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??

The "Nerve Centre" is being painted!

At long last some of the insidious pink that covered all painted surfaces in this house when I bought it is about to be covered with a different paint colour!

I love colour and love watching home reno shows and have my favourite decorating magazines that I buy almost every month. And finally, after many months (years!) of wanting to get this house the way I want it, work is underway that will drastically change the two areas of the house in which I spend almost all of my waking hours - the family room/office and the kitchen.

I have gone through many many colour choices for these spaces and because one is just an extension of the other, finally decided against two different colours and am going with just one. It's a gorgeous terracotta colour and, for those who must know, the chosen colour is "Flower Pot", #CC-96 of the Benjamin Moore line of paint.

This is such an exciting time for me - to actually know that the transformation of this house is underway - and to suit my tastes!! Marc is a dear soul who when asked what colour(s) he prefers, just tells me to go with what I want.

And in a day or so I will make a pilgrimage to IKEA to purchase new office furniture so my work area will finally look more professional and pulled together than the previous too tiny work area that I've put up with for just over a year of working predominantly from home. Hmmm, beech or birch . . .???

Atlanta (Okay I'm really starting to get excited!)

In just under two weeks, two of my whippet buddies and I will be in Atlanta for this year's American Whippet Club annual National Specialty to be held at the Hilton Hotel at the Atlanta airport.

Last year was the first time I was able to attend an AWC National Specialty, held in Eugene, Oregon, at quite a beautiful and dog-friendly location. I took my little girlie Becca with me and really enjoyed the entire week. My friend Jennifer showed Becca in the Open Bitch class (a huge class of 40 girls) and even tho' Becca didn't make the cut it still was very cool to have one of one's dogs actually entered in such a huge show.

This year I will be attending sans dogs so in some ways it likely will be a bit more relaxing in that I won't be worrying about "does the dog need to get out to go potty", "is the dog making too much noise", etc and can just soak in the atmosphere.

I will be taking the laptop tho'. I still have clients that may have some sort of emergency that week and still am coordinating the work of two other consultants for a shared client. And this year I have a blog that really should been attended to!

And this past weekend was the first lure coursing meet of the season, held on Sunday. Becca outdid herself by initially tying for first in her stake and, after a runoff, finishing 2nd. She just needs another placement and more points but appears well on her way to achieving her Canadian Field Championship (fingers crossed!).

Needless to say on Monday (the first half of the day anyway!) Becca was very tired.

A trip off the Mainland

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So my consulting cohorts Allison and Denise called me on Friday afternoon (over a week ago now!) to tell me to head on over to Denise's place on Bowen Island so we could discuss a work idea that they'd been working on. Oh, and have some wine. Red wine. Amarula in coffee too. Lots of fun and actually when the three of us are together we get incredible amounts of work done.

When they called me on Friday afternoon it was very depressing, only in that I would not be able to give the ladies any of my time. You see my whole weekend was planned out as I was going to our local "Racing For Fun" club's first Continental Whippet Alliance race weekend of the year. And since my girl Becca finally started running like a good little race girlie last year, the whole concept of me attending a race weekend WITH a dog that can compete, well, nothing else can get in the way of that!!

But these two ladies are dynamos that I used to regularly work with (they used to be my consultants in their areas of specialty when I had a regular job) but since I went out on my own, we only see each other sporadically altho' we keep in regular touch. And oh what a fun weekend it would be!!!

Well the doggie event won out - as it should have! And I touched base with the girls on the Sunday to find out where we'd be meeting in Vancouver the following day (as decided earlier). And I ended up travelling to Bowen Island. All very fun and worthwhile especially as Allison and Denise had been worked into quite the frenzied state due to frustrations with a friend not delivering on some things they NEEDED. And they were in need of someone talking them down. And alcohol. Really in need of some alcohol.

I just hope I was able to help them(Hmmm, there is a bit of a demented look here . . .)

The Whippet Van is going to be serviced!

I've been holding off taking my doggie van in for servicing but now the time has come. Decided to call this morning to get an appt and arrange for some additional work to be done in addition to the regular service that is due.

For some reason lately I've been writing a lot of cheques in the $1,000 range and it appears that tomorrow the corporate account will get another whacking! Final quote for the service is just under a grand. And I'm hoping the Honda-gods-that-be don't call me at some point to advise that "gee lady your brakes really need to be turned" due to my usual hard braking style of driving.

And I really hope they do a great job of washing the exterior. After all we have a straight racing meet this weekend and lure coursing next weekend and it would be nice to be able to place my magnetic running whippets onto the van without having to clean the exterior myself!

What the . . .?!

Major dose of "back to reality" yesterday!

We got home from Hawaii early on Monday morning, got through customs and associated airport stuff in decent time, delivered the girls to their home (they were planning to head to school right away) and we arrived home to two very excited whippets bouncing off the walls.

Since then I've been working madly to finish up a job for a client that is due in Regina on Monday morning. And then the weather changed!

On our arrival home Monday it was a bit cloudy and we had some rain since then but temperatures were in the 6 to 10 degrees Celsius - the usual stuff for February in the Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley and one of the reasons I live here (I'm DONE with real winter!). And then yesterday, sometime around noon, I glanced outside and there it was - SNOW - big honking flakes densely falling to the ground!

I wasn't happy.

You see over the Christmas period when we had a bit of a dump of snow for an extended period of time I was unable to venture forth with my van as the van's all season tires were starting to appear they needed replacement. And because the Lower Mainland isn't exactly the snow capital of North America I've never bothered to get an extra set of rims mounted with snow tires.

And of course I still haven't got 'round to replacing the all season tires (altho' I am about to get quotes!) nor have we sought out an inexpensive set of rims for the van on which snow tires could be mounted.

And now we have more SNOW. And I want juice and a latte. Hmmm - it doesn't appear to really have snowed so much that I can't get out of the driveway.

And where was I last week??

A bit of a girlie day in Paradise

Yesterday was a day off from snorkelling and diving and the four of us had a lovely brunch at the small village of Holualoa that lays 1,400 feet in elevation above Kailua-Kona on the west-facing slopes of the currently dormant shield volcano Hualalai. Holualoa is a sleepy village with a few interesting art galleries and shops. Our hosts had recommended we try a very lovely cafe - the Holuakoa Gardens - and the food was amazing - yet another wonderful meal here.

While Marc headed off to drop in on the local marine supply places to meet up with old acquaintances from when he worked here, we three girls headed off for a little treat of our own - pedicures.

In the past I'd always avoided getting a pedicure as I am extremely ticklish, especially where my feet are concerned, so this was going to be quite the breakthrough. However I figured I deserved some pampering too!

I anticipated us having to wait as we didn't have appointments however we were pleasantly surprised as the shop's attendants were able to take us almost as soon as we walked through the door. We'd scoped out this particular shop the evening before and it was very clean and welcoming. Sam and Chelsea got a headstart on me while my girl was still getting set up after finishing with her prior customer. Soon we all were relaxing in the wonderful massage chairs while our feet were being pampered to the extreme.

And then I was about to be put to the test - it was my turn for the "sanding" of the feet! I'd earlier watched as the bottoms, and especially the heel areas, of Sam and Chelsea's feet were scrubbed with some sort of abrasize pad in order to rid the feet of any rough spots. I figured that this was my moment of truth as that treatment looked as though it could set off a bout of ticklishness - and OMIGOD it did! I almost went through the roof and laughed and squealed like some sort of idiot. It did help thought that my attendant started giggling right along with me and she explained that she has the same reaction.

Once the tickle torture was through an absolutely wonderful leg and foot massage followed (for some reason I was totally relaxed throughout and no further tickles occurred). Eventually we watched as the staff expertly swirled on the nail polishes that we'd chosen and the girls had beautiful Hawaiian flowers painted on their big toes. I'd opted for a little more glamourous treatment - rhinestones! (Actually made me wish I had some lovely girlie sandals to put on afterward, not my stolid New Balance sandals!!)

Afterwards we met up with Marc and he and I got tattoos . . .