Well, was this week a party or was this week a party?!  First off, I flew by myself for the first time in ten years.  And then, when I got home, I found out that my dad and siblings had spontaneously decided to take a trip to San Diego.
  So it was just me, Mom, and lots of newborn doggies.
   When the puppies are young, there's always the danger of the mother accidentally laying on one in her sleep.  To avoid losing a pup to suffocation, we spend the first week watching them 24/7-- and yes, 24/7 includes nights.  We took shifts, and I stayed up till 4 AM last night.  So how do two women rearrange their biological clocks?
  Good question.  Answer: food and movies.
 We watched so many movies that I lost track, and hey-- it was just the two of us, so we took the delicious opportunity to splurge.  Any healthy eating we did earlier in the summer was definitely cancelled out when we bought sushi, shrimp mango tacos, Thai food {yellow curry, skewers with peanut sauce, & coconut ice cream}, breakfast croissants and fried zucchini.  I also felt proud of myself for making chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-filled-chocolate-chip-cookie sandwiches.  Tsk, tsk, aren't we naughty.
  But we might as well have these mom-and-daughter bonding moments, because in a very short year from now I will be leaving home.  And then it might be a long time till we can have another movie night. I just love her too much to not take advantage of the time while we still have it.
  But oh my goodness gracious, are the puppies absolutely adorable.  They are English golden retrievers and they are about the cutest things in the world.