Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Seven is a bully – a fat bully.

    This post is sponsored by Nuffnang.

    Seven was our first dog, a Dogs Home rescue over 2 years ago. Being at the dogs home and previous, god knows where, well, it’s given her Issues. With a capital I.

    Seven is a bat

    You can’t pat her without her cringing. She is bossy. And dominating.

    I mean, she is a terrier x daschund x whatever – she is short and fat and has tiny little stubby legs so she doesn’t run very fast.

    Seven 004

    And being a small dog, she gets very fat, very quickly.

    When I see her getting fat, I put her on a diet – which works …. for a while. Boiled rice, vegetables, raw bones, and a little bit of dog food is my normal plan (not all at once of course).

    However, you’ve got to factor in the fact that Seven is a bully and she’s not averse to stealing everyone else’s food while she is dieting.

    In fact, I think she has the cats so scared of her that they purposely throw her their food, just to keep her happy. Think schoolyard bully, shaking the weedy nerds upside down for their lunch money.

    Yeah, that’s what Seven does.

    So Seven gets fat, I put her on a diet, she loses weight, she beats up all the other animals for their food, gains weight again, I notice and put her on a diet again.

    It’s like yoyo dieting for dogs.

    And now we’ve got Susie, I need to be extra careful that Susie is eating enough and that Seven isn’t stealing all of Susie’s food, as well as the cats food, as well as any mice the cat catch –

    As an aside here, this morning I went outside and narrowly missed stepping on a dead mouse. There was another one in the dogs bed, another near the water bowl and one in the hay. Seven was running around in circles, growling any time the cats tried to steal their (dead, cold) mice back. They eventually gave up. Like I said – bully.

    So yeah, Seven is a fat bully.

    Heh, Seven is eating from Susie's pile here. Like I said, bully.

    Nuffnang asked if I’d like to be part of a trial for some new dog food, Pedigree’s Light and Mature for Overweight or Old dogs and I wavered for a while. I mean, it’s dog food.

    But then I thought that it would give me an opportunity to talk about Seven and make Taz happy, so I agreed.

    I’m under no illusions, when Seven is looking fat, then she is unhealthy. It seems that nowadays, over 40% of Aussie dogs are fat. Heh, I can just imagine them trying to run around a dog park, puffing and clutching at their sides.

    This dog food from Pedigree, it’s formulated for less active and/or older dogs, with 30% less calories. I think Seven with her teensy little legs falls under the less active category. Poor Seven.

    She seemed to like it to be honest. Not that that is any great test, I’m fairly sure this dog of mine would eat anything if given half a chance. Susie practically inhaled hers as well, despite not really needing it.

  • Team Ivy

    Long time readers will remember Ivy from 18 months ago, when we petitioned for her IVIG to be approved and won.

    Now, Ivy’s mum, Tiff, is wanting to give back to the hospital and ward where she spends so much time with Ivy.

    Can you help?

  • Pillows

    You don’t know this, but I have a thing about pillows.

    I like them.

    A lot.

    So much in fact that when we were cleaning out Nan’s house, I ended up with all of the pillows. Seems Nan liked having lots of spare pillows about too.

    We used her spare pillows to pack the furniture as we moved it, shoving them into glass cabinets and between things to prevent breakages. They did their job and nothing broke.

    Today, I found 4 pillows on the floor of my bedroom, all sans pillow cases – it seems Amy likes naked pillows as much as she likes her naked self. I picked them up and went hunting for pillow cases.

    Thinking about it, I remembered that out in the shed, there were more pillows, packed still into the glass cabinet that’s in storage here. It’s coming up to winter now, the weather is cold and the cats have a plethora of mice that they can’t kill fast enough.

    Side note: It’s probably not going to be that long until you start seeing posts like this. and this. and this and this and this.Wow, seems I wrote a lot about mice last year.

    I went out into the shed and unpacked all of the pillows, not wanting the mice to start nesting in them.

    One, two, three, four, five, six pillows, packed into the cabinet.

    6 pillows.

    I rummaged around in the shed and brought inside anything else that I thought mice might find interesting, then I came inside to put pillow covers on all of the pillows.

    You know, almost 9 months on, those pillows, they still smell like my grandmother.

    And that kinda sucks.

    ***

    I have Nan’s overcoat sitting in the back of my closet. Despite hanging around with my clothes, it still smells like her perfume. Every now and again, I’ll lean in and breathe in her smell.

    Then, I’ll take a deep breath and walk away; back to my daily chores, back to the blogosphere; back to life.

    I’m not sure what I’ll do when it doesn’t smell like her anymore.

    ***

    A few months ago, maybe month 6, maybe month 7, I stopped talking about Nan. It hurt too much, there were too many tears unshed and so I just stopped.

    I dragged my brain away from thoughts of her and refused to think about it.

    At all.

    Mostly, this works for me.

    I don’t have to think about her, or speak about her, or cry anymore.

    But, it’s funny. Still, most days, fuck, every day – something will happen and it will run through my head like a litany.

    I miss my Nan. I miss my Nan. I miss my Nan.

    In time to my heartbeat; in time to my breathing.

    Because I do. I miss her so badly it hurts.

    I just don’t talk about it anymore.

    It’s been almost nine months.

  • Lovely day.

    It’s been a lovely day.

    I KNOW!

    How often do I get to say that? My days are normally fraught with never ending toys, tantrums and issues, but today, well it’s been a good day.

    IĀ  even feel (I know, GASP if you want, I know I did) like I’ve managed to get on top of the housework (I am not domestic. the thought of being domestic gets me sharpening my eye gouging spoons, ready for stabbing something) and the kids have behaved.

    It was all topped off by the fact that Isaac snuggled into my chest and fell asleep, after hours of fighting a nap (but remaining happy, again, wow) and then, I got to lay on the couch all snuggled up with my son snuggled firmly under my chin.

    You know, sometimes a snuggled baby is all you need.

    ***

    Because it’s a Sunday, I’ll point you to my food blog and tell you to check out over there. Nothing much else happening on the internet for me, I’ve not written anything much.

    Congratulations to Xbox4NappyRash, his blog is a finalist in the Best Irish Blog awards. It’s up to a panel of judges now and I hear he has some huge competition, but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed anyways.

    Barbara needs some help coming up with ways to keep her son entertained for 20 seconds while he uses his inhaler and spacer. What would keep a small boy entertained while he has to sit still and breathe? Go over and give her some ideas (I said singing, as did lots of others.)

    Frogpondsrock is having a competition, she is also looking for inspiration. Enter as many times as you like, you might not win, but your comment might be the one to inspire her next set of work. I haven’t entered, probably because I can boss her into making me things without taking the prizes away from other people.

    Also, if you want to weigh into the camera debate, she is asking for your opinion on what sort of camera she should be looking at. I’m pushing for a DSLR, but that’s because I love mine.

    Uhm, I think that’s it for a lovely day/link roundup thing.

    Now, I’ve got to go and check the slowcooker and start sharpening my spoons. I think I feel a bout of domesticity that needs stabbing.

    x

  • Winners Announced!

    So a month ago I had a competition, offering free ad space on my sidebar for a month and at the end, winners have the choice of paying for another month, or walking away, no mess, no fuss.

    And here are the winners!

    Warsaw Mommy is a Canadian, living and raising her two boys in Poland. What could be more interesting than that?

    Science at home. Simple science for your kids at home. Nowadays, early learning teachers and primary schools are very focused on reading and writing, which is great. But kids also need to know science and this makes it fun.

    Kate from Picklebums! Kate lives on almost 10 acres of weeds in almost rural Victoria. She is the mother to 3 and 3/4 children and can’t quite work out whether her blog is purely a blog about her family and life, or whether it needs to be a bit educational as well.

    The Blog of Becky. Becky hasn’t emailed me a button yet, but her application was hilarious, so here she is. Her blog is funny and real and she really needs to write more.

    Workforced is a case of one man fighting the machine and not inflicting any damage in the process. Hilarious.

    And finally, last but not least:

    Kristen at Wanderlust. It’s better than sex, need I say more?

    ***

    Unfortunately I wasn’t able to feature every single application I got, but oh my word I wanted to. You guys are funny and lovely and I want to hug every single one of you. If you missed out this time and a few of my ad spots drop out, I’ll email you at the end of the month and see if you want to go ahead with a month’s free advertising anyway.

    You guys, are awesome. Now, go forth and click to their blogs!

    ***

    In unrelated news (well, a little related) I set up a page for Sleepless Nights, if you’d like to have a sticky beak?

    New posts up on the food blog too, and if you wait a few hours (or subscribe even) there will be a post about dinner tonight and our newest additions to the household. šŸ™‚