Mischief Monday - Too Scary - by Lee

Dear pals,

The scariest thing happened here on Boxing Day. The Man, with Uncle Chris' help, decided to climb up the walls like evil squirrels to change some lightbulbs.

I was terrified, the Man who hates heights was terrified, Phod was so scared he went and hid by the front door not to watch.

I can't watch

The Lady found Uncle Chris and the Man very amusing during this. They had some very different opinions about ladder placement and such. Uncle Chris also made very helpful statements like "The ladder is too scary, you need a better ladder" (the ladder is new and perfectly safe). The Man and Uncle Chris did agree this was the stupidest idea for light fixtures (they were on the wall when the peeps bought the house).

In the end, 4/8 light bulbs that could be changed were. The Man did not feel comfortable climbing another rung to reach the top 2. The Lady said as long as there was not a trip to the hospital it was a success.

Cousin Emma being brave but being told to go away!

The Man hopes the lightbulbs burn a very, very long time! Lady is proud of him for overcoming his fear and doing what he could.

Welcome to Paradise

4 years ago today we took possession of our country "estate" which is on a road called Paradise. We moved in the next day. We went from living in about 1500 square feet in the city to 4200 square feet on 2 acres (we have since purchased a 3rd) in rural Quebec. It was an adjustment and there are days it feels too far away, but overall, it was the right decision for our pack.

At BAR (the Blogville retreat) the Man made a comment about our house that was too big for 2 people. Since then I have tried a lot of things to get videos to work to show the house, but have abandoned that for pictures.

Here is the tour.

This is the entryway (or foyer - correctly pronounced as foy-yay and not foyer - it is a French word and I do now live in the French province so feel I should let everyone know). The door on the left is the closet and the right is the garage. 

Standing with my back to the front door - garage on left, past it the doorway is the master bedroom. The hall to the right goes to the bathroom and kitchen/dining room.

In the garage - we have a 2+ car garage, it is about 1000 square feet. In the summer we park the cars outside.

 The bedroom - notice how the bed is made, that is because Hailey has gone and helped to remake it correctly:)

Looking across the house from our bedroom, you see the dining room.

This is our main bathroom is. It has been described as "unnecessarily large" and a friend once complained he felt lonely in there alone!

Standing at the door looking in

Standing at the door looking to the right.

Standing at the toilet looking across.

Here is the dining room area. It is 30 feet long I believe.

The sitting area between the dining room and kitchen, aka Hailey's spot. You can see our bedroom door across the house.

The kitchen  - I was standing by the sitting area when I took this picture.  You may notice some tools and a bucket. We are currently having dishwasher issues. We tried to fix it, but alas, will need a repair man.

The living room from above. This picture was also taken by the sitting area.

This picture was taken from the far end of the dining room.

Behind the fireplace in the basement is the Games room.

Right in front of the desk on the left is the door to the guest room. We have a queen and a double bed in the room.

If you look at the picture of the Games room, you will see a door in the back left corner. That is the door to the small bathroom (and the laundry room is behind it, but not pictured).

The missing rooms are - at the bottom of the stairs is Lady's office. If you look at the living room you will see a door to the left of the TV. That door goes to the second garage. This room is unfinished (gravel basement). This is where we store the wood and the holiday decorations.

I hope you have enjoyed this tour.

Mischief Monday - Dishwasher wars

First let me start by saying, neither the Man nor I are very handy. We try, but aren't that successful.

Now of all the chores one has to do to keep your house in order, dishes is the least favourite for both of us. It is the one that gets left the longest. We are people who really need a dishwasher. We have also had bad luck with dishwashers. We had problems at our old house and starting last summer, we started having problems at this house. The problems got so bad, that since around Christmas we haven't had a working machine. To say it has been awful, is an understatement. It has made me so grumpy . . . . .

Finally, several weeks ago, we had the money for a new machine. We researched lots of machines to find a great one in our price point. We ordered it. I worked from home on Thursday so it could get delivered. I was so, so excited. I thought to myself, I can install this, so started the processes.

Nin in the dishwasher box

Problem one: We needed a joiner for the hose. Man picked one up at the store on his way home.

Problem two: Man cut the drainage hose and had to go to another store to get a replacement.

Problem three: The joiner for the hose fit but it kept leaking. We realized we needed plumbers tape after the local stores were closed (we live far out of the city and really didn't want to go back in). Fortunately the neighbour (who is totally handy by the way, he built his own house) had some.

2.5 hours later, 3 trips for supplies and a lot of HBO words, we had the sucker ready to run.

Lee taking her turn in the box

Imagine the horror when part way through the first run we got an error message. A look in the book showed it was the worst message to get. For some reason the machine is getting too much water and shutting itself off. What is weird is this seems to be happening at the very end of the rinse cycle (or near the last rinse) as the dishes are actually clean but really wet. While it may not be good, we are using it as we wait to get the repair guy to come and look at it. I can't live any long without a machine.




Hopefully we will have a fully working machine soon!


Where were the pets during all this fun?
Baggy slept on the couch.
Nin got in the box.
Phod hid by the front door.
Lee tired to help.

Feline Friday - Laundry Inspector

Just checking to make sure the towels are washed and folded to my liking

You get a B+ - they could be warmer

Bagheera, the inspector

Phody and his addiction and answers to questions

Zaphod has become a fetch-o-holic. As soon as it looks like we are going to go outside this is what he does:

Lady, we are forgetting something

I know the ball is in here. Let's get it. 

Because he is spoiled, the ball goes out with us almost every time we go. The only exceptions are walk time (which he knows because he goes on leash) and if we are going to the beach and sometimes with the Man.  I, the Lady, am too soft and takes it with them, even in the dark.

What is good about Phody, is even with the ball he will go and do his business.  With the me he is getting to play ball 4 or 5 times per day. All this extra exercise has him losing a little too much weight, so we have had to increase his food consumption!

Answers to some questions that have shown up in our comments:

We live in rural Quebec, Canada. We live just north of Canada's Capital Ottawa in the Gatineau Hills (if you want to look on a map we are about 30 km or 18 miles north of the city).
We have 2 acres of land.
We have lived here since August 2012.
We are very lucky that the dogs can eat that close. Phody does need to watch Hailey because she is always done first and does try and steal his food. If, on rare occasion, he steps away or lifts his head up, she will get in it and the gentleman that Phody is will just stand their with sad eyes.

Have as great a day you can because it is Thursday (I do not like a Thursday)!

Gardening

We spent some time on Saturday helping our Lady in the garden while the man was trying to fix the lawn mower. Our Lady does not have a green thumb, but she is going to try this out. We think with our help she will do great.

We thought we would give you a tour of our backyard. We don't go there much. The pictures of us playing outside are usually in the front yard.

 Here is Lee checking out the hill behind garden. The Lady has planted 2 tomatoes, 2 strawberries, 2 cabbages and 2 red peppers. This will probably be it for this year. We want to see if she can keep those alive!

Here is the back of the house. The people are so excited that they will be staining that 69 foot deck soon. The part that is wider is off the dining room.

Note: The picture from Sunday's post was taken just after this one. Phody was so happy because he and Hailey got to wrestle and he thinks he won.

Our house has 2 garages. There is one to the side of the house and this one in the basement. If you look at the picture above this is between the 2 pillars on the far right of the shot. It is also messy. There are empty boxes from our move, the Christmas decorations, the patio furniture, which the people don't want to put up until they get the staining done and the wood for our fireplace (this enters on to the living room too so good location for the wood!)

This is some of the trees behind our place.  You can see the hill is steep and why we don't play back here as much. 

If you are standing behind the house facing it this is on the right. it is the septic field. Our Lady has done a great job at growing dandelions here! Here dream is to put a low maintenance flower garden here eventually. She may pick up a few plants to get this started as the spring goes on. 

You can see our Man's car peaking out on the left. He was parked in the driveway, hoping it would rains and clean his car!

 This is to the left of the house. Here Phod is looking to see if the grass the Man planted has started to grow. We aren't allowed to play on this right now.

Thanks for coming on our tour with us! Have a great day. 

The New Bedtime Routine and a Tour of our Bathroom

Our Lady has created a new bedtime routine for us that goes something like this.

First she gets all the tools ready.

"You are gonna do this again?"

Next she brushes our teeth.

You don't really want to do this Lady and you don't need to sing that silly song while you do it.

Then it is brush time and time for our tick check.

Phod: "My favourite part."

Because Hailey is terrified of the metal brush we have to use the kong brush on her.
 It works but it doesn't capture the hair so the floor ends up looking like this.

She does this all in the bathroom so we will give you a tour of our bathroom. It is something like 14 feet by 14 feet in size. It is huge. It is bigger then Lady and Man's bedroom at the old house.

Here is the vanity. If you look behind the towels you will see where she keeps our toothbrushes and toothpaste.

With her back to the far corner of the vanity you can see the shower stall and the tub.

This is the view from the shower stall. The toilet is way over there. 

Just for some perspective here is a shot from the door (which is beside the vanity).

The young man who built the house dreamed of putting seating and a fireplace in the middle of the bathroom like a spa. Our Lady and Man don't know if they will do that. They like the space for grooming us. When our people are in the bathroom we tend to lay on the mats by the shower or tub and wait for them. When the Lady and Man's friends use the bathroom for the first time they always make comments like "that is unnecessarily large" or their favourite "I felt lonely in there." 

Our Lady didn't like the green wall at first when they moved in. But since Man won't let her paint since she turned us yellow that time she painted, she has learned to live with it. In a few years it will need to be painted with everything else and then she will make it blue.

Have a great day everyone!