While the Canuck Is Away....

I have tried to be half productive while the Canuck is away.

The day he left, I took Bean to the vet. He's been having some insane itching. Poor pup has some ferocious allergies. He is all drugged up now with a prescription doggie antihistamine, and I have had the privilege of rubbing ointment on his butt hole every day, and spraying his tummy, feet, and inner thighs down with a cortisone spray two times a day. Bean doesn't really enjoy this process, and let's be honest - there are things I would rather do than smear my dog's corn hole with gel. However, all of this fuss seems to be bringing him some relief, so for now, I will happily continue.

Right now, I am waiting for the 1st coat of paint to dry on our new front door. Our old wooden one had slowly been warping, and in the past month, hit the point where we could hardly even lock it. We finally sucked it up and bought a new one.

On the list of other malfunctioning household items is the lawnmower. Last time I mowed, I didn't think it was going to make it. I managed to squeeze it out and get the yard done (though a rather sloppy job), but it was a struggle the whole time. Today I am waiting for my brother to swing by and drop off his so I can mow in peace. Maybe when the Canuck is back, he can work his magic and figure out what's making ours so unhappy. I am not attempting that one. I have many visions of me chopping off fingers and/or limbs as I am testing the motor, so I added it to the list of "scary jobs I'm too chicken to attempt".

Anyway, hopefully by the day's end, I will have a nice pretty front door, and nice pretty short grass! And if I'm really lucky....a clean house, fresh laundry, and a whole host of other small projects complete - like tying up the honeysuckle vine out front, and putting a fresh coat of high heat paint on our fire pit. We'll see.... I figure if Jesse can get up at 4am, run miles and miles in the really cold snow...I suppose I could probably accomplish a couple things around here before he gets back.

And on that note, since I need to leave for the shelter later this afternoon, I better get back to business this morning!

Garden Bean

I think I may give up already and forget the garden savings calculator this year. We have had terrible weather for seedlings - so much rain, the poor things are waterlogged. I don't know if we will get much of any tomatoes or peppers when the heat comes. Wait and see I guess.

Until then, at least we have been able to pick a few strawberries. Bean especially likes to help me harvest. No matter what I am getting in the garden, he makes sure he gets some too. Even stuff like lettuce, he will happily "harvest" right beside me (by tugging on the fruit or lettuce leaves until he has some success). The strawberries are his favorite though. He has a very specific technique for these delicate plants.

First, you must sniff out a ripe berry. He feels it is his responsibility to make good use of the keen, God-given, dog sense of smell, ya know?

Then, you pick it from the patch, and enjoy the fruit of your labor on the sidelines.

(Sorry for the horizontal photos...still have not found our photoshop cd to install on the Mac, and don't feel like firing up the PC to get to elements...and I don't like picasa either, for the record. Bah humbug!)

Still Here After All

Record low month for blog posts! I have so many things to say this past year, but I simply don't know how to say them. One day, I will figure it out, and then you can hear all of my opinions on life and God and children and love and everything in between.

Until then, let's be shallow.

I have been busy trying to keep up with Jesse in exercise and endurance. Having a marathon man husband has its perks and downfalls. One downfall is that I feel like a total wuss when we do any activities together. Generally, he runs alone, and I work out alone, which is usually good because we have vastly different approaches to our exercise. But on occasion, we collide, and are doing the same activity at the same time. Take last night for instance, we went for a hilly 3.5 mile bike ride, which to Jesse is not even a challenge, and to me...well, let's just say I may have walked those last few hills.

I have also been caught up in a number of evening meetings. We are in the process of building a new animal shelter, and I've tried to be active in making that happen. I'm very excited about this - much better space for the animals, and it will also be much easier on the humans. Our current building is a run down make-shift shelter, which is notorious for frozen pipes in the winter (which means hauling buckets of water in), one lone sink that is placed at exactly the right level to maximize pain in your lower back, and leaky foundations that let water seep in when it rains or snows. (And trust me, it has rained and snowed a lot this year.) So, all that to say, we are in process of raising funds, changing blue prints, and all kinds of other details to get the new shelter up. People often ask me what exactly I do at the shelter, and I will probably blog about that in another post - complete with photos of some of my favorite homeless pups.

Beyond that nitty gritty, we are tackling the garage project now that Jesse has a break between classes. Photos of that to come soon too! If I didn't say it already, he is freaking awesome at house projects. He also happens to be freaking awesome at running, and has a half marathon and a very special birthday party to attend in about a week or so, but I will sadly miss out on both. He will be visiting the land of Tim Horton's sans wife and dogs. Hmmm....now the true question that needs to be pondered for this man: are maple glaze donuts vegan??

My gardens are in suck mode so far this year. It has been raining for, oh...three years...and my poor little seedlings are holding their own, but seem to be putting most of their efforts in staying alive, and very little into actually thriving. This has by far been the worst year ever - normally, I am eating salads from the garden in April, a boatload of snap peas in May, lots of yummy herbs in June, and peppers and tomatoes by July. Not so much of that happening this year. I do have some strawberries, but Bean has discovered them, and he seems to have a sweet tooth, so between the birds and Bean...my tummy isn't getting very much strawberry lovin'.

Speaking of Bean...this rain is making him insane. Too much time inside. I should probably go give all three of them a nice little jog out and about.

Nothing Really

I am behind on blogging, and generally behind on everything else too!

I have been working on our bedroom (again, I know...). It is finally-almost-completely-done. I have some curtain issues I need to work out, but once that is settled, we are in good shape. I'd eventually like to find an area rug for the foot of the bed, but that can wait. (The dogs like to lay there, and I feel bad if they sleep on just the hardwoods, so we've been keeping a dog bed there, but it's so big and bulky.)

A month or two ago, we got a lot of the stuff needed to finish off the garage, but it's just been sitting because we haven't found the time yet. Nothing too major in there....just putting down an epoxy floor (anxious to see how that works out), finish out the drywall, maybe paint it if we're feeling ambitious, and adding some shelving. It has basically become a gym area and we pretty much never park either vehicle in there. We have a hand me down treadmill out there that gets great use, and a couple other gym-ey kind of things. I think the epoxy floor and fresh walls will make it that much nicer to work out, and I can use all the motivation I can get! We ax'ed plans to do anything more fancy than that (were previously considering a full on conversion complete with another bathroom), but given the housing market, and our neighborhood in general, we don't really want to put too much more money into this house.

Anyway, after working on the bedroom, it was yardwork time. Mowing, weed eating, picking up a bazillion sticks that Bean has carried around, yelling at Horton for digging... (Yes, Horton the "good dog"...we've had this pup for years and he never once so much as lifted a paw to the earth, but now suddenly, he's discovered a new hobby and thinks he's pretty cool. He is a total copy cat dog, so I think he saw Bean do it once when we first got him, and now I guess he thinks he should keep it up. Awesome.) Earlier this week I got my tomatoes and peppers planted, but am now second guessing myself. It may have been too wet to plant. A couple of the tomatoes were looking pretty sad today. I need to do a garden savings update...another post!

Anyway, beyond house stuff, it's vegan health mania around here! Jesse is training for a half marathon in Calgary at the end of May, with his full marathon this fall in KC. He is hoping that race will qualify him for Boston, though KC is known as a pretty rigorous course because it has so many hills. Either way, I am already super impressed with him! I am having trouble keeping up with him these days. Beyond his normal training, he's taken to riding his bike pretty much everywhere. Between foot and bike, I think he is often logging 50 plus miles a week. Crap. I am logging about 6.

On that note, I still need to get in a run today before Jesse gets home from work. Now if I only I enjoyed it as much as he does...