Count your blessings

Well the week went fast and the weekend faster. No matter if you make plans, things are bound to make them go awry. Last Sunday was just that day.

Started off like any other Sunday, a wee little sleep in, a bit of breakfast, pottering round, until a strange little black dog wandered into our yard, mind you the gates were closed, but it found its way in to play with Molly and Lucky.

We had no idea who it belonged to so decided to grab a lead and walk up the street to ask a few people. As we were over outside a friends house talking another friend who was walking a rottweiler came down the road. We were about 20 feet even more away and the rottie saw the little black dog and went ballistic. She had no way of holding on and it dragged her the distance across the road and straight for the little black dog.

Without thinking Mike picked up the little dog and as the rottie came flying through the air at him to get the dog, Mike raised his arm and span away trying to deflect the attack and unfortunately was bitten under the arm and on the chest, kind of under the breast plate area.

It all happened so quickly, our friend with the rottie was in hysterics, but she got the dog in check and we told her to just go. I actually hadn't realised at that stage that Mike had been bitten until I saw his shirt and singlet ripped open and he wouldn't let his hand leave his chest. He said he felt like he was burnt and it looked nasty so I raced back home, put the little black dog in the backyard with our two and grabbed the car to take Mike to the emergency at the hospital in the next town.

He had started to bleed at that stage and I think I made the 20 minute journey in about 10. They cleaned his wound, gave him a tetanus, bandaged him up and told him how lucky he was. No stitches needed but hopefully with the fake skin stuff they put over it, it will heal itself. Actually when the nurse winced when she saw it, it didn't give me much confidence. When a nurse winces it doesn't feel all that great.

So he's healing okay now, still very stiff and sore. And I think it's now more the "what if's". What if it was a little kid with the little black dog. What if it was an elderly person walking the little black dog. What if it was me who was holding the little black dog. I think I would have frozen. Mike's quick instincts in deflecting the full on attack is what saved him from a worse injury.

We hadn't even made our way home from the hospital and our friend's uncle came to meet up with us to let us know the rottie had already been put down, at their request.

One crazy Sunday morning where all hell broke loose and we counted our blessings it wasn't worse than it was.

PS: Oh and the outcome to the little black dog saga. We got home ready to deal with the little dog and it was gone. Just as it had broken in to our yard, it broke out the very same way. Mike said, "well that's about right, I go and save it's $%#)&^! life and it pisses off on me". So wherever you are little black dog, you were lucky you had my man there by your side.

We wasted the weekend

We could have been painting. But Saturday went by in the blink of an eye with not a brush to be held. So Sunday comes and Mike gets up on the ladder and down it came.

The rain.
Not the ladder.
Heavens forbid.

So about one foot of undercoat of the top trim was about all that the weekend amounted to.

I did however garden on Saturday. Quite a foreign word for me. I don't garden. The plants we've had here have just grown. I don't water them. They've just been there. Goodness knows, they've never been fertilised or tended with care. I've never quite understood the people who would say "oooooh I can't wait for the weekend, I'm going to spend the entire time in the garden".

Are they crazy? Dirt under their fingernails? Yuck. Creepy crawlies. Yuck.

And yet here I was tending to the soil and planting plants with a frenzy. I've planted alyssum, columbine, stock and bright coloured geraniums in pots on the verandah. I kept going out there today to see if anything had happened. But they're still there. They haven't keeled over during the night. Now I'm waiting for an order of bulbs to come in and there'll be crocus, freesia and snowbells added to the mix.

Our little house is starting to have the cottage feel I've always wanted. I've even put a wicker chair on the verandah. Okay, so it's not a rocking chair, I didn't stoop that low to be so cliched!

I had a play the other day with a technique which was a lot of fun. Kind of Andy Worhol like. It's hard to get a smile out of number 1 stepson, he's so serious. He won't even remember this photograph, he'd had a few drinks at his sister's 18th birthday party and I snapped at the right moment. It will make a great addition to his album I will give him for his 21st birthday next year, just pages of him. Mike thinks boys won't appreciate a gift like this, like girls will, but I think he's wrong. I think that to see yourself in a glossy bound book will be something he'll like. We'll see anyway.

Credits here.

Off to bed for me. Have a big day tomorrow. Have to do a total of about 5 hours driving round trip, just for a 2 hour meeting. Ick.

Work week is over

Oh how I love my Friday nights. Mike has watched the last episode of Shogun tonight, it's been on Austar all week and he's thoroughly enjoyed it.

I've been packaging up my little easter goodies in time for the easter bunny ;-) Every year I like to do something different and this year I've parcelled up bags of chocolate coated peanuts, sultanas, almonds, clinkers, maltesers and bullets, and labelled them "bunny poo" !!! hahaha I've also tagged them with a picture of a bunny and a little verse:

The Easter Bunny came last night
So listen here's the scoop
He left a special treat for you
A bag of bunny poop!

They look great. But can I say just how darn quick this year is already going. And I've not succumbed before now to buying a hot cross bun, but I did today. I had staunchly refused not to get any until my first one on Good Friday, but walking past Bakers Delight today I couldn't resist that spicy fruity smell. Breakfast will be a fine fare tomorrow ;-)

Sharon has another PAD set out at twolittlepixels for all those people doing a photo a day project. I love that it's a quick and easy (not to mention clean) way of displaying photos. They're coming in handy for our home improvement layouts.

I need to dispell the rumour that Mike is doing all the painting, I'm certainly doing my fair share too. Fashion is not pretty when painting is involved. You can see here the green of the house previously and the very crisp clean creamy colour it's becoming. It's still a shock when I drive round the corner up to our house, I still get a start when I see how bright it looks.

I'm still very much enjoying the process and we hope to get another big chunk of the side done this weekend. My brother and his family are coming down on Easter Saturday and he doesn't know we've changed the colour of the house. It's amost a race for me now to get as much done before then, just to see the expression on his face. It will be priceless.

So I can't believe I'm saying this, but lets cross fingers there's no rain this weekend.

Oh and I've even planted a garden out the front now. Mind you I don't like gardening, not one bit. But it's been a bit desolate out the front for a while, with only some wild and old roses for colour. I've ordered a stack of bulbs which I'm yet to receive - freesias, crocus and snowdrops. So to date I've only put alyssum in amongst the rocks (our garden area is lined with big rocks, courtesy of our rocky countryside around here). Much like the rocks in the stone walls.

So lets hope it all takes off and adds some colour to the front. My potted geraniums I put together last weekend certainly look very pretty, bright reds and pinks. So they've instantly added some appeal.

Well that's it from me tonight, off to bed.

Happy Birthday to Lucky

He's 2 years old today, my little buddy boy. I gave him a giggle ball. A very hard ball (heck it even had a Jack Russell pictured on the front of the package) with a giggly sound that it made when jiggled, although quite frankly it sounded like a duck more so. Anyway within oh about 2 minutes ... destroyed! He'd gotten the plug thing out, the giggling mechanism gone, and was quite enjoying chomping into the ball. Oh well. He had 2 minutes of absolute pure enjoyment.

Credits here.

Quite frankly, both of us couldn't imagine life without him.

Miss Molly Moo

You are so going to get sick of me talking about the menagerie, but how can I help it when they are such a big part of my life. Here's the journey we were on last month but with a very happy ending. :-)

Ouch, they turned out a little bit big. Oh well.

Off to Ballarat for work tomorrow so it's an early start so to bed I go.

Sunday round up

Well even though we're in the middle of a long weekend here for Labour Day Monday public holiday, we were planning on 3 days of solid painting with the aim of getting the side of the house finished. Except it hasn't stopped raining, maybe oh for five minutes. It's raining cats and dogs out there at the moment. Nothing like the hail storm that Melbourne got, I was amazed when I saw the photographs in the Sun newspaper today.

Step son number 1 called in today on his way home to Melbourne. He has bought himself a car. And it's a gorgeous bright blue number. Of course I took photos! No more bike riding for him, at least not at this stage. He finds out on Tuesday whether his arm needs to be re-broken. Fingers crossed it won't. He said he's feeling good with it at the moment. We'll wait and see what the doctor says.

He really is so much like his dad, and when I took this photo I knew the flannies would have to take centre stage.

Credits here.

Amson asked about Molly in the comments. Thanks for asking. She's come along brilliantly. Must admit though these dissolving stitches dissolved I guess to a certain extent but that last one with the knot wasn't budging. It got to the stage last week actually I said right, I sat down on the floor and Molly came over and lay next to me with her head in my lap, I took a big breath and with the very blunt nail scissors went snip. Whew! I did have her head in a firm grip in case she moved. I picked my time though, it was late and she was sleepy.

So I went to pull at the stitch thinking it would pull out. Not to be. Arrrrgh. Mike came to hold her in case she got a fright, I held my hand over her eyelid area and with the other one I pulled more firmly and out it came.

And now she looks as good as new. There's a tiny little pucker where the cut must have been but if you didn't know you wouldn't see it. I'll post photos tomorrow.

A bit of dog psychology though which I thought interesting. If I'm sitting on the floor with Molly, Lucky has to come and just about jump all over us, not to be outdone, because it would be the worst thing in the world if Molly got more pats than he! But it was like he knew not to this time, I had my serious face on. He just came and sat up on the bed and watched. Not nudging me, not wanting to intrude, just watch.

I tell you, if people say that dogs aren't intelligent, they have no idea what they're talking about.

Off to watch V on telly. Mike promises it will be good. I'll hold him to that.

Tuesday

Hey, two posts in two days, that's a record for me of late.

I mentioned at the start of the year we were painting the house. We're still enjoying it, but it's slow going, being that both of us work full-time. But a bit here and there at the end of the day being that it's day light saving, and weekends and days off, it's adding up. The front is all painted up now and we're starting on the side. YAY! I'm still not getting up on the ladder, the foot stool is high enough for me.

We've also got a new light for the front. We had a bare bulb up in the middle of the verandah, very ugly. We've had the electrician rewire so now have a lovely cream coloured coach light on the front wall next to the door.

Credits here.

I was able to one of Sharon's P365 Simple Sets templates here, which just goes to show these templates are completely versatile for multi-picture layouts, not necessarily for P365.

Time for bed. Over and out.

I'm not updating very well am I?

Gosh, another week gone by and I've only just made it in by the skin of my teeth. And sorry friends, no Abba/boa photos. There would have been on sitting in the audience at the show before it started, but as I asked the lady in front to look back and take our photo, I got told off by the usher. Apparently no photos to be taken inside the Majestys. Hmmmph. The show hadn't even started.

So I ended back in Melbourne again on Thursday and Friday for work. I got an overnighter which was nice. I even rode the trams ON MY OWN! (mind you I wouldn't have been that brave had we not done so the weekend before). Plus best news of the lot, Myer was open until 8pm, so what's a girl to do on her own in Melbourne? But shop once more!

Got to love the 50% off the already reduced price racks.

creashens has a very fun monthly page, perfect for Project 365's in the shop right now, her swell sets are great, you not only get the quick page, but the layered files if you feel that way inclined, plus the extra goodies to place wherever you like. Great value. Because I'm not doing the P365 this year, I thought I would use the template in a different way to document some photos from last year. This is from Swell Set No.6.