Sunday 20 December 2015

167: Merry Christmas from Alex and Rusty


166: Behind the scenes of our Christmas card

Yesterday Alex Thaub and I finally got down to work on our Christmas card for 2015. As usual, the dogs were curious about what the foolish humans were up to; I saw them in the window keeping an eye on us -- just in case there was food involved, in the case of the bassets. Tiger is not as greedy and bores easily, and I kept seeing him out of the corner of my eye, which made me wonder why he was so curious. But I was
trying to set up a photograph.
   When we were nearly finished, Alex nudged me and whispered, "Don't make any sudden moves, but look over towards the garage and see what the dogs were keeping an eye on." Sure enough, a little family of deer had wandered in, searching for food. Tiger wanted to protect the property, of course, and was anxious to chase them away; Porky and Petunia were merely curious. The deer could apparently tell we meant them no harm, but we didn't get any
closer ... Alex found some oatmeal in the cupboard and we scattered that for them; they disposed of it quickly as we watched. And Tiger sulked for a few hours that we hadn't let him tear the deer to shreds ;-)
   It felt like Christmas, to be able to feed some hungry strangers who don't have the same easy life that we do. Alex and I hope you have the opportunity to make your Christmas meaningful by making life better for someone else.  And I'll post our Christmas card later today!



Sunday 13 December 2015

165: Lazy Sunday afternoon

Alex Thaub and I were at home on Sunday afternoon; we did some chores, swept and dusted, tidied up around the Christmas tree, and were just about to have an impromptu nap when the dogs started to indicate that they needed to go out for a few minutes.  That's the way it is when you have dogs, so we tried to get sufficiently awake to run the dogs. Of course Porky and Petunia decided that it was time for grand adventure and a long
hike ... luckily for us, a long hike for these two is all the way to the garage and back. We got in and dried them off, and Alex was just saying that he felt a little more energetic and maybe we should go down to the gym and work out ourselves, and he was bringing me a protein shake ... and he has the pictures to prove I fell back asleep with the exhausted dogs.  So he let me sleep and went and made dinner, bless his heart.






Friday 11 December 2015

164: Too cold and windy!


Originally this was going to be a post about my nice new sweater -- taking a few pictures out back by the garage. Unfortunately the weather decided not to cooperate; a cold and stiff breeze sprang up and turned my hair into a wind sock. And since I'd just washed my damn hair, it felt like I was immediately getting a cold. I quickly headed back into the house for a Scotch and as my hair thaws, it's dripping cold water down my neck.
If this weather keeps up, I'm going to cut my hair...

163: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas


It's been really nice to get ready for Christmas in Second Life with Alex Thaub; this is our first Christmas together and we're going a lot further than ... well, than anyone has in real life, I bet. We increased our land holdings, stripped the land down to nothing, and started from scratch with a new log cabin and associated landscaping, all to have more fun with Christmas preparations. And we are having a lot of fun
with it, making sure we get the details the way we want them.
   Last night it was trimming the big tree in the living room and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures. I have a couple of Christmas photo shoots in mind, of a more formal nature, but I thought you might relate to us at home in comfortable clothes, decorating the tree and trying to keep the dogs out of the hot chocolate. We didn't have time to start until later in the day -- the days are shorter this time of year and the darkness kind of crept up
on us. So we decided to do the last few decorations only by the light of the tree and the fireplace, which was a nice homey feeling.
   One of the bassets, Petunia, is always curious about anything humans do, especially if it even remotely involves the potential of food, and sat on the window seat looking curiously at us throughout the process.  Tiger was prowling the grounds looking for squirrels, and the other basset, Porky -- well, if you look carefully, you can see Porky fast asleep
on the sectional, oblivious to everything. He'll take more of an interest in life later at dinnertime.



Wednesday 2 December 2015

162: Who let the dogs out?

Porky and Petunia need an evening run so I took them out while I was waiting for Alex to get home ... they don't like the snow, lazy buggers. Petunia just has a quick pee and then parks her lazy butt, while Porky tried to whiz on the brand-new Christmas tree.  Lucky I caught him in time. They do their business and then sit by the door begging to be let back in to the warm house. Oh well, I suppose if I'd wanted active dogs I should
have chosen something other than basset hounds.