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That’s how old Canada is today.  A spring chicken by most European and Asian standards, but hey, it’s the oldest we’ve ever been.

It was pretty darn wet and cold for July 1st, mind you.  If this ‘summer’ continues like this, I don’t think my garden is going to produce a lot of veggies.  Mind you, this lovely poppy made its appearance today in all that cold and damp:

I think I’m in love.  It’s at least 6 inches across.  Gorgeous.

And now, a few public service announcements.  I only tell you these things for your own good, honestly.

1.  Don’t let the hubby play with the camera, especially when the wife is feeling a bit bimboish.  Is that a word?

2.  Don’t let him have a Sharpie anywhere near the small white dog.  Especially when he can’t spell the name of the dog.

Pardon the blurry.  I was laughing.  A lot.  An hour later, after petting Abbie and getting a very black hand he gave her a bath and it all washed out.  So much for indelible ink!  LOL.

Second day’s harvest, same as the first…almost

Today with the addition of a tomato.  This little guy is from seeds that the husband harvested from last year’s tomatoes.  They are supposed to be a smaller but more meaty tomato.  The original plant was a hybrid though, so we’ll see how they come along through the summer.

Tonight’s dinner will be a bed of Asian and peppery greens topped off with slices of barbecued pork loin.  The pork has been marinating for almost two days in soy sauce, ginger marmalade, maple syrup, and pineapple jam.  Mmmmmmmmm, go on say it with me, mmmmmmmmm!  Radishes on the side for some colour and because we pretty much have to eat them every day now, and I’m not too sure what for a side.  Hmmmm, have to think on that one.

I had plenty of help in the garden today.  By help I mean Abbie,

Then all of a sudden she sort of figured out that she was posing with food.

That was the end of the photo shoot.

It’s back to work for me tomorrow and this week off has only strengthened my belief that I was really intended to be a woman of leisure.  This whole working for a living thing is really not great.  I mean, what if there’s a radish emergency while I’m at work tomorrow?  Who will be here to take care of it?  No one, that’s who.  It’s a messed up world we live in, I tell you what.

Who’s a lucky dog?

Abbie, of course.

The fabric store had cow print velour.  Of course I had to get some and make her a new blanket.  She’s awfully happy with it.

Later in the afternoon the sun came out a bit and Stella and I sat on the back steps and enjoyed the light and a wee breeze moving through the wind chimes.

It was lovely.  Apparently, we’re back to rain tomorrow.  Sigh.
Ending of a sunny afternoon, originally uploaded by beentsy.

Uncle I say, Uncle!

To whatever gods are messing with my little dysfunctional household, I give.  I capitulate.  You win.  Full surrender.  Why you say?  This.  Just this.

Yep, that’s the nefarious Abbie in a brand new cone of silence.  Her and Stella got into it again and this time, Stella won.  Wanna see her ‘stitches’?  Sure you do!

Super cool metal surgical staples.  Oh yeah, FrankenAbbie.  Snort.  At least this time the bill was only $113.00.  Bargain, right?  She’s fine.  A bit upset about the whole cone thing of course, but she has antibiotics and pain meds and the world is all good.

Before all that happened, we managed to bring home 5 loads of dirt in the wee pickup.  It looks like 2 more and we’ll be all done.

Hubby also made the first of the little cloches to keep my baby seedlings warm overnight.   They are all out there now.  Tucked in safe and warm for the night.    Provided no Rattus Barbecuis come lurking.

And now, this will be me for the rest of evening.  Drowning my sorrows if you will.

Screw you May Day, I’ve had just about enough of you.  Bahahahahaha.

Shambling back to normal

Well, the Olympics are over and I’ve been just sort of feeling a bit funny and having trouble finding my normal rhythm.   It feels sort of like a hangover, with less chance of vomiting and/or a walk of shame home in the morning.

I loved the games.  I’ve never watched so much tv in my life.  Example, I watched 3 hours of curling last Sunday.  I liked it.  Enough that I googled afterwards to see if curling is normally a televised sport.  That’s really not me!  Then, I was in Tim Hortons getting Timbits for the office (everyone, say it with me, mmmmmmmmmmmm), and what should I see?  A poster advertising the Tim Hortons Brier!  Dude!  It starts tomorrow!  Phew, I’m saved. 

In other news, I failed to complete all my Ravelympics projects.  2 out of 3 to be exact.  Which, as Melanie pointed out, totally makes me want to sing Meatloaf.  I did manage to medal in Aerial Unwind, in that I dismembered a no-go Noro cardigan and in WIP’s Dancing by finishing a Lacy Baktus.  The project I failed to medal in was my lovely beaded lacy fingerless mitts.  I’m planning on finishing those up during the Paralympic Games.  It looks like Team Canada is going to be fielding a small contingent of athletes.

Here is my semi-victory shot:

This was just before the closing ceremonies began with my flag, cider, finished Baktus scarf, and unfinished beaded mitts.  Immediately after this is was back to the TV for said closing ceremonies.  Who loved the giant inflatable beavers & hockey players???  I DID!

Since then I’ve been trying to spin at least fifteen minutes a day.  Baby steps, right?

Currently working on some Blue Faced Leicester in the Myrtle colourway.  One of the club colours from Spunky Eclectic.  Very nice stuff.  So wish I had more than 8 ozs.

While I’m spinning, Abbie the Guardian Sun Dog, perches on the arm of the other couch and stares out the window behind me in a menacing manner.  Not sure what 13 pounds of Jackapoo would do to an intruder but I bet it would be epic!

Occasionally, she glances at me to see if I’ve magically made any cookies appear.

As you can see it’s very sunny here.  It’s been pretty gorgeous most of the week.  For the last two days I’ve had the front and back doors open in the afternoon.  Hubby and I really need to get moving on those raised vegetable beds.  The growing season is imminent!

What we did with our weekend

Let’s just do this as a photo essay, shall we?

This is what we started with

Rip it out!

Really former owner of my house? Were you on crack?

A little rotting drain pipe anyone?

At least someone liked the old cabinets

Still going

Gee, I wonder when we can turn the water back on?

What? I'm on a break

OMG! Countertops!

Supervisor Stella

Gonna be a sink in here soon!

Oh, and there it is.

Unfortunately, the water was shut off for awhile. Miles of dirty dishes!

Miles

A tap!

With running water

Man, that was a lot of work.

It’s all in and we love it.  Of course everything took 4 times longer than it should have because we had to keep fixing previous reno nightmares of the form owners.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to run 2 or three loads of dishes and laundry.  I’m so happy to have the water back on!

An example of Terrier problem solving

Last night I gave the dogs a few Cheezies.  I just sort of scattered them on the driveway and the dogs went to town.  What I failed to notice was that one lone Cheezie had landed on top of the garbage can.  Abbie did not fail to notice said Cheezie.  She remembered that Cheezie and probably obsessed about it all night long.  Today, when I looked out the kitchen window, there she was trying to figure out how to make that Cheezie hers.

Mr. B gave her the Cheezie when he got home.  Such a nice man.

In case you think that all I ever do is ride transit…

Not true!  Sometimes I get some other stuff done too.  Last week I actually wrote my first paper of the semester with a minimum of gnashing of teeth.  We’ll see how that affects my mark. Gnashing of teeth might be what’s needed for me to get a good grade.

I also ordered Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  Can not wait!  I totally blame Heather for this one.  I was just thinking of pre-ordering it but she had already done so and then we were emailing about what other classics would be good with zombies and boom.  I’d pressed the checkout button and it’ll be here soon.  Oh, the other classics?  She’s leaning towards The Great Gatsby and Zombies.  Me?  I’d like to see Hamlet and Zombies or a Midsommer Night’s Dream and Zombies.  Snork!

I also got some spinning done.  Remember this fibre that I got last year at the Gibsons Landing Fibre Arts Festival?

I finally got going on it.  I had two huge hanks of it, 83% IGOR (Island Grown Organic Romney), 17% silk, 250 gms per hank.  I’ve finished spinning up the first hank and it looks a little bit like this:

And now the obligatory photos with the small dog in them:

Now I just have another 250 grams to spin and ply.  No problem!  I’m really happy with it though.  It’s got that shine from the silk.  I ended up with about 422 yards and I must have been doing better at moving the slider on one bobbin than the other because I have almost 1/4 of a bobbin left unplied.  The only thing that sort of bummed me out was there are sections where the indigo barber poled with the gold and it reminds me just a little bit of my grade 7 soccer uniforms.  I can live with it though. 

Sunday, or as I like to call it, Oh My God the dog stinks!

Hubby was cleaning up yesterday while I was out.  You know, sweeping up the leaves, cleaning out drains, tidying the garage, blah blah blah.  Every time he would sweep up a pile of garbage and turn his back the little skanky dog (we also call her Abbie) would run behind him and gleefully roll and rub herself all through the pile.  Dead earthworms, rotting leaves, all forms of organic matter that have been sitting in the rain for the last week or so, and who knows what else.

When she jumped on my lap a little while ago I almost kacked up in my mouth she stunk so bad.  Turns out that dead earthworms make dogs whiffy.  Into the bath she went and I used the Tea Tree shampoo so hopefully it will help kill the bacteria of whatever it is that’s making her reak so bad.  After the bath she runs around like a fool and rolls and rubs herself on anything.  I think she’s trying to get her stink back.  Here are a few full motion shots of my little spastic stink bomb, post bath.

Love this one.  Caught her mid shake.  It looks like certain aspects of gravity have stopped applying to her!

After 30 minutes she’s finally settling down and laying on the couch.  She sure smells better now though!

A is for Abbie

As you can see from the sidebar on the right I’ve joined the ABC-along 2008.  Kinda cool.

For those of you who don’t know the story, Abbie came to live with us in April of 2006. I say came to live with us because we didn’t go and get her, she literally just showed up. My big ol’ German Shepherd was crying at the gate and this tiny scabby little dog just ran down the driveway to her, through the gate, and started bossing everyone around. She was so thin (only weighed 5 pounds, she’s 14 now and the vets says it’s the perfect weight for her), was missing all the fur from her ribs to her tail, and had no ID. We couldn’t find her rightful home and I couldn’t face sending her to the SPCA. We called them and gave her description but no one ever called or went there looking for a wee scabby dog. We called her Wee Scabby Dog for weeks thinking we wouldn’t be keeping her. Then when it became obvious she was staying we just changed it to Abbie, or when she’s being a poo head, Scabby Abbie.

Unfortunately, she loved flip flops, or as we used to call them before it meant underwear, thongs. She loved them so much she went through nine pairs of them. She crawled up shelves to get them if they were out of reach, there was not stopping her.

Drove me crazy. Then she would look at you like this:

and there was nothing you could do about it.