Friday 28 September 2012

PROJECT 365: Part 15

Two blog posts in one week! That's just not normal.

I've been having so much fun taking photos with Instagram on my iPod Touch.  The picture quality isn't the best, but it's pretty amazing considering the Touch has 0.8 mega pixel camera.  And I downloaded a new photo-editor app for my Blackberry which I've been having some fun with, as you will soon see.

Day 165: Last time I leave the guest bedroom open for the dogs on a cold day.
The story behind this is as follows:  First, I got Shilo. And I saw that it was good. 

I never had any trouble leaving Shilo home alone, aside from the occasional accident when he was a puppy, and a few chewed items, but really nothing more than was expected.  We lived in my little one-bedroomed flat with a small garden for him and he had access to everything. Oh except the bathroom, because the laundry basket was in there and he had/has a thing about exposing my dirty laundry for everyone to see.  But I left the bedroom open, he was always in the living room, I never had to close him off from anywhere.  Except the bathroom.

Then I moved to a bigger house on the property, one of the main reasons being, I wanted more garden for Shilo and I thought he might need some company in the form of his own puppy.  So a year and a half after getting Shilo, I brought Penny home.  I don't think Penny had the easiest introduction to the world, but I brought her home at about 7 or 8 weeks so she didn't have much time to be too traumatised.  She did have the worst case of worms I have ever seen on a puppy.  She was a bit fearful but also quick to aggression.  And she hated being left alone.  And she hated driving in the car.  For the first week I brought her to work with me, much to Shilo's distress, and those trips in the car were terribly unpleasant with her non-stop and very loud whining.  Anyway after love and care and some ground rules Penny has grown into a lovely, loving, confident and fun loving dog, so it was all worth it.

I treated and trained her as I had done with Shilo and things went pretty well, again aside from the expected accident and chewed item.  Until I came home one day and found pieces of books all over the living room.  BOOKS!  After the third time this happened I locked the dogs out of the living room while I wasn't home.  But the bedroom was always left open for them because, I mean, maybe they want to sleep during the day, and they have every right to access 'our' bed.  Wrongo! They do not, because Penny chewed the headboard, an old chair of my grans, the base of the bed and anything she could access on the night stands.  And I am a pretty untidy person in my bedroom so there was plenty for her to choose from.  And the worst was that these forays into destruction did not happen every day.  We'd go for weeks with nothing being chewed in the living room or bedroom and then WHAM.  And irreplaceable item was irrevocably masticated.  And I know Shilo was not innocent in these adventures, but I also know he didn't start them because well, he never had before.  But once the book was in pieces or the puppy had her jaws around the remote, any self-respecting dog would join in.  I blame Penny entirely.  So eventually the dogs were banned from the bedroom and I felt like the world's worst mother.  They were free to roam the passage and the kitchen and their bed was kept in the passage with their blankets but everything was closed off to them.  During winter I made sure there was an extra warm blanket in their bed, but our winters don't get too cold I guess, so I pushed through my guilt, telling myself I could not replace everything that would be destroyed otherwise.

And then it snowed.  Well not at my house, but it was damn cold and I could not leave my babies in the passage and kitchen.  I just could not.  So I had a brainwave and decided I could open the guest bedroom for them.  It's just the bed, I would remove the scatter cushions, and I could shift the nightstand so they couldn't reach it.  I felt so good.  I had discovered the solution.  I ruffled up a blanket on the bed and left for work.  I did this for the rest of the week and everything went fine.  We had a few scattered really cold days after that, and I had no qualms about leaving the guest room open for them.  And then one day, I discovered a teddy bear that was on the nightstand in pieces on the floor.  "That's okay," I thought to myself, "that is acceptable collateral damage for the comfort of my babies."  And so I continued to leave the guest room open for them during the cold spell. 

And then I came home to what is pictured in the photograph above.  All the bed linen and blankets had been pulled off and left otherwise untouched and a hole had been dug in my mattress.  Now, once again I know Penny started this.  Shilo was left alone on my bed, every morning for 18 months and the worst I got was a rumpled bed.  So now the dogs are once again relegated to the passage and the kitchen.  I don't know what I will do if it gets really cold again.  Maybe I need to buy them a doggy house...  I feel like such a failure as a furparent.


Day 166: It's raining.
Spring has officially sprung, and we are getting some lovely rain.  More than we've had in September for quite a few years actually.  I'm thoroughly enjoying it.


Day 167: Cheesy goodness. I needs it.
I really did.  I still do in fact.  I'm on a cheesy binge.  Anything smothered in cheese is essential right now.  This was a delicious vegetarian pizza.  Olives and cheese. Yummy!


Day 168: Hi!

Shilo decided I needed to watch him much more than I needed to watch Supernatural.  I may have agreed with him.


Day 169: Rearview sunset.
I have been trying to get a photo of a sunset for y'all for just the longest time, but every time I try, the colours are all wrong.  We get amazing sunsets here, and were I live there is an amazing view of the sunset, everyday on my drive home.  The road I live in is a long main road, and it always looks like the sun is setting in perfect alignment with it.  Anyway, on the way home on this day, I was stuck in traffic and was being blinded by the sun reflecting in my side mirror, and I thought I'd take a chance and see how my iPod captured it.  And, aside from my dirty window, it captured it almost perfectly. That'll do little iPod, that'll do.


Day 170: How I almost left the house today. Lesson: always look at the shoes you slip on your feet...
 I am not really a morning person.  I sleep until the very last minute and have getting ready in ten to fifteen minutes down to an art form.  While I was rummaging through my closest with my toes for my shoes, these sure felt the same.  Good thing I happened to look down before I left.


Day 171: The Dungeon Of No Signal. Aka part of the archive of the National Cultural History Museum.
I'm sure some of you have seen me tweeting about spending the day in the Dungeon.  Well, this is it.  It is freezing in here and there is no signal at all so no phone, no Internet, no nothing.  If it wasn't so cold in there I'm sure I would be super-productive on my Dungeon days.


Day 172: Know Your New Street Names.
I was driving behind this and thought it would be a good follow up to Day 158.  There are numerous buses driving around with these posters on them.  I saw one yesterday about Steve Biko, who now has a street in Pretoria named after him.  I think this 'Know Your New Street Names' initiative is great .


Day 173: All finished! — at DITSONG Kruger Museum.
After six months and various delays, the renovation of the exterior of the Kruger House is complete!  There are still a few small things the contractors are attending to on site; blocked drains, paving etc.  But the house is finished and the museum will be reopening on Monday 1 October October the 10th (the CEO had other plans apparently and didn't think we actually needed to know *runs around frantically informing clients that the opening date has changed*).  While the house looks great on the outside, the revamp makes the shoddy inside very noticeable.  So the acting manager wants to try to get a project going next year to restore the interior.  That would be awesome.


Day 174: Surprise Daddy & daughter day.
My Dad and I just haven't spent enough time together lately.  He is very busy working, and works most weekends, and the fact that I live 63km away and the price of fuel is exorbitant is not helping any.  On this Saturday, I was just out of bed and dressed when I got a text from my Dad:

      Dad: Whatcha doing?
      Me:  A load of laundry. What you doing?
      Dad: Driving down your driveway...

This last I actually only got after I heard his diesel engine parking and my dogs going mad.  Then I squeed a little.  He had brought the fixings for boerewors rolls (hot dogs with boerwors) and some coke and cream soda, and he made me lunch!  Yummy lunch!  Then we fiddled with my car and sat around talking.  And I showed him all these photos.  He is so exhausted these days from the long hours he's working that the moment he sits down he basically passes out, but we spent the whole afternoon together and it was great.  And I had leftovers after.  Altogether a great day.


Day 175: Turquoise.
Can you tell I am not a professional manicurist?  Is there such a word?  There should be.  Just as 'sandwichify' should be a word. As in 'I'm gonna take this bread, cheese and bacon and sandwichify the feck out of em'...


Day 176: Blooming beginning.
First the jasmine and now the irises.  I love this time of year.


Day 177: Scrub a dub dub. Nikki's in the tub.

I used my new phone app to edit this and it came out pretty nicely.


Day 178: Two favourite toys working in fabulous union. (I used my new phone photo editor app :D)
Another photo edited with the phone app.  Can you tell I was having fun with it?  This is my iPod Touch and my fabulous docking station.  I have two docking stations: one in my living room, which also has a CD player, auxiliary output and radio, and this smaller one in my bedroom which just docks iPods.  The smaller one actually has better sound than the bigger.  I needed one in my bedroom so I could be lulled to to sleep by wonderful tunes with perfect bass beat.  It has a remote.  This makes me incredibly happy.  In case you're wondering the song playing there on my iPod Touch is Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas.


Day 179: Good Morning!
The sun was just rising.  Don't expect many similar picture from me, but the birds had been incredibly noisy this morning and I had a headache which prohibited sleep.

Day 180: Tomaraisins! Who knew?!
Seriously. Tomaraisins.  I didn't buy any to try but it's on my list of things to do.


Day 181: Thanks to Ma, herself and both us girls now have one of these signs ;)
I suggested we should all hang them up in the same place in our houses and what better place than the toilet?  Mom's is already up apparently.


Day 182: 365 halfway mark and Maid of Honour apparel is sorted.
Yep, I am halfway through this photo project!  And if you want to know more about the wedding clothes go here.


Day 183: Lazy holiday snuggling doggies.
The 24th was National Heritage Day, a national holiday over here.  It has also recently become National Braai Day but I don't think the Haw Family has managed to actually have a braai on National Braai Day.  Not yet anyway.  I spent the holiday reading and and snuggling. Which was perfect for a slightly overcast day.


Day 184: One of the more interesting spam emails I've ever received...
As one of my Facebook friends commented 'WTF?'. WTF indeed....


Day 185: Random traffic shadow play.
I seem to take a lot of photos in the traffic.  Makes me think I may be spending too much time in the car.

Anyway, I thought this was really cool.  I wonder if Johnny Walker always stays on the headrest or moves around the back of the car a bit.  I bet he moves around.  I wonder if they positioned that sticker like that on purpose?  I wonder what is causing the shortage of bacon?


Day 186: The Casual Vacancy day!
I could not believe this actually arrived on the day of release.  I preordered it ages ago, mainly because where I ordered it from had it for the cheapest I'd seen.  But I did not believe it would be waiting for me when I got to work on 27 September.  So excited!


Day 187: Rainy morning.
Another one.  And don't get me wrong, I love rainy mornings.  But it does make it just that much harder to get out bed.

Also today is the birthday of the Pixie from Day 97.  Pretty sure that tomorrow's photo will be a picture of the Birthday Pixie.


I just realised I wrote an essay on naughty puppy behaviour at the beginning of this post.  I hope you enjoyed the effort I put in ;)


2 comments:

  1. You are not a bad pet mom. Just remember all animals used to live outside with no comforts. So the passage and kitchen with beds and blankets is perfect and more than most have.

    I love your day with Dad story. Makes me miss my dad doing this for me. Hug your dad for me the next time you see him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aw thanks! That makes me feel better.

      Dad's can be pretty awesome, can't they?

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