Category Archives: Pets and Husbands

Bits & Pieces

Some pictures from this quiet, rainy afternoon:

Monogram

I saw this adorable customizable monogram from The Wedding Chicks on Sometimes Sweet this morning and IMMEDIATELY knew I needed one. I want to put it up in my bedroom (is that cheesy? yes, but I don’t care) but the colours were wrong so I tweaked it a little, and then printed it out on some nice paper I tore out of a sketchbook and trimmed to size.

Penny Hartz

Yesterday I FINALLY set up my new computer. It’s a little different that my old one and it’s taking some getting used to, but so far I love it. The real question is how long can I keep my desk clean? (The answer: probably not long)

Do Work

This purple-on-purple banner is getting ready for a wedding in Los Angeles next month. My motto these days is basically “Always Be Ombre-ing!”

Shop Stickers

Teeny-tiny stickers covered in teeny-tiny bunting.

Dog Friends

Dougal and Georgie are still bffs. I love when they snuggle.

Sym in her Room

Sym had the day off school and spent most of it holed up in her room colouring. She was supposed to have her friend Ali over to play but she had an audition (you might have seen Ali in last Friday’s Fringe episode. Hint: she was the only kid).

Sym's Nails

Sym wanted me to post a picture of her Valentine’s Day manicure to show the colours she chose- normally I’d save this for Monday but I’m too happy about the fact that she stopped biting her nails! We actually had to trim and file them last weekend because they were too long! I’m really proud of her for breaking the habit.

Paper Frog

She got this inflatable paper frog in a Kinder Egg, it’s so odd!

The Nap Room

These paper palm trees were leftover from Sym’s Luau birthday in 2008, but I recently unearthed them and put them up in the nap room.

New Life

Last summer the housepainters stomped all my plants to death, but the remains of my hydrangea somehow survived and it’s putting out little leaves! There’s hope for my garden yet.

Hallelujah

It’s here it’s here our new bed is here!!!

New Dog Bed

It was delivered yesterday afternoon but we weren’t able to set it up until almost 8 o’clock and let me tell you, the wait was A G O N Y. But do you know what ISN’T agony? My back. Yes, one night of sleeping on the new bed and my back already feels 75% better. AMAZING.

The new mattress is about fifty times thicker than the old one so one thing we need to do is buy some new sheets, since we only have one that really fits. Luckily, it’s my favorite one from my favorite bedding store, Bed. I’m bored with my current bedroom colour scheme so I already ordered a new duvet cover so I’ve been looking for colours that will go with it. Right now I’m looking at rhino, taupe and aqua.

New Bedroom Colour Scheme

The dogs have also been enjoying the new bed, but I think Georgie’s favorite was when we pulled the old mattress out and leaned it on the couch. She climbed up and slid down over and over, it was adorable.

Intrepid Georgie

So intrepid!

Birthday All Weekend

It was my birthday on Sunday, and we celebrated (sort of) all weekend. Unfortunately even though I’ve made a habit of bringing my camera with me everywhere, I haven’t exactly made a habit of USING it, so there aren’t many pictures.

Friday Night
We were supposed to have dinner and watch a movie, but I felt really sick for some reason so I skipped dinner. We watched the original Hairspray and I got to teach Sym about racism, segregation, and the Civil Rights movement!

Saturday
Sym wanted to make me breakfast in bed, but eating in bed with three dogs is problematical, so I settled for breakfast in the kitchen. Taylor made birthday pancakes, including a unicorn one for me.

Birthday Pancakes

After breakfast Sym and I went out shopping for craft and baking supplies.

Sym Out Shopping

Instead of a cake, Sym and I made Chocolate Chip Cookie/Oreo/Brownie bars.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Oreo Brownie Bar, with Ice Cream
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My piece was topped with a Cake Candelabra!

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I enjoyed blowing out the candles.

Sunday
Jenn picked Taylor and I up for brunch at Locus, and then she and I went to the Absolute Spa for $75 pedicures (I had a $150 gift card I got as a goodbye gift from a former client). I got OPI’s Animal-istic from the Muppet Collection, it’s so pretty!.

OPI Animalistic Pedicure

They also gave us champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, too bad we can’t go all the time!

Presents
From Symphony, a giant hand-made card & two bottles of Essie polish: Shine of the Times and Master Plan.

Birthday Card
Essie Shine of the Times & Master Plan

From Taylor, Dominion Intrigue. I got him the original game for Christmas and promised to play it with him when I thought it was a board game, but as it turns out it’s a card game. At first I was worried it would be too complicated or boring or nerdy, but it’s actually really fun!

Dominion Intrigue

We played using some of the cards from this game on Saturday and I DECIMATED him.

From Jenn, a sweet little Rebecca Minkoff pouch.

Beach House Fund

She gave it to me at brunch and I STUPIDLY left it at the restaurant, so when we were on our way to the spa we kicked Taylor out of the car to go back and get it and he had to take the train home. I’M SO MEAN.

I also got some giftcards and money, which are always appreciated, as well as an absurd about of “Happy Birthday!” posts on my facebook, so thank you everyone! Turning thirty-five was actually pretty good!

On My Birthday

Pet Party

Georgie and Claire were being extra cute and playful last night.

Georgie
Georgie Nose
Pineapple Upsidedown Cat
Georgie Paws
Claire
Attack Formation
Side Eyeing You TBH

Yesterday I noticed Geogie was scratching herself a lot, and she’d actually started pulling out clumps of hair and the skin on her shoulders was all red and bothered. Poor thing! So of course I FREAKED OUT and woke Taylor up to take her to the vet. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing serious, which is great because WOW I can’t afford any more crazy vet bills after Claire!

Upsidedown

Upsidedown Dog

I’m So Ashamed

I can’t believe I forgot this, but today (ok, maybe tomorrow) is Dougal’s birthday! I tried to take a nice birthday picture with him but he flailed around like an idiot and kicked me with like, fifty limbs so I let him go.

The Birthday Dog

Scary stuff. Here he is as an adorable fat baby dog:

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaby Dougimals

Okay, still a little scary. Anyway. HAPPY 8th BIRTHDAY, DOUGAL!

Busy Bee

Sooooooo I’ve been busy recently with all kindsa stuff, here’s a small update on a few things.

Crafts
One of the custom banners I sold during my CAT AID sale was this delightful gem.

Feminist Killjoy

Last week the woman who bought it posted it on tumblr and it got almsot 2,000 notes. The picture was reblogged by STFU Conservatives and people FREAKED OUT over it. My etsy was blowin’ up, by which I mean I sold two and lots of people added my shop to their favourites. I even got a hater on tumblr saying my work was overpriced and juvenile and everyone should just make it themselves, it’s so easy! lol, whateverrrrrrrrrr fool.

I’m also still working on my resolution to make non-custom banners and over the weekend I finished this one.

C.R.E.A.M. Banner

C.R.E.A.M. (Cats Rule Everything Around Me) in gold with the same printed cat paper on the back as I used on the Forever Alone banner everyone loves so much. And speaking of cats…

Claire
Last week I took Claire into the vet for a fructosamine test and guess what… she’s great! Her blood sugar levels are good, her diabetes is in control, and her insulin dose (which is HALF what it was before she went into the hospital) is keeping her that way. So like, TAKE THAT, random internet creep who thought I should just let her die/put her down. WHO’S DIGNIFIED NOW???

Cat von Claire

Life
Life is just happening all the time! Sym is awesome, the dogs are just so doggish all the time (so is Claire, actually), and Taylor is as handsome and amazing as ever. Even when I’m down they all make me feel so much better. I could say more about how much I love my little family but I would probably go on forever and I have to get back to work soon. But first, some fine pet pictures from my phone.

Playtime
Dougalcorn
Cozy Friends
Best Frenemies

Enjoy the rest of your Monday!

Winter Wonderland

This winter had been really unbelievably mild so far, so when I saw that the forecast for this past weekend was all snow snow snow I was a little excited. Unfortunately even though it snowed on Friday night and off and on Saturday, it was also very sunny and by Sunday morning all we had left was a few sad patches of snow.

Winter Wonderland

Not very impressive. However, on Monday Mother Nature stepped up her game.

Actual Winter Wonderland

That’s more like it!! Of course I was working and couldn’t go out and enjoy it but Taylor and the dogs had fun.

Snow Dogs
Snow Husband

It stopped snowing fairly quickly and by the afternoon it already looked mostly like that first picture again, but that didn’t stop every fool in the city from throwing giant handfuls of that horrible blue chemical salt stuff all over the place. That stuff is the worrrrrrrrst, it kills plants and is toxic for pets, I don’t see why people can’t just shovel their walks, especially since we only got like, AN INCH of snow! Two Christmases ago Taylor and I went to Kelowna to visit his family, and there is WAYYYY more snow up there than there ever is here, and yet NO ONE in his moms’ neighbourhood salts, the just shovel and deal with it. I wish people here would do that.

We put booties on the dogs every time we took them out but I still had to wash their little salted feet, and my hands got totally chapped raw just from pulling their boots on and off. In fact, even though I washed my hands every time, at some point I put my fingers in my mouth and I got total salt-mouth and now I have an ulcer on my tongue O___o So gross, and I’m probably poisoned and going to die now.

ANYWAY. At least Kichou enjoyed himself (he looks grumpy here but he’s THRILLED).

Snow Kichou

The Only Cure

Well so far it seems like this week is gonna be as much of a butt as last week was, in fact, I’m going to go ahead and say it: 2012 SUCKS. Bring on the end of the world.

2012
My Body Is Ready

I’ve tried everything I can think of to get out of this funk but every day I feel crabbier and more miserable. Too crabby and miserable to blog, even. I have a bunch of real posts percolating in my brain, waiting to get typed up, but instead I’m going to post the only thing that I can: DOG PICTURES.

Popcorn Mooch
Side-Eye
Yawning
Profile

I was eating cheese popcorn the other night and Dougal was ON BOARD, like he REALLY wanted some. I don’t share people food with dogs though, so he was out of luck.

Under My Desk

Georgie has a faux-fur dog bed under my desk but Claire has been hogging it. Cats are no respecters of property ownership.

More NYE

Finally a picture of Georgie and I in better times, ie New Year’s Eve, before this turd of a year kicked in. God my hair was fantastic that night. WOULD THAT WE COULD GO BACK TO THOSE HALCYON DAYS.

Two of Twenty-Four, Plus One

Hey internet, long time no blog. A WHOLE WEEK I KNOW I’M THE WORST. I hope you all were able to get along without me.

Anyway the reason I didn’t post last week is because not to be over dramatic but every day felt like 100 years in hell and the absolute worst day of my life.

100 Years In Hell

It was my first week back at work after my sweet, sweet Christmas vacation, I had my lady time, I was sick and my dog went insane and peed on the hallway carpet 350,000,000 times.

Devil Dog

WHY YOU GOTTA PLAY ME LIKE THAT, DOG??? Anyway I’m all resigned to my fate as a working stiff, recovered from my ailments and yesterday I rented a carpet steamer and cleaned the hallway carpet like, SIX TIMES so it should all be okay now.

One thing I DID do while I wasn’t blogging was work on my new year’s resolutions, of which I only made one, and which I made a very concrete, attainable goal instead of something nebulous and easy to fail at. I said I wanted to make at least two non-custom banners for my etsy shop, every month, so I would have things for sale other than just my custom stuff (I think it looks better to have actual, real items for sale somehow). Anyway last week (while finishing up the last of my custom orders, so if you are waiting on one that hasn’t shipped yet it’ll go out today) I made not two but THREE all-new banners!

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up (part of the reason for my goal was I didn’t want to be blind-sided by holidays like I was by Christmas) I decided to make some cheesy yet lovely and romantical banners. Doing non-custom work also gives me the opportunity to try out new ideas, and for each of these I did something I hadn’t before.

True Love Ombre Banner Quad

True Love
For this banner I used a double-ombré technique. For my other ombré banners I’ve used a single colour/blend of colours, but for this one I did two separate colours. Starting with a white (diamond) glitter base, I did a pale pink (kunzite) glitter to about halfway up each letter, and then I added a deeper pink (tourmaline) to the bottom ¾” to give it more dimension.

Be Mine Glitter Heart Ombre Banner Quad

Be Mine
This was the third banner I made and the idea for it just popped into my head. I wasn’t sure how (or if) it would turn out but it looks basically how I pictured it. I used ruby (red) glitter for the letters, and added metallic red confetti hearts to the bottom 1½-2″ of each. I tried to make them look like they’d been scattered randomly, but I actually glued each one in place individually, which did not take ten thousand hours at all.

Always Banner Quad

Always
This is my Harry Potter-inspired banner; I’ve made a couple of custom ones before (Mischief Managed and Expecto Patronum) but this one was all my idea. It’s from The Prince’s Tale chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; if you’ve read it you’ll understand the significance, and if you haven’t well then what is wrong with you? I used this weird, pale gold glitter (which I am now out of) and although I’d originally planned on adding a white/silver ombre to it, in the end I decided to leave it simple. What makes this banner different from others I’ve made is the back; instead of using plain paper I used cream paper printed with the text from relevant passages of the book (I scanned it and printed it out; no books were harmed in the making of this banner!).