I think I'm obsessed with the Dog Whisperer...

We got a new puppy for Christmas, her name is Lucy and she was 12weeks old when we got her. My husband and I have had dogs before, we treated them like spoiled babies and in exchange they ate our furniture, our shoes, clothes and at the very least nibbled on pretty much anything and everything we owned.


It's sort of like when a family suffers a fire and loses their photos and keepsakes. We suffered through having three dogs and lost a lot of valuable things we would have kept for life.


Since having gone through that we've decided this time we're going to do it right, we're going to crate train her and teach her obedience and routine and hope that this time we end up with the dog of our dreams.


This leads me to the topic of this post, The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan. He's got his own show and boy is he awesome. I can't get enough of the show and feel like I've learned and continue to learn so much. It's just unreal how he's so intuitive and connected with the dogs he trains and helps. Everything he does is like an "aha moment!" So simple yet you'd have never thought of it on your own.


Anyhow, Lucy's a great pup so far and we look forward to many years together.


Any other Dog Whisperer fans out there?

Crock Pot Ziti! Yumm-o-la

So I am trying to turn over a new leaf this year. One of my resolutions is to cook more than I do. My husband loves to cook, which is convenient for me since I am not a great cook. It's not that I can't cook but I don't have a whole lot of experience and so my cooking comes out plain and boring.

A friend turned me on to a Blog, A Year of Slowcooking, and it has really inspired me to try a lot of the recipes. I love the convenience of the CrockPot and since 4-5pm is such a busy time for me already it's fabulous that I can start dinner earlier and it will be ready at dinner time.

The Blog is run by the author of the book Make it Fast, Cook it Slow which you can buy on Amazon or at your local bookseller.

Last night I attempted the CrockPot Ziti Recipe found here. After having read her recipe and all the readers comments I decided to tweak her original recipe.

I used

• 1 box Penne/Ziti pasta
• 3 sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts, pre-cooked about half way before use
• 1 cup shredded fresh mozzarella
• 1 large jar garlic tomato sauce
• 1/2 jar alfredo sauce
• 1 cup of water
• diced onions & sliced tomato
• parmesan cheese

Instead of allowing it to cook in layers like she recommended I stirred it every 30-40 minutes to ensure that all the noodles were cooked and none got dried out.
It ended up taking 3 hours on low as opposed to 4 hours. If I had left them to cook any longer the noodles would have been way overdone.

Overall it was very tasty. My husband commented that the slow cooking seemed to give it a unique flavor.

This is a must try recipe if you love pasta and have a crockpot!

Trying to get this show back on the road!

Wow! It has been so long since I spent any time on this, my personal Blog. Since trying to focus more on my business and it's new Blog Diaper Discussions I have spent all my time there. The problem is that after getting into blogging and starting to keep up with all the cool blogs that I follow I have really began to long for a place to blog about personal things, not just cloth diapers.

So I came here, dusted off this old dusty blog, and here I sit. Hopefully with a new name and layout it will feel and look much better. I look forward to getting back on track with both my blogs and connecting with new blogs and followers.

:) Julie