calling Spring

I am officially bored of winter. We have a winter storm moving in tonight and I just cant be bothered with it. I cant be bothered with the 20 cms of snow that are due to be here in the morning or with the ice that will follow. I am done with dressing warmly to go outside and with jeans and boots and cardigans to say nothing of snow pants and hats and gloves and that enormous jacket. I want skirts and linen trousers and t-shirts again. I want to drive the car with the windows down instead of AC, or even with the AC on with that smell that you first get when the AC kicks in.

I want ice-creams outside at Averys and the hot potato salad made with lemon and garlic. I want to see the girls chalk drawings on the driveway and have the trees all green again. I want to be able to run without fear of falling on my face on black ice.

Here the whole of April seems to be dedicated to spring cleaning, last year I heard it on the radio all the time, the broadcasters telling us to clean off our ceiling fans etc etc. This year I own a house and therefore I can clean my ceiling fans, I can join in with Spring Cleaning!

I have been perusing the Scentsy scents and ordering my Spring smells to burn in my warmers – I have Luna ordered and I still want to get cucumber and lime and white tea and cactus. I need a new warmer too to replace the snowflake one that HAS to leave its spot and be packed away until next November. I need a spring / summer one.

Last year when we first got here I truly hated the Spring. It was ugly and brown and dreary and cold. It seemed to be here FOREVER

This year, I want to embrace it. I shall bounce into Spring Cleaning with energy and determination to get those fan blades clean. I shall declare war on the dandelions in our garden. Soon we wont have a fire with wood dust and ash, soon the girls will be traipsing chlorine drips across the family room floor instead of ice chips.

I have been told that Spring starts on March 19^th,  which is the weekend after St Patricks Day. Spring – I am holding you to this date!

Dukie and Dutch

We have had a small furry creature living in the house for over a week now and hes taken some getting used to. His name is Dutch and hes an 8 week old NS Ducktoller x Retriever. He may be very small but he has a large personality.
He's Dons dog but we all spend time together so by default we spend lots of time with him too.

Hes very noisy, my word can that puppy make a racket if he feels ignored. Don went out for a couple of hours the other night and left him downstairs, fed , watered, relieved and in his kennel. He set about making so much noise I could not hear my viewing of Beverley Hills 90210!!
He also rather likes peeing on my brand new red rug, cue me feeling very annoyed.

Anyway, its 8 days in and hes smart so he's learning fast and he now is happy to be in his kennel, the rug is being cleaned and Dukie and him play alot. The girls love him. He is in fact, uber cute.

As you can see, Duke really roughs it in this house!

10 things about me

Ok, I have been reading some other blogs and thought I would follow a cute little trend and write my own 10 things about me post:

1. My happy place is Key West, this is where hubbs and I spent many many amazing holidays and it gets me everytime we drive down US1. We havent been there for way too long now, and I am so looking forward to the next trip, which is coming very soon.

2. I really really want to drive through the US, you know the old road trip, stopping at some great places on the way and really getting a feel for the place. Not sure we have to wait for this one, but its on my list.

3. The next person that tells me I am "lucky" to be an accountant is going to get a punch! I am not lucky to have this qualification, I worked my arse off for it, missed out on time with my children, cried hysterically and gave up years of my free time. Just saying!

4. I love ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I am also pretty into that new Spielburg movie Super 8 as it has a similiar feel. Nothing rocks my evening more than sitting down to one of these movies.

5. I love walking, walking is great. I can get outside in this stunning place and put the world to rights in my head. The fresh air, the scenery, talking out loud to myself (yes I know!) makes me come back to the house a nicer person.

6. I love flying. I love booking the tickets and getting that little reservation code, I love queueing at checkin, handing over my baggage, walking to the gate, getting on the aircraft, eating the little airplane meal - I eat everything on my tray even if I wouldnt normally. I love take off and landing and even turbulence. My kids love it all too (not turbulance though, they object to that) and I love that they love what I love. Enough love here??

7. I love my family. My family means the absolute world to me. I have always been obsessed with all things family. I used to watch family movies and concentrate on the family dynamics in it. My children are my everything and my husband of nearly 10 years is my very best friend. I feel blessed every day to have this.

8. I wish my hair was thicker and I am not so sure I am pleased at its naturally darkening status currently. It used to be so blonde people would comment on it. Now that I am in my mid thirties its so much darker and it never grows nicely. I find myself staring at nice hair on others.

9. I will never be thin. I have realised that I can eat healthily as much as I like, walk for an hour a day and heck even run and I can diet, I may lose as much as 10 lbs but I will never lose dramatic weight so that people dont recognise me, like others do. Maybe its that airplane food??

10. I like working, weird I know. Being in a good job working with people I respect makes my day. I like Mondays, I dont want to live for weekends, effectively wasting 5 days of my week for 2 days.
I have a new job that I start in 2.5 weeks and I am so excited. I am hoping that this is my end company, that I can work there forever ~ fingers crossed.

Sunday planning

OK, so now I have gotten over my funk of losing kitkat and am starting to look forward again.

I have been making some mental lists of money we need to spend on the house over the next 5 - 10 years. Some things are more "urgent" than others and some are just down to things I want.

1. Fence the yard
2. Replace our 1993 water heater
3. Renovate the bathroom - the tub leaks and is fixed with swimming pool liner currently
4. Replace the windows
5. New kitchen
6. New floors, we currently have a whole lot of laminate and I want hardwood
7. New siding - need a change of colour - light blue does NOT rock my world
8. Build a front porch along the front of the house
9. Put in a propane stove in the family room so we can kiss goodbye to baseboard everywhere forever

So this year we plan on covering points 1-3 and also saving a stack of money for our anniversary Florida trip. (hmmmmmmmm not sure how this is going to be achievable)

I have also just managed to remind myself that we will need to buy another 4 cord of wood this summer for next winters heating - cue $800

And here is somewhere close(ish) that I plan on visiting this year as its super stunning. Paul has actually been there and raved about it when he got home that day.

So lots of saving ahead (??!!) and things to do - still, if you dont plan you never have a chance of achieving and I am a planner so now I have made my list I can relax and have some breakfast.

The day after

Its the end of the first whole day without kitkat.
I have thankfully stopped thinking random hysterical thoughts like why did we ever leave our first home, we were so happy there, and frantically wanting to undo it all.

I am still wanting to take every picture out of every frame and replace them with pictures of him. I have managed to stop at 4 pictures, I want them in every room.

Last night was the first night I went to bed without him. It was very weird and horrible, as was having a bath today. He used to hang out in the bathroom and try to get in the bath with you.

Chloe is so upset.
On a plus point she had three hours today on skype with her best friend Leah whos in England. They chatted, played a DS game together, played eye spy and hide and seek, it was amazing how much they did together, I love skype.

Last night we had freezing rain followed by (as Paul put it) a blizzard, so today its white everywhere and very icy and slippery. Chloe is hoping for a snow day tomorrow.

Don gets his puppy tomorrow, I cannot believe the timing of all this. It makes me feel even worse, almost like "out with the old, in with the new" I do, however, think it will help the girls and its certainly good for Don. He needs  a new relationship.

I need to get past this, I dont know how though, I dont want him to become just a memory.

Womble

Today we made the terrible decision to put Womble down. He was 12 years old and we first saw him the day after he was born. He came to live with us as soon as he could leave home and had been with us pretty much the whole time we had been together. He had lived in 3 houses, 2 countries, seen us through 2 babies and 1 dog. He had also managed to outlive 3 of our other cats even though he was our first ever cat.

He was beautiful and comical and we loved him.

Over the last 6 months or so (or maybe longer, I just dont know) he has changed, it was a slow process at first but has been more obvious in the last few weeks.
He became very agressive and confrontational, he would seek out the dog to bully him. He used to attack us half way through being stroked and had zero patience with Lily. Just lately he started stalking her and lacerating her ankles with his lightening fast claws.

Last night he scratched her in the eye because she stroked him, cue crazy gut wrenching dash to the walkin with major blood and more than a lot of fear in my heart. She was ok, he had managed to get her upper eyelid and inside her lower one but not her eye. After three hours of being there and therefore three hours of thought we realised we could not let this continue.

So, at 11.20 this morning Womble left us. The vet was great and we know we have done the right thing. We did consider rehoming him but that would have been cruel, hes always been with just us, never even a cattery when we went on holiday. To top off this behaviour he has started behaving oddly at night and not realising we had fed him when we had. Walked around empty rooms hissing and growling. Essentially he had already gone.

So, our beautiful wonderful bath loving cat who used to greet us from work when we lived in our Langshott home and used to lie on all my homework has gone. We will ALWAYS love you and will NEVER forget you. My heart is broken.
 See you on the other side xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

sore throats and new job

OK so I got a new job!!! Yeee haaa, I am super excited as its an exciting one and means I get travel and learning back in my life. Its for a great company and I start on March 12th which is actually our Canniversary date.

Today I am actually home with a bonkers sore throat, its been looming for three days but last night it was the pits. The upside is that I get to be home on a lovely sunny blue sky snowy day with Lily and Paul and soon Chloe when she gets home from school. The downside is it hurts to swallow and I cant really go walking with Dukie as its -13 out there and cold.

I am currently in the throes of transferring my British qual to the Canadian one which isnt as straightforward and easy as I would like it to be. I want to to be one of those hand in paper get paper type of transactions but its going to require more effort on my part.

My latest grumble is that I just cant figure why we cant seem to save any money. I mean really how hard should it be but each month we pay a few hundred off of the credit card from monthly living and I can see our Florida trip, new bathroom and fencing melting away into the far off unobtainable.