Month: October 2024

Oh he’s adorable all right, and such a sweet heart, you just don’t know! He’s convalescing after his vet visit, and none to happy with his watermelon cone replacement, and surgical onesie. Either way Happy Halloween on this warm, breezy, and mostly sunny Thursday. The last Thursday of October at that! You know what that means!?! Sending out my end of the month invoices to corporate clients! Yahoo!

A full Happy Halloween at that too. Now that I’ve scraped out the innards on fifteen or so pumpkins, I’m all carved out. My feet hands are cold, and my nose is full of pumpkin guts odor. Not to mention my clothes have all that stringy pulp on them, and I found two wet seeds in my shoes. Yuck!

Next step is to add lights inside them and carve up a few more scary faced pumpkins to line the driveway here at my inlaws house. I’m sure they will have enough to decorate the entire veranda and the front entrance way too. I need more empty buckets for the discarded innards and smelly chunks. I like the results but the process is very unpleasant if you have sensory issues with slimy, stringy, wet, cold pulpy stuff. Ugh. Makes my skin crawl. Got it up to my elbows, and caked around my wrists for good measure.

In other news it’s warm and sunny out today. So not the coldest pumpkin guts I’ve had to handle, not by a long shot. I’ve carved in the rain, flurries, and an all out early snow (kinda). Ice cold pumpkin guts with numb your fingers in seconds. Most uncomfortable trying to cut and detail when you can’t feel either of your hands.

Pretty sure it is Wednesday today. The big day for all kids, both young and old is tomorrow. The kids have been trying to nail down a costume choice for the school day since October 1st. I think they might have finally decided, but what happens tomorrow morning is still up for grabs. A late stage change of heart can either save the day or ruin it. Oh to be a kid again! Ha.

November will be here before you know it. Wow two months of school gone in the blink of an eye. Next blink will be Christmas break! I mean they still have six months of the school year left at that point, which feels like a long haul, but by the time you hit May 1st, and all the activities ramp up, and the temperatures soar, time seems to hop, skip, and jump forwards by multiples.

For now I’m taking a breather from carving holiday messages in pumpkins, and putting my feet up for a little while. Ciao Bella.

Not how I expected to be involved in my puppy’s healing process but it beats trying to remember how the incision looked when he first got home. Now I have concrete visual proof of whether or not it is in fact getting better, worse, more or less inflamed etc… he was a sad boy when I brought him home. He whimpered a fair bit yesterday regardless of the w4 hours worth of pain killers he’d been shot up with. I think he just felt funny from the anesthesia, and the missing parts he spends so much time cleaning every single day. I think his coin purse was his very own pride and joy. Now the spare change is gone. Yeeted! Yoinked! Stolen by the veterinary hospital. He is dismayed to say the least.

I also think he’s upset about the surgical onesie he has to wear thos week to stop him from worrying the wound. We have a cone coming too, as he has somehow managed to weasel his muzzle up one leg to get to the wound. Damn smart dog. It might take a few months for him to lose interest in his testicularly fueled habits. Once all that testosterone Peter’s out hopefully he’ll stop all the urine licking, drooling, teeth chattering, and numb tongue paralysis which he loves do much when we go out for a walk.

Keeping him low key is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. No off leash walks for the first couple days. No “real” walks either. A mooch about in the yard to pee under a watchful eye. Keeping an eye on bowel movement consistency and frequency. The whole nine yards here folks. Not much to do now but get him back go full health as I can’t undo what was done. This ain’t no etch a sketch my boys jewels done got stoled off him. Bruh!

So by the end of this week I will have a fine pile of dog scrotum photos ready to delete, assuming that is, that he doesn’t worry the wound and make it 10x worse for himself. I have found him licking his front foreleg where they shaved a spot for his IV. I am to watch for coughing, as the intubation for surgery might have inflamed his throat a bit. I’ll have to keep the house quiet so I notice something like that. Being hearing impaired I find it difficult to isolate sounds. But I would think a dogs cough would be out of the ordinary enough that my ears would potentially catch it. I hope.

He is eating, and drinking. Has used the facilities a couple times, so I think he is doing ok there. I gave him his pain meds along with breakfast so he should be feeling sleepy, or at least slightly less sore. I hope. It wasn’t our intention to hurt the little guy. It was a foundational aspect of our adoption agreement that he get fixed, so no way around it really. A little bit of pain now should fix any major concerns of him rampaging down the neighbourhood humping everything in sight if he escaped our yard at any point. No new pups!

How is your Tuesday going? Halloween is really getting close now.

Up early before the sunrise to drop the dog off at the vet for his neutering appointment. Not much else going on while I wait for edits, and a second drive back out to Woodbridge to collect the puppy. Taking it easy on this dreary, grey Monday.

Dog is home from his procedure, looking a little worse for wear in his tiny baby jammies. A medical onesie rather than a cone of shame. He’s a bit out of it, and whimpering now that mum has come home early to date in him a wee bit. He was well behaved and no trouble at the vet. Luckily we used a different one than normal so he shouldn’t have any of the surgery associated with his normal tech.

Pain meds on deck for once his surgery stuff wears off. We will keep him as low profile as possible for the week while his innards heal up. I thought they performed a vasectomy, but it’s a total castration where they actually fully remove the testicles. He is just a hair lighter now. Ha. Poor little fella. I know they wait until a year old to stave off the joint issues, but for peace of mind they should do them when still a tiny little pup. But I’m not vet tech, so what do I know.

Otherwise it’s been a quiet grey and dreary monday just before halloween.

What good is an hour or two spent on leaves if your trees are still 60-70% full? I guess the answer is, at least I’m showing the neighbourhood some effort to contain the mess? Because once the rains come, or the wind picks up it will not appear any different than before I started. A lesson in futility to appease the grass crazed neighbours whom spend real money, every single year, to have a nice lawn clear of weeds, blemishes, and fallen leaves. None of which I care all that much about.

I don’t like the idea of taking all of the tree, and soils garden work producing leaves, and then collecting that effort and shipping it off elsewhere. Let those nutrients return back to the soil from whence it came. Although I put it all on a garden bed some fifteen feet away, but still, all that goodness is available after the snows, rains, and weather’s change over the coming months. Gotta be better than sending it to a clean fill, compost site so that they get the benefit instead of my trees.

Our garden road did not come back this year, which was a shame, that fat little froggy was a welcome sight inside my garbage bin box. Perched on top of the can lid, eating critters that were trying to get busy inside there also. We saw him, it, turn from ash grey to a subtle green, and grow in size from a quarter to a toonie, and then bigger still. Good bye sweet prince. My youngest absolutely loved you!

If the kids and dog venture to the farm for pumpkins, then I can do the leaves in some semblance of peace. My first aid kit for the shop arrived, to go along with my fire extinguisher. Starting to feel like a workable space again. Just got to get rid of this dsmnable kids kitchen play set, and all of my cut offs. Taking up precious floor space! But I digress.

Tomorrow the dog goes in for his surgery. I need to get to Vaughsn before 8AM. I’m not much of a morning person. Hopefully he doesn’t get too bent out of shape about what he’s going to leave behind. But, on the plus side, no more threat of puppies if he gets out, or on top of a lady doggo. That’s peace of mind right there. Ciao Bella!

It’s promotion day, which means testing in patterns, one step sparring, combat, and board breaking exercises. Lots of fun to be had. I’m here to be a cheerleader, and not a critic. Smiles, clapping and a big ole thumbs up from me this morning.

Main street was a mess due to all the kiddie trick or treaters walking around town. Could have done without that on my way to the belt test. We made it on time with just a few minutes to spare. The group ahead of us was moving slowly when it came time to do the board breaking portion. No matter.

My eldest did her thing, with confidence and some SNAP to it. Very proud of herself for doing the things. And for doing them well.

New client with all new designs needed, and a new format for how the project will come together. Once the leg work is done, any other comparative year report will go faster because I’ll have everything I need to build it out already on the pages. Assuming, that is, that they ask the same, or similar questions year over year. They don’t always do that. Covid was a big hiccup and it made some serious changes to questions being asked to respondents attending video/on line events, versus their in person counter parts from years previous. But I digress.

This client has fabulous photography, and an interesting colour palette/scheme that I have not used before. To the best of my knowledge anyway. Makes for a fun, but fraught building experience. I’m a bit rusty (once again) so it can take a day or two to hit my stride. Add in each individual page build up from my standard template and that is more hours spent than usual. No biggie. Of the four reports I knew were coming, this was out of the blue. I like additional work, especially here deep into the year in the fourth quarter. Now I don’t expect to make up the short fall gap between the quiet first 3 quarters compared to last year, but to decrease that gap in the closing months would be of great help to me.

I’m going to finish these three pages I’m on, then eat, and come back to it. I still need to wrap a present for a child’s birthday party this afternoon, so I have to make time for that too. Get along little Friday!

I have 100 small-ish craft pumpkins for my kids school to use for a fundraiser during their Fall Fair on Friday. I did not have the time to wash all one hundred, so I will need to knock some mud off as the SJC students take them inside for me. I moved all one hundred myself – twice. I don’t fancy doing so a third time. Once for gathering them up into a pile when out in the patch. Twice to get from the patch into my vehicle stationed some twenty feet away. I don’t care to move them through the whole school to a holding spot before use. Call me lazy if you wish, but I don’t care. You want them for free, you bring the labour to move them to their final destination. That’s how I feel.

I do have some running around to do today. Namely the pumpkin drop, grocery shop, gift pick up, dog cone purchase, or a surgery onesie for our puppy whom will travel to Vaughan on Monday to lose the change in his coin purse. Neutering. That’s what I’m driving at. Hopefully he takes it well, and isn’t too distraught by the time I go get him later that day.

My latest large project is in! I can pick up on that today once all my running around is done. More invoices to go out, the better chance I have for money to come in! Yeah buddy. It’s not ALL about the Benjamins as they say, but dollar dollar bills y’all, they help a lot. Food, gas, furnace filters, oil changes, everything takes more and more money.

In a moment I will call the school, then pull up and drop these orange fools off. Take a bunch of weight out of the car, and get my shopping bag space back so I can get groceries for this nearly completed week. Short week is all out of sorts!

It looks like my last hour plus of leaf bagging never happened. This! This is why I wait until November once all the leaves have come down. I hate not being able to see my progress. Waste of time, even though it isn’t,  not really. They have to come up at some point, but I’d like a clear lawn for at least a day to prove to my neighbours that I have in fact cleared out lot. C’est la vie.

In other news I have all 100 mini pumpkins in hand for my daughters school fall fair this Friday. Those are currently waiting patiently in the back row of the van. Once I get those out of the way then I can go grocery shopping, and pick up birthday presents for all the parties we have coming up this weekend. Weekend is going to be chock a block full of activities. Birthday bash Friday night, then on Saturday we have belt testing for taekwondo, trick or treating session in the town square, a late afternoon birthday party to finish it all off.

Can’t seem to tell if a component has a signal or not when it most definitely does. The only item that consistently works is the LG bluray player. I did get the Xbox to come on for a short time until I had to go and do something else, but the cable box has been unreliable so far today. It did for a brief spell come on, and I thought the issue was fixed, but once I put the laundry in, and came back to turn on the tv to eat lunch it has been unable to read both visual & audio feeds. Fun times. Maybe it’s almost time for a new family tv. This one is pretty old by technology standards. Nearly 12-14 years old at best guess, and it was second hand to us in the first place. Add it to the list. Happy tuesday.