Some more catch-up

The Pooches:

I thought we had made a huge mistake by buying Teddy. The reason we decided to buy him was purely for Beary. We reckoned that we were getting too attached to her and that she was getting too attached to us. And that she was lonely when we went out and left her behind. Cue Teddy.

I saw the ad for Chow puppies in our area, going for R650 apiece. We couldn’t get him yet, as we had that golf expo up in JHB. But the Monday after we got home, I went to fetch him. The price had dropped to R300 as Chows don’t seem to be that popular ’round here. Can’t think why that is 🙂

Anyway, I did a very stupid thing. Teddy was terribly hungry and crying for food (he was 8 weeks already but had still been nursing from his mother). It was panic-stations and I rushed to the QwikSpar down the road to get him some puppy food. The stupid part was that I fed him out of Beary’s dish. How insensitive of me!

She got this look on her face as if she just couldn’t believe it. I think she thought we were replacing her, trading the old in for the new. She promptly went and lay behind the couch and wouldn’t come out for the rest of the evening, no matter how much I apologised and fussed over her. I felt like such a scab.

Teddy, for his part, was still a bit bewildered. When he got to our home for the first time and clocked Beary, coming at him in full play-mode at 100km/h, he gave a squeak of fright and headed for my arms to take refuge.

This was roundabout the time I thought I’d made a really bad mistake and upset the perfect equilibrium we’d had going with just one dog. Things had been good, why’d I have to go mess with it. Michael and I resolved not to get too attached to Teddy. We were toying with the idea of taking him back. Getting rid of him. (Gee, I find it hard to type that because we love the little tyke now).

Anyway, we didn’t take him back, Beary  got over her pique and we now have a much healthier dog situation around here. We love both the dogs, they love each other, it’s much more balanced. The best move we could have made.

Teddy is a real little sweetheart. He is very unassuming, not an in-your-face dog at all. He’s a solid little character, with a stocky build. Good appetite, too. He’s actually taught Beary to be a better eater. She used to be fussy and leave half her food on the dish for the ants to get (I had to throw away so much dogfood!) Now she knows that if she doesn’t eat it then he will. And she can’t stand that, so she eats her food at record speed when it is dished up, lol.

They play together so nicely, I hope it lasts.

At the end of the day, I’m very glad that we got Teddy. He’s been no trouble whatsoever, just given us lots of joy. I felt a bit sheepish about having two huge (okay, medium) dogs living in the house with us.  I wasn’t raised with animals living in the house, so didn’t really care for the idea. But now I love it. They are such good company and the most ideal housedogs. Very clean. And excellent watch-dogs. Desperate times call for desparate measures. And the crime in South Africa is pretty desparate. Much better to have the dogs in the house where they will sound the alarm if needs be. I’m certainly sleeping better at night with the knowledge.  

Only prob, is that Teddy can also reach to jump on the couch now. Don’t know where Michael and I are going to sit, lol.

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Updated:

Just got back from lunch and that bloody mutt, Teddy, dug a big hole at the base of my Bewitched rose bush! He will find his ass at the SPCA if he digs up my rose-bushes!!

(Yeah right ;-P)

(I’ll be pretty annoyed about it, though).

Walk Like a Man

Hope this works. This is currently my favourite and most played song. Heard it on Mrs Doubtfire and  I’ve just been in love with it ever since. I’ve had a thing for Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons since Big Girls in Dirty Dancing.

It’s the ultimate break-up song (even if it is from the guy’s perspective 😉

Enjoy…

(Have yourself a little karaoke session, take it from me, it’s a lot of fun.)

Oh darn.  Abort, abort! Dud html.

Just go to this page, okay.

http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/f/frankievalli7861/walklikeaman278514.html

More catch up.

Work:

I have been helping Michael out with his side-line job, the agenting of a very nifty golf GPS that works on one’s gps-enabled cell phone. Funky, I tell you, and I’m not even a golfer. I don’t want to mention it by name (again) because he understandably doesn’t like it when web-searches for his product land up on a naff personal blog i.e. mine. lol. Not very business-like.

(Although if you did land here and you are a golfer, feel free to contact me for details.)

Anyway, I have been helping out with the sales part of it, phoning potential clients who have downloaded our free trial version. (Yikes, never in a million years thought of myself as doing this. Still, I feel as though I am growing and becoming more confident.)

It’s helping me a lot, actually. I have been having nagging self-esteem issues (which is not me at all) the past couple of years from feeling that I don’t contribute enough financially in our household. Now I feel like I am bringing in more of my share, and also taking some of the load off Michael’s shoulders. The poor dude was working much too hard. I have a pretty good idea that this was the reason for his health playing up this past while. He needs to slow down some and I am determined to help him with that. We need to do some lifestyle adjustments, too. More R&R for Michael, definitely.

Another venture of mine that did a bit of  a bit of a belly-flop was my fledgling music-school. Now that I have my Gr7, I am allowed to give casual lessons. So I placed an advert in the local newspaper advertising my services. Casual beginner’s lessons for all ages, was my precise wording. I got a sum total of 1 responses. A 22 -year-old guy called Tom, who wanted keyboard lessons. He sounded all keen, but never did phone back to book an appointment 😦

In the meantime, I am ‘practising’ on my godson, Quintus. He is enthusiastic about being my guinea-pig and is learning fast. Only one lessons and he can already play three little tunes. I’m so proud 🙂

I want to do my grade 8 Unisa exam in October this year. The pieces are going well and I want to go for a distinction this time. I would probably need a couple of lessons but not too many, I don’t think. Just some help with the aural part of the examination.

   The theory, on the other hand, will be a complete nightmare. The pre-requisite for a gr8 practical is a grade 6 theory. Hectic, especially as my theory background is in a bit of a shambles! I reckon I will need 2 lessons a week, till October, starting a.s.a.p.  To the tune of R120 each.

Now, I really don’t want to take this money out of our house-keeping budget. I feel like a bit of a spoilt brat that ‘our’ money should have to pay for my obsession with music. I came to the conclusion that the only way I would feel comfortable with it, was if my music paid for my music 🙂 I need six students a week to pay for my own lessons, so that is my goal. I will advertise more aggressively and rustle up those 6 students, by hook or by crook 😉 I will visualise them into being, if I have to, lol.

And then it will be all systems go, yay! 🙂

Tune in tomorrow, for an update on Beary and Teddy.

Back ;-p

I keep putting off blogging because I’m afraid the catch-up might involve work, ha ha. So what I’ll do is just a very basic catch-up.

My birthday:

My 30th birthday was on January the 4th. It was heavenly. Michael sure knows how to treat a girl on her birthday. We went to watch Avatar (the 2D version) and I enjoyed it a lot. Spent some time with family and friends, ate lots of cake and just generally relaxed and had fun together. Gotta love a man who takes the day off work on your birthday to wait on you hand and foot and make you feel loved.

January passed in a bit of a blur, didn’t it? I’m sure stuff happened, but I don’t recall much. That’s why one should update one’s blog more regularly, hey? Then one would know what one did in January, lol.

Movies:

Oh wait, I just remembered. Michael and I have been on a date every Saturday this year. We went and watched a whole lot (3) movies on the big screen. That was fun, because for a long time we just never went to the movies, mostly because it was too difficult for me when I was lurching from one MS relapse to the next. It’s kinda hard when you need to pee every five minutes and can’t walk properly to the loos to sit through a 2hr long movie. But anyway, I’m doing much better now, so we’ve been making up for lost time.

   We went to see Planet 51 (very cute and witty), Did You Hear About the Morgans (quite charming little chick-flick with a kick-ass soundtrack) and at the end of Feb will be going to see It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin.

I know, I’m really lucky to have a hubby who likes to watch chick-flicks with me 🙂

Michael:

Speaking of hubby, we had quite a scare a week ago with him. It was on our wedding anniversary and we were going to eat out to celebrate it. But then he had a strange ‘episode’ during which he couldn’t access his short-term memory at all. He was functional in the present moment, but anything that had happened longer than two minutes previously, he couldn’t recall if his life had depended on it. Scary, scary stuff. This went on for about 5 hours. He went to hospital the following day and had some tests run, none of which showed up much except for a slight peak in his EEG.

The neurosurgeon started him on Epilim because it is suspected that he has a mild case of epilepsy! No official diagnosis has been made, but we will be going to a neurologist and have an MRI scan done to find out exactly what it is. The GP  thinks it likely that it is a form of epilepsy, as he has been having a recurring symptom of deja vu. The GP also thinks that it may be as a result of the car accident he had 18 years ago, and that the brain injury is acting up a little.

I will feel much better once we have seen the neurologist and had it confirmed, one way or the other. I have been pretty worried about him.

Oops, gotta go now, but at least I have attempted a catch-up, so tomorrow should go better….

Till then.

xxx