Be ready for pup overload today, because I’m recapping the adventures of Chloe coming to visit me here at school!

My mom brought her up last Thursday when I had a break in my schedule, and we went out to lunch.

Once I was done with class for the day, I hurried home to take Chloe for the first of what would be MANY walks around the neighborhood.

My mom brought me some of my favorite soup, plus a giant bag of Pirate’s Booty. Because the pup was so labor intensive, this was about how every meal looked:

I also learned that Chloe LOVES Pirate’s Booty. It has been sad to eat it alone since she left!

Chloe actually got along super well with Rina. Rina stands her ground, so Chloe mostly left her alone minus some sniffs here and there.

Unfortunately, her relationship with my roommate’s sweet golden was a little rockier. Chloe recently started getting a little territorial with other dogs in very specific situations, and having another dog at home was a little rough. Most of the time they were fine, but occasionally Chloe would get super barky.

Friday morning, we were up with the sun to walk before class.

And then Friday night, I took her to one of the breweries with a bunch of vet students. She can be barky in social situations with other dogs, but we’re working on it, and she was really good!

She made a doggy friend. Another vet student dog. She was super barky when they first arrived, but then calmed down and we all sat together and it was fine. At the end of the night, we let them play it out. When they saw each other the next day, Chloe was totally chill with her!

Chloe is great with other dogs when she meets them on walks, but when she meets them in large groups of dogs and people, she gets pretty overwhelmed and can get riled up and barky.

My Saturday was spent like most of the week, alternating between studying and walking, and then studying WHILE walking. Chloe was pretty wild/jumpy/barky/energetic the first couple oft days especially. Because she is a high energy breed, she needs a ton of exercise. I would walk her, then study while she slept, and when she woke up and starting getting wild and bratty, I would walk her again. And repeat and repeat. Despite the somewhat constant interruptions when she was wild (her favorite thing was to drop my roommate’s dog’s numerous tennis balls under the couch where she couldn’t get them, and then bark until I got them for her…), she was pretty helpful for my studying. When she was sleepy, I felt a lot of pressure to get some good, focused studying in. I also started relistening to some of the lectures I was confused about while walking her, which was really helpful. I’m definitely more of a visual learner than an auditory learner, so listening to things forced me to conceptualize the information myself.

Here are my babes:

Study buddies <3

That afternoon, I took Chloe to a big vet school event with all the first and second years at a nearby park. We were only a mile away, so we walked there to get some extra energy out. Chloe met a ton of people and dogs, and saw her friend again. Overall, she was a good girl! I could tell by the end though that she was totally over it.

Later that evening, I brought her to another brewery with friends, and she was AMAZING. She has been getting better (the behavioral issues are fairly recent, only several months), and I discovered her favorite treats in the whole world that she’ll do anything for. It takes the right motivation, and vigilance on my part! She got barked at aggressively and even growled at, but she stayed quiet as we walked through.

When I got home I had to study some more, which was productive thanks to the most beautiful sight: everyone PASSED OUT.

Sunday I volunteered at a clinic, and had to leave her alone for 5 hours. We did a short walk before, and then a lengthier walk after while I listened to a lecture.

That evening, we took the dogs to the park so they would have some time to get to know each other better. They’re TOTALLY fine outside of the house, at least! Chloe also had her first off leash experience. The golden played fetch, and ran like crazy 100 yards out for the ball….and Chloe watched from about 10 feet away from us. She doesn’t like fetch, and didn’t quite know what to do off leash.

Progress!

Monday night, I brought Chloe to school with me! The buildings are obviously very dog-friendly. We went around 7:30 to study, and so I could show her around where I spend most of my time!

We stayed in a study room together, and she was the best study buddy! I don’t know if I would have liked being alone in a windowless room at night, but having a dog to snuggle with every so often to break up some dense study time makes it so much better.

Tuesday, we ended up walking 2 hours! Our morning walk+an evening walk with a friend along the campus trails.

And then we were back at school to study that night. This girl <3

Wednesday morning, we went for one final long walk just as the sun was rising. Before coming to vet school, our walks with a podcast became one of my favorite parts of the week. It was even more so here. There’s nothing better than watching the sun rise with an adorable pup, and being up and out while the world is still quiet. It was honestly so nice having her right before a test. I let her off leash one final time…and she just sat there, a little ways away. The previous day I let her off leash at the park when she was wild and she ran around like crazy, but she’s still learning about the world of off-leash!

We had one last study session together before my mom picked her up.

My mom and I went for our pumpkin spiced drinks of choice to recap the week, and future training goals for Chloe.

PSLs are not quite my thing; I don’t love sweet coffee. I got a decaf cappuccino with a single pump of pumpkin spice, and it was perfect! Not too sweet, but still the hint of fall!

Chloe and I had such a great week together. I want her to come back soon, but I have to wait until I have another week where I’m not in class for such long blocks of time! I miss my girl, that’s for sure!

Saturday morning I finally tried the pancakes I’ve been meaning to make forever. I just mixed up my flapjacked apple cinnamon muffin and instead of microwaving it, I cooked it on the stovetop in pancake form. It was pretty good! I needed more maple syrup though.

Plus honeydew balls.

I ended up eating lunch super early—like 11—just because of how my schedule worked out. I had literally no food except veggies in the house so this was definitely one of the weirder lunches I’ve had.

Lots of GF crackers plus a weird salad: lettuce+guacamole+egg whites+American cheese+ketchup. I brought liquid egg whites and cooked them at work, so at least it wasn’t cold. Definitely one of the weirder meals, but honestly not bad! And I’m so glad I packed egg whites at the last minute, because I really needed protein!

It was a surprisingly rough day at work.

My foot/leg got peed on very early, and I can’t exactly change my shoes. It ended up being a pretty busy day, and I got super beat up. I got kicked/scratched really badly by a couple of big dogs (mainly one) and now I have the nastiest bruises. I truly love what I do, but I hope anyone interested in getting into the field knows what it’s really like! You work long hours, you get every bodily fluid imaginable on you, you get beat up. Yes, there are puppies and kittens, but there are also wild feral cats, 100 pound dogs to control, very dirty butts to clean. The “it’s just puppies and kittens” moment always comes to me when I’m holding animals as they vomit up whatever they shouldn’t have eaten. It is a glamorous job I do, folks. But I wouldn’t trade it for a thing.

I ended up staying almost an hour late, and I was DEATHLY hungry by the time I got off. Like, I can’t remember the last time I was this painfully hungry. I raced home for food+multiple baseball games I wanted to watch, and changed all my nasty clothes while my mom helped me get food quickly since 1. dying and 2. I had to go back in half an hour later.

Open faced turkey and havarti sandwich with apple slices, broiled, and zucchini noodles. Plus the crackers I shoved in my face while getting that ready.

I had just enough time to catch most of the part of the games I cared about, and eat a well-deserved cupcake! This is my last one from my Davis announcement. It felt appropriate, because it was my last day of work before vet school!

Sunday was a fairly busy day. It seemed like EVERYONE wanted to see me in a 2 day span, so I did what I could to see as many people as possible!

I started the morning with a casual 3 mile run.

And then I cleaned myself up to go see my sister! She wanted us to taste a few dark beers and ciders to decide which one to have at her wedding.

I actually packed my own lunch because she was making authentic Italian pizza and #gluten. I did try a bite and it was amazing. I think next time it would be worth an actual piece.

My salad was actually delicious, partly because I used scissors to make it a chopped salad. I’m loving guacamole as dressing right now, and the chopped-ness made it much easier to mix the guac on. I used fresh deli turkey, American cheese (I got an organic brand and it’s delicious), lettuce, guac, and a little ketchup for extra flavor. Don’t judge, ketchup is my jam.

I left my sister’s place a little bit early to hop over to a birthday party in a local park. I was told to bring Chloe, and she’s always a handful. Well, today especially. My friend brought her pup, and they were doing super well together at first. They’ve met once before, and did pretty well.

^The above picture is not her trying to bite the puppy, it’s her reaching back to lick my friend’s face.

Chloe was great at first, and then really, really bad. I think I mentioned this before, but she’s been really bad with other dogs lately. We think she may have had an incident while boarding, when we were not around. Even while boarding, in playgroup, she’s been different. She used to be the clique leader and play a ton, and now she’ll walk around a little and then sit on the foot of the person monitoring. She barks like crazy at dogs when she doesn’t see them coming. Well, that happened a few times while we were hanging out at the park. I think it was especially bad because we were sitting down and she felt territorial. Then, she started acting aggressively towards the puppy. I don’t think she would actually hurt the puppy, but she would not stop barking. I’ve truly never seen her like that. Needless to say, she had to be picked up. That is not acceptable behavior. I’m not sure what exactly caused the change, but we 100% are going to work on it.

I snuck out of the birthday party a little early and grabbed a quick dinner at home before the next event.

Teriyaki tacos minus the tortilla+salad with cilantro dressing.

Flax brownie Halo Top sundae.

Then, I drove down to Palo Alto for birthday party #2 with my college friends. My friend’s new place is in the weirdest location. I had to park at the bottom of a hill and then hike 5-10 minutes straight up in the middle of nowhere. I think it was like 400-500 feet elevation gain, which was kind of crazy.

Oh, and here’s a bruise update. This picture does not do it justice, from the knee up I am about half black and blue on both legs.

It was really nice to see these people; it had been a few months! Plus, someone brought gluten free cookies. I was super dehydrated by the end of the night though. I sat outside in the park all day in 100 degree temperatures, and I was too busy dealing with my little brat to drink much water. I ended up getting to bed at a reasonable hour, which is a priority right now because the next week actually is going to kill me. All good things though. More on that tomorrow!

Currently living the pre-grad, post-class sweet life. I’m trying to soak up all my favorite people, and each moment.

Let’s take it back to Wednesday, shall we?

After a lateish (like 1…I’m a bit of a grandma) night and leftover exhaustion from finals, my body woke me up at 5:15am. I was dead tired, but not sleepy and couldn’t fall back asleep. I ended up getting up at about 6, which was probably better anyways because I had a lot to do!

I had a blueberry oatmeal muffin before heading to the gym to do my typical deadlift day.

warm up deadlift+ 4×4 deadliest, 155#, 3 seconds on the way down

4×8 RDL, 115#

3x8single arm DB press, 20# (my shoulders were sore from the previous day’s workout, so I kept it a bit lighter)/3×10 tricep dips

Leg machine where you press your legs in while seated, 3×10, then sets of 5 for heavier

Then, it was time to get ready for the beach! Breakfast was basic, yogurt+cinnamon KIND granola+mango (this batch of mangoes hasn’t been too flavorful ).

Then, my friends and I were off to the beach! In case you don’t know, the beaches in Northern California are COLD. We bundled up, and ended up with perfect weather. Partly cloudy, breezing, cool but not cold.

We went to Poplar Beach in Half Moon Bay. I used to go there in High School, and haven’t been back in 4 years! Brings back memories <3

My friends and I stopped at New Leaf to grab some food for a picnic lunch. I’d never been there before; it’s basically like Whole Foods though.

We each ended up getting some freshly pressed juice: carrot, apple, ginger.

And then we headed to the beach!

Climbing down the steep hill to the beach actually wasn’t terrible.

Walking on the sand wasn’t great. This was the day after my first PT, and my calf was pretty sore. My foot felt ok until we got to the sand, and that was pretty rough. The uneven surface caused a little pain, but I took it super slowly.

In retrospect, this picture gives me so much regret…more on that soon.

For lunch, we grabbed a bag of heirloom carrots (the purple were the most delicious), some delicious gouda that was recommended to us, deli chicken (for me, ham for everyone else), and rice crackers.

After lunch, we did what any college students do post-finals at the beach and took a nap.

We also saw nature at work. I had fun observing seagulls after learning about animal behavior all quarter. We also saw a couple of sharks. Once again, Northern California beaches are NOT the place to swim! They were actually pretty close to shore, and we saw them circle a seal.

We were at the beach for a few hours, and a little bit after getting back I realized my legs felt….not right.

My friends, I’ve been torched. This is by FAR the worst sunburn I’ve had in years. Especially the leg that had a boot on it and didn’t see sun for the past month.

One day later, fully developed:

It’s super hot and painful. I was so excited not to have the boot in grad pictures, but now….

Dinner was mushroom sliders, corn on the cob, and potato salad, with chocolate chip cookies! It was our last meal by our chef, and my roommate and I gave him a bottle of champagne to thank him so much for all the delicious gluten free things he’s made us this year. It really does mean a lot to me. I remember one day winter quarter that I was flaring and having a rough day, and came home to an amazing turkey avocado sandwich in the fridge with my name on it, and it totally made my day. We’ll miss him!

I spent a little time packing before heading over to a party some of my friends were throwing. They had an ice bucket, and my sizzling legs and I stayed close to that all night!

One again, I had a great time talking with people. I actually had a long conversation about chaos theory and fractals with a friend. This is one of the things I love and will miss dearly about Stanford: the awesome, random intellectual conversations that you can have anywhere, especially those that are outside of your area of expertise. I think these conversations are how I’ve grown the most in this 4 years.

My friends live in a dorm, but one of the staff members there keeps a dog there. I tried to get a selfie with him, but he’s wiggly! The live stream photo on my phone looked much cooler (do you guys have live stream?), so I tried to screenshot that with limited success.

It’s such a treat to see animals at school!

I hope everyone is having an awesome week! More grad events to come!

With 12 days of Christmas, I haven’t gotten to share some of the random things I’ve eaten in the past week or so! How tragic would that be?

Also-another exciting note-I entered the lottery for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in DC in the spring. I think the odds I get in are low but how amazing would that be??

Ok. Food. As promised.

Spinach and artichoke soup, from a Buzzfeed article of all things! Topped with parmesan.

Post-turkey trot, pre-Thanksgiving breakfast of mini frittatas and a crumpet.

A really freaking amazing salad in Napa. Avocado, fresh mozzarella, tomato, olive oil, and sea salt. Simple but perfect.

Baby fruit tart from Napa.

Chocolate sea salt caramel cupcake.

Trader Joe’s mushroom risotto with some spinach tossed in.

Carrot soup with cilantro.

Tupperware lunch of leftover broccoli and chicken. (Plus a sweet potato that was scarfed down earlier…)

Dining hall dinner. Roasted veggies and chicken, and a mini veggie pot pie. The highlight was the zucchini, which was roasted with garlic and cheese.

Back to my typical breakfast of yogurt+sunbutter+peaches.

Dining hall lunch on a rainy day-eggplant parmesan, veggies with Alfredo (not my favorite veggies served that day so you gotta do what you gotta do!) and polenta with sundried tomatoes.

And a bonus because how cute is he?

What is something that you haven’t had in a while?

For me it was the eggplant parm-I don’t think I’ve ever had it before!

Immediately after my race, I headed home to shower and pick up my dog for a little family trip.

My family always goes to Napa over Thanksgiving, but this year we decided to do a quick trip before school started since we didn’t have a vacation this spring/summer. We’ve also never taken my dog before!

We arrived in time for a late lunch in St. Helena. Luckily, the area is very dog friendly and we were able to eat outside with my dog.

We went to a place we discovered last year, called the St. Helena Bistro. They had the most amazing brussels sprouts ever, and while those weren’t in season yet, I still ate very well!

To start, we shared bruschetta and a grilled artichoke. Both were fantastic.

For my main course, I went with a salad with avocado, heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella, and olive oil.

It was delicious and so fresh! We also shared a dessert-crispy banana with chocolate gelato.

We walked around St. Helena a bit, and stopped in an olive oil store for olive oil and barbecue sauce tasting. Another must visit place in St. Helena is Woodhouse Chocolates. They have the most amazing candies-the fresh mint tastes just like eating a mint leaf.

After walking around in the heat, we checked into the hotel to relax and watch some football and baseball before dinner. Dinner was a place in downtown Napa I found as one of the top things to do in Napa. They were known for their pizza, so we chose to split a couple of pizzas and some appetizers, starting with a simple salad with lemon vinaigrette and parmesan.

The other app was creamy polenta with grated cheese on top.

The pizzas we chose were margherita and white cream with shaved truffle. Obviously, the truffle pizza stole the show. I’ve never actually seen a truffle before-I’ve only had truffle oil before so this was quite the treat!

On the way home from dinner, we stopped for dessert at another place in downtown Napa, Grace’s Table. We split a vanilla bean cheesecake, devil’s food cake, and chocolate mousse with brandy cherries.

The next morning, after a quick hotel breakfast, we visited the Petrified Forest, which was dog friendly. This is an area where trees have basically been turned to stone as the result of a nearby (now dormant) volcano erupting and spewing ash everywhere, followed by flooding over the area. It was amazing-the trees looked just like a normal log, but they were stone!

We went on about a mile hike through the forest to look at the trees and some ash fall. My feet were not feeling so hot post-race day, and walking was not pretty at all.

The photo below is a Manzanita tree-it looked like someone had dripped red paint all over the bark-it was an amazing looking tree.

The next picture is what the petrified trees look like when they were first discovered and before they have been cleaned and exposed.

When we went on the path to see some ash fall, we had a great view of the former volcano.

And here’s a shot of me with all the pale and sparky ash.

And another picture from the hike. My dog is quite photogenic!

Afterwards, we headed back to downtown Napa to Oxbow Public Market for lunch. It’s an indoor market with places to eat and buy gourmet foods. We went to a place we discovered last year that appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for their arepas. They were so, so delicious. I got the vegetarian on a sweet corn arepa, which was filled with tofu, fried plantain, avocado, and black beans. So, so good.

For the last hurrah before returning home, we went to a highly recommended (by the Internet) bakery called Sweetie Pie where we shared a coconut raspberry bar, salted caramel fudge cake (my choice), and chocolate soufflé cake.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Napa, and we headed home.

We haven’t taken my dog on a trip in years, but luckily this area is very dog friendly. In addition to lots of outside seating and water bowls for dogs placed outside, almost everyone who passed us stopped to comment on how cute he was and to pet him, which he of course loved. One funny thing is that even though he’s 13 now, almost everyone asks if he’s a puppy.

He clearly had a great time, and slept the whole way home.

Overall, it was a really fun couple of days! We did some different things that were more dog friendly, and had a great time!

Do you have a vacation spot your family likes to go?