End of year curling

Well, our team's curling has improved a million fold since the start of the season. In fact, we're on a four game winning streak, including two Olympic worthy come-from-behind edge-of-your-seat-nail-biters. But even better that all the glory is that George won this week's Turkey Draw! He was the closest to the bird. So he got to take home a butterball. Can't wait for him to cook it up now!

Is that an original group of 7?

So, I took paintbrush to paper and painted my second landscape a few weeks ago by copying a Group of Seven copy that mom and dad have at their place. Overall, I'm quite happy with the results. The rock looks a little meh and the hills in the background look a little dark... but if you look at it from afar the tree looks like a group of seven tree. It's certainly better than my previous work, The Purple Penis.

Backyard update

Now that the cold weather is here, we officially finished our backyard. A little backwards I know... but nonetheless we managed to enjoy it over the entire summer season. The hammock George bought me for my b-day was simply perfect.

We initially had planned to fill the space between the stones with soil and plant things like moss but unfortunately we came across two mortal foes: wind erosion and money. Moss, and the amount we needed, was incredibly expensive. We spent about $100 and that covered about 10% of the yard. So, with no moss growing, the wind had a grand old time blowing away the soil.

Long story short, we decided to fill in the other 90% with pea gravel. And you know what? it looks awesome. We'll undoubtedly plant more moss and stuff over time but for now we're quite happy with how it looks. Now if i could only get George to rake those damn leaves :)

curling

After a slow start to our curling season, we finally won our second game of the season! And it was a resounding win, too! The whole team came together... all cylinders were firing baby. Unfortunately, we won't be moving up a division but that's ok. Next quarter.

Free Coffee

Yesterday, George and I went to a Tassimo event at the Liberty Grand to pick up our free Tassimo coffee maker. How'd we get that you ask? Well, i entered a "Contest" whereby they determined who would be the right kind of people to become brand ambassadors for the product. There were a bunch of questions i had to answer, and knowing a thing or two about the industry, i answered them correctly. "yes, i'll tweet about your product all the time!!" That kind of shite.

Anywho, before we could get our Tassimo we had to sit through 2 hours of a couple of HGTV celebrities talk about:
a) how their tassimo changed their life and
b) how to decorate your home.

The crowd was about 80% women. 5% husbands. and 15% gay men. And it was actually quite fun.

however, the whole experience was ruined when it came time to pick up our free coffee maker. When i asked for a red one, i was told we can't choose and we must take what is given... which was an orange one. It was obvious no one ahead of us wanted orange because that's all that was left.

Sigh. beggars can't be choosers i guess.

And yes, the Tassimo makes good coffee. Although the refills are a expensive and very, very wasteful. So we're already looking at ways to reduce our Tassimo consumption.

it was actually

Lost Time

So it's been awhile since hubby has posted something. So here I go with the updates.
ps. I'm not a writer so love me for my errors!!

As noted before Cierra had been sick. She was sadly diagnosed with a heart sickness and we ahd to make the unbelievable desicion of putting her down. I have never felt so sad. Heart pained me so much I to this day feel that I failed her and in her final moments with us I apologized to her.
I loved her dearly. And miss her more.

Its been a full year since our wedding. Hard to believe. So in celebration of our 1 year I decided to "surprise" Rob with a trip to Paris. What a wonderful trip. I had never been to France. Paris was amazing. Old looking buildings. THe Effile Tower was stunning. The Food amazing.
The best part of the trip was when we rented 2 bikes and rode around town. Tehy have a fantastic rental system there for bikes. You can buy a day card. Pick a bike ride around.... park the bike back at many of the automated bike rental racks and do your thing. Then pick up another bike ride around etc etc etc. FANTASTIC.

During this past summer we decided to redo the basement ceiling in hopes to cancel out sound transfer from our floor to the rental downstairs. It took longer than we had planned. And man was it a lot of work. But we both did it. Together at times but most times seperately. WOrk perfectly.
Recently we rented it out for October 1st. Nice lesbian girl. We think she will fit in nicely with us. She too has a dog. YAY babysitter!

So yeah thats my recount of whats ben happening since the last update.
Hugz to all.

oh btw. I love you ROB! :)

What's up? A huge CC bill is what's up!

Yes, it's been awhile since I've blogged. Mea culpa.
So here's what's been going on:
- we traveled to Thailand and Hong Kong and had a most wonderful time
- we ripped out the ceiling of our basement and are in the process of doing a better job of sound proofing it so we can find new tenants who won't complain about the pitter patter of dog's nails.
- we pretty much finished the backyard (although, next year we're definitely going to have to do some updates and more planting.)

And about our dog Cierra...
Well, she isn't doing all that well. We noticed a few months ago her belly was slowly getting bigger (think pictures of Ethiopian children back in the 80's.) We took her to the vet, who charged us close to $1000 bucks to tell us that... they didn't know what was wrong and they he was very perplexed. So perplexed, in fact, he called in university professor to take a look.

While this was going on, Cierra's temperment didn't change, which confused the vet even more. She was still eating, peeing, crapping, playing and all those other fun things dogs do.

Our vet gave us 2 suggestions: give her an ultra sound (which would cost another $1000) or fix her, and while they were fixing her they would check out her insides.

Despite the fact that we wanted to breed her, we decided to go the fixing route. So last Thursday we dropped her off and waited patiently by the phone for an update.

The vet called in the afternoon to say the operation went well and Cierra was recuperating very nicely. Unfortunately, he still didn't know what was wrong. What we did learn was that he sucked out A GALON OF FLUID FROM HER ABDOMEN. A Galon! Vet said her liver looks fine as did other major organs. Needless to say, he sent biopsies of her liver, intestine and a sample of the fluid for tests.

This all cost us another $1600.

Our credit card bill is quickly adding up.

End result: our vet can't make a call as to what the problem may be but our own research leaves us feeling rather pessimistic.

Thinking positive though!

Tulips. Or are they something more freudian?

My art class has officially come to an end but I've been enjoying it so much, I purchased some art supplies and have been practicing at home. This past week I attempted to draw some Tulips. I was somewhat happy my painting until I realized that they look like a bunch of purple penis heads. You decide. Freud would probably have a blast with me.

birds birds and more birds

Today, being a Saturday, began for us at 6:00 am. Why such an ungodly hour you ask? Because we went on a guide bird walk down at Tom Thompson park, also known as Leslie Spit. 

Apparently there is a bird festival going on over the weekend and it all began with walks starting first thing. After all, that's when most of the birds are most active. 

So George and I show up in shorts, and me wearing my relatively new white Adidas running shoes. Silly me, i presumed we'd be walking along the road. Instead, they immediately took us into the heart of darkness where mosquitoes pestered and, thankfully, birds chirped beautifully. There were about 15 of us city-folk tramping through the bushes eagerly on the look out for something new. Of course it didn't take long for some guy to announce to the group that he had lost his cell phone and did anyone find it? No we all muttered. Some helpful lady suggested someone call it, but he unfortunately did not know his own cell number. 

Walking through the forest and the fields, our guide pointed out the many different songs we could hear. We even saw a few. The one I wrote down included:

Catbird

Baltimore Oriole

Cowbird

Warbler

Cedar Waxwing

King bird

Common turn.

Interesting fact - the cowbird watches other birds nesting and when the female leaves the nest and her eggs, the cowbird will fly down and lay her eggs amongst the others. The other female returns none the wiser and keeps the foreign eggs warm until they hatch. 

My favourite bird though was the Cedar Waxwing. There were two sitting in a blooming apple tree and let us walk right up to them. Beautiful birds, indeed. 

I wish I had some pictures to share but George did not pull out his fancy new camera once. So i found a pic of the Cedar Waxwing and posted it here.  

 

Bloody hell...

Honest to goodness, we're good landlords.
• George will change your light bulbs for you
• I take your garbage to the street
• We don't complain about you (unless you're smoking dope and blowing it up our vents)
• We even say hello in the morning!

So why is it so bloody hard to find - and keep - good tenants?

our garden

We've been working incredibly hard on our garden/property this spring and we're starting to see some results! The flowers are blooming, the backyard patio is looking very grown-up and our vegetable garden is starting to look delicious. The squirrel mafia are still being a pain in the ass but we had our first blue jay land for a snack. Can't wait to see what the place looks like in the summer.

George and I are really trying to make our property as bird friendly as possible. Unfortunately, the local squirrel mafia are making it rather difficult. Nonetheless, we're not giving up. We've got three feeders and a bird house set up. Plus, we bought a gorgeous bird bath that will be set up the day our fence is erected. We may never get an ostrich... but some blue jays and cardinals would be swell.


In the meantime, we're going on a guide bird walk next weekend at Tommy Thompson Park (AKA Leslie Spit). I can't wait, although the 7am start time is rather scary.

get more info here http://www.trca.on.ca/ttp

motorcycle and stuff

We completed an introductory motorcycle maintenance course this past weekend. Overall, it was a great learning experience. The instructor was incredibly helpful and open to future questions. We learned about all kinds of things... including why not winterizing a bike is an incredibly stupid thing to do. Which explains the situation I'm in now with my bike looking pretty sitting in driveway whereas i'm still taking the bus/bicycle. sigh. dumbass.

We also saw the new star trek. A very good film although the trek geek also known as George found a number sticky points, including the love affair. I however, bought into the whole thing. It was very Brad and Angie, minus the pointy ears.

latest painting

This past painting class was somewhat of a success. I completed my second painting using my newly acquired perspective knowledge. This painting here, titled BLUE HOUSE ON SIDE OF ROAD (c)2009 was completed using acrylic paints. All rights reserved. Reproduction forbidden without approval from artist or his manager, George.

Next week: Flowers!

Upcoming trip

George and I are in the process of planning our trip to Thailand and Hong Kong.

If anyone has any suggestions regarding places to see, things to eat, or drinks to get drunk on... please pass them on.

I've been taking a course on Saturday's to learn how to paint.

But in order to paint, one must learn how to draw.

So I've been focusing on that skill. And I'm super proud of what I've accomplished thanks to a book called The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.

Here's a sample of something I've done.

Greatest Job!

Hey everyone;
I've entered a fantastic contest and I need your votes to win!
Goto www.islandreefjob.com/#/applicants/watch/KWIOcUJ5EvQ
and give me 5 stars :)
Thanks and wish me luck!!