*hallelujah chorus*

(Yes, yes... this picture again.. bwahahaha!)

Despite my evil glee when I watched the snow slowly melting, screaming, into the mucky ground, inwardly I was apprehensively thinking to myself "But what will Brady pee on?"

You see, the whole problem is, Brady is a winter-time puppy. She was born in December, and we brought her home in February. The only outdoor experience she had was with snow covering the ground. She pooped and peed in the snow. It was her toilet.

When the snow started to melt, revealing pockets of musty wet leaves and brownish grass full of delightful scents, Brady decided that the dirt and grass was for sniffing and snuffling in, but she still peed on the snow. She would be playing in the front yard, which is almost completely snow-free, and when we told her to "Go pee, Brady!" she would make a beeline for the sideyard, which had drifts of the evil white stuff still unmelted. Lucy, the older and wiser dog, would pee in the grass, and I was hoping her example would encourage Brady to stop being so snow-loving, but it didn't work.
Lucy would go pee in the grass, and Brady would walk past her to go pee in the snow.

I began to worry. I have heard the story of people who moved from the grassy-lawn type places of the world to Arizona, where there is no grass, just sand, and their dog would not pee. Nor would he poo. He held it until he basically burst. They had to buy grass, and put a plot of it in their sandy yard, so their dog would do his business.

I did not want to spend my Summer afternoons crushing ice cubes in a pail with the heavy end of a sledgehammer, all to create snow for my dog so she could pee. Not my ideal Summer activity.... although some summer days it would be nice to sit in a big pail full of crushed ice. Refreshing!

I have been waiting with bated breath for that moment, that precious moment, when Brady would squat in the front yard and pee where the snow did not lay.

Well.... it happened.

YAAAAAAAY! Yes yes yes!

We came home from my mother's house, where Brady had an eventful evening (She visited my hundreds of relations, gave sloppy kisses to as many unsuspecting children she could reach, learned that when a leash is on her collar and master is holding it she shouldn't jump off the couch that they are sitting on, and got attacked by a disgruntled terrier mix who pulled on the loose skin of her face without tearing it, luckily!) and when we got out of the car, I put her down and told her to go pee.

She squatted on the grass!

No ice-crushing for me.... Score!

The snow is melting again!

What a day. Rain, wind, blizzard, and now, a spring thaw.

Weird.

My lips are chapped.

The cold weather does that to me. I've often said that I'm allergic to winter, and I think it's the truth. My skin gets red, scratchy and sensitive, my toes and fingers turn purple, and my lips are as brittle as a 60-year-old eggshell left laying in the desert sun. Once the snow melts away, remarkably, my itchy-skin woes go away! It's a miracle!

Stupid winter.

It's waaay colder than season average today. The storm has been raging since noon today, and oh my goodness has it ever raged. It took Tyler and I over half an hour to get home from work. The snow is wet and heavy, and packs together under the tire, making it extremely difficult for a vehicle to move. The drifts were quite large, and rather devious, pulling us this way and that way in an attempt to get us either in the ditch or in an accident with an oncoming car.

Stupid drifts.

Oh well, we're home, safe, and though our power was out at some point today (evidenced by the flashing '12:00' on our coffeepot) it's booming now. We have heat, light, warm food, and cuddly blankets. I think we'll survive this, the last of Winter's death throes.

Stupid violent winter death throes.

I hate scary movies

It's true, I do. I loathe them, and I mean loathe in the strongest sense of the word.

Then why do I watch them, you ask? Why do I subject myself to the psychological torment? Why do I sit on the couch while the movie is playing, with the blanket covering my face so I can't see the scariness?

I Don't Know.

I do know I hate scary movies, I hate being scared, and I hate sitting in the room with the TV while the scary movie is playing. I hate all of that, and yet I sit there. Cringing.

Bah.

The only good thing is that I got to see Will Smith working out. Drool.

Just a little something I figured you needed to see. Aren't I thoughtful?

By the way, today is my six month anniversary! Hurray for Me! Married for six months now. Weird, iddn't it?

A little bit of change

I wasn't happy with my original blog title. Mainly because it was lousy to begin with, being the first thing I could think of after sitting in front of the computer, my brain flipping back and forth from "ummm" to "uhhhh", for twenty minutes. It took a while for me to think of a better title, and I think this one works.

Aha! You think you're about to tell me "Sarah, that is grammatically incorrect! You don't put an apostrophe there, because the apostophe means 'belongs to' as in "Sarah's sayings", or "Sarah's silly brain", etc!"

BUT, little do you know, that one of my nicknames growing up was Sarah Say. So, having an apostrophe after "Say" isn't incorrect, it is implying that this blog belongs to Sarah Say. Who is me!

HA, HA HA HA! I am so totally smrt.

That's one thing that has often puzzled me, is the habit of my nicknames being longer than my actual name. My dad called me Sarah Say, my sister Heather called me Sarah Sue, my sister Rachel called me Rah-Rah, my friend Daniel called me Lady Sarah or Sarahnobi, and now my sister-in-law Lesley calls me Sarah Bean. I thought that nicknames were meant to be shortened versions of a name, like Nathan to Nate or Jared to Jay, or even Sarah to Sar.

I am SO glad no one called me Sar.

My husband has a few nicknames for me, which are cute and I like them. Buttons, Bunny, Little One, Babes, Sexpot... he switches back and forth between them, but I answer to pretty much anything.

I guess I do the "giving a nickname longer than the actual name" thing, too... I call Tyler's dog Lucy Liu instead of just Lucy, and Hunny I always called Hunny Bear or Hunny Buns or Hunny Bunny. Bradilynn is probably the only one that actually has a short nickname. Brady, or Braids, is what I usually call her.

I think that when we give a nickname to someone, be it a family member or a pet, it's like we're putting a little stamp of ownership on them. It means "I love you, you're mine, and I have a name for you that no one else does." I highly doubt anyone but Tyler is going to call me Buttons, because they have no idea what that means or from whence it came. Tyler knows, and I know, and that's the magic of nicknames.

The Bible says that God has a new name waiting for all His children when He takes them to heaven. I think that God invented nicknames! Abram became Abraham, Jacob became Israel, and Saul became Paul. That's God putting His little stamp on His people, I think.

Just a thought.

Lucy & Brady

Lucy loves Brady... which is good, because Lucy is afraid of big dogs! But, Brady was not so big when they first met, she's just getting big gradually. Lucy doesn't mind that.

Pictures of Brady

Bradilynn Fenton, born December 9th, welcomed into our home February 8th.

Love you, Brady!

My dog is a Goofball

So is my husband.

He took that lovely picture of his hand goosing my caboose while I was contentedly curled up watching a rerun of Friends on TV. I am good natured when it comes to the antics of my not-quite-mature-yet husband, and so I sat still while he giggled and snapped three or four pictures.

The silly man.

My four month old puppy, Brady (yes she is mine, the paperwork proves it! Take that, society!) is really beginning to blossom now that she knows that 'peeping' and 'pooping' is for Outside, and nighttime is for Being Quiet. Once she figured out the house rules, she didn't make very many mistakes. Now it's time to begin her more in-depth training, such as Sit, Stay, Lay Down, Come, and of course, Dance! Dance, monkey, dance!

She's not all perfect, though... she's a gobbler. That is the descriptionally vague way of saying that she is eager about getting at the treat in your hand when you want to reward her, so eager in fact, that she nearly chomps off all your fingers in the process of getting the penny-sized treat from your grasp. I had quite the little scrapes on my fingers the first night I opened up the Bag.

Yes. The Bag.

It is capitilised because of the reaction it gets from my canine companions. As soon as I open up the door to the cupboard where the mystical "Bag" is kept, both of them come charging from wherever they were in the house in order to dance around my feet, tails whapping against my legs, eyes dancing and alight, stomachs eager to digest the wonderful little bits of goodness that The Bag contains.

I think it's sibling rivalry that makes Brady gobble like a starving hyena when you hand her a treat.

Brady thinks "Lucy is here! If I don't hoover this back she may get a whiff of the aroma coming off my treat!"

Gobblegobblegobble!

"OUCH! No biting! Be gentle, Brady."

Try again.

GOBBLEGOBBLEGOBBLE!

"No treat for you! Lucy, you're a good girl. You take it gently. You get SIX. Brady, you be gentle, then you'd get six."

Brady thinks "Yeah right, Lady. I'm gonna get it while the getting's good. Obviously you're withholding on me."

Sarah frowns. "Brady, be gentle."

GOBLEGOBEL---- yipe!

(the "yipe" was me flicking Brady's nose when she tried to swallow my fingers. It let her know I don't like taping my fingers back on with duct tape!)

Brady thinks "Dang! She mean business!"

"Be gentle, Brady."

Brady gingerly sniffs and takes the treat with the tip of her lips.

"GOOOOOD BRADY! Good girl! Good being gentle!"

I feel like an idiot repeating things to my dogs, but it helps them learn.

She's a work in progress.

Just like Tyler.

Grumble

I am tired of people who have no work ethic.

My job is a physical one, and sometimes you do get tired, but it isn't that terrible! The way we've been going through hired help lately, you'd think working in a farrowing barn was like spending a summer with your ornery old Aunts who love nothing more than making you scrape and trim their overgrown toenails. There are worse things than pig poo, people!

Achk.

The grand total is up around 30 now, of people who have (a. shown up for one day, (b. shown up for a week, (c. shown up for a month, or (d. not shown up at all before quitting. And for very weak reasons, too.

NoWorkEthicPerson # 1: "He told me I didn't wash the crates clean enough." (she didn't)
NWEP #2: "He told me I couldn't say I was here at 7:00 when I was here at 7:30" (he did, but she was stealing time! Hello! Stealing time is as bad as stealing money from your boss' pockets)
NWEP #3: "I don't feel like I fit into the group here" (this, after she would come to break and stand in the corner with her eyes closed, despite our invitation for her to pull up a chair and relax with us)
NWEP #4: "I'm so tired on my first day after coming into the barn at 7:30, dusting some heat lamps, and scraping dried manure out of a dozen crates that at 8:30 I'm sitting in my chair with my head in my hands looking like I'm about to bawl." (she didn't actually say that, but she may as well have. And at lunch time, she layed across the desk in the office, with tears in her eyes because she was sooo, soo tired. Blech.)
NWEP #5: "I sit in at breaktime and listen to everyone's stories about how people have been hired lately with no work ethics, and I say "Wow, that's unbelieveable that so many people can be so dumb" and then the next day I phone in to quit because I don't like the sight of baby piggies being castrated." (This guy was a real winner. He laughed at all our stories of the ridiculous workers we had been going through, and then quit because he saw Tyler castrating some pigs. Pigs need to be castrated, or their meat will taste awful. Fact o' life, people!)
NWEP #6: "I'm not like those other people you hired. I can't stand people like that. If you don't want to do a job, don't apply for it." (She lasted a month, got pretty good at stuff, then quit without notice. Huh.)


And that is just a sampling of the many headaches we have had to deal with lately.

All I want is to have a good staff to work with! Is that too much to ask? It must be.

Please, if you have no work ethic whatsoever, go and throw yourself off a cliff for the good of the species. You and your ilk are destroying humanity. You can't get what you want without working for it! KNOW that! Argh!

Bunch of spoiled babies.

Teach your children how to work, and how to work diligently, parents! Don't let your precious little ones grow up to be the girl that was crying after half a morning of activity! I'm pleading with you on my *figurative* hands and knees!

And my rant is done.

Keeping a House

I'm a lazy person. I'm sitting here, with bread not baking, dishes not being washed, floors not being vacuumed, clothes not put away, and mashed potatos not mashing.... and I don't feel like getting up. I think it's because I woke up with an earache this morning, and earaches always seem to boss you around a bit.

You try to get up, they say "OH yeah? Well I'M gonna give you a WHOLE LOAD OF PAIN for even THINKING about it! *maniacal laughter*"

So! Enough of that already. I took my husband's oldish earache medicine, and I drowned that little stinker in it! HA!

My earache is diminished, but that meant that my hunger came back. My earache scared that away, too, this morning, to no avail. It's back, so I must eat.

After eating, there's nothing better than sipping at a tall mug of rooibas tea, sweetened with honey just so, with a little splash of milk. Ah.

And, after sipping at tea, so comfy in your chair, the thought of all the dishes and baking and vacuuming and tidying that you have to do seems a heck of a lot bigger than it actually is. And you don't want to get up.

But, I know that my husband is at work by himself today, because the person that was scheduled to work this weekend decided not to show up. I know he could've asked me to come help him today, and I would've, but he wanted me to have my whole weekend off to regenerate, and of course, to get the house clean because I don't often have the will to do it on a weekday.

So, not because I want to, but because I love my husband, I'm going to get off my butt and do my job.

After I'm done my second tea.

Hunny

She's a sweetie, a cutie-pie, with the brightest brown eyes and a goofy smile. Her energy and enthusiasm for life is captivating, and when you watch her play you can't help but grin.

"She" is Hunny, who up until a few days ago was my almost two-year-old Jack Russel/Cairn Terrier cross. Last Sunday she went to live with my parents and siblings, in the house she grew up in.

At that house, she was the best dog. Friendly, playful, always happy, always ready to chase and run and have fun. When I moved here, to my new house, I saw a change in her that made me sad. She was restless, anxious, pouty, and most heartbreaking of all, she wasn't happy.

She missed Boscoe, her older brother and playmate, and she missed her unrestricted freedom. Being stuck in a kennel all day while we were at work was getting to her. When we got home, all she could think of was being a lil' hellraiser, which tended to bring her nothing but scoldings.

"Down, Hunny!"
"No, Hunny!"
"Don't bark, Hunny!"
"Sit still, Hunny!"

I wasn't enjoying her, and she wasn't enjoying me.

I didn't have the energy to play outside with her for two hours after work (or the time..) and it wasn't fair to her. She is the type of dog that needs that kind of activity, and there's no better place for it than my parent's house.

She has her buddy Boscoe, a bunch of energetic kids to chase around, and a comfy couch to cuddle on after a full day of wearing herself out.

Perfect.

I miss her terribly... I find myself saying her name when I call the other dogs inside, or when I tell them it's bedtime... I kinda pause and think for a second, realizing "Oh yeah, she's not here" which is a weird feeling. But I know she's happy again, and to me, that is the most important thing.

If there wasn't a "Granny's House" for her to go back to, I never would have given her up. What made it slightly easier was the knowledge that I will be able to see her every time I visit my family.

Just one more reason for me to stop for a tea on Fridays. :)

Procrastination: The Doom of Good Ideas

I have a confession to make.

I am a.... Procrastinator.

Don't faint in horror! In this era we do not have fainting couches, like those enviable women of past centuries with their teensy weency corsets & bodices. No, we have hardwood floors. Ouch.

The point of my confession is this: I have had a really good childrens' story in my head for quite a few years now, which I keep on meaning to write. At one point in my years of doodling, sketching and scribbling, I even wrote a few pages! Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I stopped. I didn't get bored of it, I didn't think it wasn't worth it, heck, I didn't even run out of time to do it. I simply thought to myself "I'll finish it tomorrow."

Let me fill you all in on a little secret.. Tomorrow never comes. At least, it didn't for my story.

And so I, a woman with a professed desire to become a published author/artist, gave in to my despicable procrastinating ways and left my wonderful little story to rot in a drawer full of old sketches and pencilcrayon shavings. I should be ashamed of myself, and I am!

Therefore, I have vowed that never again will I crumble before the feet of the Doom of Good Ideas! Because the more I procrastinate, the less I get done. Funny how that works, eh?

2nd Blog ever!

March is depressing. Not as depressing as February, but it's up there.

It was warm, beautiful, and sunny outside at 1:15 pm today... the snow was melting, and it squalrshed underneath my feet with every step. "I can't wait to get home!" I thought. "Maybe I'll go for a walk!" I thought.

4:30 pm. Home-time. The sky starts to spit on our windshield as we pull out of the laneway. Clouds stalk us, grey and menacing, like starving wolves tracking wounded prey. The car's built in thermostat begins to drop lower, lower, lower..... The road is clear, so Tyler drives at Summer speed, but even that cannot outrun the cold.

The wind picks up as we get out of our car at home, and by the time I get to the house, my coat is covered in a sheen of chilly wetness, my glasses are foggy, and fingers are turning pinkish.

"It's stinking cold!" I growl, shaking my fist at the miserable weather. The sky, like a cantankerous old man who sneers at passersby just out of spite, blows a chilly breeze across my porch and through my flannel pants.

Ugh.

The only thing that makes it better is snuggling up under a warm blanket with a nice hot cup of tea, watching the Simpsons and giggling at the insanity for a while. Plus, my dear husband this morning put some spareribs, potatoes, and baby carrots into the crock pot to simmer for the day, and we had a delicious meal already prepared for us.

Life is good again.

First Blog ever!

It's March 1st already! Goodbye slushy, yucky, gray and depressing days, hello sweet Spring. I don't care that there is two feet of snow on the ground, smugly covering my husband's truck, boldy blowing itself all over my porch... nope, that doesn't phase me at all. As far as I'm concerned, March means Spring and that means that the snow is dying. On it's last legs, barely hanging on, wheezing, gasping.... yes! Die die die! I'm probably not the only one looking forward to that wonderful Spring smell... You know the one. Where you stand outside one out-of-the-blue day, and suddenly you realize -- you can smell things! Wonderful things! Trees, grass, farmland.... or, if you're living in the city, dog doo. That is definitely something to mark on your calendar.
"Today, March 7th, I smelled the scent of musty grass and last year's rotting leaves! Awesome!"
Forget Family Day. "Dog-doo Smell Day" would've been so much better.

I went to the hospital today (not that I go to the hospital to celebrate every first day of the month) to get my sore knee checked out. Bad knees run in my family, and I was worried that the soreness and weakness was a sign of a big problem.
After waiting for almost two hours to be seen by the actual doctor, it turns out that I have a mild sprain and tearing of my linear ligament, and that a little rest & tlc will bring it back to full strength soon.
Sigh.
So, now, with my March 1st morning almost over, I'm brewing myself a pot of rooibas tea, and waiting for my husband to come home. I'll probably do the dishes, since they are boring holes into my skull with their evil gaze..
I hate leaving supper dishes overnight, it's one of my biggest pet peeves, but since my knee has been bothering me I didn't feel like standing at the counter and washing whatever dishes two people dirty in a single day. Two-people-dishes are pathetic, especially since I grew up in a household of 12-people-dishes. Now that was a dish mountain. I have a dish hill, or a dish pile... not a dish mountain. Which is probably why it bugs me so much to leave them..... after all, it's just a dish pile! It takes all of two minutes to wash them.

Our three dogs are all currently fighting for the prime location of my feet, which for whatever reason all of them love to lounge on. My feet are bony and skinny, not exactly pillows, but if they're in one spot for any length of time, any one of the dogs zoom over and lay on them. I don't mind, especially not in the winter, when Reynauds disease makes my toes feel oh-so-chilly. But it's hilarious to watch them push and shove each other! The youngest, Brady, is also the biggest, but that doesn't stop the other two from squeezing themselves in between her and my legs, usurping her from her spot. It's an epic battle, every day. Usually Lucy wins, because she is the oldest and the most patient. The other two get bored and go play with each other or a piece of rope, and triumphantly she settles down. Only to get bumped away because I have something to do and can't sit or stand there anymore.. silly animals.

My tea is ready, my toes are snuggly (thanks to Lucy's silky fur!) and now I have to go tackle my pathetic dish pile. I like having the house pretty for when my husband gets home....