The best of January

January, oh January. I am not sad to see the last of you today. You are my least favourite month of the year, and how happy does it make me that I won't have to meet you again for 11 glorious months!

However, in the spirit of being positive and finding something good anywhere, I tried to find 5 good things that happened this month. It was surprisingly easy! Maybe it's because I'm easily pleased?
Or you are not all bad.

Either way, here goes: the 5 highlights of January

Style: Dreaming of spring

I found the first tiny blossom on our snowdrops today! It is such a welcome sight to see nature awakening again. Admittedly, our winters here around Vancouver aren't bad most years, contrary to what people expect from Canada. It is generally mild and wet. 

But I definitely miss spring and summer! 

The cute white flower inspired me to dig out my flower pants from the back of my closet. I really hope printed pants are still a thing this spring?! If not I will be the sorry person who walks around in last year's trend, because I love them with all my heart.

 Pants: Aeropostale; Shirt: Smart Set; Flats: Joe Fresh (old)

Hurry up spring!

xoxo Miriam

The woes of a puppy momma

Uh-oh. It's been one of those days. Where I had to get up at 7 am (on a day off) because my husband needed me to do some paper work before he had to leave for work. Despite that I didn't get out of my pyjamas until lunchtime. Lunch was half a bag of tortilla chips.
I had so many things planned that I couldn't decide where to start, so instead I surfed the web until 2 pm. Not even a blog post was written. Or anything else useful done.
The puppy peed on the carpet about 6 times since yesterday.
Taking a shower felt like a huge achievement.

As I was listlessly staring at the dirt on the floor I couldn't help but wonder how you mothers of young kids are doing it. How?? It's so hard!

Honestly, kudos to you all. Today I felt like a frazzled and sleep-deprived mother of a toddler. Even though the toddler is only a puppy. But a toddler-puppy who is going through the terrible twos. As much as I love her, I didn't like her that much today. She kept peeing on the carpet. Right after I let her out. To taunt me, I'm sure.
And then she kept biting my toes. Really hard with her sharp, pointy little puppy teeth.

Don't be fooled by her innocent face. 

We just didn't really get along today. To make matters worse, when daddy came home she was all over him. As sweet and well-behaved as can be. Little rat bastard. 

"Let's cuddle daddy. I love you so much. You are the best. I'm a good little girl."

It wasn't all bad I suppose. 

After taking that shower (so very rejuvenating) I tackled the downstairs. It's been a huge mess every since we had a flood waaaay back last summer. It has been an ongoing saga for months, and after we got all our stuff back it has just been sitting there. Because these are the sort of tasks I absolutely despise. 

Today though, after feeling useless for the majority of the day, I started unpacking, decluttering, and organizing. I'm far from done, but at least it's started, and it feels good. 

So yup, that was my day. Quite boring and uneventful. But I thought it deserves to be documented anyway. Why should the exciting days get all the glory?

If you're still reading, I'm impressed and deeply humbled. You are a good, good person.

Thanks and good night,
Miriam

Testosterone is a bitch

Our sweet llama boy was born on November 6, 2012. Did anything else happen on that day?

I'm glad you asked. Because, there were actually two things.
1. Our good friend Karl-Heinz was supposed to arrive from Germany.
2. The 57th United States presidential election was held.

Kalle didn't make it. President Barack Obama did.
In honour of these two, we named our llama boy Kalle Obama the Llama.

We lost one baby the year before.
To make sure that didn't happen again we bought him colostrum and Richard fed it to him with a bottle.

Kalle Obama also latched on right away.

He flourished. 

After almost 5 months, he was big enough to venture out of his safe nursery into the big world. 

Mama was on his side every step of the way.

 He loved the big world. So much green grass! Freedom!

What a curious little guy. 

He also met his dad for the first time close-up.

(Having sex. That's what he is doing.)

  

It was a wonderful summer.

Kalle Obama frolicked in the field, stuffed himself with grass and hay, and galloped around with his mom and dad.

All was well.

But.

But. But. BUT.

Those damn hormones have to ruin it all.

Our sweet boy is a teenager now. He is trying, playfully for now, to mount mommy once in a while. All harmless and in good fun.
But give it some more time. Give the hormones some more time to get real powerful and dominating.

All of a sudden he won't be daddy's boy any more. He will be a rival. And daddy will try to kick him out.
Daddy is a big old strong, handsome guy. He won prizes in his glory days.
He won't let a youngster try to steal his woman!

We don't want to wait until this happens. And happen it will, it's only a matter of time. Neil (dad) could kill Kalle Obama.

To avoid this grisly scenario, we decided to give Kalle Obama away. A friend of ours offered to take him. He will be close by. As I understand it there are a few goats. Kalle knows and likes goats. He won't be alone.

But it is breaking my heart a little having to say goodbye to him soon. He is such a funny little guy.
Kids grow up and leave us, it's the natural order of things.

But the natural order of things does suck at times.

So long my sweet friend! You will be missed.

Love, Miriam

Photography challenge, the next 12 days

I thought I would bring you the next installment of my photography project. It is so much fun! There's nothing more relaxing than playing around with photos and editing them. By the way, I use nothing fancy, all my editing is done with picmonkey and BeFunky. Check them out, they are free!

(clockwise from top left):

1. A grey day matching my grey mood. I wrote a bit about it here. 

2. My friend Sasha came for a visit with her adorable baby girl Mila. Obviously it involved a family portrait!

3. Balancing on a fallen down tree. I dedicated an entire post on this purse. I'm so in love with it!

4. Bear and Phoebe. If you must know (and you do), he just pooped in the ferns. Take note of the spring in his step! The just-pooped feeling is quite unbeatable, isn't it? He thinks so. And so do I.

1. I finally own a camera where I can take pictures of the moon! There will be many more in the future. Consider yourself warned.

2. German gummy bears. Yummy!

3. Sunday walk with my girl.

4. Blurry background, sharp object: I'm on my way! This is the blogger picture. 

1. Rich talking to Lily. She is paying close attention. Those ears! Yoda called, he wants his ears back - but he ain't getting them. Muhahaha!

2. This dress was solely purchased in honour of the Big Bang Theory. More pictures here. 

3. Pretty morning frost.

4. Blue eyes. 

I've had a puppy nipping on my heel for the last 15 minutes. Better pay attention to her now. 

Have a relaxed rest of the weekend!

xo Miriam

Style: Big Bang dress

You may or may not know it, but I am a huge Big Bang Theory fan. Sheldon and Penny together are simply priceless!
Imagine my joy when I found a dress with planets on it! I was joyful indeed. Especially at 70% off - yay!!

Snowy never knows what's going on when I take pictures. She doesn't like it when the attention isn't on her.
So she dances around, pawing me and basically saying: "Look at me! Look at meeee!!" So cute.

When I got back inside the house, this is what was waiting for me. I love puppy kisses!

Dress: ModCloth

Tights: Smart Set

Booties: Spring (old), similar here

xo Miriam

Scenes of a marriage

I am still asleep. He bursts into the room, wakes me up and tells me: "Lily peed into her crate. Do something!" I roll my eyes, sigh, get out of bed and clean it up.

I am still asleep. My phone rings: "Babe, how would you feel if we go to California tomorrow?" I squeal in delight.

We are both sick. We are both fed up with being stuck in the house. Still, neither of us wants to do the chores. We bicker and are short with each other all day. 

We are watching TV. He turns to me, looks me in the eyes and says: "Do you know how much I love you? You are the most precious thing in the world to me."

It is Valentine's day. We don't give each other gifts (a mutual decision). He plays with my hair and says: "I don't like your hair. A woman your age (33 at that time) shouldn't let her hair grow long. Cut it short again." I'm mad at him all day. 

It is Monday night. I received a dress in the mail that day and want to show him; I'm so excited about it that I hop and jump into the room. He looks me up and down, nods approvingly, smiles and says: "You are beautiful Miri-Perle." (Perle is German for pearl.)

I do all the housework. 
He cooks for me more and more.

I do the grocery shopping.
He does the oil change on my car.

I try not to complain (too much) when he lies on the couch and watches German TV for hours.
He puts up with me and is patient when crazy mood swings turn me into a madwoman. 

I like to read before bed. 
He needs the TV on. Quite often we don't sleep in the same bed. 
But we always find each other in the morning.

I am high strung.
He is old-fashioned.

I have ants in my pants.
He is calm.

He is the first person I want to call when something great happens. Or something sad. Or nothing special at all.

He can be impossible. Unreasonable. Maddening. Frustrating. 
He also still makes me laugh until my belly hurts.

No two marriages are alike. Every couple has to define their own normal. Our normal may seem pretty strange to others. 

Dr. Seuss put it best:

"We are all a little weird and life is a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

This post is dedicated to Richard.
We had our 9th wedding anniversary on January 10th and didn't get to celebrate it because we were sick.
You are my love, my life, and my most favourite infuriating person ever. I love you!

Miriam

Sunshine and some daydreaming

The sun came out yesterday! What a beautiful change to the grey skies we've had in the last little while.

I seized the opportunity and spent a few hours outside, doing what I like best: burning stuff. :-)

It was also great hanging out with my other dogs, Lily gets an unfair amount of attention from me. She's just so darn cute!

I burnt a big pile of wet shrubs, ivy and wood, so it was very smoky. 

What's so great about doing some work outside is that you can let your thoughts wander freely. 

They go where they want to go, and you find out things about yourself that you didn't know before.

Lately I have been intrigued by the concept of ebooks, or writing a book in general. Hasn't every blogger?

We are so involved with the written word, thinking of the next step is natural. As I was happily piling more and more wood onto my crackling fire I had this lovely fantasy: Me sitting under the willowtree, on a rickety old table, tapping away on my keyboard, writing a book. What about? Weeelllll, that's the question, isn't it - I had a few different ideas yesterday, but nothing that feels right yet. Will it ever happen? Who knows. But I love daydreaming about it.

Top left picture found here ; hammock picture from here

I have a few improvements in mind for the willowtree so it will look sort of like the above. Hurry up summer!

Thank you all for the new Facebook likes and hi to new followers! 

I appreciate it more than you will ever know. To show my appreciation I do have another giveaway planned - stay tuned!

Happy Tuesday!

Love, Miriam