Room Service

I was keen on trying the room service since I've never had a chance to do it in my entire life. But when I saw how much "steel cut oats" with "dried grapes" (uh, raisins) and cranberries cost: $6.50, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I thought about getting just one dessert that we could split, but those were $6 each.

My nutrition has been horrid for the past couple of weeks. My fingers are stubby from the water I'm retaining, which for my body is an indicator of poor nutrition. You know, too much fast food with all the additives, sodium, sugars, etc. MIL paid for us to stay at this resort for two nights or longer if we wanted; we decided on just two nights. After the wedding we helped break down and clean up the room and ds2 wanted to go to Souper Salad for dinner. The buffet created by my boss was just beautiful and there was only three plates of food left over. I only ate a few bites of the buffet and then I was going around the table, thanking people for coming and sitting and chatting with them for a few minutes. It was lovely.

While at Souper Salad's, the guys let me open all the cards. By let me, I mean none of them asked to help open. I loved being able to open them all and read the well wishes.

One of the cards was from my job, with well wishes and signatures from most staff and even one ex-staff and his family. Inserted within the card was $200. It was the money I'd given my boss to start paying for the food. She told me she was planning to buy the food on sale as much as possible to help us save money. I told her to let me know what the rest cost and I'd pay her. Since ds2 was helping her both days, at one point she handed him a piece of paper and told him she couldn't think right now, but for him to write something appropriate and he had one hour to get it done. Here is what she wrote down for him: "Food purchased as gift from staff and friends. Here is your return of money. Enjoy."

Here's what ds2 came back with in 35 minutes:

The food was purchased as a gift
Since no amount of human thrift
Could make up for the lack of cash
Which was not enough for your wedding bash

I went to friends and friends galore
Before I stepped foot in a store
I bled my sources till they dried
The staff chipped in to help the Bride

I saved the money to give to you
The day your wedded bliss comes true

I hope you quite enjoy the money
Spend it all on your Honey
Or save it for a rainy day
Or as a payment for some hay

Or since they all helped out so much
I can give you this to buy us lunch!

I am so impressed with ds2's talent for writing. I just loved the poem. At first I didn't know he wrote it. I wondered about the payment for hay part just a teensy bit. Ds2 ended up telling me he wrote it. He just blows my mind.

After we ate at Souper Salad, we drove home, unloaded the car and I got out yet another of my lists. The "honeymoon" list. I packed and we were ready to go in about an hour. LJ wasn't sure what was going on. First he was in the house in bed, ready to go to sleep but then he realized we were outside, so then he was at the door whining. I actually put in a call to the resort to find out if they allowed pets. They did, but only on the 1st and 2nd floors, and we were on the 5th floor. And they were hosting an event this weekend, so the entire resort was booked. So we had to leave LJ home. We left him outside. He was playing with one of his toys, shaking it violently, when we left. Later we called home and ds2 let him in the house for the night.

I had been distracted at Souper Salads and hadn't eaten much. I knew I'd be hungry later, so we stopped at a convenience store to buy some snacks for later. I got some cheese sticks and a package of cashews.

We went home on Sunday morning, to feed and milk. The poor girls. Dh milked on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was obvious he hadn't been milking Dani all the way out. Also, he didn't want to bother with processing the milk, so he had given it all to the dogs. The dogs who weren't interested in their morning milk yesterday morning, due to having had a gallon each day on Wednesday and Thursday! Before you think poorly of dh for not completing the job, I have at least one friend whose family will not milk for her when she is away from home and once she had to go to her mother who lives in another state and her poor does got mastitis from not being milked for days and days because her family just wouldn't do the milking.

Not totally milking out the does is not a bad thing necessarily, but it will decrease their milk production. Usually. Usually if you only take half or three-quarters of their milk, the next day their body adjusts and they make the same amount of milk. But not Dani. She is only milker we have who seems to hold onto her milk as if it is in a plastic gallon jug instead of her udder. The other girls will reabsorb their milk. But Dani holds onto hers, making more and more, filling her udder until it's huge. Of course, ironically, she is the one with teensy teats, which means it takes much longer to get her milked out. Plus, dh hasn't trained himself to "finger milk" yet and it's difficult to get all her milk by using the standard whole hand milking technique. Here are some before and after pictures. She is extremely "bagged up". She gave me 5.4 pounds of milk. Usually she gives between 3 and 4 pounds.

Side view before milking

Side view also showing the front portion of her udder

Rear view of her full udder

Side view after milking

Side view of the front side of her udder after milking

Rear view after milking

This is a different doe altogether, rear view

Side view before milking

Side view after she's been milked

Rear view after milking

Here I am yesterday, on our balcony, working on a blog post. The wind was blowing really hard and I ended up coming in just a few minutes later.
We're getting ready to leave our room now. We are going to check out. We are hungry and going to breakfast at Denny's. Then it's back home to milk and feed.

Honeymoon over. We had a great time. We almost went to see a movie last night, but nothing was playing in the nearest small town. We didn't want to drive 50 miles into the big city on a Sunday night. We settled on Carl's Jr.'s for dinner.

Now it's time to help dh pack our things so we can go.

Until next time.