What was 2013?

Apologies for the lateness, but 2013 was:

January

Gimli glowed in the rising sun

I went to Trinidad

February

Gimli and I found the red wubba buried in the snow

Gimli went looking for his dog friend

My dwarf went under snow

I tossed a dwarf!

Gimli won the best smile contest!

Gimli wanted bar service

March

It was Mike's birthday and we spent it aboard the Disney Fantasy!

Posing on pirate night

Our plate from Palo

Relaxing on his birthday

I pretended to be Marilyn Monroe

April

Gimli posed with Bombur the Squishable

Gimli thought he could hide under Mike's wheelchair

We had an ice storm and lost one of our branches

May

Gimli borrowed the neighborhood children's chalk and left his mark.

Gimli met a lovely Greyhound

We met a lovely little puppy

June

Merida!

Learned how to pounce

Sat next to her big brother

July

The corgis learned to line up

Gimli reminded us how to smile

Merida told me what she thought of my bra

August

Gimli turned 5 years old!

Gimli and I went to the Arboretum on our own

Corgi snuggles!

They met a new friend!

They didn't go swimming.

Merida got to see her sister!

Merida's dad!

September

We walked in the Bark for Life to raise money for Cancer

The corgis shared a toy

Merida lost a few teeth

October

The corgis posed with the pumpkins

Mike went as Carl

I dressed as Isabella for Halloween

A praying mantis showed up in our yard

November

Merida was a bad little puppy

Merida had her first taste of snow

December

Seafood feast in The Keys!

I held an alligator!

Airboats on the Everglades

My birthday at Walt Disney World!

Snow romps!

Gimli taught Merida all about Christmas

Wordless Wednesday - Snappy Snappy

Dress Up Your Pet Day

So, I know it's "Dress Up your Pet Day" and a great many bloggers, instagrammers etc may have put their pets into costumes and so on... but not here.

I give you my dogs, dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Coco Chanel?

I'm not a fashionista, by any means. I don't watch fashion television programs, I don't know the latest styles and I don't care which celebrity is wearing whom. I buy what I like and lately, it's been a slooowww move towards a 50s slant, but that's as far as I go.

Imagine my surprise when I came home the other day with some new pairs of lounging around pants, proceeded to try them on and Lady Merida nearly lost her mind over them. She's in love with clothing - of all kinds. She kept sniffing the pant legs and could not get enough of them. Even after they were laundered, she kept sniffing them!

She'll also sneak into our bedroom/closet and "cherry pick" my clothes for her to cuddle/eat the tags.

You might be wondering how she can get at my clothes in the closet? Well, we don't have enough dresser space, so my short sleeved t-shirts, shorts etc sit in plastic bins in the closet, which means it's prime height for a sneaky little corgi.

I found her in the closet today, she dug through the clothes at the top of the bin to find a particular top in the middle, which she was rolling around on.

She's also figured out a way to "cherry pick" my socks, leave them on the floor for Gimli to find and hoard.

So, now we have two issues:

- They have started working together
- Merida is probably a reincarnated version of some fashion designer

Saturday Smiler - Sideways

I do love that sideways grin.

Flat Corgi Friday - Castle

Wordless Wednesday - Where's Merida?

Brrrrrr

It has been at least -20 degrees here for the past week. It's supposed to stay below zero til the weekend. It's an understatement to say the corgis are unimpressed.

We cannot go for walks because it's so cold, my face starts to freeze. Even with layers, a full length coat, big thick gloves, hat, scarf, and one of those face covering things that only show your eyeballs, I'm still frozen. The other day I was sure my eyeballs had frozen and I was going to go blind as they thawed.

The corgis give up and limp along with cold paws and once that wind hits us, it sends a shock through your system and squeezes your heart. I would not be surprised if I glimpsed a White Walker in the field behind us... it's that cold and desolate looking outside.

Gimli only stays in the backyard long enough to use the washroom, then he bounds back to the door. Even wearing his red jacket, he wants to come back inside.

There are two steps under that snow.

Merida, the snow puppy, yearns to play in the snow, but she's no match for those temperatures and that wind. Except, she doesn't know this and so she tries to stay out to pounce in the snow, but we call her back with the promise of cookies.

It is supposed to get a little warmer tomorrow, up to -10. It's supposed to get up to the freezing mark on the weekend. Hopefully, I can take the corgis out for a proper walk then.

Late Christmas posting

I'm late in posting our Christmas shenanigans, but I hope you enjoy them just the same.

This was Merida's first Christmas and she pretty much just roamed around the house wondering why a large tree was in the corner, why things were under it and why Gimli became so excited over a stocking.

We don't yet have any place to hang the stockings, so I had to place them on the love seat. Of course, Gimli, like any child on Christmas morning made a beeline for the stockings.  Don't ask me how he knew, maybe it was the presence of cookies, who knows?

Notice Merida sitting next to him out of formality, she had no concept of a stocking.

Of course, Gimli took advantage of the stocking and stole his. He shook it a little so he could steal his Dentastick and gobble it up before I realized what he'd done. I then placed both stockings on the top of the chair and waited for Mike to come downstairs.

The stocking cookies were gobbled up in no time - these are corgis after all!  In the toe of both stockings, the corgis found their new shirts.

Gimli's supposed to be Thing 1, but they didn't have his size.

Next came the actual presents. They received a couple new items, but the majority were toys that I had repaired and regifted to them. A total of 6 toys were given and by the end of the day, 3 toys were already in disrepair. That red-white-green ball had to go to the bin after only a few minutes. Miss Merida is a toy destroyer! It's quite frustrating and we've stopped purchasing any soft toys as they don't last too long.  Argh, we were spoiled with Gimli :(

After the presents, came breakfast. The corgis got some extra goodies here too - some egg and small pieces of bacon.

Then, it was time to romp outside to survey the damage from the crazy ice storm. There was a fine layer of ice on top of the snow, so they couldn't romp and run.

All in all, a good day, though Mike and I were a little frazzled over it all. Going away on vacation at the beginning of December, while is great for your birthday, really turns on the Christmas stress when you're back home. I don't think I'll do that again.

Flat Corgi Fridays - Oh Deer

If you've been following the blog for a while, you know I've tried to hold a "Flat Gimli Fridays" post showcasing the adventures of "Flat Gimli". However, now that we have Merida, I now introduce the "Flat Corgi Fridays".

I don't know how well the idea of both pictures on the same "stick" will work out. We had to do it this way because Merida would. not. sit. still for the picture. We may try to take another picture when she's more mature - physically and mentally.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this new series.

Things to do for 2014

2013 was not a good year for this list. I was able to accomplish a few items, but I never maintained the listing as the year went on. I'm starting the list anew for 2014.

1. Complete the first two levels of Rosetta Stone - German

2. Read 25 books - Last year, I read 16 books, four short of my 20 book goal. This year I've upped it to 25 as I don't feel I read nearly as much as I should.

3. Spend less time on the computer in my non-working hours

4. Maintain the blog with regular posts - I've come up with a tentative schedule for postings, but it is still a work in progress.

5. Go through the Digital SLR for Dummies book and improve my photography skills.

6. Continue to photograph Gimli and Merida.

7. Lose 20 lbs. - Last year, I struggled with this and am struggling with it again as the year begins. I was doing well, then I stopped exercising and all the progress I did was lost.

8. Finish painting our house - We have 3 bedrooms to paint this year.

9. Frame and put up our pictures.

10. Go to The Arboretum at least once a month - weather permitting.

11. Discover local restaurants/bistros etc in my city or in the surrounding areas.

12. Take more pictures of Mike and me.

13.  Enjoy our backyard.

14. Surprise someone.

15. Put in more flowers/shrubs etc in the yard

16. Move off of "Medium" on the drums in Rock Band and to "Hard".

17. Complete the Minas Tirith 3D puzzle

18. Take up running. I'm nowhere close to the point of doing a 5k of straight running, but it's something I want to do. The ultimate goal is to do one of the RunDisney events at the parks.

19. Put in a smaller garden in the backyard.

20. Organize the spare bedroom so it actually looks like a bedroom and not a place to shove "stuff".

21. Scan in our baby pictures.

22. Start putting together our Disney album.

23. Start cooking more Trinidad type food.

24. Work on the corgis' recall.

25. Travel to a new place.

26. More to come...