A holiday tradition! Here’s my list.

1. Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 Digital Air Fry Oven. I liked this because it needs minimal counter space when not in use unlike the Incredible Hulk of a toaster oven it replaced. I thought the flip feature would be fussy but the unit displays FLIP when it’s cooled down enough. Great for toasting, heating up foods, and of course, air frying.

2. A coffee station in the bedroom. I took way too long to make this a reality and I’m so glad I finally did. After a lot of searching, I found a small freestanding island that fits over the mini fridge that we already had. In addition to creamer and cold drinks in the fridge and an icepack for midnight migraines in the world’s tiniest freezer, we have a tea kettle, a coffee maker, and a small microwave. Plus there’s a drawer for tea and snacks all in about 3 feet by 2 feet of space. It’s awesome.

3. Fleece blankets. We have many of the Big One Fleece Throws from Kohl’s. I love cotton blankets but they are no match for dogs. We learned pretty quickly that everyone and every dog needs their own fleece. Buddy likes to make a nest with them and will steal yours when you aren’t looking. These are the only blankets that have held up to dogs who like to dig in the blankets to get comfy. Again, we’ve had some of these for a long time and they’ve saved us wear and tear on furniture and help us keep the thermostat low. Microplastic pollution is a concern with any synthetic fabric. Check out this article from Wirecutter on reducing microfiber pollution.

4. Solar lights. We have these in our yard and they are super helpful in the winter when we are out in the dark with the dogs. They saved us from the near impossible job of hardwired lighting. There are many brands, some work better than others, so there’s some trial and error. Most of the ones we have purchased have lasted for years. Pay attention to the size, the number of LEDs, and the activation distance. I accidentally purchased a few that you need to get pretty close to before they will come on.

   And look for solar lanterns that cast a pattern. I found some solar dragonfly lanterns that make me ridiculously happy.

5. Socks! Bombas Gripper Slippers and Gripper Calf Socks are my go-to socks and slippers in the winter. We have hardwood floors and the non-slip feature is pretty handy.

   I can tell socks are a favorite when they show up in the wash every week like a pair from Darn Tough Vermont. Great color and size options are available at REI and directly from Darn Tough Vermont.

6. American Giant hoodies: these hoodies are made in the U.S. using American-grown cotton. You can read more about their community approach and dedication to local supply chains here. These high-quality hoodies are available in many styles and colors.

7. Rice cooker: we have a basic rice cooker with two settings, cook and warm. We make a brown rice and quinoa blend every other day. Rice cookers make it ridiculously easy. I know single-use appliances aren’t always ideal, but this is one we use all the time. Easy to use, easy to clean, we’ve had it for a long time.

8. Brain toys for the fur kids: we have several of these with various levels of difficulty. After years of training, Buddy is a pro. Indy is still learning. They are great on a rainy day or when you’re trying to get something done and the dogs are underfoot. We often use a combo of kibble and treats. Here are a couple of favorites: TRIXIE Activity Flip Board Activity Strategy Game Dog Toy and NINA OTTOSSON BY OUTWARD HOUND Brick Puzzle Game Dog Toy.  Zuke’s Mini Naturals are a favorite mini treat and work perfectly in these interactive toys.

9. HISEA waterproof shoes. These are great slip-on garden shoes that are actually waterproof. My first pair were a gift from my sister and she provided more substantial insoles which I also recommend. I have a really hard time finding comfortable shoes and these are amazing for me.

10. Kitchen gloves. We use these for cutting chores, especially hot peppers. They are great for holding on to things so you don’t slip and cut yourself. Plus they are great for shredding and microplaning and helpful for opening jars and bottles. https://bestreviews.com/kitchen/tools/best-cut-resistant-gloves.

Here are 10 things I love and rely on.

1. Coffee, all kinds. My friend Brenda said that a coffee maker is like a co-worker. I have a lot of co-workers!

2. LED pillar candles: These are my favorites

3. Dragonfly solar lantern: Hands down, my favorite solar light

4. Books: new, used, and library books. I love them all. I am a big fan of ThriftBooks and have been buying books from Target lately. They have a great selection and regular promotions.

5. Holy Hydration face cream from e.l.f.: Batman would be proud.

6. Mini Double Dark Chocolate Larabars. These mini delights contain only 2 grams of added sugar.

7. Weeding knife from Gardeners Supply: I lost track of it for a while and was bereft.

8. This soil moisture meter is affectionately known as the tricorder.

9. My ring light brightens up every Zoom call.

10. Zevia Cola helped me break up with high-sugar drinks.

How about you? What’s on your top 10?

Meet Indy Silk

It’s been about a year since our sweet Hopi passed away. That girl left a big hole in our lives.

So we did a thing: we adopted another dog.

When our local feed store had an adoption event over the summer, I checked out a beautiful cattle dog who was quickly adopted but she led me to Three Little Pitties (3LP), a rescue based in Houston. They adopt almost exclusively in the Pacific Northwest: Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia.

So I looked at the website and found two dogs that tugged at my heartstrings: a Plott hound mix and a black lab.

You think the hearts-in-eyes emoji is a joke, but I definitely saw Robert get hearts in his eyes when he saw the black lab, Indy Silk. So we applied and met with her adoption coordinator. She was the one who first rescued Indy from a shelter and got her into 3LP. As with many dogs who find themselves in need of rescue, Indy left people wondering how she came to be turned in as a stray. She had clearly been a cared-for dog. But no one came for her. She had puppies at some point in her past—maybe a lot of them at once—and that complicated her spay surgery. Like most rescues in Texas, she also had to be treated for heartworms. Luckily, hers was a mild case and her long-term foster saw her through both the spay and the heartworm treatment. 3LP provides all initial vet care and a behavioral assessment plus a microchip.

Three Little Pitties sends a transport of dogs and cats on a semi to the PNW every 2-3 weeks. It takes 48 hours to get to our local dropoff in Kent and it’s a rough journey. I don’t love that part of her story, but the 3LP folks assured us that coming to the PNW is like winning the lottery for these dogs and cats. Indy was a little shell-shocked for about two days but quickly recovered.

Three Little Pitties specializes in family-friendly dogs and Indy likes everyone: men, women, and kids. She made our list because she was described as dog-neutral. Our dog Buddy is dog-selective, so a dog that would give him space was a high priority. A month in, I’m not so sure she’s so neutral. After a few weeks with us, she busted through my office door to introduce herself to Buddy. For the first time in his life, he did not react first and ask questions later. It was a Christmas miracle. It’s been pretty smooth sailing between the two of them since then. She’s a bit of a resource guarder. (Buddy has been a problem child at times but never a resource guarder.) She’s also a little too laser-focused on the cat. We are working on both.

A dog’s personality often reveals itself slowly over time. Some surprises: Indy is completely house-trained. Accidents are common when dogs get a new home but we have had zero. She’s crate-trained. She knows how to sit and shake. She’s good on a leash and great in the car. She’s a world-class snuggler. She thinks that she’s a fine lap dog and has a pretty cute backup-into-your-lap move. She loves, loves, loves toys. We were told she wasn’t treat motivated and we thought how can that be? She’s a lab! We have learned that it very much depends on the treat. She likes pretty boring treats by Buddy’s standards—but she likes them a lot. She’s incredibly gentle taking treats (similar to Buddy, but unlike our other chompers.)

Some apparent firsts: wearing a harness and a raincoat, riding in a truck, climbing stairs, and living with a cat.

Indy is incredibly shiny and soft: she lives up to her name. She loves attention. She loves Robert and follows him around. She’s just what we needed. In many ways, she’s like Hopi, but in others she is different. She has some similarities to Brin and even Buddy and she’s also her own dog. Buddy seems changed for the better by her. He hasn’t been himself since losing Hopi. Now he seems happy to have a dog friend who shares his love for the outdoors and his interest in sniffing everything on the street, three times a day.

Indy Silk is her fancy rescue name but it suits her, she answers to it, and we love it. And her. 🖤

This year, all the fur kids received new stockings. The favorite gift among the canine contingent was this ZippyPaws Burrow Squeaky Hide and Seek Plush Dog Log with Chipmunks. Seeing Buddy running around with toys is super cute.

Indy loves, loves, loves toys and she is especially fond of this Guacamole Bowl hide-and-seek toy. She carries the stuffed tortilla chip around ALL the time, so I have started calling it her emotional support chip. Many hide-and-seek toys offer “refills,” so now she has TWO emotional support chips! (Thanks, Santa Paws!)

Lille En’s stocking included these adorable sushi-themed toys and her favorite catnip tea bags. Our sweet cat has been battling multiple health problems this year and takes a mind-boggling amount of medication. But I was inspired by BilliSpeaks, a cat similar in age also with health challenges who also uses talking buttons to speak and make her feelings known. (I love that her favorite word is mad.)

Billi’s mom said something in a video about presuming competence and that’s stuck with me. Lille En loved the new toys and played with them for a surprisingly long time. I feel bad that we haven’t provided more playtime so more playtime in 2024! Good for the whole family! We will also try a brain toy with her.

Surprisingly, many toys are either dishwasher-safe or machine-washable so check the details when purchasing.

We are bird fans. We have a long-standing love affair with the blue friends (Steller’s jays), the chickadees and the spotted towhees. (Robert has a soft spot for these cute little ground feeders, making sure that they get some of the peanuts that we put out for the Stellar’s jays.)

But we’ve seen several new birds in the past week! We downloaded the Cornell Lab Merlin app to help with identifying our new feathered friends. It helps identify birds by their song or a photo. First: a goldfinch. I realize this is no rare bird alert–it’s the state bird of Washington after all, but it has proven elusive. We saw a woodpecker we haven’t seen before, maybe a red-breasted sapsucker? Plus a pair of black-headed grosbeaks, including a male and a female.

We are working on a new garden area near the large birdfeeder so we moved it up to the porch temporarily. The dinner crew is putting on quite a show this evening.

Photo by Jennifer Uppendahl on Unsplash

Check it off the list: I finally watched Casablanca. You don’t realize how many references there are to this movie until you see the movie. Something that surprised us is that one of the movie’s most enduring lines, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” is uttered more than once in the movie. Four times! 

We checked it out of the library, and the version we watched included audio commentary from the late great Roger Ebert. I never really liked Roger Ebert’s movie reviews with Gene Siskel, but I came to know and love Mr. Ebert on Twitter a few years before he passed away. It was a nice surprise to get the full context and backstory from a friend, long gone. 

Sing it with me!

Birds, mice, frogs, scorpions, slugs, all kinds of spiders, ants, moths and many unidentified insects: yes.

Snakes? No. 

We had a snake in our house. A small snake, a garter snake. Quite pretty. Nonetheless, it was where it ought not be. And then, startled by an over interested cat and dog, it made its escape down an air vent. 

This is the part of the story where I reassure my dear readers that this story has a happy ending.

Still, a vent is not a good home for a snake. So we herded all the overly interested furkids out of the room. Removed the vent cover and built a barricade around the vent, making the exit out the nearby window the very best option. I had a little conversation with the snake. I’m no parselmouth, but I did my best to gently encourage her to exit the building.

Eventually, the snake made an appearance in the opening of the vent, watching carefully for the cat, no doubt. 

I took Buddy for a walk and left Robert to help the snake to make her exit. She did and stayed on the porch for a while to get her bearings before gliding off to parts unknown. 

How did she get in? I do not know and that’s a bit of a worry. Best guess is that she was coiled in a plant that I brought in earlier in the day. I hope she let the other snakes know that outside was the better option. I’ll definitely check the plants more carefully before bringing them inside.

Singalong:

Fun! Jim Stafford and Dolly Parton “Spiders and Snakes”

If you know, you know. Laurie Anderson “Langue D’amour”

I received my first dose of the Covid-10 vaccine (Moderna). Vaccines and flu shots are troubling to some people, but it’s always been a straightforward risk assessment to me–is going without it a bigger risk? If the answer is yes, I do it. Covid-19 has devastated communities all over the world. We’ve collectively lost too many loved ones. For me, protecting each other means doing what I can to support public health: hand washing, face coverings, social distancing, and getting the vaccine. 

I’ve also had the flu so bad that I thought I was going to die. After that, I willingly accept any and all shortcomings of the flu shot and vaccines. Any protection is better than none. Also, I’m willing to bet that anyone who uses the phrase “just the flu” has not actually had influenza.

If you have been vaccinated, yay! If you choose not to be vaccinated, I hope you will take the necessary precautions to stay healthy. I want you around for a long time. 

I subscribe to the Five Weeknight Dishes email from the New York Times. I often peruse it, but we rarely make anything. Printing off – and making! – three of the five recipes in a single week is decidedly blog-worthy. 

We are vegetarians, so some modifications were needed, and I noted those below.

Here’s what we made: 

Pasta Puttanesca

The best part of this recipe is the sauce. This is the easiest sauce recipe I have ever made. It was ready before the pasta. We used Cento brand canned Italian tomatoes. These are saucy right out of the can, so no need to drain them.

A substitute for anchovies is capers, so we used more capers than called for in the recipe. 

This mushrooms-on-toast recipe was easy and delicious. No creme fraiche options in grocery store pickup, so we substituted sour cream, which worked great. Sliced baby bella mushrooms made this a quick meal, and we served it on Dave’s Killer Bread to keep it on the healthy side.

For the Sheet-Pan Scallion Chicken(less) with Bok Choy we used two bags of baby bok choy and a bag of breaded veggie chicken-less tenders from Trader Joe’s. This dish is way fancier than what we usually make for a weekday meal, but it was quick and delicious. I used less oil than the recipe called for (which is my typical practice).

All three recipes are winners and are now on the repeat list. We’ve made the pasta dish three times in the past two weeks, and I now feel like capers have become a pantry staple. I was the living embodiment of the heart eyes emoji when my beloved started making Pasta Puttanesca last night for dinner. (FYI, Trader Joe’s crushed Italian tomatoes work well, too.) 

You can sign up here to receive the weekly Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter from the New York Times. 

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash