Happy New Year everyone!  Are you excited and looking forward to what the year will bring?  Did you make any resolutions?  I did!  I do every year.  Some I keep and some I don’t, but I’m excited to learn more about manifestation and manifesting what I want in both business and personal life.  I started writing down a positive quote every morning last year, and you know what….it helped me.  I make myself and Mr. TAL a pot of coffee every morning and while the dogs are eating their breakfast and the coffee is brewing, I sit down and journal something, whether positive or a goal I want to achieve.

Looking back on 2024, I can say it was a good year.  We keep a good balance of work, activities, relaxing, and, as always, enjoying time with Jake and Maggie.  I finished up some projects but couldn’t get my cookbook finished.  It’s still a work in progress, with completion sometime this year.  I’m combining and updating some recipes from the last three cookbooks, plus adding new ones.  Some are old recipes handed down through the family with a big focus on Mr. TAL’s family and his mother’s recipes she made over the years.  This book will be sold on our store as an electronic download in .pdf format.  I completed some projects for the business and negotiated discount codes for you to use should you want to purchase from some of the small businesses I support.  See the link HERE.

Going into town is a treat for us.  We spent a day at the Heinz History Center and had dinner at The Commoner.  We each ordered The Commoner Burger with fries and gave it a 10 out of 10!  Thomas had their tomato soup and said it was delicious.  We saw Hamilton at The Benedum and had dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse.  We hosted Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.  We had all the typical Thanksgiving Day foods.

For Christmas Eve dinner, Mr. TAL and I took a trip into the Strip District and bought fresh lobster tails, orange roughy, and shrimp from Whooley’s Seafood and  Market.  I ordered a beef tenderloin from Kroger which turned out amazing.  We had lunch at Roland’s Seafood and ate fried fish sandwiches.  We made a quick stop at the Enrico Biscotto Co. and bought homemade hazelnut and chocolate Biscotti.  Christmas day everyone came over and we made homemade pizzas in our Blackstone pizza oven!  We bought all the pizza ingredients from The Pennsylvania Macaroni Company on the strip!  I also bought everything fresh from Pittsburgh Macaroni to make a big pan of homemade lasagna.  That recipe along with the beef tenderloin recipe will be in my cookbook!  I had my family try these recipes and they gave them a thumb’s up!

Mr. TAL took a vacation for the last two weeks of December but also took some time to focus on his social media accounts and blog.  He uploaded lessons on electrical safety and code requirements on Udemy.  Anyone interested in electrical safety?  Check out www.thomasdomitrovich.com for more!

I spent some of my time putting together charity donations from Two Adorable Labs, making gifts for Jake and Maggie’s veterinarians, and making bandanas for our local animal shelters.

Jake and Maggie helped us decorate the house for the holidays and sat with me while I made wreaths for the front of the house.  They got stuffed Grinch toys for Christmas and tore them up in minutes :-).  I always try to find the dogs’ toys they can’t tear up so fast, but I talked to our vet, and he said those hard toys can chip their teeth.  Ugh!  We don’t want that!  I’ve done a few product posts on toys for power chewers like mine, but beware.  I never thought of them chipping their teeth on one!

We had plans to take the pups to Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh to get photos taken, but unfortunately, Maggie tore her ACL right before the holidays.  During that vet visit, we found out she had possible Cushing’s Disease and a tumor on her adrenal gland.  We took her to OSU to find out she had high blood pressure was over 300.  We were sent home with blood pressure medication and a follow-up with our regular vet in two weeks.  Several tests have been run, but nothing could be done until we got her blood pressure down.  It has gone from 300 to 160, with another checkup coming up on January 8th.  We have a trip to OSU scheduled for January 21st to meet with internal medicine to figure out the next plan of action.  They will do a CT scan to find out if the tumor is cancer or not, then make plans to remove it if medication can’t control it possibly.  Then, we will make another trip to OSU to meet with orthopedics to focus on the torn ACL.  Please say a prayer for us.  We were very worried but had her on pain pills and high blood pressure meds, which are helping a lot.  She is acting like her normal self right now, so that is a good sign.

We have the house cleaned up from the holidays, and all decorations have been put away.  Now, it’s on to enjoy January (even though it’s such a dreary month) and get back in the groove.  Going forward, I want to ensure that I’m giving you all that you are looking for in this blog, and I’ve put together a quick questionnaire/survey that I would appreciate you completing if you have time.  In the future, this will help me plan my posts and give you topics you like.  Maybe you want more photos and fewer words?  Two Adorable Labs will not sell your personal information; all submissions will be protected and private.

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