Glass ceilings

Hope begins in the dark,
the stubborn hope that if you just show up
and try to do the right thing,
the dawn will come.
~Anne Lamott

Sense of impending dread

I don't know where it's coming from, what it's doing in the pit of my stomach or how to get rid of it.

For the past week my whole body has been on hyper-drive, I get these horrible adrenaline rushes for no reason, there is no outlet and I feel like crap - imagine stage fright times ten?

Yeah, like that.

Only for days on end.

Sweaty, shaky hands. Accelerated heart beat. Short breaths. Tight, acidic stomach with various aches and cramps thrown in for fun. Accrued nervosity, always on the brink of a panic attack.

I'm doing all the right things to eliminate this stoopid condition: no alcohol (bar a glass of wine or two the past week), deep breathing exercises, lavender soaks in hot bath, massages, healthy relaxed dinners, reasonable sleeping hours, exercise and fresh air.

I've done a mental inventory of what could be causing this and the only cause I can think of is money, or our lack thereof recently.

Am facing October and its crazy mountain of bills, I never thought it would affect me so badly. I know it's only temporary, it will get better, business will pick up and the renovations are ending, we have equity in this lovely place, etc etc.

But still.

It's eating me alive.

Bastid thing!

On a positive note, everything went well with our husky guest and I am so, SO glad I decided to stick it out because it's smooth sailing now.

I'll be adding a section for dog photography services on my business website since I am being told I really, really should be making money from my "talent" - hah, I love doing this stuff so it's no talent, but whatever.

It's terribly cold and windy today, heavy grey grey grey skies threatening to burst open at any moment and pee rain on our heads.

My poor hens, no warm sunshine dust baths.

Doggies are tired and will likely sleep most of the day, while I bake them more cookies, hoover the cruddy house and do a few loads of laundry. Dinner will be a lovely louisiana-style veggie stew. I also need to make some bread. Oh and there is some some loooong-overdue ironing and sewing to be tended to, bleh. Not in the mood, I may just have to live with wrinkles on my clothes as well as on my face.

Crud!

Off I go! Going to cuddle my hens, collect some eggs and get my mojo back.

/end of La Dee Dah post/

Too tired, watch photos

A glimpse of the past two days here... Luckily the rain held for most of the time and I managed to snap some pics despite the bad light. Enjoy, cuz I'm off to a hot bubble bath and a foot massage now after a big dinner*. Will recap tomorrow and all that jazz.

*Slow roasted chicken with fresh garlic, herbs and drizzled with bacon fat, perfumed basmati rice and fresh steamed baby spinach. Dessert is still in the oven: fresh apple cake. Sorry, am already married! LOL

(photos click bigger!)

G'nite, peeps!

Ain't that the truth...

Dieting is wishful shrinking.
~Author Unknown

Seeking assistance from bookworms!

I am looking for a book and hope someone can help me find it... I can order it new online but it's way too expensive and I don't see it on eBay or anything :(

I lent this book to my ex many years ago when we started dating and he still lived in Australia, of course he misplaced it and I never saw it again - gaaah! I loved that book and am dying to read it again and then pass it along to others who will appreciate it (he never even read it!) - Katie, oh Queen of Books, maybe you can help??

Here's the amazon linky, don't be thrown off by the title - it's actually a comedy, a brilliantly written book on a whacky subject!

So, it's Monday and I'm actually on full work mode as of 8:30am, all the way till late Tuesday night. Yep, my little husky is back for another two days of boarding, I'm sure it will go much better this time as I now know what he needs in order to relax. Plus, Vegas is here in the evening and working from home tomorrow so that's a huge relief!

I just hope all the rain that's in the forecast holds off... The dogs need to burn their energy outside so we all stay sane...

As a precaution I put in lots of hours yesterday in finishing the playroom downstairs so we can all hang out there if need be. Doggies have their space for crazy wrestling and I have my big comfy chair, innernets and DVD entertainment all set up. Hey I can watch my favorite movies while keeping an eye on the spastic kids! :-D

Even baked a new batch of cookies for happy puppy tummies.

Yey! Bring it on!

I'll check in later on to let you know how mister husky is behaving... Wish me luck, I'm not used to getting up early on a rainy Monday morning anymore! ACK!

PS: this is our brilliant weather forecast for the next two weeks (in Celcius). The white line represents the seasonal average temperature. We're getting the yellow line. Kill me.

/end of Live, Life, Love post/

On moms

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss
at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
~Honoré de Balzac

Gorgeousness

I love days like these - bright and sunny, warm for the season, the hours paced with rewarding work, companionship, nature and nuture.

In other words the girls greeted me with five warm eggs this morning, despite the chilly coop conditions. This prompted me to get off my lazy ass and do some more coop insulation work, I didn't hammer any fingers but I did somehow manage to accidentally cut the electric saw's own power cord - ooops - and give myself a deep paper cut with aluminum sealing tape.

I am no Holmes.

The new girls had a ball "supervising" and "helping" so I rewarded them with their first bit of free-ranging out of the coop run - they LOVED it!

Like good maggies they stayed close - we have big mean cats that come on our property, have to watch out - and since the two roos were at it again, I took my favorite out to range with the girls. I say he's my favorite because I can easily handle him and he likes it - see?

He weighs nothing compared to the girls, he's tiny! and all fluff!

His name is Lacey because well, if you follow my blog you will remember we thought we only had girls and only recently found out we had two boys... I tried to rename him Jessie but Lacey just stuck.

Vegas worked hard on the horse shelter foundation, wrecked his back the poor man.

Still, we took the dogs for a lovely walk in the wooded mountain trails near here so everyone's collapsed and happy now. I even managed to hoover all the fluff that came off our akita girl Maika since I gave her a bath and a blow-dry last night, am preparing a tasty winter veggies chowder for dinner and then we are watching Gran Torino (it's been on our list forever).

See, it's the little details that make up a life.

What are you up to this weekend?

/end of Pet Your Pets Today post/

Well, of course!

Small children are convinced that ponies deserve
to see the inside of the house.
~Maya Patel

Chilly

We're going to have to start heating the house soon, these humid, chilly mornings aren't easy to face barefoot on the cold floors.

Brrrr.

I dreamt I found five small, deformed eggs in the coop and was so excited that my "virgin girls" had all suddenly decided to start laying - LOL! Goes to show the level of excitement in my life lately... that, and trips to Walmart.

Don't judge me! We don't have many stores here!

*picks dog hair out of coffee*

I'm too fuddled to blog about anything today, so my fallback is to mention last night's dinner: I cooked a rum & butter chicken in the crock pot, served with new potatoes and broccoli and for dessert I baked dark chocolate chip, oatmeal and peanut butter cookies with a hint of ginger.

Yeah, it was tasty :-D

Feeling restless these days. Unaccomplished. Dull.

I know it's just a rite of passage and it's OK to not be frantically pushing myself to exhaustion 12 hours a day, 7 days a week - but I can't help it, I'm not used to "doing nothing useful", you know?

Anyways. It will pass.

Time to go feed the girls, clean the coop, collect the eggs and then finish painting that godforsaken basement.

Free hugs accepted.

/end of Yey It's Friday I Suppose? post/

God is a DJ (Faithless)

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
~Berthold Auerbach

Can I do it?

I think I can... but I haven't seen any glassy eyes staring at me yet or breathed in the stench of blood and guts.

In a few hours I will.

Again my contractor friend came through, he found me a good 2nd-hand chest freezer for $150 which was delivered yesterday and installed in our garage. This afternoon, I'm going to visit his butcher friend who is working on a fresh lot of red deer and I get to take as many left-overs as I want, for free.

The independent butchers here* have to pay a service to come and get rid of the stuff that's not sold (bones, trimmings, excess fat, etc) so they're happy to give it away, I just hadn't found anyone close by yet. Apparently this guy trims all sorts of animals pretty much year round - boar, bison, deer, pork, etc - so I'm looking forward to some free food for the dogs.

LOL of course it's for the dogs, what were you thinking!

*not working for a major slaughterhouse or supermarket

The only thing freaking me out a bit is that I got told "bring a big garbage pail and rubber gloves, you'll have to root around the bins to get what you want and it's all in a cold storage room" - :-o

I'm not sure I can handle it but I have to try.

Poor dead critters though. :(

On a positive note, I got a glowing recommendation from the owners of the husky I boarded earlier this week - am so happy the situation turned around, I was feeling super bad about the whole thing.

I told them everything that had happened and how I had hit a wall and then it suddenly all fell into place - it all makes sense now.

He's their first dog and they love him to bits but admit they need help. They were looking to change his food but had no idea about nutrition, we had a chat and they soaked it up like a sponge (it helped when they saw my own dogs' glowing health...), went out and bought food I recommended and are thrilled with it - doggy is finally eating, LOL! They also admit that since the baby was born they have been slacking on training and realize they need to work on it, for everyone's well-being - specially their dog's.

I am actually happy to have the little bugger back next week!

OK time to get cracking, today's the only day I have a car to run errands with, the sun is shining and basement painting will wait until tomorrow.

Don't forget to vote on the poll, y'all!

/end of All Ends Well Except For Meat Animals post/

I still see the seven million

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child.
There are seven million.
~Walt Streightiff

...and now for some laughs!

It involves a trip back to 1989 and good memories that still makes me smile because there weren't any bad things going on yet, only the beginnings of a great adventure - I was 19, naive, in love and ready for the world!


The thin dark-haired keyboard guy in the leather jacket?

That was my future husband, only then he was just a friend who invited me over for a vacation in Germany, things unraveled quickly and before you could say "wha' happen?" we were madly in love, dating, flying back and forth across the continents to visit each other pretty much every month, then I quit university to move there for two years.

It was a whirlwind of decadence. He had an amazing windfall thanks to the music (three big hits and the money flowed like water), we drove a Mercedes, we bought a brand-new condo, all we did was travel, make music, hang out with friends, eat in restaurants, consume and party, travel some more.

Then I got restless, felt homesick, fell out of love, I came home.

He followed, bla bla, we got married, we lived through hell and high water before finally calling it quits after 7 years.

It was all part of "surviving my 20's" - we all have such stories which we carry with us throughout our life as lessons and building blocks.

What are some of yours?

/end of Reminiscence post/

Fountain of life

You can give without loving,
but you can never love without giving.
~Author Unknown

After the venting

I've calmed down a bit now and have decided to give our guest a chance and to keep working at finding a way to all live together during his stays here. I feel bad for this sweet dog, he probably doesn't get much of what he needs at home (from what I am seeing, but I could be wrong?).

I'll have to sleep in the guest room with him next time so that everyone else can get a few hours of sleep and he seems to like being leashed to me at all times, maybe it's what he needs here. He listens to strong alpha males (my contractor walked him and it was miraculous) so with Vegas here for the next visit, things should go better - I hope.

At least my three doggies like playing with him so that's a bonus, right? Right.

*deep breath*

I don't even know where to begin

Five more hours until the guest dog from hell leaves.

OK it's maybe a little mean to call him that but oh-em-gee, what a neurotic, hyperactive, untrained little brat this young husky is - I've been on high stress with an acidic ulcer since he arrived and never want to live through this again.

He cries, pants and whinges constantly. You can't get up to go pee without him panicking, he must be within two feet of you at all times. He wore all three of my dogs out with hours and hours of play yesterday and this morning, they're sick of him. He woke me up every other hour all night by licking my face, aroooing and jumping on the bed - you cannot crate him or he goes bezerk and if you put him in another room he will howl like a murdered wolf.

No amount of money is worth this stress and it shits me to start my business by refusing clients but no, he cannot come back next week, sorry.

At some point I'll get nice, normal clients (or at least some without such extreme separation anxiety) and we'll stick with those. And if I have to get a part-time job down the line to make ends meet well so be it. At least I won't develop ulcers and shake from stress.

*watches molasses minutes crawl by*

*also watches fat raindrops splatter on the windows*

I don't know what to do with myself today. I have no car and even if I did, I couldn't leave this dog alone for two minutes. I'm too exhausted to brain, too tied up to work on the basement or do anything useful like bake cookies for Vegas.

Anyhoo.

At least I cooked a lovely pork roast in the crock pot yesterday, we'll have that for dinner with mashed taters and brussel sprouts. I don't think we'll need any wine to pass out after that... apparently the couch he slept on last night at his friend's place wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, LOL!

Sorry for being bitchy today.

It's all I got.

/end of Oh God Make This End post/

Rage against the machine

Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone.
And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.
~Paul Johannes Tillich, The Eternal Now

Don't touch my butt!

Super lovely weekend, despite a few bouts of unexplained blues last night. Vegas is gone for two days and has a fun man-date this evening, I guess I was just jealous?

*sighs*

Right now, I am sitting at the kitchen table, looking through the wide-open balcony door, my view reflecting still-green fields sparkling with iridescent dew, the changeling forest trees far in the backdrop, sunshine covering everything with a warm hand.

Some trees are already a bright red, yellow, orange.

Where did this summer go?

I heeded advice the past couple of days and took time to smell the roses, well there aren't any left but you know what I mean.

I slept. A lot.

I spent hours outside on the property, just wandering around and gazing at all the green, played with the kids in our big park, took a ton of photos, enjoyed the company of the hens, gave a dozen fresh eggs to our neighbor (still feel bad about her cat...), spent quality time with my lovely hubby and just... rested.

No renovation work, no major cleaning or chores.

Yesterday afternoon we even went walking on a nearby mountain, we found a super cool secluded path following a wide rocky creek whooshing down the steep hill and we climbed up, and up, and up till we reached a small waterfall - so romantic! We were totally alone the whole time - the dogs freaked out, they had sooo much fun - it was like an Ewok forest, or something out of jurassic park!

Purrrr.

A sample of the Saturday afternoon follies with the kids here - dang, I wish someone would caption this! The winners gets a sloppy dog kiss!

Something with the word "butt" or "arse" in it would do, I think?

*grin*

OK coffee gone, dogs fed, hens fed, eggs collected, everybody happy - time for me to get out the hoover and the mop, I have a client arriving at 3pm and need to make this place presentable.

It'll be fun juggling four dogs all by myself but since Vegas isn't here, it's better than moping around innit? I just wish it wouldn't rain tomorrow, oh god that's going to be a sloppy, stinky-wet-dog nightmare of muddy feets! Gaaah!

Wishing you all a sweet Monday :-)

/end of This Is The Life post/

I'll woof to that!

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called)
and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man.
I find the result humiliating to me.
~Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, 1907

It's the Twilight Zone

Today's mystery:

A dog tag appeared on the corner of our kitchen table late this afternoon, wrapped in a small creased plastic bag.

On it is a logo of my business, one which appears nowhere except in an Acrobat document located in three places: on my hard drive, on my cousin's hard drive (he designed it) and on the hard drive of the chica who designed my website.

I didn't order anything. Vegas never saw that logo before. My cousin's been in France the past month, super busy with his new life. Chica's in the US of A, also super busy with her hectic life.

So...

A) who ordered this tag?
B) who made it?
C) where did it come from?
D) and most importantly... how the FCUK did it end up in our house, on our kitchen table, without our knowledge?!

Vegas was outside mowing the lawn for most of the afternoon and I was out in the dog park, in our back yard. No dogs barked, I didn't hear or see anyone coming up our driveway or ring our doorbell.

We're dumbfounded and a little freaked out.

OK, a lot freaked out!

Any ideas?!

/end of Checking Corners For Hidden Murderers post/

Eye candy

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.
~Tennessee Williams

Bittersweet

I remember being a little girl, staying at my grandparents' house for visits, sometimes for a week or so in the summer, the autumn, the winter. Sometimes I would stay longer, sometimes for just a few days or a few hours.

Always happiness there, always.

The home I often wished was my real one when things were rough.

Warmth. Love. Laughter. Food, campfires, more food. Card games. Dice games. Jokes, silly magazines, cooking and cookbooks and fudge and cake and roasts with gravy and mashed potatoes. Family gatherings. Picnics. Driving in my grandfather's enormous green 1975 Oldsmobile. Auctions and flea markets and mini putt. Game shows on TV, the untuned piano my grandmother insisted on playing, badly, but we loved her for it. The smell of oil and sawdust in my grandfather's garage, the big garden tomatoes with the occasional worm in it, the gaudy lawn ornaments that everyone laughed at yet there they were, year after year, my grandfather's pride and joy and tribute to his sense of humour.

The times my grandmother took this little girl shopping, just me and her. How we laughed and had fun together! I look around this little town and remember stores that aren't there anymore.

Just like her, just like him.

I miss being their little flower (my grandfather's nickname for me). Although they are still both alive and hanging on by a thread in nursing homes in other towns, he doesn't remember me anymore. She says she never lived here, she has no memory of the house she lived in for almost 40 years, the house my grandfather built with his bare hands.

Strangers live in there now.

I hate them.

Well not hate hate, but you know what I mean?

I have too many wonderful memories of my grandparents to share, they crowd my head like brilliant autumn leaves on a maple tree before the first October storm.

They make my heart ache for times gone past, for all the love and generosity they poured into this little girl, for all the times I made the trip to visit them but didn't want to stay for more than a few hours - how many times did my grandmother tell me "you should move here, buy a house, you don't belong in that city, we miss you, we'd love to see you more" - and I just wasn't ready, I had a youth to squander in the big world, why would I want to live in a small boring town?

How ironic: now here I am, back in the place where I was born, back where I remember being happiest the most.

I live here now and they do not.

I celebrate their life by keeping them alive as they were then and not as they are now, safe and sound in my heart. I celebrate their life in the familiar street names around me, by talking to strangers who knew them, by being proud to be their grand-daughter.

Somehow, I hope they know how much I love them.

/end of Memories post/

Your Thursday mishmash of follies

First, this is what I look like this morning. Really. How can you take anyone with such a bad hair day seriously?

This explains my hankering for a bit of Cat Haiku:

You never feed me.
Perhaps I'll sleep on your face.
That will show you.

You must scratch me there!
Yes, above my tail! Behold,
elevator butt.

The rule for today.
Touch my tail, I shred your hand.
New rule tomorrow.

Grace personified
I leap into the window
I meant to do that

Small brave carnivores
Kill pine cones and mosquitoes
Fear vacuum cleaner

Wanna go outside.
Oh, no! Help! I got outside!
Let me back inside!

Litter box not there
You must have moved it again
I'll crap in the sink

... which brings me to the question if chickens make better pets? Cuz, you know, my pets make me breakfast... LOL! Behold another silly video, I promise it's funny towards the end. Sorta kinda. Dare you to watch and not smile or at least shake your head!


OK time to get this day rolling, thankfully I wasn't up at 5am like Vegas was, tending to the pooping puppy - poor Dante had a bad tummy and let's just say many paper towels were consumed to pick up the messes... :-o

Does anyone have advice on how to make fluffy bread again? For some reason my machine started producing dense un-risen loaves lately... I changed the flour twice, to no avail. Help!

/end of Randomness Rules! post/

Eye'm so relieved :-D

The title of this post should be enough, right?

OK, I went to the clinic this morning, waited 1h45 minutes to see a very nice doctor who examined my eye, she saw no retinal detachment but a clouded cornea which was the result of the leash slapping my eyeball at a zillion miles an hour.

So. Relieved!

I have to use anti-inflammatory eye drops for the next two days and that should clear things up, literally.

It's nice to know I wasn't imagining things, my vision WAS different since the accident. Whew.

In other news, three new girls arrived this morning and boy do they ever make a racket, LOL! One is a lovely shiny black hen with red comb and wattles and the other two are the mutt rust and white hens that lay nice brown eggs, they're pretty tame considering they come from a crowded environment ruled by a giant roo.

It however breaks my heart their beaks were mutilated when they were chicks, I just don't understand that terrible cruelty. Some bastard thought this up, hey I'll just take this hot blade and chop off the tip of their beaks so they can't peck right - mouahahaha!

Something of the sort. Merrr.

They don't seem to be bothered by it but for sure it affects their ability to hunt insects and peck at small bits of food.

So now the flock is complete with 10 hens and 2 roos. We have the gang of gingers, the ninjas, the roos, Betty and Blossom - LOL! Here they are making a racket this morning (some of the girls are inside the coop laying eggs - I have a video of that too, if you want to see some funny stuff!)


Ask me what the heck I'm going to do with so many eggs :-o

Love until later,

TD aka the chicken lady

/end of Oh My Gosh post/

On art

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life,
by artificial means and hold it fixed
so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it,
it moves again since it is life.
~William Faulkner

Always think before acting!

Thank you online chicken forum for guiding me with sound advice on the two roos situation - I'm so glad I took a day to reflect on what to do, that I didn't make any rash decisions and that I have such an awesome supportive husband who told me we'd find a way to manage, no matter the money...

Most guys would have said "meh it's just a chicken, get rid of it" and then brought out the roasting pan.

The way to my heart is definitely through the compassion channel!

We were all set to build out the 2nd coop and split the flock in two in order to keep both roos but it turns out that the silkie breed is more docile than most - the boys will hash it out once or twice to determine who's the alpha male and then all is peaceful again :-o

So after a night of segregation, the two are best friends again... caught them grooming each other this afternoon, LOL!

Lily is now Jake (I think he rules the roost) and Lacy is now Jessie (my sweetest and favorite of the flock, well OK on par with the two new girls!).

I spent over five hours today insulating one wall of their winter coop and wow, am I ever beat. Like, drained like a trouser snake, battered like a fish stick, tired as a race car. At least the flock will sleep warmer tonight...

Three walls to go.

Ah well, all in due time.

I haven't devoted any time to developing my business and it shows... nobody's called or emailed yet besides that one client I have later this month.

Yes it's stressful and a bit disappointing, but I have to be realistic - the basement is almost completed but still needs work, I need to focus on my health and take a breather at some point because eventually I'll be busy all the time, right?

Right.

Tomorrow I will go park my ass on a chair in the emergency room and wait for many long hours before getting to see a doctor about my eye. I wish there was another way but apparently not :(

At least the visit is free.

*bows to Canada's health care system*

OK I have to clean up the contractor's mess in the basement before calling it a night, I'm covered in wood chips anyways so what difference does it make to add some sawdust!

And this concludes another day in my mundane life.

Fade, out.

/end of One Happy Flock post/

In the end...

The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule:
we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us,
were any other species in our dominant position.
~Christine Stevens

Henhouse dramah, revealed

Well, it's official:

Lily and Lacy are boys!

I mean, what were the odds... silkies are very hard to sex at a young age, you can only tell if you have a hen or a roo once they've reached sexual maturity and apparently that happened this morning.

The contractor and I went to the coop to take measurements for the new insulating boards and we caught the two roos fighting - ever see a cock fight? It's not pretty, it's dangerous and they can get really vicious with each other. The poor hens were squawking around, trying to break the boys up, my god those two puffballs looked like little velociraptors circling each other, jumping with wings splayed, neck ruffles out like little umbrellas, pecking and grabbing fur and wresting like jeet kun do pros.

All this because of the two new hens, which are laying eggs...

Yes, we got our 2nd egg this morning after all, one of the girls just likes to lay later than the other.

This prompted the two roos to "wake up" and go hey, look at those sexy chicks, I can mate now! Wooo! Oh wait... only one of us can have all these girls! FIGHT!

So now the boys are in two different pens and can never be together again or they will fight to the death.

I'm devastated :(

I have to find someone to adopt a young silkie roo, someone who will give him a good home and never kill him for the soup pot.

I would keep him and inherit a flock of laying birds in a month if I had the money to insulate the 2nd chicken coop (we have the infrastructure and the space, just no funds) and would then have organic eggs to sell, but trying to find $400 for materials just ain't gonna happen right now.

My heart is broken.

And the cock crows

Well, it seems that one of the silkie hens might actually be a roo... maybe even two of the three :-o

There was some crowing going on in the coop this morning and as the hens are maturing, their heads and faces are changing - gaaaah! Only got one egg this morning - we'd been getting two the past few days - so it's time to get a timer to regulate the amount of "daylight" these girls get.

Time for a timer.

My English rocks!

Rocks, I tell you!

The weekend... well, we wasted pretty much all of Saturday insulating one side of the chicken coop very badly when all along we could have purchased sheets of thermasomethingorother and just patched via the inside, thereby making it perfectly warm and dry for the winter.

Next time, I'm asking our contractor for advice before launching into crap adventures.

*shakes head in shame and disappointment*

Sunday we had a lovely guest over for brunch, the food was gooood (yes we ate those eggs! along with oven-roasted rosemary potatoes, fresh bread and lots of bacon), dinner was soup and some awesome blueberry crumble pie that our guest brought over.

Guess what I'm eating today :-D

OK time to go sew up those damn curtains, been putting off the boring task for weeks now... then more basement painting, there's one more wall & door frame to build and we should be all done - but where are the clients? Both phone and email were silent the past few days - this isn't too reassuring. I need to buckle down and get biz cards all over the place... which is hard to do when you have no car cuz hubby needs it for his commute to the city.

I want to win the lottery and never have to worry or work again.

Happy Monday, peeps.

/end of Super Mundane post/

The tao of love

Love is like a friendship caught on fire.
In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce,
but still only light and flickering.
As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals,
deep-burning and unquenchable.
~Bruce Lee

I don't know if it's ok

Well, I got a clean bill of health by the optometrist last night - in his words, I have "excellent ocular health and perfect vision" but in speaking with my mom tonight and describing my ongoing symptoms since Monday's accident, she said I must go see an opthamologist because it sounds like I might have a retinal tear :(

She should know, being in the medical profession for three decades.

I'm terrified. I don't want to lose my vision and I hate doctors, specially those that go poking in my eyes.

*shudder*

I'll have to call my family doctor on Monday and see if she can fast-track me to see a specialist because going to sit in an emergency rooom for six hours on a weekend just sucks ass and there is no guarantee I'd see anyone who could do anything for me anyways.

But hey, I don't want to bother you with all this crap.

I'll deal with it.

In other news, the two new hens have not only integrated the flock without a hitch, they became the Queen Beatches overnight! And yes we had two perfect eggs again this morning, wooo! I'm saving them for our brunch this weekend, crossing fingers they're tasty :-)

*pauses to sneak a peek at Vegas on the couch*

I love my husband.

Like, I'm totally in love with him, more every day.

It just needed to be said.

My mom is going on 22 years with my stepfather, they're still in love like teenagers and despite the hardships over the years, they are devoted to each other and know they will spend the rest of their lives hand in hand.

I hope Vegas and I are that lucky... Not that I don't have faith in us, but the "why would I be that lucky" question is one that taunts me, it always has. Am I good enough? Have I ever been? Am I that partner that is worth keeping, worth fighting for in the worst of times and worth celebrating with in the best of times?

I'm so busy doing, I often forget to stop and think. Evolve. Better myself. Improve my person, be more "rounded".

Dunno. I'm tired, I'm worried for my stupid eye, elated it's the weekend but bogged down by basement renovations that need completing and a business that needs tending to - if I don't market it, nobody will.

I. Cannot. Fail.

Time for zzzz's.

/end of Take The Red Pill post/

Answer me this:

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say?
And why are you waiting?
~Stephen Levine

*choir of angels*

So beautiful I want to cry!

I found these in the coop this morning, both warm and tucked away in a laying box:

All thanks to the genious of our contractor, who got us these two lovely young girls yesterday from a friend of his. Pardon the crappy photo, I had to use the flash in the temp coop as there is not much light (they will integrate the flock in the modern coop tonight when it's dark):

The big one in front is Rosie and the smaller one in back is Antoinette :-)

I had never held freshly-laid eggs before... it's amazing! Now hopefully they will set a good example for the seven other girls and we'll soon be basking in eggdom, LOL!

However, if the two new girls STOP laying then it's something that I'm doing wrong.

Guess we'll find out...

Wishing you all a lovely Thursday!

/end of Finally! It Has Happened To Me! post/

Notes to people

Dear mom,

I took your advice and have booked an appointment for an eye exam tomorrow afternoon (they were busy today). My vision is on and off in the eye I smacked the leash in and even if there is no more pain, I am worried. Will keep you posted.

Dear Farley,

Get that damn email account set up so I can write to you! I still have to send your photos of horseback riding and camping and the doggies - plus I would love some news on how you're doing. Hurry, hurry!

Dear readers,

Thank you for being so patient during my times of frivolous drivel, my mind's been preoccupied with so many other things lately that I've let this blog go a bit in terms of interesting stories - I promise to spice it up again soon enough :)

Am off to bring the boys to the vet for their shots and then it's back to "the never-ending list of things to do"...

This morning I had to drive to three car wash places to find one that was open and had space but the dust-mobile is finally clean, I'll let Vegas tell that story.

In a nutshell:

Never. Ever. Drive on a long dusty country road with the hatch-back open because you are transporting a large fabric reading chair.

Never.

Then I spent a couple of hours cleaning cement and dust rubble from the basement, hoovering, dusting, coughing. Took down the tent and did a few loads of laundry and welcomed two new girls to our home -

OH YES!!

We have two new hens thanks to our wonderful contractor, who knows everybody in town and then some. He figured if we introduced two laying hens to the pack, our "virgin girls" would take example and finally start laying! So he called a friend of his who has fifteen active hens and the guy agreed to part with two, they're young spring girls but are already laying soooo... crossing fingers this is the good joojoo we need!

They are red and white and absolutely lovely, very sweet and calm, we've named them Antoinette and Rosie and I will post photos of them tomorrow. Or Friday. :-D

Gotta run, ciao peeps!

/end of Rooo Roooo post/

Eye hope it's going to be all right...

An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun,
or it can insult like hissing or kicking;
or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness,
it can make the heart dance for joy....
One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye;
it transcends speech;
it is the bodily symbol of identity.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Soooo bleddy tired

It feels like Monday, it feels like I got run over by a truck.

Probably looks like it, too.

Chug, chug, chug, chug.

The washing machine repair guy is showing up at some point today, our contractor is here (with his german shepherd puppy, what a racket the boys are making) so there is no napping time available.

The chicken breeder said I need a light timer in the coop, the hens aren't getting enough daylight hours to lay.

I am a hen.

Finally capitulated and gave stupid bloodsucking Photobucket its money for a one-year subscription or else all my photo links on the interwebs would have gone dark again in about 10 days.

I hate them.

Avoid Photobucket if you can.

Fcukers.

At least I have the comfort of home-baked chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies to nurse my zombiness today, I've posted the recipe on my food blog so go take a peek :)

PS: Farley you would have loved these... next visit we'll bake a batch!

Back to the grinder, Advil and all.

/end of Strange Days post/

My first black eye!

And not even a good story to go with it since I did it to myself this morning.

Took the guests out for their 7:30am walk, the little one spotted a deer on our property and just took off, snapping !WHACK! a huge chunk of thick wet tangled nylon leash in my eye in the process - never felt pain like that before, I thought I had lost my eyeball.

I cried like baby.

So now I have a throbbing, big puffy black eye and reduced vision, am terrified it caused permanent damage - what a shit way to start a Monday!

Oh and of course it's that time of the month, too.

Swell :-D

Although I didn't hear anything, apparently one of the guests cried all night and drove Vegas crazy. He had to resort to ear plugs, the poor thing!

I say this with a smile as I cannot sleep without the things deep in my ears, I guess it's paying off now.

He he.

The lesson in all of this is a) we need soundproofing of sorts in the stairwell and b) we will really have to be careful as to not take any guests with severe separation anxiety or this business will quickly turn into a nightmare.

I slept OK but am dead on my feet today - go figure.

Still updating and trying to market my website, baby steps I know... If any of you have some links to send me (where to advertise) I'd really appreciate it!

Because I luv you guys :)

Time for some numbers:

Dog poops picked up yesterday: 9
Pooper scoopers available: 0 (mental note: buy one)
Times the big akita's farts woke me up during the night: 3
Reasons to be tired today: 14
Pills popped: 2
Episodes of Mad Men watched: 20
Pictures taken the past 3 days: 437
Good meals eaten: 1
Times uttered "I'm hungry!": 60
Links made from poop to food: a few :-D

It's 10:30am and it feels like an eternity.

I think I'll pop on my iPod and bake some cookies, this afternoon is for dog grooming (5 of them), playtime in the park thanks to this beautiful summer weather(!yes!) and more work on my website, photos & marketing.

Gotta earn those pennies, I'm spending them faster than you can say "bankrupt!"

Yey!

Wishing you all a lovely LaborDayMonday, where-ever you are and what-ever you're doing. Keep on truckin'.

/end of I Knead Dough post/

At the buffet of life

Great food is like great sex.
The more you have the more you want.
~Gael Greene

Reeaaady... set... gggg!

My first furry guests are due to arrive any minute now...

Excited!
Nervous!
Thrilled!
Hope I didn't forget anything!

****

OK they arrived as I was typing, LOL!

So far everything's going very well, they're lovely dogs and a lot less work than I thought they'd be... It's quite the task to juggle gates and doors but we're getting the hang of it - this house is built for it, thankfully!

The five doggies are all sleeping (and farting) now after hours of play in the park, walks, eating Mama TD's yummy dinners and just hanging out. Our two akitas are upstairs while the guests are here with us in the lounge, little Dante is passed out in his crate. Let's just hope the night goes well... we all need our beauty rest, yes?

^^tummy grumbles^^

I need your help, dear fellow bloggers... Vegas and I have hit a wall in terms of What The Hell Do We Make For Dinner / Lunch / Food In General?!

It's ridiculous. What the bleep have I been eating the past four decades of my life and why can't I remember how to cook any of it? Dinnertimes have become an art of staring blankly into space, trying to conjure up a mental image of something, anything to eat - even riffling through take-out menus and cookbooks leave us with zero inspiration.

It's crazy and it's pathetic.

And we're hungry :(

OK time for a couple episodes of Mad Men (Season 2, which is a far cry from Season 1 unfortunately but what can ya do, we're hooked!) - hope you're all having a lovely, long weekend!

/end of Working Lady And Loving It post/

Kissing follies

Nothing risqué, nothing gained.
~Alexander Woollcott

No clever title

I'll try to make this quick as I'm running a bit late this morning... Oh Glorious Sleep wouldn't take her hand off my face so I'm groggy, still in jammies and looking at the ticking clock going aaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I have to go pick up a sofa after feeding the hens and then Vegas needs the car as he's going for an afternoon of mountain biking, aka "body cast russian roulette".

So...

My dog boarding business website was successfully launched on Wednesday!!

*insert cheers, w00ts, yay, etc*

I won't post the url as I need to keep my cyber-life separate from my real life, I hope you understand... there are some things that just don't mix! But if you want the link just drop me an email (my address is in my profile) and I'll be happy to share with you. My facebook buddies, well you already saw the goods... gotta love FB!

The best news, however, is that I already have my first two clients this weekend - two weeks ahead of schedule! They arrive Saturday afternoon and leave Monday evening, how about that!

The dog park will be completed today (only missing the two gates, which are being built this morning) and two of the three dog suites are ready so I'll be fine. There's still a lot of work to be done on the playroom and on the last suite, hopefully it'll all be done by mid-September... What am I saying, it HAS to be done by then!

Now I have to market the heck out of my business as the bills are piling up and I really want to get going on this, to feel useful again...

Did I tell you that our Dear Municipality sent us an invoice two days ago for additional taxes? They apparently decided to hike our annual rate by TEN PERCENT, just like that out of the blue, and we have to pay up by October 2nd - what the fcuk??

They're going to get a phone call from me today, I'm not bending over and handing them the vaseline again after paying over $6,000 in taxes in July and August.

Seriously? Who does that?

Anyhoo, I have to run and apologize for the short post lacking in anything funny, I'll try to do better later LOL!

Have yourselves a lovely long weekend, peeps!

/end of Crazy Happy Beehive post/

X-nay on the update-nay

Too exhausted to blog and have a raging headache to boot, the bastid crept up on me this morning and has ridden my brain like a bronco all day long - uggh!

I'll post some wonderful updates tomorrow!

Happy news, yey!

Happiness

There are some days when I think I'm going to die
from an overdose of satisfaction.
~Salvador Dali

The visitors

As the dusk slowly creeps up, around 7pm these days, a big beautiful doe and her two adolescent fawns emerge from the woods in the back of our property.

They spend a bit of time grazing in the field, their enormous ears ever so alert to every sound spanning across the acres - they drive our little Maika absolutely mad for the hunt and this is precisely why the little bitch is always leashed when we go on walks - she'd chase any critter she could to the ends of the earth and that would be the last we'd ever see of her!

Brave, hungry deer... One minute mama's still as a statue, watching, watching, and the next her tail goes up up up and away they bound, gracefully executing 6-foot hops in slow motion through thick evergreens, their big white tails the only sign they exist.

I just hope the stupid hunters don't get them this autumn :(

*pauses for a blank gaze at the tv set*

If all goes well, my business website goes live tomorrow - we put in the request for web hosting activation Sunday and got the green light today so Vegas will set that all up tomorrow, between lawn mowing, dog park fence work and basement demo...

I love my husband :-D

Last night was hard. I had to fast for 14 long hours in order to get stabbed in the arms by needles this morning - OK my fault for having put off blood tests for like a decade, but still!

The young nurse instructs me to sit on the magic chair with towels on each armrest, all is prepped for the right arm. I tell her that normally my "good vein" is in my left arm (long story... many bloodtests another lifetime ago) but she went ahead with the right arm anyways.

What happened then, do you think?

The vein collapsed after two vials and no matter how deep she pushed that needle in, she got nada except me turning three shades of white from the agony.

"Oh I'm so sorry! This never happens! I don't know why this is happening!"

Well, duh - I did tell her...

So she had to poke my left arm to get that last vial and I walked out of the clinic with two very sore arms, two bruises and the hope that all is OK because I really don't want to go through that again for a very long time!

OK I'm rambling here and probably grossing you out... :-D

G'nite folks, I'm off for a night in the tent with big Dakotah as company, since Vegas prefers "the civilized bed", LOL! I want to camp for as long as I can, if only to get a semblance that we did, in fact, have a summer this year. I hope the ground won't be too hard, I do love my marshmallow!

/end of Warm Fresh Bread For Breakfast Yey! post/