Gone! Gone I tell you!

EVERYBODY! Stop what your doing, don't move. I've lost something and I don't want to step on it!

My week has completely disappeared and I can't locate it anywhere. Have you seen it? I know that it was here just a minute ago, but I turned my back for a second and its gone.

The same thing happened last week, but I put that down to first week back after holiday's with a smattering of a statutory holiday in the middle. But this week has no excuses. It's just gone.

If you see it can you please let me know. There is so much more I wanted to do with it, but just didn't get there.

Much appreciated and have an excellent weekend, I at least know its just around the corner.

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

I always cringed a little when my teachers in September asked us what we'd done over the summer. Having grown up in small towns we really didn't get up to much.

However, I am proud to say that I did in fact learn something about myself over my recent two weeks on holidays. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this information, but at least I fired off a neuron or two - that's got to be good for the old noggin'.

As I said in a previous entry our first week of holidays were spent up at a rustic cabin on a lake up island. It truly was lovely, and a person could get used to waking up in that kind of setting. However, this particular accommodation was without cable (TV) & wireless connection for my laptop.

That might not sound like such a hardship, and to be honest I can live without TV, and I can live without internet/email (for a week) - but I am hard pressed to live without BOTH at the same time.

I am someone who sits in front of a computer every day and has learned to rely on the internet for news and a great deal of entertainment. And when it comes to TV, its often a background accompaniment to whatever is going on in my home life. The husband is a little more 'addicted' to TV than I, but to when I can't have one, I resort to the other.

To live without both ..... stretched my every capillary!

Although ... I had to laugh when we got home. We hadn't been in the door for more than 10 minutes, the kitchen was where EVERYTHING got dumped and I was beginning the task of restoring order, when I hear the "background" sounds warbling down the hall to my TV deprived ears. The HUSBAND had the TV on and was already watching the recorded episodes of "People's Court" that he'd missed.

NOT 10 MINUTES into out arrival of reality! Our bags hadn't even been unpacked yet.

I digress - As much as I enjoyed our time away, I missed not having both connections to the outside world at the same time. I thank the Lord (truly) that I had a laptop that could play DVD's.

This is what I learned on my summer vacation.

Am I missing something here?

Let me state off the bat that I truly enjoy meat. I am not a vegetarian or vegan in any way shape of form. I love meat!

That said, I constantly struggle with getting enough vegetables into me, and don't even get me started on trying to get vegetables into my husband! Its a common joke amongst our friends to try to trick him into eating anything vegetable-like.

However last week, while I was away visiting a friend, we made spaghetti for dinner one night. Although she is also a lover of meat, she used a vegetable substitute that looks like and cooks up just like hamburger. In fact, the packaging stated "vegetable Ground Round", "cooks up just like meat". (and in another fact - it was delicious).

But it got me to thinking .... why do 'they' have to disguise vegetables to look like meat products? Veggie dogs, Veggie bacon, Veggie Sausage for a few more examples. Who are 'they' trying to fool?

To my recollection I have never seen a meat product disguised as a vegetable .... I can't even picture a meat product masquerading as a vegetable. I googled it! I know!

Do vegetarians have to fool themselves into eating vegetables? Is it a mind-over-matter thing?

Can anyone shed some light on this world shattering topic?

Holiday's End

Well, my two weeks off has almost come to a conclusion. It's a gorgeous Saturday, but my mind is already gearing up for what Monday - back at the office - will bring.

The husband and I had a lovely time away. The first week was spent up at Sprout Lake in a lovely rustic (and I DO mean rustic) cabin. At the end of our weeks stay we were fortunate enough to see on of the Mar's Water Bomber's giving the lake a buzz over several times. I suppose it was working out the kinks before it took off the next day for a 5 month contract to California to assistance in the abating of forest fires down there. This lake is the home for these magnificent flying machines!!

During our week we also took a day trip out to Tofino, Uclulet and Long Beach. Truly the west coast of Vancouver. Stunning scenery in its rawness.



For more pictures from our trip please check out my Flikr pages at the lower left of my home page here.

I will hopefully have more stories to tell soon. I will NEED to share with you something I learned about myself .... but that's for another day.

Top 10 Gripe for the Day

Ok, now that I've got your attention - I'm really only going to talk about one particular issue.

Can anyone - and I mean ANYONE - explain to me the reason behind wanting to hang these from the back of your vehicle?

I'm almost hesitate to name them - men's testicles - but I'm about to say something far more ... delicate ....

I really do not understand why a man (I'm making assumptions here) would want to advertise his wears this way. Is he proving he has the brain the size of a pea - or a 'p' the size of a pea? Does he think this will honestly attract the opposite sex - or maybe its not the opposite sex he's trying to attract? I just don't get it.

I've seen several of these are around recently, and it almost offends me. In fact I will go so far as to say I think it's incredibly crass and tasteless. I wonder what these fella's (assumptions again) would feel like if their daughters drove home their Ford Focus with a model (brace yourself) 'Vagina' hanging off the back of their cars. What then, do you think?

Please - I'm begging you - someone explain this new trend to me.

A little bit of nothin' and a squirrel

I'm having an out-of-body experience when it comes to blogging lately. Every day I come in and check on you all, and everyday I don't update myself.

The last three weeks I've been in survivor mode to make it to this Saturday - when my holidays start. I love my job, but I'm one tired puppy/kitten/reptile/ ... (insert favourite cuddly being).

So even though I've been 'here', I really haven't been here, but my mind is still constantly thinking of new entries that will never get written. Bad Blogger!

However .... I did remember to bring you a picture of one of the squirrels that live in the tree beside our house.



He has no tail, and if you look closely - you'll notice that the back leg that's facing you - has no foot. That is no trick of photography. He in fact is missing his rear foot. But BOY!!! Can that rodent hustle up (and down) a tree at a moments notice. He's actually very cute. I must make a confession - I leave bird food out for them. That's why he's stopped where he is in the photo. There is a little pile left out, just for him.

Cheers!

I need another name for squirrels

I have a couple of bird feeders outside of our house. I'd have more, but I've run out of trees and places where I can watch the birds. I like to watch .... the birds ....

I do very much enjoy seeing what kinds of birds we have in our area, and specifically watch them while they eat. At one particular feeder I have a mated pair of House Finches that come every day. She sits on one side facing one way, he sits on the other side facing the other way. They're very cute, and I rarely see them come separately.

On Saturday afternoon I was sitting at my kitchen table, looking out the window at a feeder when on the fence between our house and the neighbours two squirrels were sitting there eyeing my feeders.

I do like squirrels, but I don't like the damage they do the bird feeders. They're not called "bird" feeders for nothing.

I digress.

The one smaller squirrel caught my attention first. Something was different about this little fellow. He was smaller, but I could tell he wasn't a baby either. Realization dawned on me that in fact he had no tail, or at least a mere nub of a tail was all that he'd had left. I'm sure he had some wicked story to tell over that one.

At the understanding that I was now dealing with a 'handicapped' squirrel my heart softened to the furry bloke - just a little.

They started up their scare tactics chatter that squirrels do, so I went out to our deck to see if one of my cats were bothering them. Can't have that.

Once I got outside, the pair had moved and one was on the tree only a couple of feet from me. This one was slightly larger - and had a gigantic tail. However, to my astonishment - this squirrel was missing an eye AND had a torn up ear!

Talk about heart wrenching! I'm sure I quite audibly gave a "ohhhh myyyy nooooo" gasp of compassion. And despite my strong feelings of not encouraging the little rotters I went back into the house to get some bird seed to put on the fence for the squirrels to get.

You'd think my story would end here, happily ever after, squirrel couple well fed (and safe from all felines). That I'd have them in for cuddles and daily tea times by the fireside, but no .... my story does not end, and my heart not fully wrenched from my chest cavity yet.

I came back outside to put the seed out for them, the smaller, tailess squirrel was on a tree beside the fence. It was scampering up and down feverishly calling his friend and tailfull / earless mate to come away. Suddenly I made another discovering about my tree living neighbours. Mr. No-tail (prefer to think of him as a him) was an amputee! He was missing a hind leg.

Forget the previous "ohhhh myyyyy noooo", I now let out a huge grown of condolence.

I really have to have the furry neighbours over more often, sit them down for a good old fashioned chin-way. There has to be a good story behind these two. How did they meet? Did they get the plate of the car they crashed into?? Did they meet at the vets office over comparing war wounds? What?

I'll try to get a picture of them. They really are quite cute.