Mocking the Dog Never Gets Old

Flame's favorite sleeping place. Ding dong, the bitch is dead!

Day in the Life

As Flame dearly loves squirrels (preferably in the form of kabobs), we got her a stuffed, squeaky squirrel for Christmas. Guess where I found it this morning?

Christmas for change? Yes please!

Ak and I exchanged presents yesterday (because we suck at that whole patience thing), and I have to give a shout-out to my husband for giving me a pretty awesome gift. He gave me a hand-made pursue from Global Reach, a company that exists solely to liberate men, women and children from sexual slavery and other types of bondage and abuse.

The stats on this are pretty staggering:

• 12.3 million people in forced labor and sexual servitude
• 800,000 victims trafficked across borders, and half are minors
• 2 million children exploited in global sex trade

If you have any to buy for that it's into hippie stuff, check out the site and shop for a good cause!

My New Favorite Web Site

Absolutely brilliant.

Bird is the Word

Some pics from the Becks' Thanksgiving feast!

As part of our CSA, we got a whole chicken, and it's been hanging out in our freezer for several months. So, we decided to enjoy that free-range, organic, dandelion-and-rainbow-fed chicken for Thanksgiving.

Flame was very helpful in guarding him/her and making sure it didn't run away.


Hey wait, it ran away!


Straight into the rotisserie! Drat, foiled again.


Tasting the veggies and making the obligatory Friends "Umm!" face.


Our Thanksgiving table: rotisserie chicken, candied brandied sweet potatoes, garlic ginger green beans and a bottle of Chianti. (Don't judge, we were out of chardonnay.) Needless to say, it was delicious and we were quite pleased with our culinary skills. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Drum Roll Please...

Here you go kids -- pics of the great kitchen renovation!

Before:

And after:

You may have noticed that we did not end up going with black and white tile. I have several very grown-up reasons for this, so let's just call the idea tabled for now.

I have to give a shout-out to Empire for being all-around awesome throughout this whole process. I know, you want to hate them because their commercials suck, but I thought they were pretty fabulous. So if you're in the market for new floors, I say check 'em out.

The horror (or the cuteness)

So we went dog walking today, but it was kind of chilly! So what do we do? We put our poor, defenseless puppy in a coat (because she doesn't have very long fur, you see...)

What's that look like? Glad you asked:

While that alone probably makes us horrible people, the real pain came when we were (quite obviously, in our opinions) silently judged by little 8 year old girls as we went around the neighborhood.

In other news, Thanksgiving is nearly upon us. While that means a lot of things to a lot of people, it primarily means candied yams, pumpkin and pecan pies, and delicious macaroni and cheese to me. Anyone else out there dreaming of food while the day creeps up on us?

-- Ak out

Wherein the Becks Catch Y'all Up On What's Been Going On

Hi guys! So we don't blog here so much. We each have our reasons, and here they are:

Court -- While I don't blog here, I'm the blog editor for NutriDense.com, where I blog 3+ times a week about the latest in ag and animal nutrition. Rock on.
Ak -- While I don't blog here, I'm a huge slacker. (The end.)

So here's what's been up with us over the past month or so:

• We are now an iPhone packing family -- So now we don't do anything without an app. Want to see if it's raining? App. Want to check what's on Tv? App. Walking the dogs? App. Need to open a door? App. Let me tell you, apps everywhere in this family!
• Court went part time at her job. She then proceeded to continuously bill 40 hours per week. So now she's got the ball rolling on going back to full time, but with more time working from home than before. Huzzah!
• Flame got herself a shiny new collar. Said collar gives her a little buzz when we hit a button. This collar has single-handedly made her a much, much better dog. She no longer chases cats everywhere, she listens to us on the first try almost all the time. Honestly, we don't put that collar on most days any more, and she's still remarkably good. She's quickly rising to take the mantle of perfect dog from Marty.
• We made a Hathaway family traditional chili the other day. Court's very proud of the recreation of her grandmother's chili, and I thought it wasn't half bad.
• We went to Smiffield for the annual Christmas shopping trip to the outlets. 'Twas a good outing that had us hitting all of Court's old haunts. Including Mucho Mexico.
• Work has been going well for me, but there's been a lot of it. Several nights now, I've had to crawl into bed early the next day... Court's been really supportive of it all thus far, so that's awesome.
• After repeatedly watching Flame pop over over 6-foot fence, it was determined that perhaps she was in need of more exercise. Flame has since been enrolled in Camp Bow Wow, a day camp for dogs. Yeah, yeah, we're aware of the yuppyiness of it all, but see below for why it kicks ass:

That's all for now. We're preparing for the holidays and hopefully a mega-home renovation project (oh, teaser!), so stay tuned!

Hug A Ginger Day

That'd be tomorrow, Nov. 20. I expect lots of hugs.

Halloween -- the live blog!

While I doubt many people will be following this as it goes on, Court and I are currently sitting outside of our house, waiting for trick or treaters with our two faithful mutts. Last minute costumes were in order, so we picked up a couple of dog costumes from Target for Marty & Flame (pics soon to come) and then we cobbled together (what I think) is a pretty respectable Jay & Silent Bob from what we had around the house. So far, no trick or treaters have yet stopped by for the goodies we're providing. But stay tuned here for updates as they happen! (Court would like to express her excitement over live blogging about something over than cows. Not that cows aren't fascinating.)

Dogs!

We just had our first trick or treaters! We had a clone trooper, some sort of nazghul with a spear, and... Something else. I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention... Either way, success!

They just walked back by -- Hannah Montana!! Mystery solved!

Now things are in full swing... We just had a rash of trick or treaters come by, including a girl dressed as the game Twister! Much props go to her for an off-beat costume... More to come...

Us:












We've obviously moved inside by this point, but the logistics of managing a hyper puppy whilst answering the door has proven to be a Herculean task. With this in mind, we wound up just putting the basket of candy outside with a note.

Lessons learned from tonight's adventure:

• you're officially old when you start trick or treating before the kids
• never underestimate the value of dressing as a pop culture icon
• NC autumns are too freaking warm for toboggans and trench coats
• dogs don't like hats

Good night, and good luck

-- Ak out

A PSA from your Friendly Ag PR Girl

Check it out: a testimonial straight from the, er, pig's mouth. H1N1, please!

Idealism, Meet Reality

There's been a lot of debate about the food supply lately, sparked in large part by Food Inc. I won't lie: the movie has had a huge impact on the way the Becks buy food. One of us, despite years of work in the commercial agriculture industry, is really wigged out and will only buy meat from the Farmer's Market or the local hippie grocery store. The other one, bless his carnivorous heart, doesn't really care where the food comes from as long as some of the protein comes in the form of cow.

For those who have a horse in this race, here's some food for thought. What does sustainable agriculture look like to you?

Raleigh's Mad Men

Check out these photos from the early days of the advertising agency I work for.

Damn the man, save the empire!

Interesting article about urban sprawl and one man's reaction. Something tells me the Town of Cary is going to frown on this.

High in the Rockies

We went to Colorado last weekend to spend some time with my folks. Here are some highlights (the only lowlight was that it took 6 planes to get there and back! Geez).

Nature. It's sort of everywhere in Colorado. This was taken in a residential neighborhood (yes, this is what a residential neighborhood in Colorado looks like).


We went to several museums, and Ak petted a sheep. This was the best part of the trip for him. City boy.


Chainsaw art is a big deal in Craig, CO. Here's an example.


Hiking in Steamboat Springs, CO.



We hiked to this waterfall, which was featured on the original Coors beer packaging!


View from where we had lunch in Steamboat Springs -- a deck on the top floor of a ski resort.

How we got there -- I was very brave.

The New Girl (or, One Toke over the Line)

About a month ago, we decided it was time to adopt a puppy. Meet our girl -- Flame Carson Jersey Beck. Flame was her given name, Carson is the Shag girl she reminds me most of, and Jersey because she's spotted and she grazes, like a cow. Weird, right?

Flame is a rescue pup. She's almost a year old, and she's a Brittany/Terrier. I got so excited about the Brittany part that I completely overlooked the Terrier, which means a strong chase instinct! Living with a Terrier and cats is, um, interesting. Alex, in typically Alex form, marched right up to Flame as soon as she got here and smacked her in the nose to let her know he was in charge. He later bit her on the ear, and now that they've established some boundaries, they get along famously (and by famously, I mean Alex chews on her tail and she no longer tries to hunt him). Flame and Ben are still discussing their boundaries. Ben hisses at her, but she's too distracted by the fact that he looks like a squirrel to attempt to overcome the language barrier. Good times. Fortunately, Flame gets more responsive every day and she's awesome with people, even tiny ones, so we think with more training she'll be a pretty awesome dog.

The first of many exciting dog walks (nature is a Terrier's buffet). Note pretty Brittany coat!

Snout.

Love my pups!

The House Unveil

This post is mostly for my mom, who keeps asking what I've done to our house and to whom I keep promising pictures. I've also got some pics of the house when it was empty, so I can do sort of a before and after thing. And by after, I mean after Ikea, of course!


Living Room Before -- Large and In Charge


Living Room After -- This room has met its match with the large and in-charge Expedit bookcase! Other newbies in this room: couch from the Ikea as-is section, end table and coffee table. Papasan is also new but not Ikea. I'm thinking of painting this wall yellow, as in sunshine. Thoughts?


Another shot of the living room. This wall is going to be the same blue from the game room (next set of pics). The lamp was my grandmother's and is the color I'm thinking of for the back wall.

Game Room Before


Game Room After



Master Bedroom Before


Master Bedroom After


Guest Bedroom Before


Guest Bedroom After


Dishwasher Before


Dishwasher After

The Becks Do Disney

Just downloaded our pics from the Disney vacation. Yeah, yeah, two months later, but better late than never, right?

I like the way this pic turned out -- it's the organ from Pirates of the Caribbean!

One of us is trying to get ready for a day of Disney fun. The other one is lollygagging and taking pictures. Guess which is which.


Just one of the many pieces of Lego awesomeness at Downtown Disney.


We're having fun, dammit!


A much more believable set of having-fun faces.

Ask about the day my mom shut down the bat exhibit.

Happy tourists in front of the Tree of Life. I took about a million pictures of this tree -- it was covered in amazingly detailed carvings of animals.


Entrance to Dinosaur, my favorite ride. My poor niece didn't like it so much; this was the second dinosaur-themed ride to make her cry in about the span of one hour.
And finally, and this one made me laugh. Two months later, and I'm not quite sure we decided to take this particular picture. Maybe it was because every time we turned around there were more singing and dancing animals, so the sighting of something normal like a cat doing normal cat stuff demanded a picture. I have no idea. But it still makes me laugh.