Table Manners

Boy, do I ever find myself wishing that Angel would just take a kibble and eat it ... not move a whole pile of kibble somewhere in the house and then grouse and grumble at anyone who is even NEAR it, no matter that they aren't showing any interest in her kibble as they have THEIR OWN BOWLS!

She can actually get quite noisy about it, and her carrying-on will of course draw the other dogs to her .... sigh ... gotta love 'em but do wish sometimes that they would be quiet!

Foiled!

I DID remember to look for the moon with Venus and Jupiter nearby tonight when leaving work, but the sky was just cloudy enough that all I could see was a chessy-cat grin which was the moon ... no planets or stars visible.

Go figure!

Forgetfulness

I don't know if it was pure forgetfulness or absentmindedness last night, but I forgot to poke my head out of doors and check on the moon and planets.

Argh!

Hopefully it will be clear tonight and I'll remember to take a peek. I'll be driving home from work at 9pm, so I'm thinking I'll have a better chance of remembering, particularly if I happen to catch sight of a star or the moon while going to or from the car ... it'd prod my memory!

Just four hours of work today and then my 8 hour split tomorrow, then I have my two-day weekend, two days off to go up to Penticton for a memorial service, and then Sunday off ... will be back to work on Monday.  Switching over to Saturday/Sunday off for the month of March.

Which means I will have one day off with Maxx during those weekends, so hopefully the dogs will get out on more nice outings, with the two of us and all four dogs at once.

I did pick up these clips you use to clip two dogs together to walk them on one leash.  Works like a charm with Imp and Angel!  Unfortunately, Hobgoblin and Elf don't work together enough for it to be of much use ... Elf always wants to walk as far left as he can go, and if Hobs ends up pulling on him he shuts right down and says "No!  Don't wanna go!" and you have to cajole him into walking further.

Silly doggies!

Starry Night

I hear from my brother-in-law that the moon, Jupiter, and Venus should all be close together and forming a lovely luminous triangle tonight ... I'll have to make a point of going out after work or on my coffee break to take a look!

Feeling Nervous

About half an hour ago, the house suddenly shook and it sounded like my husband was shaking the front door in frustration at being locked out ... but when I got out to the living room, nobody was at the front door.  I can't find anything out of place, and the dogs going crazy barking at the time is unfortunately not a good indicator of anything out of the ordinary.  I did a search online to see if there were any reported earthquakes, and can't find anything ... so now I'm left wondering if someone was trying to break into the house and the dogs barking scared them off?

Wish my husband were home at this moment so I could feel comfortable climbing back into bed to go to sleep ... as it is, now I'm nervous and don't think I'll be able to get to sleep until he gets home.

I guess I should be glad he's just over at a friends, not working until 7am!

Ouchie

Looks like we have a vet visit in the offing.  When I had the dogs all outside yesterday and they were playing, Elf managed to get his lower eyelid cut (there was so much blood at first that I couldn't see where the wound was and thought his eye had been punctured).  I rushed him inside and we got him cleaned up and determined that it was a wee cut on his lower eyelid, it stopped bleeding and didn't need any stitches ... but of course we're keeping a sharp eye on it, and of course it's gotten infected.  We'll be cleaning it over and over again today with warm water, to see if it improves at all, and if not, he'll be making a quick visit to the vet.

Very poor timing, of course, as his trial version of insurance from when we adopted him has expired (we weren't going to be continuing with that company) and we don't have insurance set up with Trupanion, so no insurance to cover it yet ... and of course it's before payday so funds are tight.

...Sigh ... oh to be rich enough that I never had to worry about pet emergencies!

Also, there is a memorial to be held in Penticton next Tuesday, for my parent's next door neighbour, who we have known for over 35 years ... which is no only one of my scheduled work days, but the day before payday, so again, I don't think I'll be able to go.  I'll have to talk to Maxx about it when he wakes up and see if there's any way for us to make some sort of arrangements if I can get the day off ... and also check with John and Steve to see if they would be going up and if I could catch a lift with them, just worrying about the ferries.  As always, we'll have to wait and see.

Sunny Sunny Day

It's my Saturday and it's a beautiful sunny day out ... at least right now.  I'm thinking I may need to go to PetSmart and see if I can get the leash connectors so you can have two dogs on one leash.  Of course, I'll need two of them, so I can have four dogs on two leashes ... although if I could set it up for four dogs on one leash, that would be interesting!

Later when the sun goes down I really need to sit down and write a couple of pieces, one for my writing group I belong to online and one I want to submit for a writing contest, deadline Feb 29th.  Wish me well!

Heeere Weekend Weekend Weekend

Hey, it works sometimes when you're calling "Heere kitty kitty kitty" so I thought I'd give it a try!

Actually, I only have four more hours of work later today and then I hit my weekend.  I wish the weather was better, though, so the dogs and I can get out for an enjoyable walk or two, and I can get some gardening done.

I definitely need to get Angel, Hobgoblin, and Imp into the groomers soon ... Angel needs a good tunnel cut and sanitary area clip, as well as her face clipped, Hobgoblin needs his tunnel cut/poodle face re-done, and his sanitary area clipped, and Imp needs just a good thorough groom ... as well as his sanitary area clipped.  I hate it when your dog does his or her business and it gets caught in their fur!  Especially when you can't catch them to help deal with it, or when you do catch them all they do is squirm ... "no no no don't touch me THERE!"

Ah, well, maybe after next payday ... we'll have to wait and see!

Yay Sleep!

Actually had a good night's sleep last night.  I don't know if it's because I ended up watching The Princess Diaries on demand just before going to bed, or what, but I wasn't plagued by upsetting or frustrating dreams and got a good night's sleep.

Hope I can manage that again tonight.  But at least tomorrow is Friday, and then Wednesday and Thursday are my weekend.  Looking forward to it, and I have two writing assignments to get done, as well as some gardening to start getting some spots ready for trying to grow some of our own veggies this year.

I have my gardening list done up, and organized by what needs to be planted outside or started inside when ... and I need to get onto my onions and peas, starting the onions inside NOW and transplanting them late April, and starting with peas outside basically any time until the end of May.

On our list of items we want to try to grow this year are onions (I figure both regular and green), peas, garlic, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower, beets, carrots, peaches and cream corn, cucumbers, squash, potatoes, and burgandy grain amaranth.  That last is going in the front yard in the planters at the front of the yard.  We're going to pull out the bushes that are there currently, as while they look nice when in bloom they look scraggly and nasty the rest of the year, and the amaranth is a lovely ornamental burgandy grass which grows five to six feet tall, and when the grains mature you can collect them and cook them like quinoa, apparently.  We'll see!

We're hoping to do a "three sisters" blend of our own with the corn, squash, and peas.  We know which corn we want, the peaches and cream, and we figure for the squash it'll likely be zucchini or maybe spaghetti, and the peas we still need to decide.  Of course, looking at timing with peas from mid-February to the end of May, corn from May 15th-June 10th, and squash from late May to early June, we'll see how that goes!

Short of Sleep

Last night I was dreaming I was at work taking phone calls, and had someone call in who just could NOT get it through their head that I needed some basic information to be able to pull up their account, before I could begin assisting them.  One of those dreams where the call goes on and on and on ... and when you finally get the information up on screen, the customer is just stupid and wrong anyhow!

Then, the night before I was dreaming that Maxx and I were at university (while married) and had been living in some sort of dormitory situation, but then during the summer we were moving out into our own place, which happened to be our old place in Richmond, little one bedroom with a really large walk-in closet.  In the dream, we're mostly moved in and then one of our ex-roomies comes by unexpectedly and is watching tv with us as we take a break with the unpacking ... then the other ex-roomie comes by and we're like "what are you doing here?" because we didn't even like her.  Imagine our surprise in the dream where these two folks informed us that they now lived with us ... and to take it up with the university.  When we contacted the university, they said that due to a housing shortage, our previous room-mates were going to be living with us from now on and there was nothing we could do about it.

So, we managed to just cram everything into the one bedroom and closet, and when we were dismantling the HD tv to move it in, these two yahoos were upset that they we going to have to watch tv in our bedroom.  At which point we put our feet down and told them that we may have to let them live with us, but we didn't have to let them use any of our stuff, they could just go get their own.  We even had the dishes and pots and pans in our closet, along with a fridge to store our food ... and would just come out to use the stove for cooking.  Obviously, we had to put a lock on our door to keep them out ... and boy were they ever unhappy as they were figuring they were just going to free-load on our expense they way they had been before!  Then the university contacted us to find out what was up, and we laid the same line down in the sand for them, that while perhaps they could force us to take roommates, but they couldn't force us to treat them like our children and provide for them, and if they didn't like it they could move out.

Needless to say, two nights of short sleep.

... And it's only my Wednesday!

Self Control!

We went grocery shopping first thing this morning when Maxx got home from work.  Of course, I didn't start feeling hungry until we were on the way to the grocery store, and we all know we're told not to shop for food when hungry or we'll get all sorts of things we don't need!

Well, I think we both managed to show very good self control ... my sole concessions at the store to shopping while hungry were to buy a fruit parfait (vanilla yoghurt, granola, orange supremes and raspberries) and a bottle of carbonated fruit juice.  The rest was all fruit and veggies, cans of soup for quick meals when required, sandwich meat and cheese ... not bad for us!

Pawn-demonium

After breakfast, I headed out to the front yard with my big clippers and cut down I think all of the baby plum trees which have popped up over the fall/winter in the corner where the master bedroom and the hall/spare bedroom walls meet.  Took a fair while, and I was pretty tired and sweaty when I was done.  I was happily surprised that the dogs seemed to stay fairly quiet while I was doing so ... I really expected them to be barking and carrying on at the master bedroom window, to tell the truth.

Of course, when I came in and lay down on the bed for a short rest, I got absolutely swarmed by Angel, Imp, and Elf (Hobgoblin is in sleeping with Maxx right now).  They were clambering all over me and licking my fact and neck, and my hands when I was trying to push them off.  It's actually quite difficult to fend off three tiny dogs who are just DYING to give you kisses and taste the sweet sweet salty sweat of your labours!

Almost!

Had a close call today.  Rushing around getting the recycling out to go to the curb today, and as I was stepping over the box we'd been using as a "gate" to keep the dogs out of the livingroom (since both Elf and Imp can climb/jump the baby gates we have), I caught my leading foot on something and tripped, came on so close twisting that ankle, but also fell forward and drove my following leg into the top of the box.  Oooheee ... boy did that hurt where smashed into it, and the bruise has been developing throughout the day (I could easily feel it immediately!).  I's already purple and black and blue ... and I think there's a little bit of green in there, too.

Ouch!

Anyhoo, on my lunch I did manage to get out with the clippers and cut down pretty much all of the baby plum trees and blackberry canes to the side of the house, between it and the garden shed.  Since there is a board knocked out from the fence there, I've tried to tangle up the clippings in front of the fence to keep the dogs away from the gap ... I've already jury rigged the gap on the other side of the house ... and now I just need to make sure that they are both secure, and then work on the big gap where the section of fence got torn down.  That's going to be the hard part!  Hopefully on Thursday, we will have half-decent weather and Maxx will be awake during daylight hours, and we can deal with it together.  We'll see!

Performance Review

It's one of my work from work days today (instead of working from home) and I actually had a performance review with my supervisor.  Nice to see that one of my goals of improving my attendance and general health sure seems to have been going in the right direction!  I actually had 8 months without a sick day, apparently, and while in November/December/January I had quite a bit of time off, much of it was on short term disability, so it doesn't count.  Of course, I had to remind him that I did end up having 2 1/2 days off with the flu already in January ... but hopefully I can keep the trend going and not be sick enough not to work for months and months again!

So, got home for lunch today, and it's beautifully sunny out and I trundled the four dogs out into the back yard.  Unfortunately, I didn't know that the mail carrier was just crossing the street to come to our drive, and Imp and Elf immediately slipped out through a small hole in the fence into the front yard.  Elf was dancing around hoping for attention, and Imp was dancing around barking because he wasn't sure of his reception (apparently he needs to learn that if you don't bark at people they will be more likely to approach you in a friendly manner themselves).  They of course would NOT come when I was calling them, and I had to chase them around the car a couple of times before I was able to pick them both up and pop them back into the house.  Bad doggies!

Of course, much of that is our fault as there are a couple of spots on the fence where boards have been knocked out or simply rotted so that they fell off ... and then the section of fence by the shed where it got knocked down when the house next door was being demolished.  I'm hoping that on Thursday we have decent weather and Maxx is awake enough during the day that we can actually get these spots finally dealt with!

Blech

I've been feeling under the weather for the past two days, and so glad I work from home so I've been able to stay in my jammies.  Tomorrow is my one day of work in the office for the two weeks, so hopefully I'll have the energy to get dressed before I drive!

I would say that the dogs have been very snuggly when I've not been sitting at the computer working ... but really, no different from the snuggly that they are all the time.  Elf in particular just wants to be in your lap or at least touching you at all times.

Thought we were going to have to zip Elf off to the vet on payday, as last night I looked down at him as he plunked himself onto my lap, and he had this big pink bulgy bump in the corner of his right eye, in the corner close to his nose.  I think he must have done something with that third eyelid, prolapsed it or something ... but his eye is back to normal today ... Yay!

CitiKitty Update

So, I had Maxx punch out the very middle section of the CitiKitty the other day.  While we still don't know for sure EXACTLY who is using it, we do know that it's been used since, so this is a good thing!

I dare say we'll let it stay as is for at least a week, then punch out the next section, and see how that goes.  Myself, I'd find it awkward trying to hop up onto the toilet seat and balance on the edge while going in the middle ... it's a good thing that cats are known for being agile!

Speaking of cats, Imp got in trouble last night.  When Maxx had him out in the yard, he apparently managed to chase all four of the cats in turn.  Ironically, if they would just stand their ground, they'd be just fine.  Actually, had them out in the livingroom today, and even with Jinx curled up in the window behind the curtain (and steadily but quietly growling at the dogs in the room), there was very little kerfuffle.  So, I hope that eventually we will have dogs and cats all living in harmony!

Doggy Tummy Upset

Imp didn't seem to be feeling very well this morning.  His poor little tummy was making all sorts of burbles and squeeks, and he had a couple of bouts of diarrhea, then when I got him outside on my coffee break he spent the entire time just wolfing down grass from the yard ... to promptly come in and poop the grass out.

Yup, that's right, he didn't yak it back up, he pooped it out ... talk about a fast digestive system!

He does seem to be feeling much better now, though, so that's nice for him and for me!

Ways to Save Money

So, anyone have any really good and easy to implement tips on how to save money day to day?  I'm saving money on the work coffee since working from home (even though it's only $0.75/cup I usually get two per day, so it does add up) as well as saving on gas money.

Any tips for grocery shopping, etc that can help a body save money?

Meet and Greet

It's funny, Imp barks at the cats mostly because he's scared of them, I think.  From what I can tell he's trying to scare them away from him.  Trouble doesn't seem very worried any more.  I've actually seen her lying on the kitchen chair with the dogs underneath her, reaching down to pat them gently on the head (of course, only works when they don't know she's there or they get way too excited!)

I've started picking Imp up and taking him over to Trouble so he can meet her face to face (not too close to keep them both safe!) without the barking barking barking.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get him to a point where he's confident around Trouble and doesn't harass her barking, and if that happens I'll see about doing the same with the other cats.

Seems like the CitiKitty is well in use, just of course we can't tell exactly WHO has been using it.  I'm going to talk to Maxx about punching out the centre-most section of the pan, to see if they'll keep using it still.  We do have the "back up" pan to go backwards if we need to, so we'll see!

Busy Week

It sure has been a busy week.  Working from home, I found I actually had less leisure time most days this first week as I was taking advantage of the longer lunch hour at home (and my coffee breaks) to get some of the laundry done that always gets put off (sheets, comforters .... pillows!)

The dogs do like having me home during the day.  While I'm working I can't DO anything with them (except once in a while tell them to be quiet), but they curl up at my feet or beside me on the recliner which needs to be moved from the room, or even behind my computer chair so that I have to peek behind me before getting up from the desk.  They're getting potty breaks on my coffee breaks, so hopefully that will go further towards having dry darned carpets!

Maxx just picked up a carpet knife yesterday or the day before, and he's going to be ripping the carpet out of the spare room as soon as he can.  We'll then have to see what the floor is like and make appropriate plans.  We'd like to get this cork type flooring we heard about where it's sort of like tiles of cork, that can be replaced on a tile-by-tile basis if they get damaged, and are apparently really simple to install.  Simple to install would be good!  Now, we just need to really get together on one of our days off together and LOOK at flooring.  Obviously, we need something that would be able to stand up to the dogs.  It would be so nice to get rid of all the carpeting and replace it with nice flooring!  Then, when that is done we could look at working on the areas of the house which currently have linoleum, as it's all pretty nasty.  If we can get all the floors redone, that should certainly help if a time comes when we are selling.  Then, next task would be the walls in the living room (taking down the wood panelling) and the master bedroom (fixing where the wall had to be torn out a while back due to a roof leak ... while repaired it wasn't "finished").

But, not planning on doing much today, although I do have to take Imp and Elf in to the vet for the leptospirosis booster shots.  I really REALLY urge people who have dogs to ask their vet about this shot. When we were taking care of my mother-in-law's dog, she actually caught lepto and was the first reported case on Vancouver Island, apparently.  So, even if it's not been in your area it can come ... and it has the potential to not just kill your beloved dog, but it can be passed on to humans (I think it's called zoonosis) and can also kill us.

Something to think about.