Here comes another busy weekend...

The snow is melting, even the stuff that keeps coming down overnight, and the weather is warmer, even at 5:45 in the morning. I am finished the FM Support Pack supplements, so now I can see whether or not it is those that are tiring me out. Priest is feeling a bit better, but still on a mix of rice and kibble, and he nicked his foot this morning on the ice, so he's now secured in his Xpen with a bootie on. My desk at work is mostly clear, and the majority of the things on it now I can't do much about until either time passes or people get things to me. But starting tomorrow and until Sunday when I head to the greyhound walk, I'm going to hang out this sign:



Because it's Provincials, and if the two I've attended as ED are any indication, that's exactly how it's going to be. But I'm going to knit and bring a book or two, and snuggle down in a camp chair, and we'll see. It's still going to be long, if inactive, weekend.

It just so happens...

Priest has played Houdini a couple of times and magically opened the door to his Xpen while we've been out. Nothing destroyed, no accidents. Yay for Priest! So I thought yesterday might be a good day to try to leave his Xpen open while we're at work. The look he gave me as I walked out the door said, "Um, Mum, aren't you forgetting something? Or are you going to seriously leave the door open?" But I had faith that everything would be fine.

Except I didn't realize the extent to which the bone we gave him to chew on on Sunday had done a number on his stomach...

I could smell something wrong the minute I walked in. A brief survey of the house revealed eight accidents: four diarrhea, three vomit (complete with partially digested dog food), and one urine. I think the urine was more that he knew it was bad, and probably couldn't get much worse, and hey, he had to go... He left no floor untouched. Basement, main floor, and upper floor were all affected. And it had obviously happened early in the morning, because it was pretty much all dried into the carpet and onto the hardwood...

Poor Priest.

Anyway, we got it cleaned up. I even got probably most of the diarrhea out from underneath the baseboard in the living room (hardwood there; it had pooled...). And we have the carpet cleaner for another 36 hours or so, so if we need to go over any of the spots again (or heaven forbid he has another accident), then we can. We've been feeding him plain rice for the last two meals, and I'll make him some with the beef broth we have frozen as well, so hopefully that settles his stomach a little.

So today I'm home with my sick puppy. I have over 9 days banked, and the roads are unbelievably horrible, and I'm working all weekend for Provincials, so I really don't care. Except I do. But I shouldn't. Argh.

Mike told me it is my choice about when to leave him loose. I still think he can handle it, but I really picked the wrong day to start. So it'll be back to penning him while we're at work for at least another two weeks. If he hadn't peed, it'd probably only be until his stomach settles down, but since he did...

Ah, the joys of dog parentship... But I wouldn't trade it.

This is what happens... and miscellanea

I am sleeping better, but still not fabulously, so I'm still very tired, and have only so much energy to give before I start sucking it from other places. Yesterday was a prime example, so let me describe it to you. At 2 pm I did my employee's performance review. Usually I leave work at 3, which means that in terms of hard mental work, I'm done by then and can just go home and do not so hard mental work like talk to the dog, cook dinner, and knit. The review went two and a half hours. I left work at 4:30, drove home in much higher traffic volumes than I'm used to, got in the door to let Priest out, and then stood in the kitchen. I was confused.

I called Mike's cell, because I didn't remember his work number. I told him I just got home, and I let Priest out, and now I had to cook dinner. "I was going to make satay," I told him. "I was going to, but I don't know..."

"Put a pizza in the oven," he said (we had bought organic feta spinach pizza at Costco on the weekend, for just these kinds of days, actually).

"But I was going to make satay," I said. "Or I could steam you some perogies and make myself a shake for dinner."

"A what?"

"A shake. A smoothie. I wanted a shake today, but I didn't get home, so I can have that for dinner and I can steam you perogies."

"Yeah," he said, "that's a good dinner. Put a pizza in the oven; I'll be home soon."

I follow instructions very well in this state. I put a pizza in the oven. By this point, I was slurring words so I had to speak slowly and carefully. I was also a bit punchy, which does odd things to my sense of humour. I could only focus on one thing at a time. I let Priest in. I brushed Priest. I did the dishes. Mike came home and we ate pizza. And then I did nothing mentally heavy for the rest of the night (not for lack of trying).

What had happened was that I had overstretched my limits. I have enough to get through seven hours of work, the drive home, and cooking, but not 8.5 hours of work, the drive home, and cooking. Yet I had to be present and with it during the review, so I sucked at my minor reserves, and by the time I got home, my brain was exhausted.

So this is my warning to all of you: if you call me at night, don't expect stellar conversation. Don't expect much of anything, actually, even if I'm still awake. Until I'm sleeping better and have better every-day energy, not just reserves, anything after 6 pm is questionable. :)

In terms of miscellanea, I have the following:

-Somehow or another, I volunteered to teach knitting this week at the local public library. This is kind of silly because 1) even though the lead on this session said all I needed to know how to do was cast on, knit, purl, increase, decrease, and cast off, that's pretty much all I know how to do, and 2) I knit continental, and most people were taught and do British, so if their hands have any memory whatsoever, I just confuse them. But it was a ton of fun on Monday, and I'm going again tonight, and maybe we'll start a knitting evening at the library, which would be much fun.

-Priest's vocabulary is growing. He understands the word "Breakfast," so I have to be careful about sentences like, "It's not breakfast time yet," because he only understands the one word, and he associates it to food. He is also starting to get "Let's go" when we're walking, though he pretends not to understand when it suits his purposes. I'm also starting to get a handle on Priest vocabulary. When he slows down on the walks with his head down but not sniffing, that's "Mum, I know you're not going to like this, but I'm going to stop walking now." When he leans up against my legs and looks up at me, that's "I need some petting now, please." I'm still trying to figure out what he wants me to do when he play-stances at me, but we did chase each other around the coffee table yesterday a bit, which was fun. Ahh... Good times.

A note for when it occurs

I spent about an hour today trying to find a bridal shower gift for a shower this weekend. The trouble with buying a shower gift is that I know what I would want as shower gifts, but I don't know if that's necessarily what other people would want. I settled on something that fell kind of in the middle, and I hope it'll be acceptable.

Someday, Mike and I will actually set a date, and when that happens, someone might throw me a bridal shower. For that eventuality, here is a list of things I'd love. When you see the list, you'll probably realize why I have such a hard time shopping for bridal shower gifts.

-Distraction. Let's face it, life itself is hectic and crazy, but add wedding planning, and it gets downright insane. I would love to get any number of distractions as shower gifts. Yarn, a colouring book and pencil crayons (Harry Potter, maybe?), seed beads and stretchy cord to make necklaces, large and complicated puzzles, anything to distract me from all the pressures for a couple of hours.

-FunUNderwear (yes, you have to say it like that). Not lingerie, because the purpose of funUNderwear is not seduction. The purpose of funUNderwear is to promote some self-confidence. You smile at everyone because you know something they don't, and hopefully never will. You're wearing something fun beneath your clothes. Yay! Size large (I doubt that will change), and I'm not much of a thong kind of girl, but anything else goes, as long as it's fun!

-Dragons. To this day, I still really like dragons. Stuffed cute dragons, figurines, pictures, as long as it's pretty and not kitschy, it's good for me.

-Books. Maybe this kind of falls under distractions, but me and books, well, you know me and books. So yeah. Any book you think is appropriate. Books about keeping the romance alive, books about housecleaning, books about cooking, books about military history. I don't know. Whatever you think I'd like.

For the lucky bride-to-be this weekend, I settled on a book that kind of falls under the distraction category, and will write a brief inscription inside saying why I chose it. I hope I did okay.