Showing posts with label puppy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label puppy. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Roastfish & Cornbread...Zoe Update

     Well, Zoe the pup has taken over our entire lives. She was 8 weeks old yesterday and she is sweet, lovable and exhausting. We don't seem to remember it quite this way from when our old Nike was this age, over 15 years ago. She goes out every 2 hours, which means I have been out in the rain more in the past week than I have been in the past 5 years. She is too little to "hold it" at night, so around 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., my husband is cleaning out the crate/kennel and walking around outside in his bathrobe. He is very much a person who requires/expects/demands his sleep, so he is looking at me like "why did I let you do this"! She chews on everything, so I'm picking up shoes, power cords and everything else that isn't glued down-all day long. She wants so badly for our old dog to play, that she chases her through the house, nipping at her ankles until she gets a warning snarl and then she does it all over again. If Nike could talk, she would be asking when this d*** puppy was going home.

     However, she snuggles up and sleeps in your lap for long periods of time. She looks at you with big, brown eyes that seem to say that she loves you more than anything in the world. She plays with her toys, rolling and jumping like a frog. She chases sunbeams (when we have them) on the carpet and she has certainly taken a home with 2 middle-aged boring people with a boring dog and turned us upside-down. We love her. We have no regrets at all, but we will certainly be glad when the accidents stop and she can sleep through the night!


     Now, on to other things...food! While vacationing on Hilton Head Island in October, we had wonderful southern food in a few very interesting places. Our first night, we went to a restaurant called Roastfish & Cornbread. It was the only restaurant that I had circled in the guidebook before leaving home and it was recommended to us by 2 different staff people at the hotel. 
      

     The restaurant isn't large, so I highly recommend going early. The mood was casual, funky and fun. Chef David Vincent Young has created a menu with so many wonderful choices, we didn't know what to do. He also has a delicious selection of vegetarian dishes which sounded wonderful. You can watch him stroll through the restaurant, keeping an eye on things. The staff was superb, the food was perfect.


     It was difficult to get interior pictures. You can see the artwork on the walls. You are looking at the back of a large church pew, which is the seating for a semi-private dining table.


We didn't have to wait for a table because we went early,
but when we left...people were waiting for tables.


     We started our meal with a delicious house salad. That is a yellow tomato, not an egg yolk on the plate. The house dressing was wonderful.


     I selected one of the evening's specials, Fried Softshell Crab (one of my favorites) with hushpuppies and a side of their special Sweet Potato Cornbread. The crab was cooked perfectly. The cornbread was interesting. It had the crumbly texture of cornbread, but tasted more like carrot cake.


     My husband loves Conch Fritters. He often orders them as an appetizer when we are in a southern state. This was the first time we have ever seen them served as a main dish. He said they were perfect, along with hushpuppies and fries. This was not a lowfat meal for us!


     I forgot to take a picture of our dessert. We shared a mini-tart. It was a Blueberry Key Lime Pie. I thought that it would be a tiny pie with blueberries on top, but actually they placed blueberries on the crust before pouring in the filling. So, each bite had blueberry in it as well as a few fresh berries on top with the whipped cream.

     This was a really interesting and fun place to visit and the food could not have been better. It would certainly be on my list to visit again when I'm back on Hilton Head.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Best Birthday Ever!

     Saturday was my birthday. I would guess that most women my age would say that they have had wonderful birthdays and maybe a few where they spent the day crying because they felt underappreciated by their kids or their husband. I've had a couple of bad ones, and lots of good ones and some that just seem like "any other day" of the week. Saturday will be a day I won't forget. I did get gifts I loved from my husband, kids, grands, dad and beautiful flowers from my sister.


I had lunches with friends, fun presents and
 Facebook wishes from people I've known since childhood.

AND...

Zoe came to live with us!



     Some of you may know that we already have a beagle. She was 15 in June and my daughter said that she really thinks of her as a sibling. Nike (my kids were both runners) is doing fairly well for such an old dog, but she no longer wants to sit in the chair with us, or curl up on the foot of the bed. She comes up for a quick rub on the head and then pretty much wants to be left alone. We've always known that we would get another beagle, someday. After a lot of discussion (imagine me begging) we decided that maybe it would be better to get Nike a little sister than to "replace" her later. We were already fighting a few old dog accidents (we bought a carpet cleaner) and they say that puppies are good for elderly dogs.

Nike spends much of her day napping.

Nike as a puppy.

My husband says Zoe is mine, but look at him.

     I started looking for a purebred beagle about 2 months ago. They aren't all that easy to find, even in the Midwest. So many breeders want you to pick your puppy from an internet picture, send a deposit and either pick your pup up in person or at the airport where it is flown in. We want our puppy to pick us! We found Zoe and her 7 siblings at an Amish family home about an hour from us. There were 4 little girls and we let her pick us two weeks ago and then we had to leave her there and wait until Saturday to pick her up! She is 7 weeks old today.

She has already discovered toys.


     We were concerned about the putting them together for the first time. We took them out on the deck where I could have Nike on a tether and pull her away if things went wrong, but it was fine. The puppy chases Nike all over the place trying to get her to play and Nike watches over her with more patience than she really feels.



     We haven't had much sleep the past two nights, but we know that will get better. It is sort of like having a new baby in the house. I think some would think we are crazy because we have our dogs longer than we have had any house we have owned! But, we love her already!