It's just words...

As per facebook updates, our first foster Goldie was only with us for a couple of days before finding her forever home. But we were back to our usual quiet single-hound household for only a few days before being asked to step up again. Although Andrew and I both work full time, and we have no yard, it turns out that our home has one factor that makes us a sought-after foster home - we don't have cats.

We were supposed to take Nikita, the greyhound/wolfhound cross (looks like a curly, fuzzy greyhound - cute!) because she was chasing cats, but the intense snowstorm on the weekend put off transportation (Nikita was in Olds). In the meantime, it turned out that a greyhound named Slash also needed to be moved to a different foster home because of aggression toward cats. So we picked up Slash on Sunday afternoon.

Slash is a huge male - about 75 pounds, very tall and solid. I assume his racing career must have been cut short by injury. His race record (as "Slash N Cash") has only four races, but he had two wins in the highest grade of race, so he was off to a very promising start. He came to us with a bad limp, doesn't like to stand very long (even for a greyhound!) and is reluctant to walk even around the block.

Slash goes to vet tomorrow to see what is wrong. Hopefully it is treatable, or at least that he can get some painkillers because he is clearly hurting. He's a big sweetheart who loves to play with stuffed toys and have his belly rubbed, so let's hope this guy gets a good prognosis and can get on his way to being someone's pet.

Breaking some long LJ-silence for the details on Goldie (that probably only my mother will want to know, yes).

Went to pick her up on Saturday. Drove out to a boarding kennel south of the city that volunteers its facilities for hound-arrival day. One of the movers-and-shakers of the greyhound group had brought 14 greys up from Oklahoma. At the kennel, they get a flea and tick bath, vaccinations, and blood taken for testing.

Amber joined Andrew and I as extra hands were appreciated for handling all those dogs. It was mostly walking around with dogs as they waited their turn to be called for the shots and baths. The dogs with the farthest to travel got to go first so we were waiting a while.

Our girl, Gold (we have been calling her Goldie), had several ticks and some fleas so she had to bathed twice to make sure they were all killed. She is an older female (8) who raced and then had a few litters of puppies. She's about the same height as Casta, but much heavier built, and after having puppies, she isn't as tucked-up looking as the greys coming right off the track.

Eventually we got her home. She is very sweet and wants attention all the time. Not very settled in the house; it takes her a long time to lie down and at any sound or movement she is up again. She's a bit of a bull in a china shop too and walks over, through or into anything in her way. This includes Casta, who is not impressed if she gets stepped on.

Being nervous means she's panting a lot, which makes her want to drink a lot, which makes her, you guessed it, need to pee a lot. In the sort time we've had her, she peed in the house a few times already before we caught on that she needs to go outside a LOT. Far more often than Casta. She does seem okay overnight though, so hopefully it is just connected to the panting/drinking.

Just to make things more fun, she is also in heat. She was supposed to go in to be spayed this week, but this will probably have to wait until she is not in heat anymore. I have no idea how long that lasts!

And did I mention that she smells bad? The two washes in flea/tick shampoo have left a nasty, medicinal odour on her coat. Plus she has a lot of plaque on her teeth, so smelly breath. I believe she was supposed to get her teeth done along with her spay so that will be on hold too.

So let's see... we got a needy, clingy, bug-infested, smelly dog who pees a lot. Isn't fostering fun!

- I am at work, but only pretending to work, because a bar call party starts in 15 minutes and that is clearly not enough time to accomplish any further today, and I would really like a glass of wine and some cheese.

- My fancy stove top/ sink unit (stainless steel, made in Italy, very cool) for the airstream was delivered to my house by FedEx but I wasn't there (of course). But at least it is in Calgary and I will have it soon!

- It is SO COLD. Like, -8 or something. Overnight lows of -12 or such nonesense. And it has been snowing off and on for several days now, not sticking much in the city, but out at the barn they have several centimetres. I had to put Arwen into her full-on winter blanket. IT IS ONLY OCTOBER AND EARLY OCTOBER AT THAT. I want to believe this is a freak early cold snap and that it will pass and there will be some nice fall weather still to come... but Lake Louise is predicting to open on Nov. 6 so it sounds like might be an early winter.

- If it winter is going to start in the first week of October, in the same year that it snowed at the end of JUNE, this had better be one excellent snowboarding season. It is only fair.

I am becoming bad at LiveJournal, but so is everyone, really, now that there is facebook and y'all can see from my pictures what I'm up to.

The new occupier of all spare time is the airstream. We're trying to make reasonable progress before it gets too cold to work on it, since we don't have a garage large enough to park it in. Considering how cheaply Andrew bought it, it's in very good shape. It was just so disgustingly dirty that it looked much worse. So most of what we are doing is to make it look better. That, and I don't trust gas-powered things from the 60s not to blow up on us, so all the gas-related items (stove, water heater, furnace, tanks and lines) are being replaced.

These are the various projects:

- fresh coat of stain and wax on the cabinets
- new countertops (in a very fun yellow formica!)
- replacing the stove/oven (who needs an oven in a trailer?) with a sleek new combination stove top/ sink unit
- microwave where the oven used to be
- new futon mattress for the main bed
- re-do the sofa/ guest bed (new foam and fabric on existing frame)
- remove ucky carpets (done) and replace with laminate flooring
- new curtains
- spray-paint original 1960s fridge (which still works) so that it is no longer olive green
- repair one bad spot in floor and one leaky spot in trailer

There will also be a whole lot of work on the outside - haven't really assessed things like the exterior lights, hitch, tires, axle, etc., but that part will probably wait until spring. Fun!

Haven't updated in forever, but in my defence, most of the people who read this, were actually in my house.

Had the folks here for the bar call, it was great to see everyone... and now I'm a lawyer. Which feels good but also kind of anticlimatic. It's such a long process and by the end of articling I was being treated like a lawyer and working as a lawyer so the only difference is that I can honestly and truly call myself a lawyer now. I have new letterhead and new business cards and a raise in pay, and people rely on my advice and that is scary because I mostly feel like I don't really know and I'm just taking a somewhat educated guess at the best thing to do. A feeling that more experienced lawyers tells me never really goes away.

As soon as all the family left, the next big event was the year-end horse show in Red Deer. We came home with two reserve championships, a saddle pad, a halter, and $62 in prize money - but would have liked to have some better rounds. There weren't a lot of entries in my division and so I was able to place well with rounds that really didn't deserve it. On the first day in particular, the weather was miserable - cold and rainy - and my classes were first thing in the morning when it was most cold and wet, and a lot of people scratched. So I guess my prizes were mostly for being brave enough (and having brought big enough traction studs for Arwen's shoes) to go out in jump in cold rain.

The photos are on facebook, here is a video of one of our better rounds in the hunter ring... this was a Hunter Classic which was a two-round format, the first was a very long course of 12 jumps and the top 8 were called back to do a second round over a shorter course. There were 20-something horses in the class with many much nicer than Arwen so it was a pleasant surprise to make the top 8 (we finished 6th, not bad!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcrJh158DP0

This time I think I have a better excuse for taking a while to update. Kathleen and Frank arrived as scheduled on Tuesday afternoon and we've tried to show them the best of Alberta in a bit of a whirlwind.

Wednesday we went out to the barn and K rode Arwen; then in the afternoon we took in the zoo and for dinner introduced K&F to Vietnamese food.

Thursday we drove out into the foothills to see Bragg Creek, Forget-me-Not Pond and the waterfalls. We hoped to take in Shakespeare in the Park but it was cold and rainy so our plan for picnic and Shakespeare turned into cooking and hanging out at home.

Friday was Banff day... lunch in Canmore on the way there... wandering the little shops, a hike to a waterfall, Lake Minnewanka, and a fabulous fondue dinner at the Grizzly House.

Saturday we met with up K&F's Red Deer friends and went to cheer on Kiki Cannonball and the rest of the Red Deer Belladonnas in the Roller Derby "Ink Cup" at the Calgary Tattoo Show. Since the weather was finally looking up again we decided to give Shakespeare a try; it turns out the weather was only better by comparison and wasn't really proper outdoor theatre conditions; but we survived.

K&F left yesterday with the Red Deer folk for a few days of camping in the Alberta wilds; I'm not sure at what point they realized that they had left most of their food behind at my house but it must have been some point too late to turn around. But, it's finally sunny so I hope they are having a good time.

After all that activity and people in the house, I am looking forward to a week of normality, at least until the parents arrive on Friday!

That was quite the weekend. Worked almost straight through from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening with only a little down time on Saturday when stuff had to dry before proceeding.

There were a few moments of drama. The plumbing did not want to co-operate which required a two emergency trips to Home Depot for solutions. The new mirror I had my eye on in a local store turned out not to be for sale but a sample for custom orders and they refused to sell me the sample, so I had to go last-minute mirror shopping. And, saddest of all, Andrew chipped the beautiful new sink while installing it - perhaps a glass sink was not the most practical idea ever. At the moment the sink is in anyway chip and all, we had to order that sink in and it took a while, so I have to decide if I want to order the same one again or go with something more practical.

We still have to grout the tiles and adjust the doors on the cabinets so they will close a little smoother, and one drawer needs to be re-sized to better accommodate the plumbing.

But it is mostly done and should be all done by tonight and it looks amazing, I can't believe Andrew built something (and I helped) that looks like it could be in a magazine.

I did a lot of general frantic tidying while Andrew did the more technical parts of the construction, and we have paid the cleaning fairies for some extra time today, so the house should be looking fantastic for the arrival of K&F tomorrow. I am excited! Family visiting! Bar call getting closer!

First of all, happy birthday to my mother (it is not her birthday now, but it is well past her bedtime and so it will be her birthday by the time she reads this). I hope you have a great day and I will call!

What I've been up to... Friday went to a horse show... Arwen's first time in the real jumper ring, meaning the big grass stadium-style ring as opposed to the usual sand riding rings. Same height we have been jumping all along, but they seem bigger in the big ring with the bright jumps and tents and sun-umbrellas for spectators and electronic timers like at Spruce Meadows and the whole bit. We didn't place in any of the classes, since there were lots of horses in them and we had some rails, but I am happy with the rounds, Arwen didn't look at any of that scary exciting stuff and everything went smoothly, the rails were just bad-luck rails that happen in the jumper ring. So that was good.

For the rest of the long weekend I went off to Invermere with Andrew and he took me up for a glider flight! I have been hanging out at the soaring club for three summers now and always made excuses not to go up. I said I wanted Andrew to take me not any of the other pilots, and he wasn't cleared to take passengers... but Andrew did some extra training and got cleared to take a passenger and the weather conditions were apparently "smooth" and so I was out of excuses and up I went with Andrew in the club's venerable two-seat training glider.

Previous to this I had never been in any aircraft smaller than a 12-seat Air Canada jet and now I was in a plane that only barely holds two people. AND HAS NO ENGINES. But up we went, towed up by Ash the Kiwi in the tow plane to about 7,000 feet and releasing over the mountains. This was the first really scary moment: Andrew somehow forgot to mention that releasing the tow rope would make a very loud clunk and that then we'd turn and bank hard away from the tow plane and I kind of freaked out and was like "what just happened!" and Andrew was like "we're off tow, that's what happens."

Then Andrew found a thermal and took the glider in circles, what he described as "medium turns" that felt to me like the plane was spinning a circle on one wing tip, banked enough that I felt like I could fall out the side. But this worked because we got to nearly 10,000 feet. Which is really crazy to think about. No engines and we went UP 3,000 feet on rising warm air. Eventually since I was feeling a little queazy we left the thermal and flew around some, this was much better than the thermal. Then back out over the valley and down to the air field to land. Landing was a little scary too but Andrew did it smoothly and we were safe back on the ground.

I will have photos soon, I am having some issues with downloading from the new camera but I can't wait to post proof that I actually flew in a glider!

We have these bathroom renovations that have been being planned, and "worked on" in the sense of buying supplies and so on, for what, two years? The deadline that I set was for when my family arrives for my bar call. First relatives, K and F, get here on Aug. 11. So we are getting down to the wire on this. I am living in fear that it will not get done, and not only not get done in the sense of the bathroom being still ugly, but not done meaning bathroom ripped apart and not put back together and we'll have company.

Andrew of course insists that he is, after all, a PROJECT MANAGER and his projects get done on time and on budget. We will see.

So last night we got the first coat of stain onto half of the cabinets - the other half being not built yet. The new countertop is complete. Old tiles have been removed.

The list of what needs to be done still:

- build rest of cabinets
- finish staining all cabinets
- rip out old cabinets, countertop, sink
- install new cabinets and countertop
- sealant on new countertop
- plumbing for new sink and faucet since they are not going in exactly the same spot as old ones
- new tiles around sink
- repair drywall damaged in demolition process
- paint

Oh and we're going to Invermere for the long weekend so most of this is going to have to get done in one big marathon on the 8/9 weekend right before K&F arrive. Will we get it done? Keep reading!

Spent the weekend at a horse show. I usually don't go for trailering down and stabling there, since it always means missing some work, but I have to admit it makes for a much more civilized experience - never had to get up earlier than 6 a.m. which is my normal time to get up for work through the week.

Saturday started with a jumper medal class that was only okay, had a rail down and a big chip. Got 6th. Meh.

Then a 2'6 jumper class that seemed like we were on track. Beautiful clean first round. Fast fast fast jumpoff, on track to win the class. Got to the last jump too far to one side, smacked the standard with my left shin, pulled the whole thing down. So mad at myself - Arwen jumped the jump just fine, I'm the one who screwed up and cost us the win. There were only 4 double clears though so we ended up 5th as the fastest 4-fault jumpoff.

On to the 2'9s and things didn't get any better. Took two rails in a speed class, didn't place. Took a rail in the first round of another class and didn't make the jumpoff. Not a lot of clears though so we picked up a 7th as fastest 4-fault first round.

Last round of the day, 2'9 Mini Prix, hoping to redeem ourselves. At the very first jump I hear a big hard thwack and think, that's it, it's over, that rail will be down. Lost my concentration, jumped the wrong second jump and was eliminated. And that first jump that we knocked? Stayed up after all, so I lost my brain for nothing. Lesson learned, keep concentrating and keep going no matter what.

Sunday, I had just one more jumper class and then on to the hunters. Finally managed a good round in the jumpers - a clean first round and a nice fast and clean jumpoff, and we won the class.

Feeling redeemed, headed into the hunters in the afternoon and had two very nice rounds, although I was cutting corners just a little after doing the jumpers. Picked up a 3rd and a 4th, which is pretty good for Arwen in the hunters against big fancy horses.

So overall not too bad but we still have to get more consistent before we can move up to the 3', I think.