Skittish White Dog Has A Friend

The Skittish White Dog is becomming a little more placid...

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This and That

It's been a busy week.I'll recap quickly.

We added a four-legged beastie to the family last Saturday. She sleeps well as long as I'm sleeping on the couch beside her. Crate training is coming along nicely in bits. The Skittish White Dog - surprisingly - likes her. She's in need of a blogging name. Perhaps we'll make that next week's project.

My blogging is in need of a predictable potty schedule.

I celebrated a birthday on Thursday the 11th. Both kids and Mr. A got right into it. It was awesome. Now the five-year countdown to the big 'four oh' is on. I'm not worked up like some get about 40. This last year was a tough one for me and I'm just glad it's over and done. Onward and upward, right?

There's a baby puppy in my house. She's very cute.

Knitting enthusiasts: I signed up for the Knitting Olympics over at http://www.yarnharlot.com/. I'm not brave enough to jump into the Ravelympics yet. I'm making Hattie's Rose Garden Scarf seen here knitted up by Monika. Hopefully mine might turn out half as nicely as hers.

The kids and I were watching the Olympic opening. They went to bed just as the fiddlers started. I think that's my favourite part yet.

Question of the day: When the husky puppy gets upset and starts yowling and yipping ('cause they don't really bark), why does the big husky dog feel the need to join in?! Please send patience and earplugs.

♥Mrs. A who is looking forward to another night on the couch....not really.

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Pushing & Pulling

As dismal as I've been feeling lately, the last thing I want to do is to go outside. But, since the dismal depressing doldrums are directly caused by hibernating inside, I am pushing myself to get outside. The kids and I have been out - for more than a cursory breath of fresh air - every day in February. I know it's only the 4th, but cut me some slack. I'm depressed. I have a headache and I've not been sleeping.

We've been taking the few minutes walk here. To 'The Hill', as the local yokels refer to it. It's The Boy Child's favourite place to spend time once the snow flies. There's the rink, the typical Canadian stereotypical one, where there's an equally stereotypical game of unending gentlemanly pond hockey happening.

Curiously, The Skittish White Dog is not so skittish about pulling the sled up the hill. Once the kids discovered this, they jubilantly put her into service. This, in turn, puts me into service as Skittish White Dog may never, ever, not once be off-leash. Skittish White Dog bounds up the hill like she's been born and bred to pull things places. (Duh!)

I'm not sure if the kids or the dog most enjoy our cold, forced outings. Hopefully I'll begin to enjoy them more. It would be nice if that would kick in soon. I quite enjoyed my fall 'runs' with The Skittish White Dog so I'm not sure what happened to kill my mojo between then and now.

Here's to continued cold night-time temperatures (perfect ice making conditions) and warmer day-time temperatures (perfect playing outside conditions).

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Am I Really Doing This?!

Say hello to KinderSurprise and FerreroRoché. I get to meet them and their brothers on Saturday.

Can someone please tell me what I'm thinking?

Who goes to 'meet' puppies and then returns home empty handed? What are the odds? I suppose I should mention that Mr.A and the kidlets will be with me. That's Mr.A, the guy who has nary a maternal bone in his body but still talks baby talk to The Skittish White Dog.

What kind of person sits at home late into the evening and searches the Internet for poor, destitute, homeless puppies?

I've really backed myself into a potty-breaks-every-three-hours kind of corner.

The little ladies pictured above are from a mom who was rescued with 96 other dogs from a defunct sledding camp in Québec. The 97 dogs quickly became many more as 30 of them were 'in a family way'. The dogs have been fostered out to shelters and rescue organizations throughout the area.

The empathetic side of me says, 'How can we NOT rescue one of these poor things?' The practical side of me says, 'Woman, WHAT are you THINKING?!'

Excuse me while I go try to resolve myself. ~sigh~

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Happy "♥" Month

February is Heart Month.*

For all of February, my good friend Mrs.P is going to make an effort to utilize her family's YMCA membership on a daily basis. Her two boys are going to be dragged along. They are mostly willing participants in the plan. Especially once they heard that their schoolwork will be moved to the #2 position on the daily priority list.

My good friend Mrs.P and her family are personally touched by heart disease. She is doing her best to model good habits so that her boys are spared a myriad of health problems, especially problems in the ticker department.

Upon hearing this ambitious news from Mrs.P, I immediately got to thinking. I wonder what I could do to make my children miserable support heart healthy habits through the month of February?

I don't have a fancy all-access pass to the local Y nor am I about to acquire one. I do, as chance would have it, have a poor-man's pass to the great wide open - which is just as good, although the climate control has a bit to be desired at this time of year.

Without telling my kids, I made a commitment to (at the very least) get outside for a bit of activity each day in February. The Heart and Stroke Foundation recommends that people are active 30 to 60 minutes a day - 60 to 90 minutes if you're a kid type people. Not that I need an expert opinion to tell me how to lead my life, but in this instance, a guideline might be prudent. I tend to err on the side of laziness.

The driving ambition behind this most recent commitment came last week when I was sprawled on the living room carpet with the kids. The Girl Child and I were drilling multiplication facts with The Boy...which nearly always involves fidgeting, jiggling or some other restless energy type activity. Math fact practice quickly morphed into a demonstration of contorted stretching poses where I quickly noticed a marked lack of flexibility in both the kids.

At the very least, an inflexible person is susceptible to injury from daily trips, slip and falls. These kids can't touch their toes without their knees popping up off the floor. They can't even sit up straight-backed with their legs stretched out in front. I began to worry. I began to take inventory of the amount of physical activity these kids are getting . The Boy, he easily gets a good chunk of activity in a day. The Girl, not so much.

And so, Heart Month gives us a good excuse to get moving. Sometimes kids need a Good Excuse in addition to mom's Because I Said So. And I will disguise it all under the guise of School Work if I have to.

Today we got outside very successfully. After a bit of morning schoolwork, the kids had a choice: they could stay inside doing housework and preparing lunch or they could go outside. They opted for outside. 30 minutes of wrestling and chasing each other in the snow, check! We walked to the skating rink - which should count double due to the windchill - and skated for an hour before heading home.

Tomorrow I'll tell the kids about our my month-long goal. Or maybe I won't. I wonder how much of a challenge I'm up for?

At any rate, it's Heart Month people. Take a look at your daily physical activity. Getting any? Take a look at your eating habits. How's your portion size? Got any heart healthy food on you plate? I figure if I can jump-start good habits in a Canadian February (and there's really no reason I shouldn't be able to except for the laziness factor...and maybe the windchill) then there's no reason I can't have good habits on every other day of the year. But for now, for me, it's just the next 27 days that count.

♥Mrs. A

*Seriously, were the Canadian Heart and Stroke people thinking of Canadian winters when they chose February to encourage people to get out and be more active for the good of their heart?! The wind this week is coming from the West, straight off of the Great Lakes. Do you know how cold that is? I suppose if I have to explain windchill to someone, there's no point. But I will say, there's a reason that animals hibernate and I can't say I blame them. I have been a firm believer of hibernation, especially in February. AND - if you can happen to get past the wind on this part of the globe at this point of the year, there's a great deal of ICE to consider. Ice that arrived as 40mm of rain last week, then promptly froze. I tell you, it's very unpredictable here in Canada-land. Did I mention I live in one of the more southern regions of this Great White North? Nary a mountain, igloo or aurora borealis to be seen in these parts. Skidoos are parked 50 weeks of the year around here. Downright balmy compared to most Canuk habitat. So, again, was February the best month they could come up with?!

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