Starbucks=More Than Just Coffee

Today is my second day in a row of waking up at 5:30 am. I could hear my parents getting ready to go to the airport downstairs (they are on their way to Floreeeda -which is how you pronounce "Florida" if you are speaking Spanish- for a few days), but I would usually go right back to sleep. I'm already on my second cup of tea at 8 am. With this jet lag, I feel tired, but I can't sleep. I get the feeling that I just woke up after taking sleeping pills or cold medicine. It's not fun, but at least it goes away eventually.

On a random note, I have iTunes open on my parent's computer and am listening to Arcade Fire for the first time. I am really enjoying it. Their music is nice and relaxed. It's great for blogging or browsing the net. 

Yesterday

Since I was sleepy but couldn't sleep yesterday morning, my mom and I went to Starbucks near our house. I got a grande (pronounced grahnd-ay and means a medium size for those of you Aussies who frequent Cibo instead of Starbucks) iced Americano (my favorite coffee drink, which is just espresso and water) along with a breakfast sandwich. I've never had one from Starbucks before, and it did not disappoint. It was egg whites, turkey bacon and cheese sandwiched in between two english muffin halves. Spectacular. I was hungry about two hours later, but I still loved it. 

As expected, my coffee eventually wore off. I raided the cabinet at home for more caffeine, and I found this:

I like the pyramid-shaped tea bags. The tea tasted pretty nice. I never put sugar or milk in my coffee or tea (on rare occasions, I'll add soy milk), but I didn't think that this tea needed anything added to it anyway. It was full of sweet flavor. I think I would get sick of it if I drank it every day, but it was a good treat for now.

In the afternoon, I whipped out another treat that I bought from Starbucks: a cake pop! These come in a few different flavors, but I bought the birthday cake variety when I was with Jess in Los Angeles on my way back to Australia. I couldn't get over how delicious it tasted. Al listened to me rave about it for the first few days I got back, so I think he'll be happy to finally see what they are. 

It's pretty-looking.

Then you bite into it, and you get a mouthful of moist birthday cake. 

Starbucks Cake Pops come in birthday cake, tiramisu and rocky road flavors. The best part is that each pop is under 200 calories. You can have your cake without needing to unbutton your jeans. Great job, Starbucks!

As you see, I "hated" this cake pop. 

A little while later, Cody, our yellow lab/golden mix, posed for a photo with his toy. He is such a good dog. My mom volunteered at a pet shelter for a few years when she met him. When he came into the shelter, he was dying of heartworm disease. My mom agreed to foster him. He stayed in our home while he underwent treatment. As soon as he got better, we adopted him for good. He's not the most intelligent dog, but he is incredibly sweet and loyal. He also has a really soft head, barks at thunder, purrs like a cat and eats grass like a cow.

Around 5, my mom and I went to pick up my car from the shop. My car becomes "the dog car" when I'm away. My parents use it to take the four pups to the dog park or wherever else they need to go. As a result, it gets full of fur. Since I will be home for at least two months and will use the car daily, my parents got the car cleaned inside and out. 

I didn't have any problems driving in the right side of the road, but I was very sad to drive an auto. I miss Al's manual car! They ar so much more fun to drive. 

I eventually made it to dinner without a nap. Napping, as I said before, does NOTHING to get me (or anybody) over the jet lag, so I wouldn't have done it anyway. My mom put two frozen pizzas in the oven. As usual, our golden retriever Buffy was begging for food. She's one hungry dog. 

Buffy is actually a great dog. My mom works at a vet, and a divorcing couple dropped her off there (when she was 9 YEARS OLD!!) saying that they didn't want her anymore. My mom, being my mom, took Buffy home. She's now 13. She's perfectly well-behaved, except for the fact that she compulsively begs for food. But then again, it's hard to find a dog that doesn't want food. 

Whaddya lookin at? Give me food!

I WANT YOUR FOOOOOOOD!!!!

The frozen pizza turned out to be great. My parents also added some extra cheese and herbs. I'm excited for the leftovers today. 

I watched some episodes of "Chopped" (an addicting cooking show) with my mom, and then I started nodding off at about 10 pm. I was sure that I'd sleep later this morning, but no dice. 

When I got out of bed and went to the kitchen for breakfast, I found several notes from my mom. She left instructions for feeding the dogs (three out of four of them are on different medications, they have separate foods and they have varying amounts of food) and well as other little notes.

Interestingly, I'm not the only human staying in the house while my parents are in Florida. Our cleaning lady, Grace, is also staying here. She's been like part of our family for years, and she also cleans for our other family members in Chicago. She almost always stays with the dogs when my parents go out of town. This time, my parents asked her to stay before they knew that I was coming home. Since the guest room is right next to my room and I may keep her awake by watching TV or whatnot late at night, I'm staying in my parent's room on the main floor. 

For breakfast today, I had two cups of the vanilla caramel tea and a mixture of these healthy cereals with vanilla soy milk:

As healthy as they are, they taste great! 

Now, it's time to get my butt to the basement to do some exercise. I think I am picking up a brand new shiny laptop today. That means that I will no longer need to "borrow" computers for blogging!