Happy Gotcha Day, Apollo!

Yes, it’s that time of the year again – FOUR years since Mr. Handsome joined our pack.

I will post the obligatory Gotcha Day photo:

"I don't know who you people are, but I think I'll like it here"

I’m sure you’ve all read about Apollo’s journey to become part of our pack.  It took a circuitous route, but he found us in the end!

I will also post the “when we first met” photo:

those eyes, that schnozz! How could I say "no"?

So our Big Handsome Boy has been with us four years.  He’s slowed down a lot in the past year.  He’s a little more creaky in his joints, a little more grumpy when he’s startled in his sleep.  He lost his Sabrina in January and that threw him for a loop.  But now he has his little Ava and he’s happy as can be.

he loves sun bathing

and really, happiness is

TWO electric blankets!

upon which to spread one’s McPoundage.  I picked up the purple one the other day because I know Florida Girl Ava will not be happy at all once we get into full winter temps.

In the mail this morning I received an awesome camera lens that I have rented for four days over the weekend.  I got it from Lens Rentals Canada and this beautiful, $1,800 lens is a dream to shoot with.  (The big fella says when I’m done paying off the mortgage with my new contract $$, he will buy me this lens.  Hmmm.)

look at those lashes!

That other photo of Apollo on the blankets was taken with it, too.

So it might snow tomorrow … I guess I won’t be outside taking pics with the lens.  I also won’t however, be working this weekend.  I put in my contract hours by 5 this afternoon, so I’m good until Monday!  Woot!  Might even get some knitting done.

not a Monday

this pic was not taken on a Monday:

Ava knows she's a lucky dog!

We had a quiet day yesterday.  I worked on Saturday night, the big fella went out from 11 pm to 5 am on some uniform overtime.  The only thing I did was to limp our crappy washing machine through a few loads of laundry.  Our new machine should be delivered tomorrow afternoon.  That will be a treat to get the new one set up.  Hopefully we’ll have better luck with it than with this accursed Maytag.

Almost done the body of the pink twin sweater, then it will be sleeve time x 2!

Not the kind of massage I’d like …

I saw this on Ravelry and it cracked me up so bad:

Make sure you watch to the end.   Slays me.

time for another dress poll

We are probably going to the Remembrance Day/Armistice Day Ball.  I went looking for dresses today.  I brought home two.  I love them both.  I’m likely keeping them both (good sale today!) but I can’t decide which one to wear to the ball.  I managed to get the big fella to take a few photos.  (ugh – that’s another story.  I don’t understand how he can take a point-and-shoot camera and take such shite photos with it!  Even my DSLR gets the best of him.  So bear this in mind for these photos.  Poor lighting, unfocused, etc.  Yes, my hand is clenched in some of them.  Yes, I have grumpy/mean tempered/aggravated expressions on my face.  The camera angle is weird – I asked him to make sure he got the shoes so he had it a some bizarre angle.  Awkward poses/positioning – we have it all!

The shoes – I wanted to have both to compare, but after looking at the first photo, I knew the strappy stiletto will be the best shoe for it.  I didn’t bother to change it for the rest of the pics.

The accessories – a wrap or a long sleeved bolero.

I had to pixelate myself out or you all would have turned to stone!

^Ocelot print, cowl neck, shirred mid-section dress above^

thanks, Spanx!

 

^little black dress, empire waist, black sequined waist band, pleated bust, shirring^

with the black, gauzy wrap

-

"when are you taking the damn photo?!"

-

ocelot with bolero (clenched fist at no extra charge!)

-

little black dress with bolero

Envision this with hair properly done (I’ll see a professional!), fresh make up, little black satin clutch evening bag and darker hose.  And shoes that are both the same.

- and -

then there’s that …

When we unloaded the van after our vacay, I found some sock yarn I’d forgotten about:

from "The Wool Shop"

That striped OnLine sock yarn has something in it – alpaca or bamboo – that makes it sooo soft.  Will have to examine in more detail when I get around to cataloguing and storing my yarn purchases.  I spent some time yesterday getting my office sorted out and organized but the yarn will have to wait a few days.  I was looking for someplace to stash the yarn and realized I will have to do some culling or reorganizing.  I brought home this yarn above, the yarn I got at Knits by the Sea, Urban Yarns,  and Three Bags Full.  I didn’t get any large amounts, just single skeins, mostly sock yarn.  But I had bought a few sweaters’ worth of yarn during the year (mostly Cascade 220) and while I’d started a sweater for myself, I haven’t done much with it.  I’ll probably rip it out for now.  I’ve decided that I need to focus on some smaller projects and use up some of this beautiful yarn I’ve acquired.  So no more “speculative” yarn purchases for a while!

S4 scarf!

I finished my little scarf on Friday night.  I cast on 44 stitches on 4 mm needles.  It’s very soft and drapey.  I used up almost all of the yarn – I had a small little ball left.  I love how it curls in on itself.  It ended up being 9″ x 64″ (unblocked).

crabby

It made me laugh when I realized that the colours in the sock yarn match my crabby pants!  I got those jammy pants on our trip.  I’m crabby in the morning!

a few days ago

I was looking at this:

downtown Vancouver

and now, after getting home about 7:30 last night, I’m looking at the hideous mess that is my office.  I don’t even know where to start.  When I unpacked us last night, I just dumped all my mail and work stuff, as well as the contents of my laptop bag and work bag that  I took along on vacation.  I need to sort it out before I can even begin to make a list of how to proceed.

The poopers walked in the house, took up their stations on the couch and dog beds in the living room and it was like they hadn’t been gone for three weeks.  Funny dogs.

It was so delightful to sleep in my own bed last night – I slept really great.  The past two nights on the road I didn’t sleep well, so I was pretty tired.

wrapping it up

We are T-2 nights from the end of our vacation and what a great one it has been!  We had a flurry of activity during our days in Vancouver culminating with a fantastic supper out with Ande last night.  We headed out to The Keg for a feast.  I tried something new, having my steak cooked “Chicago” style.

According to wiki, “A Chicago-style steak is cooked to the desired level and then quickly charred. The diner orders it by asking for the style followed by the doneness (e.g. “Chicago-style rare”).“

I ordered a filet, Chicago med-well.  Normally I like my steak well done  because I like the charred outside.  And I normally don’t order a filet because they hate me for ruining such a lovely steak by having it well done.  So I was adventurous and went the Chicago route.  OMG – it was so delicious!  It was beautifully charred on the outside so I had my crunchy bits, but the inside was slightly pink and so tender.  I could cut up the leftovers for the poopers with a butter knife back at the the hotel.

Finished the meal with crème brûlée – great flavour and brûlée, but the texture was a little thick.  But very tasty!

And of course the best part of the meal:

sharing it with my two best friends!

The big fella and I both are in agreement that we are ready and eager to get home.  We had an awesome time.  I’ll have a few more photos and posts to make once we get home.

Alpacas, horses and yarn

I haven’t had a chance to post a couple of pics from our visit with our friends in Coombs.  When we came back over the hump from the Pacific Rim, we stayed two nights in Coombs and had some wonderful visits with our friends.  Since we saw them last year, they acquired a horse!  Dear old Mac the Arabian had passed on a few years ago, and this guy needed a home:

he loves his little coat

His name is Duster and he’s a Quarter Horse. The alpacas are Willie, Alonzo and Jack:

Human! What are you doing over there?! Should we run away?!

They’re pretty funny to watch and Barb says their fleece is really beautiful!

nice stinkeye

On the ferry back to the mainland, I was trying to explain to the big fella why the photos he takes with my camera are usually crap.  Trying to explain the focusing system – press down halfway, notice where the green box is, if it’s not the thing you want it to focus on, redo it.  I don’t think I got through …

the "original" Cupcakes

The Denman “Cupcakes” store is just down the street from our hotel.  Oh my!

four yummy cupcakes

Clockwise from top left:  blue hawaii, red velvet, chocolate, koo koo (coconut)

very good red velvet

Very tasty, but a little overkill on the icing.  It was also very tasty, I just don’t like heaps of icing on my cake/cupcakes.

Apollo the Sighthound

We took a few walks through Stanley Park, taking advantage of the sunny weather.  (The forecast keeps threatening rain …)  In this area, there was a very fat Jack Russell Terrier running amok and it captured Apollo’s most rigorous attention.

poopers were pooping out

Yesterday after our walk and drive through the park, we headed over to 10th Avenue West and I went into Urban Yarns, ostensibly just to buy a pair of short 4 mm straights.  Ha.  Good intentions.  They had a very good selection of Sweet Georgia yarns (which I love) and I found a new-to-me Vancouver local yarn, so I had to try it out.  And they had Kauni Effektgarn.  How could I leave without some?  Oh, and three balls of Zauberball sock yarn.  Such great colours and so very soft.

very nice yarn!

Zauberball 1608, 2079, 1564

.

Kauni "EOC", Sweet Georgia Cashluxe Fine in "rusted" and "saltwater", Gourmet Crafter Gourmet Sock Yarn in "Berry Picking"

And here’s the S4 scarf I’ve not been working on very much.  I had this lovely Sweet Georgia “Tough Love” sock yarn in snapdragon that I wanted to use for -something-.  I decided to make a simple Stocking Stitch Sock yarn Scarf (hence the S4).  I cast on 44 stitches on 4 mm needles, did 4 rows of garter stitch at the beginning and am just working stocking stitch until the yarn is almost all gone, where I will do 4  more rows of garter stitch and cast off.  I’m taking advantage of stocking stitches’ natural and usually annoying tendency to curl in upon itself.

curly and cooshy and soft!

Today we headed out to look at Queen Elizabeth park.  When Jim and Ande got married, we had the wedding supper at the restaurant in the park and I was struck at how beautiful the park was.

Why, yes, I AM a dorkstick with my pants rolled up.

The inseam on these jeans is just a touch too short to wear with my Fabulous Fluevogs, so I rolled ‘em up to show them off.

in the park!

In our travels in that part of the city, we swung by Three Bags Full.  They had MORE Kauni, so I got two balls.  Those two are actually the same colourway, just wound in a different sequence.

Kauni "EQ", Sweet Georgia Tough Love sock yarn in Creme Brulee, Stillwater and Dutch

And we had beautiful, sunny October weather all day.  We went for a drive around the sw part of the city, stopped a couple of places to walk near the beaches.  So pretty!

so how’s that juicing going?

Not so much. Yesterday when we arrived in the city, I had time to run up to our room after we checked in to wash my hands, brush my teeth and put lippy on, then run back down to be picked up (and chauffeured about the city in a gorgeous Lincoln) by Ande.

We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so after we hit up a couple of shops (and I bought my fab Fluevog boots), we hit up Japadog!

2 "love meat" combos

We walked in and I was reading the menu to narrow down what this picky eater could order.  You could choose a beef hot dog, and of course add on all sorts of bizarre options.  While the name is sort of … odd … this was really tasty!  It was a beef dog covered with a pork/beef meat sauce, cheese and grilled.  You had your choice of six seasoning options for the fries and they shake them in the little brown paper bag.  Very cute!

NOM!

It tasted really, really good!  We both left a bit of our lunch behind because we spotted a cream puff stall up the block.  Hey, we had to keep our shopping strength up!

it's not a Terri & Ande day if we don't have at least one photo of us looking like a couple of dorksticks!

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that fabulous shawl I have around my neck:

Happy birthday to ME!

Ande made me this gorgeous shawl for my birthday!  It’s the Super Spiral Shawl from Meg Swansen’s “Gathering of Lace”.  Ande used a lace weight yarn and she’s told me what it was, but I keep forgetting.  It’s FABULOUS!  She’s the best friend, EVAH!

oh, look - it's chocolate!

We hit up a few shops on Robson and downtown, then went to the Gourmet Warehouse.  I bought a few gadgety type things, but got lost in the chocolate aisle.  These are all Ecuadorian chocolates, which has been my chocolate of choice lately.  They are all very tasty but have subtle flavour differences.

We also walked around Commercial Drive and checked out some shops.  I also got an “I (heart) East Van” t shirt as part of my bd gift!  To top off the gorging, we met Ande’s husband Jim for supper later at the Memphis Blues BBQ House for our traditional gathering and consuming of the Memphis Feast.  Yum, indeed!

So today, the big fella, the dogs and I did a fair bit of walking.  We went out for our morning walk around the hotel ‘hood, we went out in Kitsilano early afternoon, then walked along Beach Avenue and enjoyed the lovely sunshine that came out after lunch.

spot the tourist!

We headed home and fed the pups then watched the sun set.  Our balcony has a great view of English Bay.

beautiful sky

Weather is supposed to be dry tomorrow, so we’ll probably check out Stanley Park.

 

radio silence

We’ve had a couple of full days and put some miles on … but now we’ve landed in Vancouver for a few days.

these are John Fluevog "F Boot Bobbi"

There have been boots bought.

Ande and I had a whirlwind girls’ day out once we arrived off the ferry.  More on that tomorrow!