Tag: Oliver

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Tara

Christine

Oli has a new cousin.

she does have a tail- it is that blur behind her- couldn’t get a picture with out her tail wagging!

Meet Tara. She is a 3 year old golden retriever and just as sweet as can be. My brother’s wife works with someone who was moving and needed to find a good home for Tara. I think she’ll be happy. They have just moved into their first house, and they have plenty of yard for her to run around. She’s very obedient and stays without being on a rope or having a fence. If only Oli could do that.

Tara and Oliver are so great together. I can hardly wait for us to have a fence up so Oli and Tara can run and play in the yard.

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The Great Book Case Shuffle of 2010

Christine

I completed nearly every task in my 34 step plan this weekend. Mostly on Friday, very little each on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Oli was pretty good about staying out of the way for the most part. Except when I had the camera or the vacuum out. For the camera, he poses. For the vacuum, he chases and barks. It is a game.

I won’t go through it all because, well, that’s boring, and I already bored you with the plan. I started fairly early Friday morning and mostly I followed it, but I did hit a snafu midway through, adjusted my plan, and got through most of the list by bedtime Friday night.

the dining room stacked with stuff waiting to go back on its shelves; Oliver looks on at the activity

I dusted and vacuumed and washed nearly every surface in my living room this weekend, getting to corners and nooks and crannies that can’t normally be reached. A good thorough spring cleaning- in the middle of July.

The big bookcase I moved from Oli’s room, now in its new spot in the living room. When I had all the shelves out, I thought maybe I could slide it out of its spot to clean. As it turned out, it was quite easy to slide. I popped the feet onto those furniture moving sliders and carefully pushed it straight through the dining room. It is heavy, but manageable.

Also, I knew mom had asked Bill to come over around 6:00 to measure for some new windows (more on that later). So, I got some L-braces at the hardware store and Bill kindly helped me level the book case and install the L-braces.
my big shelf, finally in a good spot, braced to the wall, and loaded with books
my extensive collection of (no less than 26) bungalow-specific books

Oliver posing in the empty spot where the big bookcase had been

This is to be my new “pantry” area, with storage for small appliances that I don’t want cluttering the kitchen counter. Even though I measured, and measured, and measured, I still came up 4″ too short here. As you can see, I miscalculated. The wide shelving unit was to be flanked by the two shelving towers. That didn’t work out. Here is where the plan adjusting came in.
I ended up leaving the record tower where it was, but I emptied, dusted and cleaned the corner, shelf and contents, then gave it a quarter turn. The wall actually looked too empty there anyway, so I think it all worked out for the best.
I guess I did everything on the list, except I’m still working on the last item- finding homes for the clutter. That’s kind of never ending. I do have a small stack of old cassette and vhs tapes in the dining room. Not sure what to do with them yet. I loathe to stick anything else in the back bedroom because that is going to soon need clearing too.
I’ll take some more pictures of the whole living room now that it is finished. Quick! before it gets dirty again.
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Just Because

Christine

Gratuitous Oliver picture.
This was taken early one morning last week. I don’t think Oli was quite awake yet.

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Oliver and Thunder and Lightning

Christine

Incidentally, before the storm Friday night I tried to take Oli for a walk and it didn’t go so well. I knew he was bored and I knew it might rain in a little while, so I saddled him up with the Easy Walk Harness– which works great, but he doesn’t really like it. Turns him into stiff doggie. I think it is because he knows that he can’t pull when he’s wearing it. He also knows that harness = walks.
Anyway, he usually loves going for walks, but that night he kept stopping, like something was bothering him. He stopped first in front of our next door neighbor’s house and refused to move. I thought maybe something was hurting him. I checked the harness, making sure it wasn’t twisted, the clips hadn’t caught his hair, then I checked all four paws. Nothing amiss. Patted him down and gave him a little rub of encouragement then tried to get him to walk again.

We passed two more houses and he stopped again. He hadn’t been walking with his normal gusto and wasn’t even interested in the other dog a block away, walking toward us. Something was up. I got down to his level, petting, soothing, trying to figure out what was up with my guy. The the heat lightning flashed a bit stronger than it had been and he stiffened up even more. Hmm. Storms don’t generally bother him, but it seemed he didn’t like being outside during the thunder and lightning. I didn’t think much of it because the heat lightning and rumbles of thunder had been going on for several hours by then.

I asked him if he just wanted to go back home, and he was more than ready. We trotted back to the house at a clipping pace. I made him sit on the porch steps with me for a few minutes before we went in. I wanted him to get comfortable being outside, with mommy’s protection, while the sky flashed and rumbled. I did my best to make him feel safe and not make a huge deal over it. We did this with him for the first couple of storms when he was a puppy, and we thought they didn’t bother him. I guess that only did part of the job.

So now we know. Oliver is fine with storms from the safety of the house, but he doesn’t want to be outside when there is thunder and lightning.

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Joy and Optimism

Christine

I took Oliver to mom’s house this weekend to play in their backyard. They are out in the country a bit more and since he is being so timid about the big snow, we decided to let him run off leash. John had several paths plowed and shoveled, so there were good places for him to run. He did briefly venture into the deeper stuff, but it was pretty tough going, so he turned around and headed back to us. We kept the loop leash on him just in case he decided to run off, but we didn’t need it. He was a very good boy. I think he really enjoyed having three people outside just to play with him. We let him explore a bit, then we threw squeaky toys for him to fetch. He had a blast.

Joy:

When he finally plunked down in the snow, we called it a day. I took Oliver to the basement where the woodstove was pumping out the heat. Mmm, I really miss that. We cleaned the ice balls from between Oli’s pads and I tried to pull off as many ice clumps from his hair as I could. He was slightly less than cooperative, trying to chew at them himself. Luckily he melted fairly quickly in the 80-something temperature.
One day last week it dawned on me that while I had taken all the other Christmas ornaments down and packed them away, I had missed the red, green and sliver jingle bell wreath. It pretty much screams Christmas, there is no way I could get away with it much longer.
So I dug around in the basement for something a bit more seasonally appropriate. I came up with wreath parts. None of the flowers I had could be successfully attached to the wreath I had, so I popped into the craft store one night, plunked down $6 and came home with a chain of flower garland. So much for seasonally appropriate. I think it is still a bit early for the dogwood blossoms, but that was the earliest spring flower they had. I was really drawn to the daisies, but that would be a bit much for February.
Optimism:

I still think it needs something, though. Maybe a bow? I know they sell that green velvet ribbon I used to make the loop in wider sizes. I’ll have to check next time I am out. I also saw some cute little birds and while I’m not normally into that sort of thing, they were pretty sweet, all feathery. Yup. I think I want a little feather bird, like these sweet little chickadees.