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A nice relaxing long weekend

September 2, 2008 by Tricia

Doesn’t Labour Day weekend being over make you feel as if summer has ended? After visiting several blogs earlier today I get the feeling that a lot of people seem to begin to think of autumn and winter once the last long weekend of summer is over.

I’d like to say that we had a busy weekend, but we really didn’t. It was Chris’ last weekend of his two week holiday and now he’s returned to work. So we did some of the things that he wanted to do, like going to this really divvy bar called “The Wally” that he’s always wanted to go to ever since we moved into the area. We’ve been in this neighborhood for 7 years now so I guess it was about time that we went to the Wally.

We went to the bar yesterday afternoon and sat on the patio. It has an enclosed patio that you can only access by walking through the dark and dingy bar so we couldn’t bring our dog Midnight. Chris is dying to find bars and restaurants with patios that are dog friendly- of course Midnight needs to settle down a bit more if she wants to come out with us regularly. We each had a beer (ok Chris had two) and ordered French Fries and Onion Rings. The servings were huge! If we’d known how big our little snack was going to be we’d only have ordered one or the other.

The Wally has lots of good reviews for it’s food and atmosphere and I must admit the prices were very good and the snacks tasty. Our total bill for three beer and two very large snacks came to just over $16. Not bad at all.

If you’re dieting or taking Fentraphen it’s probably not the place to go as I doubt that they have any low calorie food items, but it was a nice thing to do on a beautiful summer afternoon.

We didn’t do much on Sunday, but on Saturday we took Midnight to a place called “Sunnybrook Farm” which is really part of a huge interconnecting park network here in Toronto. Chris wanted to see how Midnight would react when she saw the horses that they keep at the stables there seeing as her first few months of life she lived in a pen in a large barn where horse were kept.

There were a lot of flies bothering the horses, this one was rolling in the sand to try to get rid of the flies.

I think she liked seeing the horses. At first she tried to get under the fence, but when we wouldn’t let her she just sat and watched as they milled around their coral. After that we went for a long hike on some trails and through the forest. Chris took Midnight into a little creek twice on our journey so both he and the dog got to cool off a bit while I stayed on the creek bank taking photos.

After our outdoor adventure Chris had wanted to go for a beer on a patio with the dog, but we couldn’t find any dog friendly patios to visit so when we got home we all went outside into the backyard and Midnight played in the yard while Chris and I had a drink at the patio table.

At one point Chris picked up Midnight (not an easy feat as she probably weighs about 70lb now) and put her on one of our Patio chairs:

She has that “Help me, I don’t really like being up so high” kind of look on her face, doesn’t she?

If you lie in Canada or the US you had a long Labor day weekend too – what did you do?

Loveliest sunset of the year

August 30, 2008 by Tricia

This weeks Photo Hunt theme is Beautiful.

What is more beautiful than a gorgeous sunset on a lovely summer evening?

Not only were the clouds colored red as the sun set, but some of the smaller clouds were tiny dark puffs creating dotted lines of clouds across the sky.

I have to admit that what first grabbed my attention were the lower portion of the large clouds. See how wisps of clouds have drifted down below the main cloud? It’s almost as if someone lightly dragged a paint brush through them causing wispy trails.

It was an amazing sunset. I’m certain it was the most beautiful that I’ve seen all year, or perhaps in several years!

I’m only sorry that we have so many electric wires criss crossing the street. They marred the view and my photos.Â Oh well … it’s still lovely.

I won a prize!

August 29, 2008 by Tricia

Guess what? I won a fantastic prize!

Big Jason from the Big Marketing Online Blog started what he called “The largest blog contest ever” sometime in mid-July. I entered the contest at the end of the month by doing several of the requested tasks in order to build up my entries and earlier this week Jason informed me that I was a prize winner.

Not only did he write to tell me that I’d won a prize, but a few days later he wrote to me again to list my top five choices. So I kind of picked out my own prize from the huge assortment of goodies he was giving away.

I decided that I wanted StoreStacker. It’s a program that allows you to build multiple affiliate stores. What does that mean? Well … you can set up an online store in minutes that will sell products from Amazon, Ebay, Overstock and several other large companies. You can set up a store (or stores!) that sell a wide range of products, or if you have a niche site, like say my gardening blog, you can set up a store that sells products that cater to your sites niche.

I downloaded my prize and all of it’s components yesterday, but I haven’t had a chance to install it or set up a store yet. I’m dying to try it!

I’ve just been too busy. Chris is on holidays and that’s kind of taken me out of my routine, plus our dogs been so hyper lately! It’s crazy here. With Midnight jumping around on the furniture and up at us I just can’t get anything done. Even worse, she managed to make a little rip in our leather couch yesterday! Grrr. Well … maybe with the new stores that I’ll be setting up I’ll make enough affiliate income that I’ll be able to got to a home furniture and pick out a new couch? Nah .. the rips only tiny .. I’ll spend my earnings on other goodies or better yet pay the bills!

I’m So Unspectacular

August 27, 2008 by Tricia

My Toronto blogger friend, Lyndon from Lyndonology, tagged me last week with the Six Unspectacular Quirks meme.

I don’t do this kind of meme very often, but sometimes they are kind of fun and I think they give readers a better idea of who the blogger is, so I decided I’d give it a whirl.

If you’d like to participate in this meme go right ahead. Here’s the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules.
3. Tell six unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag six bloggers by linking.
5. Leave a comment for each blogger.

I’m going to leave out rule 4 and 5 because if I tag others I’ll just end up getting more tags! LOL

I think I have a lot of quirks so picking out just 6 won’t be easy! Let’s see …

1. I really like my feet being tickled. Not the tickle to make you laugh until you can’t breath kind of tickle … just nice gentle tickles with the tips of your fingers. It’s sooooo relaxing. I married Chris because he’s a good tickler. Ok I married him for other reasons too, but that was on the list. 😉

2. When I was a baby I went through a period where the only way my parents could get me to sleep was to put me on my stomach and pat my bum until I was bouncing like a basketball. I’d fall asleep that way and start crying as soon as they stopped! They’d have to take turns bouncing me for hours! Strangely enough I can now fall asleep without having my bum patted.

3. I detested – really really hated! peanut butter all my life. Just the smell of it would make me nauseated, but … a couple of months ago I got a craving for it and I now eat it regularly.

4. I don’t like most reality shows, but I think I’m secretly addicted to America’s Got Talent. I guess it isn’t a secret anymore.

5. My regular and casual visitors likely already know I like dogs and probably realize that I’m an animal lover, but did you know that I love reptiles? I kept reptiles for decades. We currently only have an Eastern Box Turtle and an Ornate Box Turtle, but we’ve had as many as 9 lizards and the two turtles at the height of our reptile keeping days. Back in 1995 I started my first website “Tricia’s Chinese Water Dragon, Reptile and Amphibian Care Page“. Yeah I’ve come up with better names for my sites since then, but that one’s accurate in it’s description. It’s a huge website that gets 1000’s of visitors each day and it’s had over 15 million page views since I started tracking stats. I’ll bet you never thought there’d be that many people seeking reptile care info, did ya? I’ll also bet that you didn’t know I’m a reptile guru!

6. When I was a child my parents had trouble getting me to eat my vegetables. Somehow my mom figured out that I’d eat some veggies, that most people like better cooked, raw. These days I’ll eat most veggies (cooked), but I still don’t mind eating things like Potatoes and turnip raw – in fact I think I prefer them that way!

Ok so was that unbelievably unspectacularly quirky enough for you? Feel free to do this meme on your blog or better yet leave me a comment with one of your unspectacular quirks!

________________________________________________

Earlier today I received an award from a blogger who clams she’s mainly a lurker. I love it when I’ve made a post that finally gets a reader to leave a comment or better yet, as in this case, give me an award that says:

Thank you Wendy! When I went to visit Wendy’s site, The Domestiquette I discovered that she’d given the award to 5 other great blogs which will now become part of my reading list, along with Wendy’s blog of course! BTW I’ve been to Wendy’s site before in my travels, but I’ll try to get there a little more often.

BTW Wendy I hope your internet connection gets better!

Like the previous tag I believe I’m supposed to pick out blogs I’d like to give the award to, but there are so many blogs that I really love! It’s too hard! So I think I’ll pass on that part of the tag, but if you’d like to award some of your favorite blogs with this award go ahead and copy the award image (do not link to it!) and give it out to your favs.

So what are your quirks? This inquiring mind wants to know!

Happy Birthday Midnight!

August 25, 2008 by Tricia

Our little fur daughter is growing up! She’s, apparently, one year old today.

I say apparently because when I first spoke with the breeder on the phone she told me the puppies were born on September 7th, 2007, but a few days later when we drove out of the city to the farm and picked her out of the 12 to 14 puppies that were playing in the pen of a huge barn she gave me papers that said Midnight was born August 26th. Then … about two months later we finally received her official Canadian Kennel Club papers (since she was registered as a purebred Labrador Retriever) the papers said August 25th.

See why we’re confused? I think something fishy was going on at that farm. The parents we met were both yellow labs yet the majority of the puppies were black females. I know it’s possible for two yellow labs to have black pups, but with all the confusion about the date of birth we feel that the breeder probably had two or three litters on the go. Plus, as it turns out we got a very sick puppy! We discovered on the first full day that she was with us (November 24th) that she had a gastro infection, a heavy infestation of round worms and later she also developed an ear infection and an eye infection.

Here she is on her second day with us, November 25th, 2007, when she was just 13 weeks old:

I can hardly believe she was ever that small – and oh so cute! She looks like a toy!

I guess Midnight lucked out, because we treat her well. Took her to the vet on the first day she was here when we realized something was wrong and she’s fed dog food with only natural organic ingredients. She’s got it made!

So … what do you get a dog on it’s first birthday?

She has tons of toys and tasty treats … We were thinking that we’d have BBQ’d steak for dinner and give her a portion as a special treat. We have given her grilled steak and chicken before as well as plain veggies, but we don’t give her these kind of foods too often. Hopefully this doesn’t cause more gas – she’s still got that problem, I think it’s her hormones since she’s in heat right now.

I think Midnight started celebrating her birthday early …

We had her out in the garden on Saturday and she loved being able to roam around the yard while we sat at the patio table. She also enjoyed rolling in the grass!

Oh and this was Midnight on November 25th at 13 weeks during her first visit to the backyard. As you can see she’s exploring the garden. I think she found a small green pepper that had fallen off the dying plant (of course we took it away from her).

You’ve come a long way Midnight! Now if we can just teach her to stay off the home theater seating with her bones everything will be great!

A nice relaxing long weekend

I won a prize!

I’m So Unspectacular

Happy Birthday Midnight!

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