January

It's hard to believe it's January when I just took the garbage out only wearing a t-shirt on top. It was snowing, but it melted as soon as it hit the ground.

I'd upload some pictures, but the camera cable is in the car so that will have to wait until another day.

All in all the holidays went really well. I've been suffering from the flu since Boxing Day. It's definitely been no fun but it has encouraged me to enjoy the relaxing part of having holidays. Sally has been getting lots of cuddles and Lenny has been very good about picking up some extra housework. Tonight he made a delicious slow cooker curry - yum!

Today I was able to rearrange the kitchen a little bit to make room for a new cupcake transporter (thank you Paula and Mike), a new Tassimo coffee maker (thank you Silvana and Mark), and a new Kitchen Aid Mixer (thank you to Mom & Dad!). There still needs to be further juggling to get everything into their new homes, but I think it's going to work.

I was also able to find room for a stack of chocolate boxes (YUM!), some vino (YUM!), the largest bag of flour you ever did see, enough wonderful smelling body lotion/shower gel/shampoo/bath salts to last me the year (incredibly grateful), and some fantastic knitting books. It's been difficult to know where to start and what to do: there are so many wonderful gifts that I will enjoy.

Sally got a New Year's bath today and is smelling quite lovely. She has thoroughly enjoyed one of about 12 candy cane compressed dog bone treats as well as some gifted Beggin' Strips. She will also get to enjoy some milk bones (both soft and hard), Denta Sticks, Iams dog food, and a new favourite stuffed squeaky toy. She got so much stimulation over the holidays though that she's nearly slept the entire day despite coaxing her with toys and excited voices. She was alert for her two walks though and did eat all of her food so we're not too worried.

Well that's all I can think of for now. It was great to spend time with family and spend some more relaxed time with Lenny. Here's to a wonderful 2012 for everyone!

Mission Impossible: Find the Geckos

December 22! Hard to believe it is almost Christmas when it is still getting so warm during the day. Today Lenny and I installed some plastic film on our windows. Unfortunately our front window is 7 feet long, not 6 feet like the length of the patio door film I bought. Ah well. Worked out in the end because when we went to Canadian Tire to pick up the XL patio door kit, the price it rung up as was something like $22 instead of the $18 advertised. One stop to customer service later, and we ended up paying $8 for it (their SCOP is $10 off a purchase of $10 or more if the price advertised is lower than the price it rings up as). Gotta love saving $10 when you're counting every dollar! :)

This afternoon, Lenny was able to come home early from work because all of his experiments are in a dormant state for the holidays. When he got back, he asked where Marshall, one of the geckos, was... Good question? Not in the container? Not in the other container? Not in any of the present bags that are currently pretty close to the terrariums? OMG!!! WHERE IS THE GECKO! Lenny figured he wouldn't have gone very far from the fire place because that's the warmest place, so I started investigating the area. Lucky for me - I was the one who found him under the couch! One loooooooooud shreak later, Lenny rescued the gecko and put him  back in his home. 

Enticing Marshall away from the fire place with the spoon that feeds him, literally.

Creeeeeeeeeeepers. Lenny asks why I'm afraid of the geckos, and that fuzzy frozen little field mouse I found in the car last week. I tell him it's a girl thing, and it's not logical, but for goodness sake, please just feed the feeling by handling these guys at all times. 

Lenny inspecting Marshall to see if he broke any limbs or ribs in the approximate 1.5 metre fall. Rest assured this little guy is as strong as ever.

I can't leave this blog thinking about those geckos, so here's a cute sauce pic of Sally. I'm so glad I was able to capture her tongue sticking out. She does this when she's really excited or focused on something. Too cute. Also in this pic is a rather dilapidated Christmas rope toy that Lenny's mom got Sally last week. It will soon be entering the garbagio because, well, I can't vacuum up any more of these little stringy things and I'm sure by now some have found their way into Sally's tummy.

Well that's all for now. Lenny and I went to a fantastic show of Stuart McLean tonight and it was so excellent. I think I will go blissfully asleep now :)

December Adventures

So figure this one out: I Can only type Capital C's, H's, and V's (no lower Case). How awesome is this laptop?!?! Can anyone else smell a restart in my future? At least spell-check is Catching some of them. 

This week I made the most delicious Christmas treats from a recipe belonging to my great grandmother Hutchison:

Grandma Hutchison's Christmas Graham Crackers

Ingredients

24-30 graham crackers
1 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup raisins
2/3 cup slivered almonds
1 cup candied fruit finely chopped 
 

Directions:
Line a cookie sheet with foil, folding up the edges. Grease the foil (optional).
Arrange crackers on foil- dont leave any spaces.
Sprinkle fruit and nuts evenly over crackers. In a saucepan melt butter, over low heat. Don't boil.
Add brown sugar and bring almost to a boil for 3 minutes. Glaze should look like fudge.
Remove frrom heat and stir in vanilla.
Pour over nuts fruit and crackers.
Bake at 400 for 7 minutes.
Cool 15 to 20 minutes then cut

 This week, I also made a new dog sweater for Dakota (Lenny's family dog). Here is Sally modelling it in Various stages of Creation:

Christmas time!

Today I started wrapping all the gifts for our families; SO exciting. I did it a lot more rushed than usual, but am looking forward to "tweaking" things as the last few weeks roll by.

I had these beautiful Christmas flowers for inspiration this year. Lenny sent them to me last week while he was in Denver for a conference, but I couldn't post a picture until now because he had the camera with him. 

Sally's cuteness still hasn't worn off yet. We graduated obedience class on Monday evening and I have to say, she is a super-great dog. She will come when called about 80% of the time, has only peed in the house once in the last two weeks, and knows some basic commands: sit, lie down (about 50% of the time), roll over, leave it, and my favourite - come! We're still working on "stay" but that's a hard one for her because she's glued to me at all times. We were particularly pleased with ourselves today when I opened the car door to put Sally in the back and was met by a tiny field mouse (AH!). Thankfully, for me, it was half frozen (probably got in the night before) and wasn't moving so Sally only had a quick sniff and left it as commanded. Certainly made for an interesting story to share at the dog park today!

Here are two "faces" of Sally, as shot by Lenny today.

Sitting and waiting for a reward or another command.

Freakin' excited when she realizes that the reward is food.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to make some of my grandmother's Christmas recipes. Will let you know how it goes!

Faux Paw

Today I committed a doggie owner faux paw (ha!): I took Sally to the dog park three times. Once is really enough, but the first time I was waiting for an important phone call only to realize 5 minutes in, that I didn't have my phone with me. The second trip was much longer but waaaaaaay muddier than anticipated. The third time was later in the day after I'd had her cooped up in the car for a 30 minute trip and felt bad.

She has been playing super well at the dog park these past few days: initiating chases with dogs bigger than her, teaching non-sociable ugly dogs how to box and play, and somersaulting with a few puppies and showing them how to grind their backs into mud puddles. I've also met some really nice and interesting people and have really appreciated having different people to talk to.

Tomorrow Lenny comes home after one of our longer times apart -- a whole week + a day! I'm excited to show him Sally's new tricks, watch him devour a crate of clementines I bought for his return, and see the beautiful flowers he sent to me in person.

Point-by-point

So the two cups of espresso haven't quite kicked in yet, so here's a point-by-point update for the happenings of the past few days:

• I got a part-time job selling clothing at our local mall. The down side is that the only two shifts I was scheduled to work this week have been cancelled so that makes for another boring week.
• I have started volunteering for a Day Care Centre; not helping with the kids, but helping rewrite their HR policies. It's just volunteering but it's taking up oodles of time and I'm earning a good reputation with the lady I work for. Hopefully her connections might help out in the future.
• Sally played with several large dogs at the dog park today. She's always been very timid around bigger dogs, but is really starting to open up after daily trips to the dog park. She ran her little heart out for about 45 min of the hour we were at the park this morning and is completely zonked out on the couch right now. I've also started making friends with two other ladies that are always there around the same time as me: a Masters of Psychology student originally from Poland, and a fellow unemployed person. It's nice to have people to chat with and the dogs play so well together.
• In the mornings if I don't wake up around the usual 7:30 (or I go back to bed), Sally will start to bring me stuff from around the house and put it on the bed as if to entice me out of bed to crate her for being bad. :P . This morning she opened a door (?!) and got into a present I bought for Paula & Mike's new dog this weekend at the craft fair. There's still enough left that it'll be ok, but man, come on Sally!!
• Meet Tobi, Paula & Mike's new pup as of this evening!
  
  
• What a cute ball of fur he is! I can't wait to see him and Sally have a play date :) And what a wonderful Christmas time gift for them. 
• Rehearsals with the Stratford Symphony have been so easy peasy that I've started to relax a lot more and chat with some of the musicians. I think it also helps that there are no winds (well two oboes + myself) in these pieces so I'm having the opportunity to socialize with different people. I'm starting to feel a bit more like part of the group and am even considering staying on through the spring even though I initially only committed through until December.
• Today's the first day the snow has really stayed on the ground. Sally likes to eat it; I like to slip and slide all over it and the driveway. I really ought to buy some dress shoes that have some more traction to them.
• There are way less dishes when only one person is eating and cooking. It's kind of crazy how tidy the house is. Eerily quiet though too. Every morning Sally's been looking for Lenny. Only 3 more sleeps though until he returns from his Cell Biology conference in Denver.

Well I think that's it for now. Off to um........ not sure... I'll figure out something to do.

Success!

Today was one of the more productive days I've had in a looooooooooooooooooong time. I woke up this morning well rested and with plenty of time to make a good breakfast (turkey bacon and pancakes), get my bassoon and Sally's crate all packed up, and hit the road for a 10 am rehearsal in Stratford. Thanks to the major construction detour around St. Mary's now being complete, I was able to make it there by 9:10. Nice! Sally and I made a quick walk around town for half an hour before me crating her in the car and heading into the rehearsal.

The rehearsal went well. It was all baroque organ concerti so the bassoon parts were super sparse and therefore wonderful. There were some delicious cheesecake ball creations at the break for a snack annnnnnnd to top it all off, we finished an hour early. Saweet! I took Sally for another jaunt around the neighbourhood before we packed up and headed back to London. Because I was free until 2:30 and we got back around 1, I decided to take her to the dog park before a bit to wear out some nervous energy. We ended up staying in the small dog park area because the big dog park area was Super muddy. She made friends with one of my former professor's dogs and then played and boxed for a while. It was pretty cute.

After taking Sally home and cleaning her up, I left to meet up with Tamara and head out to the London Christmas Craft Show. This was my fourth year in a row attending and it did not disappoint! I picked up some OMG-DELICIOUS Mennonite cookies (for the fourth year in a row), some kangaroo and bison beef sticks for Lenny, some coffee candles for both of us, and some Christmas gifts. I was very grateful that Tamara was able to come -- these things are so much better when you have someone to share how cool some things are!

After the show, we headed back to the house to play with Sally. We took her over to the park behind the house to play fetch and ended up meeting our next door neighbour and their dog for the first time. Holstein is the exact mirror opposite as Sally in colour -- it's pretty neat actually! They were out with a whole pack of puppies (!) and were about to adopt one of them as a companion for Holstein. Hopefully we can all go back sometime for a play date. On a separate note, while playing fetch, Sally saw a squirrel and ran through the creek and up the entire embankment on the West side of the park -- it's almost a 90 degree hill that's like 50 feet high! Time for sponge bath number two of the day!

Tonight was also pretty successful: I did two loads of laundry, a mega load of dishes, and completed a mail in rebate for $7 free dollars. Woot! I think after watching some Holmes on Homes and perhaps some knitting, it will be an early night for us here. Works out well though because Sally has a dog park date with her former foster dog friends tomorrow morning at 9 am. Let's hope it's significantly less muddy!!!!