you're feeding into a part of the economy that needs to die a fast, painful death.
Back yard breeders, which I mentioned above can be just as bad. These dogs aren't health tested (health testing has a wide range, good breeders test joints and any number of other things, BYBs don't test shit), temperament tested, and are more often than not, no where near as "pure bred" as they're said to be. Hip dysplasia, luxating patella, blindness, deafness, and many other health issues run rampant among back yard bred dogs.
That said, most dogs you will find in a shelter are either back yard bred or puppy mill dogs, and when you take in a shelter dog, this is something you need to keep in mind - health issues are entirely possible and you need to be prepared for them. We have been relatively lucky with our three (Piglet being the newest addition who's been here just over a month) in the way of veterinary needs, I can treat small things myself without too much fuss, and I'm perfectly capable of grooming and training all three of them myself.
I will take a shelter dog over a breeder dog any day, the love and affection they have, for me, out does that of a dog bred specifically "for you" . Doom, Bobsie and Piglet were all dogs in dire situations. Doom would have been killed, Bobsie was so infested with fleas and ticks when I pulled her from the rescue it wasn't even funny, and Piglet was down to her last day before she met the needle. They know, they feel that you've done something for them different to what their former people did, and I think the bond is that much stronger for it. I doubt I will ever have a breeder dog - I don't care for all the fancy schmancy breed titles and all that jazz. Great that you have it, I hope you had fun getting them, but I just don't see the point. A dog is a dog no matter what titles you put on it. The only thing I see when I watch dog shows is dogs that seem to have no personality and have been so trained that they've lost the meaning of what it is to be a dog.
My three rescue brats are part of my family, and it seems so many other dogs are just ornaments to be put in the yard to bark at people passing by, fed and otherwise ignored. I hate seeing this, it makes me physically nauseous.
El Paso has a law that I love, that many others hate: http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16899541
Essentially, you have to have a kennel and breeder's license, and unspayed / unneutered, unmicrochiped, non-vaccinated animals can't be sold for more than fifty dollars, and I think its fucking FABULOUS. I wish the whole country would do some shit like this. Make it hard as fuck to back yard breed, turn people to shelters, and fix the damn problem instead of adding to it. I shit you not, the day we found Piglet at the pound, I broke down five times and cried walking through that shelter. The amount of sad faces who only had days to live, and had done nothing to deserve it made my sick to my stomach. The cruelty, the neglect, the fear in the eyes of some of these dogs was such a horrible thing to see - if I could have pulled every single dog in that place that day, I would have done it. All of mother nature's animals deserve healthy, happy homes, weather in the wild, or in a person's house (We domesticated them, yet we don't take care of them. That's completely our fault.)
My ideals may seem a little extreme, but I find the idea of millions of animals a year being put to sleep because human beings can't take responsibility and do the right damn thing - the right thing isn't as hard as we make it.
Bitch at me if you want, whine and moan and yell about how the way I would have things done would ruin the dog world - but think about it... isn't it already completely wrecked?

Fabric Softener & Laundry Detergent

So, in lieu of the wonderfulness that's getting delivered to our house tomorrow... I made some fabric softener and laundry detergent so that I can do an insane amount of laundry tomorrow, aaaaaand I picture documented it so I could post it here. A lot of people have asked for the recipe, so I figured I'd make it public. I originally found it on e how but rearranged some ingredients and redid some measurements to make it easier to work with.

The container for the laundry detergent is on the ground because I'm not allowed to lift ANYTHING right now due to a torn rotator cuff, so excuse any scatteredness you notice in this post - I'm on a plethora of medication to keep me from jumping off of a bridge to end the pain.

I like making my own because I have so many allergies to the garbage they put into the junk they sell in stores, its easier, its cheaper, and its freaking FUN. It smells however you want it to, and its good for the environment. :)

So, all that aside, lets start off with the fabric softener - its much simpler than the detergent is.

Let me say first -  ALWAYS LABEL ANYTHING YOU MAKE. ALWAYS!!! Bottles get misplaced, forgotten about, etc, and months later, you'll find them and be like "WTF is this??? I don't remember this!!!" And decide its apple cider and take a swig of watered down vinegar and baking soda with a little essential oil. You won't be impressed. LOL!!!

Here's what you need:

A container (Yes, that's a three liter soda bottle that I ripped the label off of and fixed so that it says "Fabric Softener" instead of "Dr. Pepper. We recycle in this house, no matter how oddly we do it. :D) Fill your container about 1/3 full of COLD water.
Baking soda - approximately 1.5 cups
Vinegar of your choice (I like apple cider vinegar because it smells better than straight vinegar, but its up to you!)
Water (enough to fill the rest of your container once you have everything else in)
A funnel
Scented oil of your choice (if desired, this is not necessary.)

Start out by putting your baking soda into the container with the water, let it settle.

Next, start alternately adding your vinegar and water -DO. NOT. ADD. ALL. THE. VINEGAR. AT. THE. SAME. TIME. It will overflow and you will want to cry because you kitchen will smell like vinegar for WEEKS.

Now is the time to add the scent you picked out if you're going to. Make sure you have left enough room to shake the crap out of the mixture.

Shake it like a polaroid picture!!!

Lets troubleshoot real quick:

If you have:

Baking soda resettling on the bottom (a little is fine, a lot is wrong) your vinegar to baking soda wasn't enough to dissolve it. Pour out some of the rest of the mixture and add more vinegar.

Not fizzing like soda when you open it: This means you have too little baking soda, add it a tsp at a time and shake it up - when it starts fizzing when you open it, you're perfect!!! It should sound like fresh soda pop when you open it. :)

Ok, now on to the detergent:

I buy the borax, washing soda, and baking soda & soap all at the same time, it costs me roughly $13 and the everything (minus the soap) lasts about three batches - one batch lasts 3 - 6 months depending on the amount of times I end up changing my daughter during that time.

Home made laundry detergent is awesome for cloth diapers because it DOESN'T LEAVE RESIDUE, which means a lot less diaper stripping (a long and annoying process for those of you who don't cloth diaper).

TO THE RECIPE!!!

Here's what you need:

That is:
Two boxes of bar soap (I use Irish Spring because that's what my husband bulk buys. Its there, so I use it. When its out I'll buy something organic to use.)
Borax, roughly three cups
Washing soda, about three and a half cups
Baking soda, about one cup
Water, which you need a lot of, one large pot full to boil the soap down in, and then enough to fill your container.
Speaking of pots and containers, you need a large chef's pot (think the kind you use in a restaurant) and a container that can LOCK, this also needs to be relatively large. Please excuse the misspelling on the label for the detergent.
 You can downsize the amount of ingredients you need to make more or less soap.
You also need a grater and a WOODEN spoon.

Start out by boiling the water, while you're boiling this, start grating the soap. If you're lucky enough to have a food processor, which I am not, utilize that thing! Its faster and easier than grating it. Your soap should look like this once its grated:

LOL it looks like curled mint chocolate. Don't eat it, it doesn't taste good. :D

Once your water is at a rolling boil, throw the soap flakes in there. Boil them down until there is NOTHING SOLID LEFT IN THE POT. It should be a liquid-y soap looking thing that has almost no thickness to it. This will take about thirty minutes.

While your soap is liquefying start putting your dry ingredients into your chosen container. It doesn't matter which go first, as long as they all get in there.

Once the soap is boiled down, put it in with the dry ingredients. Stir it really well, until you don't have any clumps of baking soda etc left in there. If you don't have bubbles on the top like the picture, you need to add more Borax.
Now is the time to add your scent.

Add hot water until your container is mostly full (you can see my soap boiling pot at the top of the picture). You'll need to let it set over night to cool off and thicken up. It should look like this when its done, or a little less solid:

Now, lets troubleshoot this stuff.

Your detergent didn't solidify:
You need more washing soda. The solidification is caused by the chemical reaction between the washing soda and the soap, if there isn't enough of the washing powder, it won't solidify.

You have soap flakes in the detergent:
You didn't boil it long enough, the water wasn't hot enough, etc. Fix this, because the washing machine won't break it down, you'll have clothes full of soap flakes.

Your detergent is too thick:
Too much washing soda. See above. Add VINEGAR to the mixture to break it down and then stir it up, let it sit for a few hours to fix it.

If you try this out, leave me some comments, take some pictures to show me, etc of how yours turned out. This is one of my favorite things to do, and I hope you enjoy it too!!!

The Cleansing Scrub

Merry met!

Tuesday is my husband's twenty-fifth birthday, it is also February's full moon. February 7th, 2012 we will be initiating my husband into Wicca.

I'm so proud of him for making the decision and feeling ready in his heart to take this step. Tonight I made the cleansing scrub for the evening of the ritual.
The nice thing about this scrub is that you can use the same base ingredients to make any number of scrubs, from healing, to love, to banishing and so on. Its such a versitile recipe it really can be used for anything. You can add different herbs and oils to it to do different things, or use a different scent of Castile soap. So, onward to the recipe for this wonderful concoction:

This is what you need:
Olive oil (About 1/2 cups)
Castile soap in whatever scent you like (About 2 tbsp)
1 cup kosher salt
Herbs of your choice (I used lavender and eucalyptus, about 1.5 tbsp each)
1/2 tsp of your choice of essential oil (I used Amber)
You will also need a sealable container and a wooden spoon. A ziplock bag will work in a pinch.

Start by putting your herbs into the container

Next put in your salt and mix it up gently

Add your essential oil:

Then put in the castile soap:

Now add the olive oil:

Mix it up stirring first deosil, then widdershins, you want to stir for about five minutes total. Make sure you have good intentions in mind, think about the cause while you're stirring, and really want what you're doing it for. Concentrate, and put your heart and soul and love into it. Intention is a very, very large part of Wicca. <3

Put the scrub in a windowsill that gets a lot of sun for three days, then enjoy it!!! <3

Blessed be!

My Very First Irritated Post

Last night, a wonderful friend of mine (Who runs THIS blog: http://felurian.wordpress.com/ ) posted a picture that REALLY spoke to me. It was from a facebook like page called Mystic Magic and I shared it because I loved it so much, here it is:

There is so much truth in this I wanted to share it with my other Wiccan and Pagan friends, because this is something that needs to get out there. If I could print this out and blow it up life size to put in my front window, I would.

A friend of ours, our daughter's now former godfather posted something incredibly derogatory - he called us satanists. Satanists. May I enlighten anyone now, who is reading this blog and doesn't know, Wiccans and Pagans don't even BELIEVE in Satan, much less worship it. Our theory on life and our Craft is "An it harm none, do what ye will." I'll translate that out of Olde English for you - It means that as long as what you're doing doesn't harm anyone, do what you want to do. "Mind the threefold law you should, three times bad and three times good." This is another part of the Wiccan Rede (Which can be found here: http://www.wicca.com/celtic/wicca/rede.htm ) The threefold law (if you've ever watched Charmed, you know what this is) means that anything you do will come back to you three times, weather its bad or good. I fully and wholeheartedly believe in doing good, because seriously? Who wants bad coming back at you three times? Nobody.
 We have a Lord and Lady who have multiple names, but each is a half of a whole, and they have both bad and good in them, just like everyone and everything in the world has - nobody is 100% good. We all have thoughts and sometimes take actions that are less than perfect, but that's what makes us human.
 I, as a kitchen witch, spend my time brewing things to help people - a tea to help a friend's ADHD, a sachet to put under a pillow to help with fertility, and when it works, something to help get rid of your morning sickness so you can go about your day normally. I make wands from scratch, I worship my goddess, and I have never intentionally harmed anyone or anything. Do I dance naked in the woods? Yes. Does it hurt anyone? No.
 Recently, two Wiccan friends of ours were at our house (OK, they're here a lot, and we absolutely love the hell out of them, they and their children are wonderful people) we'd done a ritual to banish a spirit the weekend before in our back yard, which is huge, and I guess the neighbors had a problem with it. I noticed as we were all sitting outside having a cigarette that someone had carved the word "witch" (only spelled wiche, because whoever it was needs to go back to kindergarten) into our window sill. All I could do was shake my head, because whoever did this called us exactly what we are - Witches, and damn it, we're PROUD of it, but I'm tired of the hate. Freedom of religion is one of the basic human rights. Christians have it, so why can't everyone else? I'm not saying all Christians judge, because I've met a fair few who don't, but I've met a lot more who do, and I'm sick and tired of it. I wear my pentacle around my neck every day, and I wear it with pride, because its a part of my religion, but I get endless negative comments on it. I don't point at the cross around your neck and say "What the fuck is wrong with you? You're worshiping some fraud who pretended to be king of the Jews thousands of years ago." That's how I feel about it, but I let you do it, I allow you to wear it in peace and let you go about your life without poking at you about it, without telling you you're wrong, you're going to hell, etc etc. I don't believe in hell, and every time someone tells me I'm going there, I want to laugh in their faces.
Wicca is the worship of nature (Contrary to popular belief it is called WICCA, not WICCAN. WICCAN is a person who PRACTICES the religion of WICCA. This is something that irritates me. I do not practice Wiccan, I practice Wicca.). We believe that nature gave us everything, that we are a part of nature and that nature deserves respect. I hug trees, I love the feeling of sand and grass and dirt between my toes, and I can feel the power our Mother Earth puts off. Call me crazy, I don't care. Its the truth, and I love it.
Everyone has their own truth, everyone believes something different. Wiccans are such a diverse group of people, very few of us practice exactly the same. I have friends who are Gardenerian Wiccans, friends who are Fey Wiccans, and I myself and a Dragon Wiccan practicing kitchen witchery, but we don't judge each other, we don't judge you, and are lives our so much less complicated for it. EVERYONE'S lives could be less complicated if we would just stop judging each other, damnit. I don't understand humankind's need to judge others, I really don't. We do it to each other, we do it to dog breeds, coffee, books, and everything else we come across, and its wrong - and you know why? Because by judging, you could be missing out on what could be an amazing part of your life, and you're doing it to yourself, because you're too closed minded to TRY and to LISTEN.

I'll leave you with two pictures - one of my altar, and one of my husbands (Who will be initiated on February's full moon - I'm so freaking insanely proud of him!!!) so you can see that the place we practice isn't a scary black hole full of blood and guts and goat sacrifices (for the record Wicca NEVER calls for blood). If you walked into the room our altars are kept in, you would feel a sense of calm come over you because this is where we practice our magic, and its a beautiful, safe place.

 My altar... I have a lot more on it than Hubby's does, because I've been practicing a lot longer.

Hubby's altar, complete with one of the wands I've made. 

Dog cookies made easy

Please excuse the extreme time frame between posts. Hubby, Winnie and I are now settled (if not comfortably) in El Paso, Texas. We have a rental house that's fabulous except for my favorite room... My kitchen makes me wish we still had a balcony so I could jump off of the damn thing. Here's two pictures of the kitchen, so you can see what I mean... We are wanting to renovate it, but don't really know what we want to do with it yet:

That's it. That's all the doggone kitchen I have, no kidding and the set up is unacceptable, but the rest of the house, and the back yard especially make up for it!

On to the forizzle part of this blog:

"Treat you say? Yum Yums?"

This is the opening to an OMG session with my dogs. Doom and Bobsie are treat whores, there is NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!!!

I love my dogs, your dogs, his dogs, her dogs, Crazy Dog Photography's dog, everyone's dogs, and even those that DON'T belong to someone. I love doing things for dogs, and one of those things (a thing that my dogs like best) is making treats. 

Treats to me don't have to be healthy. Why? Because they're TREATS. This means an occasional bit of deliciousness that the dogs can devour once in a while and it won't matter. 

Chicken Glazed Peanut Butter Banana Bites

Tools you'll need:

Rolling pin

Mixing bowl

Hand or stand mixer

Oven

Measuring cup or spoon

Blender, grinder or a plastic bag to go with the rolling pin

Cookie cutters

Glazing brush (Seriously? I use a craft paint brush)

Ingredients:

Biscuits:

1 Cup Peanut Butter

2 speckled bananas

1 cup ground dog food (use blender, nut grinder or plastic bag and rolling pin for this. They do not have to be finely ground)

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup chicken stock

3-4.5 cups flour

Egg Glaze

1 Cup chicken stock

1 egg

Start by adding your peanut butter, chicken stock and bananas (cut up or broken) and a half cup of flour to the bowl.

Blend this up, and add the dog food and baking soda, and some more flour

Continue to add flour and blend (eventually you will have to knead unless you're using a stand mixer) until you have a thick, SLIGHTLY sticky wad of dough that looks like this:

Roll into a flat piece of dough about 1/3 inch thick and start cutting it with your cookie cutters

Put your biscuits in the oven at 350. They will take ten to fifteen minutes to bake depending on your altitude. Continue to check them until they're golden brown and hard. In the mean time, put your glaze together. Its very simple.

Blend your egg and the second cup of chicken stock together. Once the biscuits are done use your brush to spread the glaze over the tops and pop them back in the oven on broil for about five minutes...

 Here are the results:

Bonus picture of Winnie in this one. Hope you and your pups enjoy this recipe!!!

Becoming a Scentsy Consultant

Last night I took a step that I've been debating on for a while. I used to be a Passion Parties consultant, and I enjoyed it thoroughly until they changed their product line and popped up with some new policies that I just didn't agree with. I'm not the type of person to sell things I won't use, so I left Passion Parties. I've been a stay at home mom with no job for about six months, and I've enjoyed that too, but its time to start bringing in some money right now, and with school, joining a direct selling business seemed like my best option. My former upline from Passion Parties had joined Scentsy (she has a blog as well, find it here: Have Aussie, Will Travel) and was enjoying it a lot. She came and did a party for me, and I loved the products.

Scentsy is not candles. They're warmers that use a light to melt wax. Therefore there is no flame, and the wax doesn't get hot enough to burn you. Its pretty amazing, especially for people with small children. The wax is easy to clean up and has hours and hours of burn time. The products are inexpensive and beautifully made. It isn't just warmers and wax, there are stuffed animals, stick perfumes and a plethora of other amazing goodies that will make your heart sing. They make excellent presents, there's something for everyone.

Come visit my site here: My Scentsy Store. Look around, enjoy yourself, place an order, or you can call or e mail me requesting a catalog. I'm so excited to be back in the world of direct selling, with such a fabulous opportunity to work for myself selling product I love again!!! If you've been looking for a little extra income and a fun way to get it, here's your chance. Ask questions, I'll give you the right answers, even if I have to ask Stephanie about it. Our team is one of the fastest growing Scentsy has, and I'd love to help add to it by helping you find your passion.

I hope you're all having a great day, week, month, year, and life!!!

Annie

Hot Chocolate

Its that time of year here in Colorado. Samhain hasn't even passed yet, but I have about a foot of snow on my balcony, and its just piling up higher. Being from Arizona originally, I am not a fan, not at all. My husband thinks its great, Doom thinks its great, Winnie, Bobsie and I could all easily do without it and never be upset about it. I honestly wouldn't care if the cold, slippery white stuff that makes my joints ache would never come by again. I guess that's something to look forward to about Texas, huh?
Snow also tends to bring out a depressed mood for me. I don't know what it is, I love rain, it makes my soul smile, but when the snow comes around I slip into this depression that I can't explain - what's better for cold-depression than hot chocolate?
No, not Swiss Miss, Abuela's, Nestle, what have you. Real, home made, awesome hot chocolate. Its wonderful, and once you've tried it, you'll never go back!!! So, today, for the first time in the (short) history of my blog, there will be a walk through complete with pictures! Here it goes:

Ingredients:

 A little helper

 A Snowy Day (Optional)

And finally:

1/2 Cup coco powder (unsweetened!!!)

1/4 Cups sugar

2 TBSP powdered sugar

1/2 TBSP Cinnamon

1 TSP Chili Powder (This is totally optional and can be substituted for mint, pumpkin pie spice, or any other flavor of your fancy, it can also just be left out completely.)

1/4 HEAPING TSP salt

2 TSP coffee creamer of your choice of flavor (I like French Vanilla)

 Start by putting your coco powder into a sealable container. More or less coco powder will make it more or less rich. Its totally a taste preference.

 Add the sugars (Both powdered and granulated, you can add more later if you like it sweeter)

 Put your cinnamon in on top of that, again more or less will alter the flavor.

 Chili powder and salt go in next. Remember, if you don't want chili powder, its not necessary. Chili is great for getting blood going - nothing like a nice tryst in the bedroom to warm up body and soul!!!

 Last but not least, put in the creamer. This serves to give it a creamier texture, and adds a little more sweetness to the hot chocolate. It will also make mixing easier.

 Put the cover on your container and...

 SHAKE IT LIKE A POLAROID PICTURE!

It should look like this once its been shaken well enough.

You can use either milk or water to make your hot chocolate. It takes about two dinner spoons full of the powder to make eight ounces. Sit back, relax in front of a fire with your loved ones and warm up while you drink the awesomeness!!!