Garage Sale Follow-up

I felt I should post at least one photo of one of the items that I came home with after our little garage sale trip last Saturday (also came home with a lovely little watercolour) and after one comment on the previous post I've got off my butt to do so.

The stone mason had some absolutely amazing rock at his property that he was selling but short of going with a slate floor for the main bathroom I couldn't see anything else that would really be "needed" for the house.

Well . . . except for one thing . . . an old wagon wheel that was leaning up against a deck support.

It looked lonely and it only cost a box of Corona beer)

Ah, the weekend is upon us . . .

And it appears that there are many yard sales of interest THIS weekend that simply must be attended.

A fellow that Marc used to work with is having a yard sale. This gentleman has been 18 years at this location and is clearing up and heading to his real home (and huge acreage) elsewhere.

Now I always enjoy a yard sale but this one is quite special. You see this indivdual is and has been a stone mason for MANY years (yes, he's even older than I am!). Now, consider this - a geologist going to a yard sale with a lot of gorgeous rock on sale - and keep in mind said geologist is always ready to renovate or do something to the house and yard!

Perhaps it might have been in Marc's own best interest to have not even told me about this particular yard sale - it might be quite frightening to see what I simply can't live without!!!

The oldest is leaving the nest . . .

Well not actually "my" nest but, as August is winding down, my partner's oldest daughter is getting ready to leave her mom's home and head off to the hallowed halls of higher learning. She was unable to obtain full-time summer employment this year so I've been providing her with a bit of work here and there - partly to help me out with my massive, mind-numbing workload and partly to provide her with something to do where she feels "needed" and with a bit of income.

Today, while we were out running errands (her "work time" with me sometimes is more "paid companion" rather than "part-time staff") including my finally picking up a copy of "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass", taking Becca into the local Petsmart for a roam through the store and to buy dog cookies, and a lovely dog walk with Tazio and Becca at the park, she mentioned she's going shopping tomorrow to pick up a few items that she will need for living in residence and for school. It brought me back to when, in 1976, I went through the same, somewhat exciting, experience of pulling together the items I would need to live away from home while at university. I can still remember how exciting it felt to be on the threshold of starting my "adult" life.

I'm supplying her with my trusty laptop that I purchased just over two years ago and which became the workhorse for my consulting business. This summer I ordered a new laptop to replace the original that I knew I'd be giving to Samantha. This weekend will see my computer guy and I getting all the programs and data transferred from the old laptop to the new laptop, reformatting the drive on the old laptop, and readying it with MS Office, etc for her use at university.

I keep thinking of different little tidbits of advice, information, etc that I can pass onto her that hopefully will help her with her transition from high school student to university student. And I'm sure her mom is doing the same thing.

She's a very intelligent, savvy girl but it's been quite interesting how much I find myself thinking of the challenges that await her and how I want to ease this transition for her.

And how old her heading off to university makes me feel!

And Life goes on . . .

It's been extremely busy around our household over the past few months. Work has been, well, much too busy and I wonder sometimes how long I can keep trying to take care of the number of clients I have. Yet another summer is flying by and another summer has seen no movement towards getting back into some form of gardening other than the occasional required pruning of various thorny branches (mainly from the neighbour's blackberry shrubs) that might injure a thin-skinned whippet blasting by.

We've had quite the heat wave here in SW BC this year. And humid. I grew up in SW Ontario where one lived in a perpetual state of standing sweat except when inside in a too air conditioned office/shopping mall. In the past 28 yrs since I relocated to the west, I have rarely agreed with anyone when they've commented on the startling humidity in the Vancouver area. Maybe a total of 3 times prior to this year did I acknowledge, that yes, today, it is indeed something resembling humid. This year has been different. Starting with a wonderful electrical storm a week ago this past Saturday, this area actually definitely was humid for about 4 days. And the heat . . .

Well the heat has been ugly. We typically experience a moderate climate - cool, wet winters and comfortable warm summers. This past winter we had much more snowy weather than usual and now this summer we've had quite an extended dry spell and lately way too much heat.

I don't like the heat, never did, never will. Don't get me wrong - I do like my warm weather to be T-shirt/shorts weather - most definitely. But I don't like my warm weather to beat me up so badly where I'm languishing about completely unable to function, cringing at the thought of getting dressed after my morning shower, and trying to figure out the best ways to keep the heat out of the house! On Thursday I actually abandoned any attempts to continue working and I headed off for a one o'clock matinee showing of the latest Harry Potter movie.

The forecast for the upcoming week looks much nicer at present - and I have an awful lot of work I really need to get through once and for all. Just might have to dive into it today even tho' it's a holiday today. Also I'm thinking that even with the amount of work perhaps one movie one afternoon per week might be a nice little break - could become a good work week tradition!

It's been way too long . . .

Okay - I realize it has been much too long since I last posted a blog.

The purpose of this blog is to simply say that I've have had so many blog-worthy things to post and didn't really have the time to post. As a result I promise to get back at it this week!!!

I know, I know - it's about time for another post!

I sincerely apologize for being extremely lazy and ignoring my blog for soooo long!

It's not as tho' I didn't have anything to blog about - I'm thinking the problem was I had too many things I could blog about but just, . . . well, . . . didn't!

Got home from the AWC National Specialty without any drama, been busy with work, have seen several groups of friends at different times over the past month and had a great whippet racing weekend, attended a great seminar by Dr. Jean Dodds, and things continue well at home and with the dogs.

The Racing For Fun group hosted two great Continental Whippet Alliance meets just over a week ago. Becca continued her good running ways and as usual ran better the 2nd day. She ended up placing 7th overall and was the top C dog that day. As a reward I decided it was time for her to start a little swim program at my vet's pool.

Becca has now had two swimming sessions and there are six more to go (I signed her up for a series of eight). The sessions start out with her spending time working out on the treadmill that is lowered into the water so there is increased resistance and she has to work harder than if she was on "land". After she's warmed up on the treadmill she then has her little life jacket put on (okay, who makes these things!! They are too cute! And the size variations are numerous so there's bound to be a size for your dog.) and she gets several turns swimming in the pool.

It was expected that she would really just splash around for the first two or three times in the pool however, as usual, this little girl has proved once again that she's somebody special. She seemed to figure out the swimming thing quite quickly (at least that's what the staff said!) and this week there was some consideration given towards removing the life jacket and she's got her front down fairly even with her butt as she swims.

I'm not really sure that she's enjoying these sessions altho' she sure dragged me into the vet's reception area and was really flying as we headed to the "spaw" area.

More news on the doggy front is that our portable agility equipment has arrived and it's true - the equipment really does fit into their two bags. Poor Becca and Tazio don't quite know what they're in for now!

We have arrived . . .

My fellow travellers and I have arrived at the host hotel (Hilton Atlanta Airport Hotel) for this year's American Whippet Club National Specialty. We've had - well perhaps I'll just say we've had an interesting first evening here in Atlanta however we truly travelled in style today!

Linda and I felt like complete country bumpkins as Miss Jennifer was extremely stylish and drew all of the attention away from us as we traipsed through the Vancouver, Denver and Atlanta airports. I felt like I was accompanying a Hollywood star!


And in the Denver airport we did notice a few, well, shall we say "ominous" signs? (and Jenn did her best "Vanna")


And "Pass the Buffalo"??

What? Buffalo Wings??