Keeping busy

Up early early today. My final speech is on Monday and I'm doing it about CAFOs again. I feel pretty ashamed that I haven't taken the time to get up and go to the farmer's market and get humane options even when I feel so strongly about an issue. No time like the present to rectify that. We're trying to eat on a diet at the present and sadly this week I don't have a vegetarian option for us.

Breakfasts - Strawberry breakfast shake - need milk
Lunches - Veggie burgers or Chef salad - need eggs
Dinners - 2x Hamburgers, 2x Spicy Tofu, 2x Fajitas - need hamburgers, ground pork and chicken breasts

I was able to find all of that at the market. I always forget that natural chicken breasts are so much smaller than conventional. We will have to fill our fajitas up with a good amount of onions and peppers! One thing I didn't find at the market was 1% milk. The local dairy only sells whole milk. I wonder if I buy that I can dilute it with water or if there's just no alternative option.

On a side note, studying for my speech I realized that the brand Dean owns the majority of dairy products in the USA and markets them under a variety of different brand names. John's favorite dip is Dean. :(

After the market and the freezer asap because it is still 90+ out here, I went to the Carmel Petco to start this new volunteer program. It's for a group called Rescue Me. I've been feeling a strong desire to get involved with volunteering again. I did some as a child and also some immigrant ESL tutoring as a young 20 year old. Our lives are so hectic with school and work that it has been hard to figure a way to fit everything in. I found the opportunity on VolunteerMatch. It's pretty small; I don't think they even have a website. I go in and clean 6 cat cages in a Petco, takes about an hour every Saturday or Sunday. The program has someone go in every day to visit the cats so the cages aren't really nasty. The hope is that someone will come to Petco and just adopt them out of there.

It seems like a great program and is such a light commitment. Plus I LOVE cats. I could stay in there and pet them for hours. We had 2 kittens today and then 2 sisters that came from a lady who had to go to a nursing home, a boy and then 1 other. They were all so sweet. If only Bonnie wasn't so territorial and John didn't put his foot down about more cats, I would TOTALLY adopt another. I hope I will be able to keep this up because helping animals is something I really care about.

After the shelter, I took Gavin to McDonald's play area and let him run around with the kids for 2 hours while his dad was home working on his homework. Too bad McDonald's is the only place Gavin likes to go. We had ice cream afterwards. He had blackberry and I had cookie dough from Sundae's, a really tasty little local ice cream shop. Daddy got Reese's of course.

Stopped at the Asian grocery to pick up cans of Arroy-D green curry, baby corns and bamboo shoots. Green curry in a can is becoming a staple meal. Takes only the amount of time to cook the rice. That curry really tastes like what you get in a Thai restaurant, just add chicken and rice and good to go. The curry paste they sell never ends up tasting the same way. John dutifully eats the vegetables I mix in (usually green beans) but I've discovered he's sort of nuts over bamboo shoots. So I bought him an extra can. They ARE a vegetable and I have to figure out how to add those in so we love our meal instead of just eat it because THE WIFE makes us.

I'm going to blame it on the heat but I took a 2 hour nap and it was fabulous. Sadly waking up sweaty really stinks. Next week is supposed to be 80s and I sure hope it will be or I may die. I was watching youtube videos of people cooking eggs on sidewalks and cars. That's when you know it is TOO hot.

I have some schoolwork to do but it is pretty mild. I studied the crap out of this quarter and while I have a final approaching on Thursday in my Microbiology course, I'm just going to lightly review. I like my memory. When I am nuts about something I really commit it to memory. Reviewing will just take a little bit. Got a 94% on my last lab test and 107% on chapter exam 3. I think I can fail the final and still get an A. :)

Tonight we are going to John's mother's house to get an audience for his online speech course. He is going to do a speech on aliens. I think when his speech course is over, we are going to be sad. It has been a lot of fun to visit his mother, sister and her family every 2 weeks for his speeches. We'll have to figure out how to work the time in to get over there more often. Wish it wasn't a 45min drive one way.

Upcoming is our break and we are *fingers crossed* going to get into the fitness routine for at least 3 weeks before fall semester starts up.