Lately for some reason I’ve had pets on the brain. I’ve been noticing cute dogs all over the place, which is uncharacteristic, because I’ve always been a cat person. When I was growing up, we had as many as 5 at one time! And all of those were adopted from various places. They were all strays, or kittens of friends’ cats, though I’m not sure any of them came to us from a shelter.

Andy and I don’t have room for a pet right now. He didn’t grow up with pets, and I think having an animal in a one-bedroom apartment would be overwhelming to even the most seasoned pet-owner. But eventually, we’ll probably be in the market, and it will definitely be an adoption (especially if it’s a cat). Breed just doesn’t mean that much to me…but cuteness does!

Check out this little guy who is available at the Atlanta Humane Society: I know NOTHING about having a dog, but if I were to find a friendly little fluffball that seemed manageable I think I’d be game.

But now, to ensconce myself firmly in my own comfort zone, I’ll some utterly gratuitous pictures of the cute cats you could adopt.

This little guy’s name is Yoshi:

And here’s Missy:

Muriel looks like a sweetie:

Eef looks like a loveable mess:

And I’ve always been a sucker for a black cat:

Many of these babies are older, which I imagine would be harder: when you raise a cat from a kitten, it gets used to you and your house and your rules. But it is possible to incorporate an established cat! My parents have a tomcat (aptly name Tom) who gradually made his way from our porch into our house via a pillowcased visit to the vet. He has his quirks, and he’s definitely not a sweet lapcat, but he’s domesticated now.

Even though I’m not “in the market” for a pet I had fun browsing the Humane Society’s gallery! Are you a dog or a cat person? Where do you adopt or buy pets from?

My least favorite question in a “getting to know you” conversation is: What do you like to do in your free time? For some reason I always find myself stammering around and unable to think of how I spend my leisure hours.

I read. I do laundry. I clean the bathroom. I cook dinner (though I don’t create my own recipes). I blog. I read and comment on other people’s blogs. I go for walks or do Netflix pilates. I go to church functions. I play Team Trivia. I read books. I coupon and shop for bargains. I go to thrift stores. I watch TV shows, including Jeopardy with my husband.

I sound like a pretty fun and well-rounded person! So why do none of these come out well when someone asks? I could talk all day about what I do at work and the mission of the organization (which is not a bad thing), but I think I need to come up with an elevator pitch for myself so that I can concisely explain what I like to do. I usually end up saying something dopey like, “Well, I like to read, so I do that a lot.” BOR-ING.

Part of my problem is that I’m so wrapped up in my online world that I forget that it might sound strange to other people. I had someone recently ask me what a blog is. Instead of getting excited to tell them about what I enjoy doing and how much fun it is to “make friends” through others’ blogs, I got sheepish and didn’t want to admit how much time I spend in the blog-world. Couponing is the same way: I’m so engrossed in it that I’m taken aback when someone doesn’t know of it, and I stall out there in the conversation.

I’m sometimes unnecessarily embarrassed that I don’t have a traditional hobby. I craft and sew only sporadically; I have yet to succeed at sticking to a Spanish-learning routine; I don’t play any sports or games routinely; I don’t write computer programs or garden or write poetry. I’m too good at apologizing for myself and not good enough at celebrating my uniqueness. I think it ties back into my realization when reading The Happiness Project that you have to embrace what is fun TO YOU and not worry about what’s fun to other people. I am lately coming to terms with the fact that I don’t like to run! I am perfectly capable of running, and I’ve proven that to myself by sticking with the Couch to 5K program for 3 months. I’ll be checking the final item off that list when I participate in the Atlanta Women’s 5K next weekend. But I don’t enjoy it, so I’m not going to force myself to do it, no matter how much I wish I could say I am a runner.

So, you know what? What’s fun to me is coming home from work, reading my Google Reader, writing a blog post, cooking dinner, and watching Jeopardy with my husband. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

Now I’ve got to ask: what do YOU like to do? Do you ever have trouble explaining yourself?

I suffer from breakfast ADD. I read somewhere that a small key to happiness is to always eat the same thing for breakfast because that removes the stress of having to figure out what to fix. Andy is the perfect picture of this axiom. He microwaves a bowl of oatmeal every morning of the world and is perfectly satisfied. That would not work for me at all. I usually wake up hungry, but the whims of my stomach are a mystery to me. Some mornings I wake up and want something sweet; others salty. Some mornings I feel like I could barely stomach a cup of yogurt; others I could eat the whole cow. It’s convenient that I wake up several hours before I’m due at work and that I enjoy cooking, because I’m usually able to indulge my stomach’s fantasies. Oh, I rarely fix anything fancy. But it sets me off on a much better foot if I eat what sounds good in the moment (within reason). If I planned to only eat cereal every morning and woke up one morning mad for an egg, it would make me very sad indeed to have to eat that bowl of cereal. I’m not like this about any other meal–just breakfast. Who knows.

Some of the typical things in rotation on my morning plate are:

• Hard-boiled egg (which I often cook en masse on the weekends and refrigerate), a serving of nuts, and some fruit
• Toasted English muffin with melted cheese and turkey or almond butter
• Greek yogurt with granola and fruit
• Bowl of cereal with light vanilla soy milk; a banana
• Oatmeal with brown sugar, walnuts, and a splash of cream (I never have liked oatmeal, but lately I've been trying hard to add it to my repertoire. The cream makes the biggest difference to me, along with cooking it with less water than called for so as to make it thicker.)

I also love a good breakfast sandwich. Nothing says Saturday morning to me like a fried egg sandwich with cheese and ketchup and a big mug of hot tea. (Lately I’ve been throwing a handful of baby spinach leaves on it as well.) I pass by several Starbucks and a Chick Fil A on my way to work, and on the occasional morning I cannot resist the call of the chicken sausage wrap or chicken biscuit and hashbrowns. But for both health and financial reasons I try to keep those mornings to a minimum! Another sometimes-favorite is leftover quiche if I happen to have made one for dinner recently. Tomorrow night I’m planning to make a chicken-apple sausage frittata, and I’m already looking forward to its second life on my breakfast plate.

The main requirement for my breakfast is that it have a fair amount of protein. Sure, I love donuts and pastries–but I’ve gotta have an egg or two with them if that’s my choice. Otherwise I’ll be hungry within the hour! Even with protein I am regularly hungry for my 10:30 or 11:00 mid-morning snack. I’ve decided not to fight my body’s natural hunger rhythms and instead satisfy them with healthy(ish) foods. I figure it’s hopefully a sign that my metabolism is doing well.

Shopping for breakfast foods is the toughest part of grocery shopping for me, because it’s hard to predict what I’ll feel like eating on any given weekday. I try to coupon and shop sales, of course, but I often buy whatever happens to catch my eye, even if it’s bagels and cream cheese. I just read a magazine article suggesting cottage cheese as a healthy snack and I thought, “Oh! I forgot about cottage cheese!” So that will likely make its way into my shopping cart this weekend. But when I might actually get a hankerin’ to eat it I couldn’t tell ya.

What’s your breakfast routine? What are some of your favorite quick and easy breakfasts?

My grocery shopping schedule was a bit funky this week due to our travel. I did my normal “big” Kroger run on Tuesday evening, which felt so weird (though the store was nicely empty). But I managed to put together a pretty awesome Publix trip yesterday!

Total Spent: $12.23 (including tax) Total Saved: $28.96 (between coupons and “special price” savings)

• 4 boxes Emerald Breakfast on the Go at 2 for $3.29 used 4 $1.00/1 coupons $0.65 per box
• 2 boxes Welch's Fruit Snacks at 2 for $2.79 used 2 $0.50/1 coupons; doubled to $1.00 off $0.40 per box
• 2 tubs Smart Balance buttery spread at 2 for $2.59 used $1.00/2 coupon $0.80 per tub (Land o Lakes spread is my favorite, but this was too good of a deal to pass up.)
• 2 Dannon Light and Fit 4-packs at $2.19 each used $2/2 Publix coupon used 2 $0.25/1 manufacturer's coupon; doubled to $0.50 off $0.60 per 4-pack
• 1 32-ounce bottle Pompeian EVOO, BOGO at $12.09 used $1.00/1 coupon $5.05 after BOGO and coupon (I paid $4.19 for a Kroger brand 16 ounce bottle, so this was a great deal.)

I also picked up 2 bags of Pretzel Crisps at Target:

Total Spent: $2.09 (including tax)

These actually were not on sale; their normal price is $1.99 at Target, but there was a printable $1.00/1 coupon this week, so I got them for $0.99 each. I also saved 5 cents by using my own bag. :-)

And…..I swung by the thrift store. I had to go for work purposes, but of course I ended up buying a couple of things:

 You can tell I was in a spring-y mode. The navy blue chinos are Ann Taylor Loft, and I thought they would be cute with the camel colored flats I’m eventually planning to buy. The pink shirt is Forever 21, and the short-sleeved cable knit cotton sweater is by Jeanne Pierre (whoever that is). I spent around $8.00 total, thanks to my employee’s discount.

So that was my week! It felt good to get back to being frugal after being on vacation. I always feel like I’m just bleeding money on vacation, even though I know we had it saved and it was totally worth it to spend. I’m looking forward to some good CVS deals starting up tomorrow!

Since we were in Ireland visiting family, we got to experience some things that the average  tourist might not. And, conversely, Andy's family got to do some touristy things that they might not normally do as residents of Dublin!

This past Saturday night, we all piled into cars and headed up into the Dublin mountains to Johnnie Fox's, "the highest pub in Dublin."

We had reservations for their renowned Hooley Night, a multi-course meal of traditional Irish fare followed by live music and a set by some Irish dancers. We sat crowded into long tables in a room with tourists from all over the world! The experience was what we might call "hokey" over here, but since it was unique to me I enjoyed it (though the show went on rather long!). I branched out and had steamed mussels for my first course (I wonder if they bought them from Molly Malone?) and then lamb stew for my main course. For dessert I tried the Whiskey Gateaux, and lemme tell you, it had some whiskey in it! It was fun hearing some of the traditional songs that I knew and others I didn't. In one song in particular I could really hear the influences that led to the creation of bluegrass and the likes. And the dancers were fabulous. I don't even know how anyone can move their feet that fast! My seat was right at the front of the small stage and I think I flinched every time they did a high kick! It was a fun experience all around.

The next morning we headed out to a Dublin suburb of sorts to watch Andy's cousin's boyfriend (whew, that's a mouthful!) play in a hurling match. In my mother's words, "What in the heck is hurling?!" The best way I can think to describe it is that it's kind of like lacrosse, only you're balancing the ball on a wooden paddle instead of in a net. It's a pretty rough game, and helmets have only been compulsory for the past year or two!

Here's a video that explains it a bit:

There's a well developed club sport system in Dublin and surrounding areas that people are very into, so a lot of the guys on this team have been playing together for awhile. There was a wicked cold wind the morning we went, and I hadn't exactly brought clothes suited for standing outside watching a sporting event, but it was fun nonetheless. Since you're just standing on the sidelines, not sitting in bleachers or anything, there are times when the players and/or the ball are coming right at you! I definitely didn't really understand what was going on most of the time, but I felt like it was an "authentic" Irish weekend experience.

We went to a restaurant afterwards to warm up, and I discovered the concept of a "carvey." It's basically like the concept of Sunday dinner after church here: many places have a buffet with multiple kinds of meat (the carvery) and a big spread of sides. They even had dressing with cranberry sauce! While none of us went whole hog and had the carvey, I did have the vegetable plate, and it was reminiscent of a good ole Southern plate. The tea was also free-flowing, brought to the table in big pots that allowed each of us to have several cups.

That pretty much wraps up our trip. We were up way early the next morning to head home. We were so efficient in getting to the airport and getting checked in that we were waiting outside customs before it even opened for the morning! Our flight was uneventful--I watched way too many movies--and we had the afternoon on Monday to begin getting back into the swing of things. It's been just a normal week, making it kind of surreal to think that just a few days ago I was in an entirely different country. I am again just so thankful that we were able to go!