Tagging Baby Bears

My sister-in-law sent me a link to this video, which happens to be on another blogger's website. I don't know how to add the video to my blog, I think I have to somehow save it to a file and then put it in, but I don't work with videos and I haven't got a lot of time right now to do that.

So, I'll just post the link, that should work too.

To watch an amzing video of collaring and tagging baby bears who are so little their eyes aren't open yet, for the means of tracking them in a Provincial Park, not for any hunting or injury purposes, that you all just HAVE to see, click here.

The Hard Lesson of Equations

Last night my husband was at work, one son was at his girlfriend's, and the other went to a friend's at the last minute.

I was home alone for dinner.
Yeah! I don't have to cook tonight!
I can eat whatever I want!
That's where the trouble began.

I knew one thing I wanted for sure...a bag of Maynard's Wine Gums
I went to the corner store
(which is not really on a corner but you know what I mean)
Picked up a bag,
But I had no money, only my debit card.
I didn't want to pay for two bucks with a bank card, cause that would look dumb,
so I looked around for something to add onto it.
A litre of chocolate milk should bump it up a bit.
Those bags of kettle corn at the the till look really good too
Might as well pick up a bag for desert.

Well, the kettle corn became dinner
Washed down with chocolate milk
And the wine gums became desert.

And I proved once again
That I can't be trusted home alone,
Because......



PLUS


EQUALS

On Kids & Questions

We all know kids have the knack of asking the wierdest questions that require the most inventive answers. Note to parents with young children.....WRITE THEM DOWN! Because you won't remember them.

My 15 year old asked me one yesterday though, that was one for the record book. We had our dog neutered yesterday, and he was full of empathy for the dog & wondered if he knew what had happened, if he felt different now that he was a "eunich", etc.

Then he asked.."What do they do with the balls after they cut them off?"
I almost choked on my coffee. I told him they put them in jars & pickled them. He didn't fall for it.

So, if anyone knows what they do with dog balls.....let me know!
(I put J's picture because I couldn't find one of T looking "inquisitive" in a rush)

Forever More

credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/cayusa/2051756510/

Mrs. E, at Easy Street, is a teacher and has handed out an assignment...a short list or essay on the simple things in life, the things we enjoy & would miss if we were to die.

So here's mine:

"If today were my last day,
And tomorrow was too late
Would I say good-bye to yesterday?"

What would I say good-bye to?
What would I miss?

The pleasure of seeing others smile, even more being the cause of their smile.

A nice hot cup of tea in the evenings,
And an ice-cold glass of lemonade on a summer afternoon.

The pleasure of reading, the pleasure of crafting
The pleasure of learning.

Hot candlelit bubble baths in a deep tub,
Singing in the shower.

Walks in the hot summer nights, in the crisp scent of fall,
In the briliantly blue winter skies, and in the promising renewal of spring.

Feeling a cat sleeping on my legs, seeing a dog ecstatic to see me, and hearing the never-ending chirp of birds.

The ability to use all my senses, to see unlimited shades of colours, to smell freshly cut sawdust, to hear the quietness of falling snow, to taste riches like chocolate, cheescake, and fuzzy pork chops, and to feel the warmth of my husband's skin next to mine.

There is so much I would have to say good-bye to, so much I must appreciate time & time again
Forever more.
credit here

(the first 3 lines are from a song....by Green Day I think, the whole song would be perfect for the occasion)

The Connoisseur of Comfort

There are cat people
And there are dog people

As much as I do like (okay, maybe even love) my pup
I am most definitely a cat person

Dogs are fun to be with and good for walks,
But you, or at least I, can't sit there and watch a dog doing his thing
And marvel at his muscular liquid beauty
In awe of his being
Amazed at every little part of his body
Just like a parent watching a newborn baby
Only a cat has that ability
Even the big mean cougars & panthers
inspire the same alluring awe,
Display the same admiration
For all that they are

Cats can find comfort anywhere,
As I was thinking out this post
Inspired of course by my cat lying in the sun
I thought of the cats I've owned
And where they found comfort

As a teenager I did a lot of jigsaw puzzles
And Ceaser would lie in the open box
Come to think if it
I'm lucky he didn't think it was kitty litter!

Cypress liked to lie in the bathroom sink,
And also cuddle up to our shepherd-sharpei dog
Jasper would crawl into the open topped guinea pig cage
Again, I'm surprised he didn't use the shavings as litter
Blue would find the highest perch possible
and look down on his kingdom
and its subjects
Snoopy would invariably locate the empty baby-carrier
And Possum, shown here, absolutely loves the fleecy blanket
we use for napping

The one thing they all had in common though,
Is the knack they had for finding the lone patch of sunlight in the room
How can a cat, sleeping on someone's bed
Instintively know, in his sleep,
That if he gets up & goes to the living room
Pausing for some kibble on the way
He will find the sunshine that wasn't in the bedroom?

Cats are truly amazing
And if reincarnation is a reality,

I want to come back as a cat

Three hours I'll never get back

I aplogize to you and me for disappearing over the last week. One of those break from blog times.
When I logged on this morning, I did not intend to spend so much time, in fact, any time, rearranging my blog. But it looked too summery, with the blue colour scheme & bathing suit picture.

Oh well, it is what it is.

How do you like my "new look"? It still needs some finishing touches, like unblurring the header photo (How do I do that without making it smaller?), but its getting there. I notice I still don't have the option of "centering" my text as I'd like to.

The Russell Fences are typical for my neck of the woods, I always like them. I think it was an ingenious way to build fences without tools. And this picture is from last year, most every year it looks like that in the fall, but this year, with the unseasonably warm early fall and then the drop to -15C within two days, the leaves basically turned black & died on the trees, and have only now fallen down. Makes me wonder what kind of suprises Mother Nature has in store for us this winter!

We really don't live in igloos.....

A misconception that Canadians believe about Americans, which may in itself be a misconception (are you following me?) is that Americans don't know a heck of a lot about Canada. This could in part be perpetrated by Rick Mercer's "South of the Border" TV Interviews, which consisted of interviewing Americans on the street and convincing them to agree with ridiculous statements about Canada. The intent was to satirise American ignorance of its neighbour and the world in general. Examples included:

-Persuading Americans to congratulate Canada on adopting the twenty-four-hour day,
-Congratulating the Canadian government on building a dome over its "national igloo" (apparently a downsized version of the United States Capitol) to protect it from global warming,
-Asking Harvard students and professors to sign a petition asking Canadians to discontinue the practice of abandoning the elderly on ice floes.
-Asking presidential candidate George W. Bush – who had previously stated that "you can't stump me on world leaders" – for his reaction to an endorsement by Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine". Bush responded diplomatically and said he looked forward to working together with his future counterpart to the north. However, the prime minister's name at the time was Jean Chrétien; poutine is in fact a French-Canadian fast food dish of french fries, gravy and cheese curd. Also, Chrétien had not endorsed any candidate at the time.

Anyways, we don't live in igloos, but my walk today, which planted the seed for this post, could almost convince you we do. Mind you, this is the middle of October! This is the same park I featured in a previous, fall-time post: (Oh crap, I forgot to change the settings on my camera..these are taking a while to upload)

Does this or does it not look like a giant toothbrush???
You wouldn't catch me wading in there for a drink!!
The waterfalls aren't quite frozen yet, but they will be soon!
We left our marks (although as you can see I wasn't wearing my winter boots yet)
The leaves aren't even off the trees yet, in fact, some are still green!

Tim Horton's was great after the chilly walk, although I took this picture because it really looked like all 4 vehicles were attached to each other...ANd I knew that really couldn't be!

Wrong Way

This sign about says it all.

It seems every single choice I have made last week is the wrong one.
Whether its what to make for dinner
Whether to allow my son to go to his girlfriend's after school
Which day to make my doctor's appointment on
Whether or not to go for a walk even....
Whether to allow my pup to chew on his leash
(he had it chewed in half in 10 minutes!)
Whether or not to put my seatbelt on driving from one store down a block to another
Whether to wait till the weekend to clean out my gardens & plant my spring bulbs
(Although maybe that was a good choice since the ground is now frozen so I don't have to plant my bulbs!)
!!Aaarrgghhhh!!

This week has got to be better.
I'll start it off with a couple of funny signs I found:
(although the first one is also quite realistic in my neck of the woods)

Mother's Curse

If men are indeed from Mars, and women are indeed from Venus, then teenagers surely are from another galaxy altogether.

This is my son, one of my favourite pictures of him.
He was so carefree, filled with laughter, love, cuddles, but yes, with a streak of the devil and the beginnings of being a handful even back then. But you never met a more cuddly little gaffer.

He cuddliness lasted a long time, past the age of most boys. And I revelled in it, knowing it would soon end. His gift of cuddliness outshadowed the times we wanted to a Homer Simpson act & strangle him.

This is him now, in a good moment. They are few & far between. What is it with teenagers? My older one went through some nasty times, still does, but nothing like his darling little brother. My mom says he takes after me. She doesn't hesitate to remind me of the times I made life miserable for her. She says well, now you know how I felt.

Yesterday he was watching Pirates of the Caribbean. He has watched all 3 of them so many times he has the whole movie memorized, and when he thinks no one is watching he walks around like Captain Jack Sparrow...if you've never seen the movie you don't know what I mean, but if you know Johnny Depp at all, you may be able to imagine. Anyways, he was watching it and had calmed down a bit towards me from earlier. Enough to allow a tiny bit of civil conversation bewtween us. On the show they were talking about "The Curse". I said to him:

"All mothers have the capability of laying one curse on their child during his lifetime. I am laying my curse on you now...my curse is that if you have children of your own, they will be exactly like you!"

This is the word of the mother.

Amen.

Mugs & Memories

Be honest...the title caught your eye, didn't it?

What's more comfortable on a cold winter's day than being wrapped up in a blankie sipping hot chocolate in front of the fireplace? So quitessentially comforting. In theory. Personally, when I come in from the cold & snow, into a warm house, I generally want to rip all my clothes off & lie on the bed until my body, with its annoying tendancy to "hot flash", becomes accustomed to the indoor temperature. But that's just me.

Mugs represent friendship.
My dear friend Fran gave me this one year at Christmas, filled with her homemade spiced nuts.

Sharing a mug of coffee over the kitchen table with a friend, pouring out your woes to each other. Or when in an uncomfortable situation with another person, say, a counsellor, or a stranger you've agreed to meet for a particular reason, a mug gives you something to do with your hands, and eases some of the discomfort.

My friend Dianna gave me this one filled with flowers once during a hard time to cheer me up.

Mugs are great reminders of places you've been, people you used to know, times you've had together.
This is bought when I was 14 and spent a few weeks at a dairy farm on Vancouver Island.

These were given to me on my 16th birthday as a start to my "Hope Chest" by my Uncle Mac & Aunt Gladys, who weren't really my aunt & uncle, but close family friends. They've both passed on now. These are my favourite mugs.

This was given to me by old family friends whom we've lost contact with, Denis & Kathy.

This was a mother's day gift when the boys were little,

And this was from this past mother's day.


It brings strangers at a resort together, bridges the gap & creates a sense of familiarity.

This I bought last summer at Silverstar Mountain resort in Vernon where we spent a weekend in luxury.

You can talk for hours with a dear friend (or a cousin you only see once every year or two!)in a coffee shop, preferably one that offers free refills.

Mug: noun "A drinking vessel, usually cylindrical with a hnadle and no saucer.
Enjoy your mugga coffe today!

I am SO not ready for this...........

This is what we woke up to this morning. Flakes are still swirling through the air outside my window. I know it won't last, by this afternoon it'll be gone again, but it is a not so subtle reminder that we need to clean out the gardens before the ground freezes (I always seem to wait too long for that!), put the winter tires on the vehicles, haul our winter coats & things out of the shed, make sure the ice scrapers are in the vehicles, get the sand bucket out by the front steps, Take the water hose off & turn the water line to it off........ugh!

Maybe I need to try to win a free pair of boots at this place, thanks to homespun living for the link">