Technical Query

Does anyone know how to properly post a link to their blog?  I've tried (unsuccessfully) before, and there's a story I'd really like to share of a poor wee dog in south LA who was miraculously rescued, and turned from being completely blind to having sight in one eye.  Fiona's story absolutely makes me bawl, even the second time I've seen it.

My Toes!

I am so glad I do have a stash of nylons (I buy them in packages at Costco, to get my size and be able to deal with runs when necessary).

Today, I am on a "work at work" day, so of course I'm dressed office-appropriate, which for me includes nylons.  While I'm home on lunch I change into scruffs and then back into the same office outfit to go back to work later.

So, today I pop home and change out of my work outfit ... and I guess I must have had the nylons dangling over the edge of the hamper, as I pop the clothes on top to keep them handy and clean.  I'm no sure if it was Imp or Elf (my guess would be Imp) who snagged the nylons when I stepped into the kitchen to make some lunch.  I found then straggled through the hallway, and when I picked them up and felt along them to see if they were wet from chewing, I found that there were no longer any toes on one of the legs!

Sigh ... good thing I don't go through nylons as quickly as I used to, at least not during this work at home trial.

Sicko

Poor Maxx is pretty sick with a nasty cold right now.  I've so far managed to just be extra phlegm-y and have moments when I cough when I get a bit panicky and have to start sucking down the water like mad ... but I keep taking my multivitamins, so hopefully that's as sick as I get.  He called in to work yesterday, and went in today but only lasted an hour, poor guy.

Change in the Family?

So, the other day Maxx was suggesting that if Elf doesn't smarten up and stop chasing the cats (setting Imp off ... we've realized that often it is Elf starting the rucus, he just doesn't bark as much), we may need to consider re-homing him.  One of our co-workers has another chihuahua, and when she met Elf she wanted to take him home with her.  We're thinking we will arrange some play-dates with Bugsy, and see how they get on, and then maybe arrange a couple of over-night play-dates and full weekend play-dates to see how they go.  We were told that Imp and Elf were bonded when we adopted them, but they spend a lot of time wrangling, some of which isn't quite playful (hence how Elf got that cut on his eyelid a couple of weeks back), but we want to be sure that if this happens, neither one of them do show separation issues.

We'll see.  I know poor Elf is low man on the totem pole here, but he is loved, and he is a really sweet little character, who just wants to snuggle up with a person and be loved back.

Idyllic Spring Day

So beautiful and sunny out today, and it really felt quite warm while we were out walking the dogs along the waterfront.  I was very glad I didn't bring a jacket, and was on the verge of taking off my sweatshirt and walking along in my tee ... although in the shade I would have been a bit chilly.

Met a whole bunch of different dogs, ranging from itty wee baby puppies to quite a large Airedale.  Imp was generally fairly good about not barking, there were only a couple of dogs he was yipping at and I couldn't get him to stop easily.

If it's this nice again tomorrow, we were talking about doing a picnic lunch!

And There Was Heat!

The new furnace is mostly up and running.  They just need to order a part so that the fan will turn off and on along with the heat.  Right now the fan just keeps running.  The house is sure warm, though!

I'm not sure if it was prompted by the house being cold or some other reason, but Trouble wandered into the master bedroom this morning, and has been in here all day.  Right now she's lounging on the bed, and she's been there with all four dogs also on the bed, and things have been fairly calm (much calmer than when she was tucked into a corner under the desk where they couldn't reach her, ironically).

So this is a good thing!  As I told Imp, if he could behave this way with all the cats all the time, he wouldn't need to be scared of them as they wouldn't be scared of him!

Whimper?!

The furnace repair man was out this afternoon, and had to replace the nozzle on our furnace which was broken, and after that the furnace turned back on and started heating our house again.

Then of course when the house got up to temperature, the furnace turned off ... but it didn't turn back on again when the house cooled off!  Maxx had to go down in the late afternoon and was able to get it back on again (seems like the motor seized), and it ran until it was supposed to shut off, and then once again wouldn't turn back on later.

So, we have the same furnace man coming back out tomorrow.  We'll have to look at our options and decide if we're replacing the furnace motor, or replacing the furnace itself (which is original to the house as far as we can tell, from the '50s).  I'm voting for replacing the furnace itself, to get one which is high efficiency .... AND HAS A WARRANTY!

Argh!

So, our hot water tank installer arrived before 9am this morning and got the work done lickety-split, and when I go to check we should now have hot water.

However ....

... The house was quite chilly and Maxx turned up the heat ... and turned up the heat ... and turned up the heat ... and the furnace isn't coming on.  He went down and pushed the reset button on the furnace (which we remembered he'd had to do once before) and it just went "click", it didn't come on or light the pilot.  Plus, there was a puddle of oil under the furnace.

So, luckily the furnace repair man was able to come out today, and luckily I had room on the new credit card so that we could have heat to go along with our hot water!

Countdown!

While my brother and his husband are counting down the days to take possession of their new house, I'm still counting down to my new hot water heater ... of course we don't have a scheduled delivery/installation time, so it may be we'll be good to go in less than 24 hours, or we could still be waiting for the installer to show up.  I hope they are in the morning but not TOO early as I need Maxx to be home from work, so we can get the hot water tank drained (we have to wait until last minute as we'll have to turn off the water to the whole house to do so, no way to tell which valve is which under the house and last November we had to turn off the house water to be able to effect our hot water tank repairs at that time).

But ... no more waiting for my IP phone for use for work from home!  My supervisor popped in for a home visit today and got the system up and running on my work computer, so I now have the means to make outbound calls without using the home phone (no need to worry about forgetting to block out outbound caller ID!), and it's a headset, so I have both hands free for typing if I'm still on a chat while doing some support by phone or trying to work on an email.

Yay!

Funny, when my supervisor showed up, Hobs of course growled at him a little bit right at first, and Elf was a bit of a shivery scaredy-cat.  Angel was eager to meet this new human ... and Imp was barking his fool head off when I answered the door, but he'd run off to the far corner of the house to do so, I'm pretty sure he was scared.  It didn't take him too long too warm up and come over to do some greetings, though. Silly little thing!

Wild Weather!

When I got off work at 1pm, I glanced outside and realized that it was snowing wildly ... although mere minutes before it had been slashing rain (which was worrying Elf, who was on the recliner behind me being scared of the noises coming in through the window).

Now, it's nicely sunny outside!

It certainly does seem like we're getting spring weather.  Is the equinox today?  I thought it was supposed to happen on the 22nd!

A Giving Nature

I lay down briefly on the bed today at lunch, and all four dogs were mugging on my.  Angel, Imp, and Elf were all scrambling around giving me kisses (with me trying to block Angel and Imp from getting up my nose), and Hobgoblin perched on my hip chewing on his antler.

Imagine my surprise when I got up a couple of minutes later, to find that somehow Hobs had managed to place his antler chew into my pocket.  How generous!

Patient Wee Doggies

I was bad today at lunch and popped out to pick up some fast food (burger and fries), and sat there eating with all four dogs clustered around me, oh-so-hopeful, but being so good about not begging.  They all lay there quietly, not even watching me as I ate ... so they each got rewarded with two little fry ends each.

While there are times that the pandemonium really gets to me, there are moments like these when everyone is being such a well-behaved little critter that they make me so happy to be their Mum!

Sunday Sunday Sunday

And I really don't feel like doing the work in the laundry room to make sure it's cleared out and ready for the hot water heater.  Actually, much of the work is done and the big thing now is taking out the "coat closet" shelf installation which had been nailed to the wall, and I need Maxx for that so it won't be happening until later today ... hopefully he gets up long enough before his shift starts so that we can do it!

Looks like it's grey and gloomy out today, which for me just doesn't give me that drive to get up and active and get things done.  I can't wait for sunny weather!

Once we've had enough non-rainy days immediately prior to Maxx's weekend, we'll get the front and back yards mowed.  The dogs will like it much better in the back yard once the grass is short again.  I certainly do have lots of work to take apart the fence (completely fallen apart) around the back garden, and then yet once again dig out the blackberry canes and morning glory in that section of the yard.  Maybe next spring we'll have enough of a return to be able to then install a couple of raised beds in that area for my vegetable garden!

Spring Not Yet Sprung

However, I used our $100 in Rona gift cards today to go towards the purchase of four deep planters (square) in which I figure I can grow some of our veggies (carrots, beets, peppers, and cucumber).  We got two types of carrots, one of which is the little round variety, so I'll try that in the original planters which are long and fairly shallow, to see if that will work, and use those containers for the lettuce, which I think should be just fine.  We'll need to clear a spot in the yard for the corn/peas/zucchini triple combination, and I do need to get the front in-ground planters cleared out so I can plant the amaranth, but I have time on that as it's a late May to early June planting.  I ended up cheating and not getting most of my seeds from West Coast, I just picked them up at Rona, but we'll have to order the amaranth, and likely the cauliflower blend, although I can check a couple of places in town which carry the West Coast seeds to see if they have those ones in stock.  I figured, this year, let's get the planters and see if I can actually produce some fresh veggies from the yard ... if it works, I can go for the gusto next year and to go town on the fancier varieties of things we wanted to try.

I may go ahead and order a bat box, though ... we do want to attract bats to the back yard, particularly as they would keep down the mosquitoes during the summer and make lounging in the pool more pleasant.

I also should figure out how many tires I have and if I think that will be enough for a potato planter, or if I will need to get the one from the catalogue, which you can pull up the sides of the bucket, essentially, as the plant grows, to hill up the dirt more and more around it to force it to produce more tubers.

We shall see!

Anticipation!

We bought the new hot water heater yesterday (and got 15% back in store gift cards, yay!), but the installer doesn't work weekends so we need to wait until Thurs March 22nd until we'll have hot water.

I'm sooo looking forward to that day, but we'll have to make sure to ask the installer how long we need to wait to be able to use the hot water.  I want a bath, a nice good long soak with my bath fizzers I received for my birthday, and maybe even candle light.

Sometimes it's the simple pleasures that make life good, you know!?

Adding Insult to Injury

As if the past few days starting with a friend's death last week, being sick off and on since Friday afternoon (more sick than ever starting last night after dinner), and having our hot water tank give up the ghost ... last night someone stole our cat house from the front porch.

They aren't that inexpensive, so it is going to be a while before we can replace it, and it was a shelter for our cats when they hadn't come in at night or when the weather was nasty ... and it was in rough shape with some of the sisal rope having been scratched completely off, and desperately needing a clean from shed hair and likely some cat sick ... so I have to wonder who HAD to have it that they stole it.

I do hope it's just some waste of space who stole it, and not some cat-hater who is going to then come back and put out poison for our kitties.

Maxx did report it to the police when he came home, as he was the one who noticed it coming in from his shift (it was there when I went to sleep last night), and they kind of gave him the brush off as in "you're reporting someone stealing your cat house?", but as he said, he wanted it on record, as after all, if someone is willing to walk off with that, what else might they steal from the neighborhood, and if something does happen to our cats we at least have a record of the cat house being stolen first ... not that I think it would do us much good, but hey, at least we called.

Gloomy

I've just been sitting here and quickly checking my sites and emails, doing some quick posting ... and realize after reading a poem of my brother's and answering an email from my best friend who's mother passed at the end of February, that I have a tear trickling down my face and am depressed.

It seems like this is another year when bad things are happening.  It hasn't started as quickly as 2009, when I thought Maxx was having a heart attack Jan 1st, Xara got leptospirosis and almost died, one of my pet birds died, Shep passed away, Grandpa passed away, and Grandma passed away ... but as mentioned my best friend's mother passed (she was my parents' neighbor for over 35 years), and a friend at work just passed away unexpectedly on Thursday (such a shock, only two years older than Maxx), and I'd just taken a deep breath and applied for another credit card to have in just my name in case of emergencies, and before I even have the card available for use our hot water tank has given up the ghost.

Sometimes I just wish I could revert to my childhood days when our biggest worries were what colour popsicle holder we'd be able to get when Mum gave us treats in the summer.

No Longer In Hot Water

Not that we were in trouble ... but as of yesterday it looks like our hot water tank is just done ... It does have power and everything, but we're only getting water which is just slightly warmer than the cold water taps.

So, we went out and checked out tankless systems today, thinking that would be the way to go.  Unfortunately, it looks like they are mostly gas, and we're on electric.  If we were able to find someone who sells electric, we'd then have to have the house re-wired from the panel to the hot water tank ... so this isn't something we can afford, and we'll have to go with a new hot water tank.

We've chosen the tank we're going to get (size and warranty-wise), now we just need to wait to have the money to actually get it.  Guess we'll be having pretty sketchy washes for the next little while, and I'm not sure how we'll I'm going to be able to do dishes with no hot water.  However, we usually do our laundry on a cold/cold cycle, unless we're doing sheets or towels, or something which needs to be sanitized, so at least we can put clean clothes on our "not as clean as usual" selves.

And of course, I go into work two days this week, so I'm going to have to wash my hair in cold water .... NOT looking forward to that!

Dog Park Day

Got the kids out to the Beban off-leash dog park today.  I do wish that Imp would get over barking so much when he is scared!  It makes him seem like an aggressive dog.  By the end of our stay he was getting a bit better at stopping barking when I snapped my fingers at him and called his name, and would come trotting back to me, but he needs to be a bit more socialized with meeting strange dogs so he can feel comfortable wandering over to them and sniffing noses instead of dashing around barking his fool head off.

Elf seemed to have a really good time, as did Hobgoblin as usual.  Elf was wandering around meeting people and other dogs, and Hobgoblin was trotting around making the rounds.  Even Angel was the most sociable she's ever been at the park, wandering away from me on multiple occasions to sniff noses with new dogs ... although as ever she was FAR more interested in meeting new humans than new dogs.  She even begged a nice lady sitting on the bench next to me to pick her up so she could get some lap snuggles.  Everyone just loves Angel, particularly when her fur is all grown out for the winter and she looks like an Ewok!

More Sad News

One of our friends from work passed away unexpectedly today ... I heard from my supervisor that he heard it was a heart attack, but he isn't sure.

He was just about to take possession of a house in our neighborhood so we thought we'd be able to hang out at back-yard barbeques more this summer.  He does have some children, but I'm not sure of their ages.  He also had a couple of dogs.

Such a shock ... that's the second person from work I knew that has passed away since I started.

Tiring Trip

This trip to Penticton sure was tiring.  I didn't do much, other than sit in the vehicle as Maxx was driving, and sit at Dad's or at the memorial service, or at Mum's early 75th birthday dinner, or in the car while driving home ... but I still feel so sore and tired, and very grumpy!

Maxx was complaining about the mess the cats make when we get home and suggesting that we need to decide what to do with them ... then I exploded that perhaps if he was more into doing the cleaning that he's promised to do time and time again, the house would be in a better condition to start with, and there would be less chance that the cats would feel comfortable making messes in rooms which are clean ... and you can't blame Trouble for making a mess in the bathroom, as who knows how long she she was locked in there, or even how she closed the door.

I get drive into a rage whenever we mentions we should get rid of animals because of mess.  If that's the case, he's the first animal I should have gotten rid of ... after all, HE has two hands and opposable thumbs, his issue with cleaning is not that he CAN'T do it, but that he MUST  play World of Warcraft, or play stupid games on his phone or computer, or he MUST go out and play Dungeons and Dragons with his friends, or take them shopping or run errands for them, etc.  Being married to someone who has such a screwed up sense of priorities is NOT fun.