Hugo

So, we are finally foster parents. I like to do a good deed on 9.11. Makes me feel better I guess, instead of helpless. We're fostering Hugo.  My husband is already fully convinced we're going to end up keeping him and he's the one who gave him the name. He's a little peanut. He was rescued from that hoarding situation: http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/cops-arrest-west-hills-couple-on-animal-abuse-charges-1.2254122

Don't read that article if you are at all sensitive to animal abuse. It's freaking terrible what those people did. Somewhere around 150 dogs but that can't give an exact count - for reasons explained in the article. The fostering place didn't care if we didn't have a backyard (unlike the people I tried going with last year), they were just happy I could help.

Poor little Hugo had never been outside in his life. He didn't know what grass was! Obviously has no idea what housebroken or walking on a leash mean. When you go near him, he generally starts shaking and lays down because he doesn't know what to do. He's already super excited when we walk into the room and happy to see us and he's only been here since around 2:30. This is amazing progress. I'm so proud of the little guy already.

He's definitely got something going on with his ear - it's incredibly dirty and he cries when you go near it. We've gotten it much cleaner but we'll try more tomorrow. I don't want to overwhelm him. I will say as scared as he's been, he hasn't once nipped at us or even thought about biting us. When we were going at his ears, he just cried and tried turning away.

Cooper has also been fantastic. He's the big dog now. Yes, Hugo is that small haha. Both of them sat in the kitchen watching me as I made dinner as if that's what they always did. Hopefully, Hugo follows Cooper's lead and learns leash skills and how to walk outside quickly. When I brought him out before, the wind blew, and he just curled into a ball on the ground. When I assured him it was okay and it happened again he sat up. He really wants to not be afraid and it's so cool to watch that happen.

And now, pictures all taken with my phone so they have that lovely indoor lighting/yellow iPhone quality.

They had to shave down most of the dogs from the house because they were so terrible matted. His hair is pretty short on his body but I think when it grows in, he'll be adorable. The ears kill me!



Louie and Hugo give kisses to each other - he likes cats



The boys watching tv. Hugo gets a towel in case he decides to pee on my couch.



The boys conked out as I write this.

So my birthday came and went and, of course, I cheated.  My work brought in a coffee cake for me and it was really good and I couldn't say no.  Then we went out to dinner with friends and my husband got me a wonderful peanut butter/chocolate ice cream cake from Cold Stone - my favorite!  But I'm back on track now and all is going well.  I'm down about 4 or 5 lbs (I don't remember since I weighed this morning).  I will update with a more exact number tomorrow.

Got some not so great news from my doctor today.  I went to the obgyn about a week or so ago cause my periods have been really irregular.  They were fine the first few months off of birth control but then the past few months I've had a 54 day cycle, a 35 day cycle, and a 46 day cycle.  I wanted to know what was going on with my irregular periods.  I also have a horrid fear that I'm completely infertile.  I had blood work done last week and the results came back.  My prolactin levels are elevated.  It's not a great thing but it could be much worse.  After googling (of course), I learned that there's a pill you can take to get everything regulated, so that's positive at least.  Who knows what further tests, if any, I'll need before that happens but we'll see.

I have an appointmentwith my regular obgyn at the end of the month to go over the blood results and do a sonogram just to make sure everything else looks okay.  Then, two days later I have an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist to go over the elevated prolactin levels.  Hopefully, it's a quick fix and we can get everything back on track.

food diary

Okay, so we've been eating out for dinner all weekend - as usual. 

Friday was the diner- I got coffee, soup, salad, entree, and dessert.  Coffee was half and half and sweet n low, soup I gave to the husband but had a few sips of the chicken broth, salad was Greek salad but I got blue cheese dressing on it so it was good, and then dinner was chopped steak, stuffed mushrooms, escarole, and creamed spinach.  Creamed spinach tasted sooo good so hopefully it wasn't terrible for me, escarole was terrible and I didn't eat it, dumped out the stuffing and just ate the mushrooms themselves so that was good.  As long as there was no filler in the chopped steak, I did fine.  I didn't have a sugar/carb headache afterwards so I'm guessing I did okay.  Gave my dessert to my husband while I had some more coffee.  All in all not terrible.

Saturday was eggs/bacon for breakfast then we went house hunting.  Afterwards, I ate my leftover chopped steak.  Then that night friends wanted to go to another diner so we obliged.  That time I just ate my broth out of the chicken noodle soup, again Greek salad w/blue cheese dressing, chicken sorentino.  It says it was broiled and it didn't taste like there was flour on the chicken so that was fine, eggplant was breaded so I picked around, prosciutto and mozzarella are always good.

Sunday we went into the city.  Had leftover chicken sorentino for breakfast.  Pumpkin coffee from dunkin donuts which I'm sure was terrible I just couldn't stand not getting it - I didn't add any sweetener so maybe that's slightly better?  We walked around the city a ton so lots of exercise.  Ended up going to Nobu for dinner and had the omakase- chef's choice.  The first three courses were pretty okay because they were mainly sushi. salad, tartar.  The lightly fried lobster and black cod miso w/foie gras were soooo worth the cheats.  Sooo good!!  Then there was miso soup and sushi.  So just the small balls of rice under the sushi weren't bad there.  Dessert was green tea ice cream and molten chocolate cake.  I didn't bother eating the cake (even tho it should be flour less lol) because I don't see the point in wasting the stomach room on something like that.  It I can get it at Chili's for $6, why would I pay $35 for it?  Too easy to make and I'd rather something more elaborate.  The green tea ice cream was really good though. 

Monday: We met my sister etc for lunch at a burger place.  I ate a salad with blue cheese dressing, burger (no bun) w/ Swiss cheese and sauteed onions, and a piece of broccoli.  Would've eaten more broccoli but I was stuffed.  Then we had a bowl of popcorn for dinner.  Could have made a better choice with that but there's a ton of fiber in popcorn and we definitely could've made a worse choice.

Tomorrow is my actual birthday so I will do the best I can.  Of course, all weekend long, I have forgotten to weigh myself so tomorrow ought to be fun.  If I eat crap tomorrow, that's fine.  After my birthday, I will be back on track.  We already have a good, low carb, Rosh Hashanah dinner planned that I'm looking forward to.  I'll probably have to go food shopping after work tomorrow to pick up the last minute ingredients though. 

How was your weekend?