Thursday, April 19, 2007


Imagine buying this fellow's dogfood! Hercules is an English Mastiff. He has a 38 inch neck and weighs 282 pounds!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Alan Johnston is a BBC journalist who disappeared in the Middle East on March 12. The BBC has organized an international petition requesting his safe release.


The Alan Johnston petition:

"We, the undersigned, demand the immediate release of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston. We ask that everyone with influence on this situation increase their efforts to ensure that Alan is freed quickly and unharmed."


To add your name to the petition, please click on the button located at the top right of this page. You can also get code there to place a similar button onto your own blog.

Why not try? Perhaps we can do little, but we can at least try.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

A man feared his wife wasn't hearing as well as she used to and he thought she might need a hearing aid. Not quite sure how to approach her, he called the family doctor to discuss the problem. The doctor suggested a simple, informal test to get a better idea about her hearing loss.

"Here's what you do," said the Doctor, "Stand about 40 feet away from her, speak in a normal tone and see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response."

That evening, the wife was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and the husband was in the den. He thought to himself, "I'm about 40 feet away - let's see what happens." In a normal tone he asked "Honey, what's for dinner?" No response.

The husband moved closer to the kitchen, about 30 feet from his wife, and repeated, "Honey, what's for dinner?" Still there was no response.

Next he moved into the dining room, about 20 feet from his wife and asked, "Honey, what's for dinner?" Again no response.

He walked up to the kitchen door, about 10 feet away. "Honey, what's for dinner?" No response, so he walked right up behind her.

"Honey, what's for dinner?"

At last, an answer!

"RALPH FOR THE FIFTH TIME; WE'RE HAVING CHICKEN!"

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Three Rules to live by

Debra presents a question, asked first by Karen of Write from Karen:

"What three main rules, standards, or morals do you live by?"

Debra's responses are noble and decent and of course you'll agree with them.

Now here's a less admirable response:

1. Family right or wrong. I am one hundred percent behind my family and they all know where to come if they ever need an alibi.

2. Never 'join' anything. Always float with the current but keep oars and a 'kicker' motor at hand in case the current leads you to the edge of a waterfall. Certainly never hand over control of the boat to anyone else.

3. Try for perfection but realize that you'll never find it. Be content to just keep trying.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Gas prices are up again, to $1.189 a litre here. That's equivalent to $3.97 in U.S. dollars per American gallon or 2.366 British pounds per British gallon. I did the conversions (3.8 litres equals one American gallon and 4.5 litres equals a British gallon). We haven't even reached the height of tourist season yet, so I think we can expect a few more hikes. Canada seems poised to lose control of the oil sands (to Asian interests), so things are likely to get worse too!

Friday, April 06, 2007


This is the only interior shot I have of my Easter village... I'd forgotten this little figure - it is a mother rabbit reading to a baby rabbit. Not a very good shot, but the only one I have Clare!


Labels:

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

A man was leaving a convenience store with his morning coffee when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind. Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking a pit bull on a leash. Behind him, a short distance back, were about 200 men walking single file. The man was overcome with curiosity. He respectfully approached the man walking the dog and said, "I am so sorry for your loss, and I know this is a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?"

"My wife's."

"What happened to her?"

The man replied, "My dog attacked and killed her."

The man inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?"

"My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned on her."

A moment of silence passed.

"Can I borrow the dog?"

"Get in line."

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Easter


I suppose I do tend to overdo things... I've always enjoyed looking at life from a child's perspective and so I love all of the 'events'. Easter is no exception. These are pictures from last year because I probably won't put up the Easter village this year. My 'children' are a little old for it now. Still, it's the twenty-four year old who annually responds to my "I suppose I won't bother with the village this year..." with "Next you'll say no Christmas tree!".

Over the years I collected quantities of bunny figures. I decided to make a little village for them and so Peter put together two layers of plywood and installed lightbulbs under the top layer. I used wire and papier mache to mold a hill, a roadway, a little mountain and a stream. I cut little holes into the mountain so that you can peak through to the lighted interior and see a little bunny family at the dinner table in one room, a sleeping rabbit in another, a sleeping bear cub and mother bear in another. I put up shelves inside the caves and knick-knacks on the shelves. (I think that if you click on the picture it should come up larger...)

The boys (two sons, one husband) get excessive amounts of Easter candy and so our Easter egg hunt was a bit problematic. I don't want to put them into diabetic comas! I came up with the best idea for an Easter egg hunt, inspired by the joy I see in big Pete's eye when he's spotted a lost coin on the street. I have rubber stamps (also to excess) and among them I have a variety of Easter egg stamps, so I rubber-stamped egg designs onto cardstock. Then I had the great fun of colouring them! I am so childish. I also found scrapbook paper printed with beautiful Faberge-style eggs. I glued the scrapbook paper to cardstock for more eggs to cut out. I marked the reverse of each egg (perhaps two hundred of them) with a value or an item (5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, a dollar, two dollars, candy). I hide them in the house and because they're quite small it seems to be an appropriate challenge for adults. The boys loved it.

Labels:

Easter



Labels:



Labels:

Monday, April 02, 2007

Spring


Spring is a wonderful season of renewal - I love it. The daffodils are pretty much done now, but they're replaced with tulips and hyacinths, aubretia and camas.
The neighbours' yards are looking lovely, ours a little less so because Peter doesn't want any part of a garden. He wants to mow the lawn until his careful schedule of non-watering allows him to stop mowing in mid-summer.
I've been a somewhat unreliable gardener myself. I think if I didn't have so many sea-side aches and pains I'd probably do better. I do have a wonderful little shade garden at the front of the house, behind a stone wall. It has a narrow, meandering path and almost total shade even at the height of summer. I put in too many plants, I'm afraid, because I was impatient. There are kiwi vines, wisteria and climbing roses along a pergola. There's a carpet of violets that are just fading now, soon to be replaced by masses of lilacs overhead and lily of the valley intruding onto the path. One little nook has a bench and St. Francis, and a little further along the path a concrete bench is starting to look moss-y.