a heartbeat at my feet

Ice. Ice. Ice. We are living in a world of ice and I’m sick of it. The laneway is impassable to all except our trusty Subaru. Our visitors last night slipped and slid into their parking spaces and needed a few shoves to get them on their way again at the end of the night. I won’t walk outside. I get in the car for a drive to the gate when we go anywhere, and even then slide all over the place when I open the gate.

It is ridiculous. The field is covered in a thick glaze. We could probably skate on it.

So life carries on inside the house. I’ve still got the cooking bug and made a ginger lime carrot soup that came partly from a recipe online and partly from my head. I’ll write it down in ChefTap so that I can recreate it. We had company and everyone had seconds.

I’ve probably mentioned Spikes anxiety over Pat’s visits. He has a good memory and we are pretty sure he associates her with me leaving. He tries to hide and shakes like a leaf when she comes over. Poor Pat - I hope she doesn’t take it personally. His anxiety triggers my anxiety and when we are away I am worried sick about him - scared he’d run away or something - obviously nothing happened, but I can’t help but worry.

So after we got home I knew I had to find a solution otherwise there is no point on me going away. I investigated drugs (there might be one that works), I tried a herbal concoction called Rescue Remedy - it had helped him relax in the truck on our trip west a few years ago - but it didn’t work. Then I remembered someone talking about D.A.P. collars/sprays a few years ago. I did some research -thank goodness for Google! DAP stands for Dog Appeasing Pheromone which is the hormone released by a nursing dog to keep her puppies calm. It seemed worth trying. A local trainer carried a few items so I met with Michelle yesterday and got a spray and a collar.

Pat was coming to supper so it was the perfect time for the first trial. I followed the instructions for the spray (I’ll leave the collar sealed until our trip) and tied the spritzed bandana around Spikes neck a few minutes before Pat’s arrival.

He didn’t exactly run to the door to greet her, but he didn’t hide and stayed on ‘his’ loveseat for a while. He wasn’t shaking and didn’t have his tail tucked. He was noticeably better - he only hid in the pantry a few times and could be lured out with a treat, which he actually ate. He even did a few tricks which wouldn’t have happened before. Others noticed a difference too, so it wasn’t just me.

I have hope that with exposure he’ll come to love Pat as much as the other dogs do, and maybe not worry so much about us leaving.

“My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet.” ~Edith Wharton

freezing rain again

We had freezing rain Monday night into Tuesday. Spike had to go out in the middle of the night and I could see him slip sliding as he made his way across the snow. Tricky to do business when your feet don’t stay underneath you! Luckily it had changed to rain by mid morning and the roads were clear by early afternoon.

The temperatures dropped again and now our laneway is a treacherous skating rink and I am reluctant to stick my nose out the door. I did eventually work up the nerve and strapped on my ‘icers’ so I could (gingerly) walk down the laneway… once... Sheer ice.

I’ve been in a cooking mood lately and have been trying some new recipes. Two Sundays ago when Pat was over I tried a ‘creamy wild rice soup’ which was good, but I don’t think it was good enough to waste a cup of wild rice over.

This past Sunday (Pat was over again), I made a lentil mushroom shepherds pie and I’ll have to say that it was fantastic. It got an easy 5/5 stars from all of us. I wasn’t sure if I’d like it as lentils are not my favorite, but the seasoning was bang on so it wasn’t ‘lentily’ at all.

Tuesday night I made up an onion mushroom soup. Again, 5/5. It took a lot of cooking time in the IP but since it was all unattended it was no big deal. I often throw together a bunch of ingredients together and usually forget how much of everything I used, so lately I’ve been either updating the recipe with my changes, or adding new recipe to the database. I use an app called Cheftap on my tablet/phone/pc that imports recipes from the internet with just a press of the button. Then I can categorize and edit the recipe. There is an export feature to take a backup, and since it is in the cloud I can access from all my devices. How cool is that!

We had Jo Ellen and Don over last night to celebrate them booking the Panama cruise with us. We are now a group of 8, including Andy & Edna, as well as Jo Ellen’s cousin Kathy & Neil. We are excited :-)

We have all our bookings, including air and hotel, for another Caribbean cruise the beginning of April. We may have lost our minds a bit (especially Carm, this was pretty much his idea). I told Spike but I don’t think he understood… I may use a DAP collar for him as these supposedly alleviate anxiety - does anyone have any experience with them? I may need one for myself :-0

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
~Ursula K. Le Guin

bling and lots of it

It wasn’t snowing yesterday (which means the roads were clear and almost dry), and it wasn’t -30C, so we decided to venture out to Winchester, a nearby town with a few shops. I was interested in clothing stores which is somewhat out of character for me. We have another cruise in our future and since we plan on eating in the dining room instead of the buffet, I want a few nicer outfits.


Yes, I said it… outfit. I don’t think I’ve ever used this word to refer to myself, Kabira is the only one in this house that has an outfit. There is something so, well, I don’t know, maybe middle aged about the term. Certainly it isn’t a term to be used for the jeans and t-shirts that I normally wear. But I’m going to expand my wardrobe for this cruise and dress up a bit.


Which brings us to shopping. Our first stop was at a place called CJam - it had an eclectic collection of clothes and a charming owner to help us, so I picked out a few things to try and disappeared into the change room. Not much of it fit very well, or just looked stupid on me, but I did find a dark navy sleeveless top that fit perfectly, no small feat as I rarely have luck with sleeveless. I also scored a simple black camisole to be worn under a scarf thing that I bought on the last cruise.


But on a shelf along a wall flashed a necklace that kept drawing my eye… it was a huge statement piece with tons of bling. It is over-the-top fancy. I tried it on… we negotiated with the owner… and it was packed into a bag with the two tops. I was thrilled. I love bling.

I wore it around the house last night and marvelled at the way it caught every flicker of light. I can’t wait to wear it somewhere, but aside from the cruise (where it will fit right in), I’m not sure where.