Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Hope everyone had a pleasant Easter weekend. We had eggs and ham for dinner today, that was our big celebration. Well on Good Friday, when I woke up and opened the bedroom door there was a bag off chocolate goodies hanging on the doorknob. That was from Mr. Easter Bunny Man. Sweet. He got one for me and one for Little R too. She also got some cute jammies in her bag. That was a pleasant surprise.

A few nights ago I went for coffee with SW. She picked me up and we went to town for Timmys. Then we just sat in the car and chatted. It was nice to get out of the house. That was the first time I got dressed in about 2 weeks.

I had mentioned to SW that I thought we need to get rid of Eddie. I had come to that conclusion that day. I decided that it was time to find him a new home. I just didn't think I was ever going to clean the house as long as he was here making messes all over the place. So we placed an ad on a site for this type of thing. The very next night SW had a potential home for him. She was spending the weekend at her cousins place and her cousin had asked her if she knew where she could get a Jack Russell! So SW took Eddie with her. From reports throughout the weekend it sounds like he'll be staying there. Meanwhile we got a ton of responses to our ad. We left it up in case it didn't work out. I deleted it last night. Sooo, no more Eddie. I think Bear misses him. He seemed a little confused. But honestly we all seem a little more relaxed. Eddie was kind of hyper. It seems so quiet without him, peaceful. He'll be fine and we'll be fine and I can keep tabs on him. I do miss the litte bugger. But we're all better off I think. Being the only pet in his new home he'll get the attention he needs. I'm glad it's someone we can have contact with to get updates and just find out how he's doing. I'm glad we didn't have to go through the process of picking someone responding to our ad. Ah, it's like a weight off.

That's about all the excitement around here. I see they're calling for more snow next week. That sucks. It has been slowly melting away and now we're going to get more. I hope to have the house cleaned by the time spring rolls around and its time to be outside in the gardens all day. I've been reading a ton of gardening blogs. That's got me itching to get out there. The one time I tried to start seeds indoors it didn't work out at all. I had no clue what I was doing. I'm learning a lot from these blogs. Maybe I'll try the indoor seeds thing again sometime but not this year. I can't wait for spring this year. Is it just me, or does this winter just feel endless?

Oh well I'm off to bed to dream of warm sunshine and crocuses blooming. Have a good night.

Here's a bunny I bought for a buck at a yard sale last summer. He lived in my front garden for the summer. Happy Easter!

Not A Good Day

There is a new feature on Blogger allowing to upload video. I have tried several times to use it and been unsuccessful. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, if anything. Things to learn and figure out.


The story on the dog fight is the other dog was wearing a muzzle, I didn't notice. And the lady with the other dog ended up needing stitches. Apparently she's very pissed off that I didn't do anything. It's true, I didn't. I was still under the influence of the Lorazepams and just kind of stood there stunned, not knowing what to do. That's also how Bear was able to pull the leash from my hand so easily. I don't know what made him attack, I thought it was the two women freaking out. I know nothing good is going to come of this. I know we haven't heard the end of it. I think if I ever take him for a walk again I'll put his muzzle on. That's if I get the chance, if he doesn't get taken away. If he gets taken away, I'll be heartbroken. I'm hoping it won't come to that, but I don't know what will happen. There's been so many complaints about him. I swear its all because of his breed. People are such assholes. He's a beautiful dog. And he is well behaved. This was a freakish incident. I'm distraught. I imagine so is the lady with stitches.


So yesterday was spent brooding about this and other crap. I accomplished zero. It was a terrible day. But Little R came home from school on time. It turns out she had taken the wrong bus home. The bus does not stop at the old school, it comes straight through. She now knows what bus to take so there shouldn't be any more confusion.

I can tell today is going to be another crappy day. Its dreary and cool outside. I feel like hell. I'm so upset about the dog situation I can't think straight. I'm dreading someone coming to the door to take my Bear away. I'm afraid to take him outside. I feel like my whole life is out of control. Nothing is going the way it's supposed to be. Not a good day. I'm going to bed. I'm reading a really lame book about John Candy, it'll put me to sleep in minutes.

Hopefully it's a better day for you.

Progressive Regression, An Oxymoron

Well we got a whole bunch of sun yesterday. Got burnt from head to toe, but not a painful kind of burnt. I could see Hubby burning so I kept telling him to put sunscreen on, it never even occured to me to put some on myself. Neither one of us did put any on. It was another gorgeous day. We hung out outside until well after dark, by which time I got the burnt chill again. We didn't go to that party, we opted to stay home and get shit done.

We got most of the old cedar rail fence knocked down. We backfilled where we had to dig up the septic line. I laid the hunks of sod back over it but I don't know how well it's going to take. We may end up having to seed it. We just got a lot of general yard puttering done.

Two of our least favourite neighbours had backyard fires. At one point a cop drove by out on the main road, and you don't know how rare that is, they only come here when they're called here, we thought for sure they were gonna get told nextdoor, but nothing. The cops just drove on by. You would think the cops would be aware that there is a fire ban in affect, but apparently not. Either that or they were actually busy with a call or something. I just couldn't help thinking if it was us having a fire during a fire ban, someone would have called the cops on us, if not, that random cop would have been on us in a flash.

I saw my first American Goldfinch of the season! They are also called wild canaries. They are a vibrant bright yellow colour and they sing. I only saw the one, he was on one of my feeders. I just happened to have bought the seed they like the other day but hadn't put it out yet, he was on the sunflower seed feeder. So I went ahead and filled the feeder for them, but he never came back. I took a picture of him but I was too far away.

We went to take the car we're thinking of buying out for a test drive. It has issues, but is pretty sound. It's a decent family car.

Back in our own car driving to another town for Timmys coffee we came across a yard sale. It was in a ritzy neighbourhood. I got a few books and it came to $15! They were asking $1 for paperbacks and $2 for hard covers but she charged me $3 for one of the books I had. Jeez. So that wasn't a deal at all. I actually felt ripped off more than anything. All the books were in very good condition, but still. Remind me not to go to yard sales in that neighbourhood.

One of my Narcissus flowers bloomed yesterday. Of course I took pictures. I just bought them last year, so this is my first year of them. They look like very tiny daffodils. When we dug up the septic line, it was winter, some of my Columbines got dug up in the process. But, it looks like they survived somewhat. I'm glad about that. Columbines are funky looking flowers and I like them. I want to cut back my roses, but I've always had "the clown" there to guide me before. I'm afraid to do it on my own, I'm afraid I'll fuck up and kill them. I'm just not sure where to cut. Still can't decide where to plant any of the stuff I bought this year. I'm just going to wait until the new fence is up before I plant anything. It's a little early for that yet anyways, plenty of time to figure it out.

So Hubby and I were sitting back having a brewski break when Little R appeared asking for money to go to the chip wagon. Earlier I had taken a pile of change from my jacket pocket and put it in my little change purse. I could not remember where I had put the change purse. So I sat there retracing my steps until we figured out where I had put it. I said "talk about progressive regression". Hubby said "that's an oxymoron!" Yup I believe it is. We had some great conversations sitting there drinking beer in the sun. Unfortunately Hubby started out drinking too fast and was pretty much done as I was just warming up. If you've never drank in the sun, I don't recommend it, it goes straight to your head. It seems like you get twice as drunk when done in the sun. I was fine though, I took it easy. We ended up having dinner from the chip wagon. They only opened it near the end of last summer. I can see us packing on the weight with that there now. It's too handy and convenient. There's nothing like chip wagon french fries! Delicious. Hubby got poutine and I had a taste and it was YUMMY. I'm gonna get fat this summer I think, sigh.

This morning, just as I was waking up, Edwad (that's his new name) squatted right in front of me, in the kitchen! I was quick enough to get him outside before he finished. I couldn't believe it. The house smells like a fucking barn thanks to him. I'm so glad we can finally open windows and air the place out! But he had no qualms about doing it right there, in the middle of the kitchen, right in front of me. SIGH. I can't wait to get the new fence up so we can just cut them loose and not have to worry at all about them taking off.

Today is supposed to be gorgeous again. It's sunny and warm already. I'm going to enjoy my coffee outside now. I'll leave you with a photo of my Narcissus. Have a lovely day.

Shopping For A Fence

The day started out on a bit of a sour note when we got a letter from the Township in our mail.

The letter stated "It has come to the attention of this office that, your dogs have been allowed to run at large. The issue of safety is a serious concern. Complaints have been received regarding your dog disturbing/threatening neighbouring landowners, their children and their pets. It is imperative that you resolve this situation immediately."

It goes on further to explain the charges and fines that could be laid on us and contains a copy of the dog bylaws.

Yes it is true that Bear takes off on me on a regular basis. And though I know he wouldn't hurt a flea, others have no way of knowing that. And I don't know how he acts when I'm not there. I spoke to one of the Town Councillors about it and she said she had received 3 complaints. She told them all the same thing, that they must put it in writing for anything to happen. One refused to do that, another did so right away and she is waiting for the written complaint from the third. We have a pretty good idea of who it may be. We have no argument. The one thing I find strange is the timing. When I let Bear out and he takes off on me is usually late at night or in the wee hours. It's just our lovely neighbours being asses. It bothers me because I'm fairly certain it's bullshit, only said to cause us grief. And because I've seen every other dog on this street out roaming around loose. But I don't complain about it.

Anyways, we went fence shopping yesterday. We're getting a small part of the settlement next week, so we figured we'd find out how much it's going to cost to fence the backyard. We were planning to do that even before receiving this letter. We need 205 feet of fence. We decided to go with the pre-assembled wood panels. Not including the posts it will cost over $3000. We hope to have it done by next weekend. Hubby is going to recruit a couple of guys and they can slap it up themselves. We haven't decided if we'll rent a post hole digger or hire a local guy to do that part. We'll have to remove the cedar rail fence which runs across the back of the yard and may use it as a decorative fence in the frontyard. Due to the cost, I may not be able to finish the denture project just yet. Aww, that's too bad, hehe.

Other than that it was a fabulous day. Since my car is on its last legs, and we have that money coming, we stopped in at a car place too. We may have found a reasonable replacement car. We're also going to pull our old pick up truck out of the backyard before the fence goes up, and get it back on the road. It's been a real pain not having a truck.

The weather was amazing. It was as hot as a summer day. We spent the entire day outside. We even had a barbecue for dinner. Little R went for a scoot on her mini bike after school. I got the raking done, even cleaned up the mess from the wood cutting pile. I got a slight sunburn. You know how you get a chill, after getting a burn, when the sun goes down? That was me last night. I'm going to have a decent tan already by the time summer does roll around.

The house nextdoor still hasn't sold. I read the listing and it says "needs TLC", that's not a good selling point and they mention it "has a large sandbox", hardly a selling feature. These folks are freaks, it's common knowledge. Two grown adults who live in a 4 bedroom house and do like to play in their sandbox. They've been seen by other neighbours doing what can only be described as "role playing". They are also the ones who complain about every little thing. It started with the bike which again was quite unfair since ours is not the only bike around. They live between two Harley owners, but it's only ours that bothers them. When they found that there was nothing they could do about it, they moved on to complaining about the dog. The other house, which is down and across from us, sold in a week. This will be the second time the freaks nextdoor have put theirs on the market and still, nothing. We'd be more than happy to see them go. There must be something really wrong with the house for it to take this long. "Needs TLC" could mean so many things. If you really want to sell, don't you make the neccesary repairs yourself before putting it on the market? Doesn't that make sense? These folks don't make sense at the best of times. I also noticed on the MLS site, there are no indoor photos of the place. They just don't seem very serious about selling and that's a shame. I'd love to have some decent, normal people living beside me.

All in all it was a gorgeous day and I sure do hope it's a trend. My narcissus' which I planted last year are just about ready to bloom. I can't wait to get out there digging in the dirt and planting all the things I've bought this year. Did I mention I got a rasberry bush last week? Of course I can't decide where to plant it. The sun and warmth yesterday got all the plants and flowers going good. It is supposed to be nice for the next few days. I plan on being out there enjoying every minute of it.

There is a fire ban in effect until May 18 or further notice. So, we couldn't get a fire permit just yet. If you have a fire and someone calls the fire department or otherwise reports it, if the fire department comes out, you are responsible for paying for the call which is now $1800 and you get a fine. It's very much not worth it. Better off waiting for the ban to be lifted. We plan on expanding our tiny firepit. I might start on that today. I have a lot of plans for today actually. All involving being outside in the sunshine.

Have a great day!

The Boys

Here's my guys. This is about the only time they get so close to each other, waiting for a treat. They more or less ignore each other. Well except when Eddie gets in a mood to pester.

One thing I've noticed is, whenever Bear comes in after taking off on me, Eddie will pick a fight with him. This has happened enough times that I've noticed the pattern. Is he mad at Bear for taking off?

They're pretty funny together. They're both possessive of me. If I'm petting one the other comes right over and butts in. I am equal with the loving and treats and attention. I have to be.

Eddie is still a playful puppy and Bear is becoming an old man. Not the best mix. They are polar opposites most of the time. But for the most part they co-exist happily. I was hoping they would get close, but so far that isn't happening. They will sleep on the same couch together but at opposite ends. There is no cute snuggling up together.

You would think, just with the size difference, Eddie would run from Bear. But not so, if anything, Eddie is the more aggressive one. He doesn't back down at all and in fact he starts it most of the time. They do play, chasing each other around outside, but it's rare. Hopefully there'll be more of that once the weather gets nice and we're spending more time outside.

So, Hubby got an email from the lady with the scooter. She said he can come pick it up if he still wants it. ??? Apparently she read the email I sent to her nieghbour about it. Now Hubby is making me and D.W go get it for him, ugh. Personally I would have said "no thanks".

We had our ham dinner yesterday. It wasn't so good. I didn't have all the ingredients for the raisin sauce and the local store wasn't open, so I had to improvise. It turned out ok, but not the best. We tried a new kind of Yorkshire Pudding. I don't know how to make it from scratch, so I usually buy these little mixes in a pouch and it turns out pretty good, just not homemade good. While we were out shopping we found frozen ones. You just put them on a cookie sheet and heat them for 2 minutes. Had to try that. But they were awful. Was going to say they tasted like cardboard, but I think even cardboard would've tasted better.

And today we're going over to S.Ws for a turkey dinner. She and her hubby came over here last night. It was fun. We exchanged gifts, just like Christmas I tell ya. We gave them a big rabbit statue for their garden and some chocolate. They gave us a lovely plant assortment in a basket. We played one game of darts and then just drank and chatted. The hours flew by.

And because of that, I slept in this morning and missed the garbage man. Dammit. I'll have to be sure to not miss him the next couple of weeks to get caught up again.

We finally used the camera tripod yesterday. Took a little fooling around and reading the manual again to figure out the delay on the camera, but we got it. They had me running down to the familyroom in the middle of cooking, thus the apron, sigh. Hubby set the zoom so the pictures all turned out grainy. But hey, we know how to use it now, there's always next time.

It's Ok Bear, Just A Little Thunder

I've been flipping through blogs on Blogger, found a few I'll be continuing to read. One thing I noticed in several of them was photos of all the spring flowers in bloom. I feel so ripped off. All I have are 3 measly crocuses and these folks have tulips, forsythias, daffodils and cherry blossoms! I think they were all in the States. I know we're usually even behind the city with our spring bloomage here, and that's just one hour south. Sigh.
We had a couple of episodes of thunder and lightning last night, poor Bear. For a while there it even looked like we might have some tornado action (shudder). So here's Bear cowering under the kitchen table...



There he is panting up a storm of his own. We read somewhere that what we were doing, as in trying to comfort him and tell him its ok, is wrong. This just reinforces his fear. So we tried what was suggested, acting like nothing is happening, ignoring him, ignoring the storm. It didn't make any difference. He gets very clingy too, he stays with me, wrapped around my ankles, quite dangerous on stairs.
Eddie on the other hand, pays no attention to the storm. Here he is playing with a little toy he snagged out of Little R's room....

You notice the mark on his side? It's shaped like a heart! We've known this all along and that's actually why we took this photo. But he couldn't care less about thunder and lightning, he just carried on playing. He is pretty hilarious to watch when playing with a toy. He plays the same game Bear does with throwing it around and pouncing on it, just a lot quicker and more exaggerated. If I ever figure out how to post movie clips on here...
Bear was still trembling and carrying on a couple of hours after the storm, so I told him it's ok, the storm is all gone, but sure enough a few minutes later it started up again. It's amazing how animals know it's coming before we do.
Poor Hubby! As he was climbing out of bed after a nap he whacked his good knee on the footboard of the bed. He nailed it good. It's all lumpy and swollen, was even bleeding and now is just as trashed as the other one, ugh. I don't know how he does these things.
The other night, the boys got into one of their little snapping and snarling at each other fits. I tried to break it up with my feet and Eddie bit my foot. Of course he didn't mean to, it was the same way Bear got my hand a couple of months ago. But man it hurts and he actually broke the skin with his little razor teeth. Bugger.
As I sit here waiting for more spring flowers to bloom, the weather forecast is snow, snow, snow. Snow for the next few days. NOOOOOOO. It hasn't started yet, but I know it's coming. It has gotten quite chilly again. It's been raining. The kind of weather I like to just sleep through. Though Hubby is pestering me to go get some tanning minutes in. Bleh.

Spring Sprung Today!

I notice in my last post I said I spent the day in front of the computer and sleeping. Well, what I meant was, not simultaneously, but EITHER on the computer OR sleeping. Man it sounded funny when I read it later.

Anyhoo, what a fabulous day! It did turn out gorgeous once the storm passed. Of course I had a nap and missed some of it, but only a couple of hours.

Hubby and I spent some time outside with the boys, they were loving it too. Silly Bear seems to enjoy laying around in the remaining patches of snow though. Eddie was all over the place. I did a walk-about and everything is sprouting up nicely, yippee. During my nap I had a dream about big tall tulips blooming lol. Another dream today involved , well, it started out as The Clown, and turned into Anonymous Cathy. I saw The Clown today, first time in months, she was poking her head out an upstairs window, like spying on us sitting on our back deck. Jeez, a little privacy please?

We went to town to pick up some groceries, and they still had the bins full of cheap movies! We picked up another six. Got "Lord Of The Rings" for 99 cents, and no I haven't seen it or read the book, I KNOW... can't remember what else, but a good score. Also got a ham for Easter dinner, just in case Big R decides they will come up for it, (she said "maybe").

I thought I had got rid of this stupid huge TV cabinet thingy on Freecycle, but I think my hopes were dashed. Turns out the person interested lives way far from here, probably too far. Once I told them where we are I never heard back, sigh. Fortunately there were several people interested in it and some were much closer. I also finally heard back from the guy with the bottom half for my hutch, yay. He's located in a nearby town, now we just need to get our hands on a truck or trailer. That shouldn't be a problem. Knowing my luck it will be a problem though, just because I have this stupid thing sitting in the middle of my diningroom, bottomless.

Oh I did a lot of outdoor puttering today, it was great. Got most of the Christmas lights down, all except for the ones that Hubby used power tools to attach. Finally got out in the garage, found some more yard sale items. Something is missing from the garage. Oh yeah, its the bike! Did Hubby forget about it? I'll have to ask him about that tomorrow, wtf? Amazingly I only saw ONE bike out while we were in town today.

I felt like a 5 year old, out in the ditch kicking mud around. I was trying to fill in the gouges left last fall, when Hubby was trying to get the truck out with the bike on the back, and the ground was just too soggy. Well, it was soggy today too, not sure it did any good though. What a mess, it looks worse now than it did when it happened. Then I tried to take the Christmas garland off the fence, but unfortunately I didn't have a pair of scissors on me, to cut the 100% jute twine with, sigh, tomorrow is another day.

When Little R needed new shoes the other day, that was because she had lost a pair of shoes at school. I know, I was like, how do you lose shoes? She thought they had been ripped off. Who would steal ratty, smelly old running shoes? She came home from school today happily announcing that she had "found" her shoes AND her flute...they were in a bag, out in the hallway by her classroom door. Nice scam for new shoes kiddo...

So here's pics of the boys, enjoying being outside again...

First Thunderstorm Of The Season

This morning we had the first of the seasons thunderstorms. It was a good one. Poor Bear was just a'tremblin and a'pantin. It didn't seem to bother Eddie at all. He appeared to be more curious about Bear freaking out. Hopefully Bear will catch on and learn from Eddie that its nothing to freak out about.
I beat the garbage man by about 5 minutes this morning. All I put out was 1 bag of trash and 1 bag of recycling. I had forgotten it was garbage day but got up and put it out the minute I remembered and 5 minutes later the truck pulled up. Whew.
Yesterday was a very, very lazy day. The most I did was carry 2 boxes of candle holders up to the spare bedroom. Other than that I sat at the computer and slept. I did cook dinner, but it was late, we didn't eat until about 9:30 p.m. Hubby and I watched "The Santa Clause 2", I forgot we had that movie. Don't know why he keeps putting on Christmas movies though, its SPRING for crying out loud!
Yes it was lovely to hear the birds singing when I got up this morning, that was before the thunderstorm started.
The last time I was out in the garage, I noticed we have a gigantic leaf blower. I'm not sure where it came from, but was wondering why we have it. We don't have any trees. We have that one huge weeping birch tree out back, but most of the leaves fall in the yard nextdoor and what does fall in our yard is easy enough to just rake up. They're tiny leaves too. We just don't have enough leaves to warrant having that humungous leaf blower. But you know the minute I sell it in my yard sale I will want or need it for something, so I think I'll hang onto it.
It has also come to my attention that I'll be able to sell off some of Hubbys tools. Yay. He has 2 of everything, a cheap one and a good one. Skill saws, cordless drills, etc. I am so looking forward to this.
I finally heard from Big R. They are moving this coming weekend. To a bigger place. I offered our sevices to help with the move but she doesn't think she'll need us. I'm thinking we should go down anyways, just in case. Besides, I'd like to see the new place.
I may have found a bottom for that hutch we got. If the person on Freecycle ever answers me that is. I don't know what it is with these people. Maybe they have jobs or something and aren't sitting at their computers all day, like me. If I don't find something soon the hutch will just have to become bonfire fodder. Its still sitting in my diningroom waiting for a home. Ugh.
Well, it looks like its shaping up to be a beautiful spring day. The storm seems to have passed and the birds are chirping again and the sun is shining, yay!
Have a lovely day.