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Even though I’m on vacation my day started early. REALLY early. As in, 3 am when I was woken up by a very contrite puppy who had just wet the bed. MY bed. It was my fault- I usually take her out around 11:30 and she’s good until 6:30, but I fell asleep before ten and I guess she couldn’t hold it. Oh well. I cleaned the mattress and changed the sheets and I was able to get another couple hours in before it was time to get Sym up for her second-last day of school.

After I dropped her off I met up with Taylor and we walked our soggy doggies in the rain. They both got muddy and needed baths when we got home, which they weren’t happy about. Georgie in particular is not a fan of tubtime and whined her puppy face off. One the dogs were all dried off we went out for brunch, then relaxed on the couch and watched the season 4 opener of Burn Notice, which we are like, OBSESSED with right now. We watched the first three seasons in just a couple of weeks!

Once it was over it was well past Taylor’s bedtime, so he went to sleep. I was going to do all kinds of stuff like cleaning the floors and taking out the trash and doing dishes, but that didn’t happen. Instead I read on the couch and eventually fell asleep in a pile of blankets, pillows and dogs. Luckily I remembered to set an alarm to wake up in time to pick up Sym! Now she’s playing on her room and I’m doing all the dishes and cleaning I missed by sleeping all afternoon. So today was kind of a waste, but also kind of awesome.

I also spent some time looking at old photos and found this cute picture of me and Symphony at Vera’s Burger Shack from 2007.

Hahaha I love it. Of course, like every time I look at old pictures now I want to do my hair dark again. It looks so good!!

I cannot get over this cute friendship between Dougal and Georgie! Unfortunately Kichou doesn’t want to be part of my cool dog gang and sulks and hides under the couch all the time. Georgie is a big (tiny) bully though, always picking on him and pulling his hair.

Poor Kichou! Hopefully they can work through their issues and become friends. I can’t be mad at her though; she’s too kissy and fuzzy.

This week’s popsicle party was actually late. On Friday night we ordered pizza and watched Castle in the Sky and I was too tired to get into popsicle making. I figured if we made them Saturday morning they’d be frozen enough by the afternoon for us to try them.

I chose the flavour this time: Watermelon!

We bought watermelon/strawberry juice to help liquid it up.

Symphony helped with the melon balling process.

pre-blend

post-blend

The finished product.

I’m not gonna lie: these popsicles sucked. It might be because the watermelon was past its awesome date- it was a little desiccated in places. We didn’t use those parts but the whole flavour was kind of off. These might be better with a fresher, juicier melon so I might try making them again later this summer.

Half Broke Horses 46/104; The Brief History of the Dead
47/104; Catching Fire 48/104

I loved all of these books! I knew after reading The Glass Castle that I wanted to read Half Broke Horses as well and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. Kevin Brockmeier has been one of my favorite authors since I read his short story collection The View from the Seventh Layer a couple of years ago. Catching Fire is the sequel to The Hunger Games and I’ve been itching to read it for months. It suffers a little from second-book-of-a-trilogy syndrome but it’s still good, and now I’m more excited to read the final book, Mockingjay, than ever.

Georgie stepped in some poop and needed a small bath because she’s going to Sym’s school for Show & Tell today.

While going through my old tumblr posts the other day, one of the awesome things I rediscovered was this picture of pony & unicorn plushes by Fantastic Toys.

Unfortunately there aren’t any unicorns available now, but I was happy to learn that you can buy PDF papercraft playsets! For just $4 I got this adorableness:

So cute! I’m going to go buy some cardstock and as soon as I get my file I have a fun new project to work on with Sym!

Some things Georgie loves:

my Cardi Uggs

Taylor’s Sumo beanbag chair

her bff Dougal

this little Owlet toy from Urban Outfitters

Something I love:

Georgie ♥

This was stuck in my door at 8:30 this morning:

Dear Residents,

Notice of Water Supply Interruption

The water boiler at your building has failed. Arrangements have been made for the immediate replacement of the boiler by [redacted]. The work is expected to take about 5 to 7 hours to complete and will begin this morning. We expect to have hot water service restores by the end of the day. If you need any additional information about the work to be done please contact [redacted].

Yours truly,
Assistant Property Manager

FIVE to SEVEN hours with no hot water, with no notice. THANKS BOILER!

Now, I could get all cranky and irritated about this, but instead I’m going to look at the bright side:
• because Georgie and Claire woke me up at the crack of dawn with their kitty puppy shenanigans, I had a bath and shaved my legs when there was still hot water (Taylor came home from work expecting to have a shower but NO DICE).
• with no hot water I can’t do the dishes or clean the floors, which means I don’t have to do the dishes and clean the floors
• there’s still cold water so we can still wash our hands and use the facilities, otherwise I would have had to close down and refund money to all my inconvenienced clients.

This is what I wish I was doing right now. I’m SO TIRED!

Sunday I had a nice day with Taylor, we walked puppies, did a little shopping and lazed on the couch eating humous and watching Burn Notice (which we are recently obsessed with). I also did the nicest thing ever- I got up early and while Taylor was still sleeping I order him a Kindle as a late anniversary/early birthday present. Of course this turned out to be a bad idea when the price dropped $70 yesterday morning but after talking to three different customer service reps (amazon.ca, amazon.com, and Kindle-specific) and spending a total of 30 minutes on hold listening to the worst hold music ever, I secured a refund for the price difference. Seriously though, if you are thinking of buying a KindleDO IT because they are cheap as heck now.

This morning I learned that in all likelihood, building maintenance WILL be tearing out my wall to fix that weeping pipe problem. I’m hoping to arrange to have it done next week, because next week I AM ON VACATION. Yay, summer vacation! We aren’t going anywhere, I’m just taking a week off of work so I can do stuff like Sleep Later Than 6:30, Start Going to the Gym Again, Refinish Some Furniture and Maybe Get a Sweet Tan. Basically just not work. I really need this, I’m completely exhausted and frazzled and sick of wiping noses and breaking up fights over plastic cars. Maybe after my vacation all the kids will be over the endless summer colds and snotterfalls that have been making the rounds for the past month. I just need to make it through three and a half more days and then I’m freeeeeee!

Sometimes we like to pretend we are a cheesy commercial family and have a ~family fun night~ where we play a board game or watch a Studio Ghibli film. Last night was actually more of a Taylor & Symmie fun night.

It is so cute when they bond. Afterwards Sym was all pink-cheeked and worn out, she wanted me to dab her face with a damp cloth, haha.

While their fun was going on I was doing other stuff- before they started playing I made a lime & ginger grilled chicken salad for dinner (I made the chicken ahead of time) since it was too hot to cook actual food.

I also did all the work for popsicle party. This week was Pink Lemonade & Raspberry.

6 oz of raspberries, fill to 1 1/2 cups with pink lemonade & blend.

Because I didn’t add any sugar these were not very sweet at all. Very very raspberry though.

Sym approved. She ended up getting it all over her face but she’s going to her grandma’s house today and needed to have a shower anyway.

Requisite puppy.