Dog training

The puppy is fully toilet trained at last, it did take longer than we expected, but we can only blame ourselves for not being more alert. Especially during the weekends when the scedule is off, one tends to get lazy and not take her out as often as during the week. Dogs certainly are creatures of habit and they don´t understand the difference between monday and saturday! We kicked the cats out of the bedroom after they developed the nasty habit of wanting to be fed at 6am, scratching and meowing at the door to be let out to the kitchen...

Command training is just starting. Since she is only 3 months old we´re starting slowly, with only a few commands. "no" is fairly clear by now, she knows "sit" and we´re working on "stay", "come here" and "lie down". Sessions only last for a few minutes and must always end in big praise.

Have a laugh

Dracula dies and he went to the Pearly Gates to meet God. God refused to let Dracula in because of all the sins that he had done going around sucking blood & killing.
"I'll give you a chance to redeem your sins", said God

"I'll send you back to earth, but not in a human form.You can be reincarnated into any other living things of your choice. So, what would you like to be?"

Still unrepentant, Dracula said, "OK, I want to become a living thing with wings and sucks blood, heh,heh, heh."

"So be it", said God and He turned Dracula into a vampire bat.

So back to earth he went, flying around sucking the blood of animals until one day when he got killed by a farmer. So up he went again to meet God, feeling a little bit sheepish (and a little batty).

"I'll give you another chance", said God. "I'll send you back again. BUT not as a human or a bat. What will it be this time?"

Still adamant, Dracula said, "I still want to be a living thing with wings and sucks blood!"

God thought for a while and then said, "OK, if that's what you want", and turned Dracula into a mosquito.

So back to earth again he went, flying around and sucking blood until one day, splat, he was squashed by his victim. So up he went again to meet God, feeling stupid(and rather bugged)

"I'll give you one last chance to redeem yourself. but, this time you cannot become a living thing. You can only be turned into a non-living thing of your choice. So what will it be?" asked God.

Still stubborn, Dracula said, "Okayyyy...then turn me into a non-living thing with wings and sucks blood!! heh...heh..

"No problem," said God and He turned Dracula into a 'Sanitary Napkin'

Where is my muse?

Have not been feeling very inspired in the last few days, hence the lack of witty (? :-) posts in the past week. Had a wonderful time last night, when a couple of friends came over to watch the first episodes of "sex and the city", before the national Eurovision song contest (to determine which song should compete on Iceland´s behalf in Riga, Lettland in may. I´m pretty happy with the song this year, I must admit that in the past some of them have been rather boring... The furthest Iceland has gone is second place in 1999, I think.

Yellows are the most fun-loving, free-spirited,
energetic, and childlike personalities in the
aura spectrum. Yellows are wonderful,
sensitive, optimistic beings, whose life
purpose is to bring joy to people, to have fun,
and to help heal the planet.


What Is Your True Aura Colour?
brought to you by Quizilla

Polydactily

This is a funny word! It means "many digits", and refers to the phenomenon when animals (remember that humans are animals too!) have more than the usual 5 digits. My puppy, Snotra the cute one, has double dewclaws on her hind legs, making her legs look really funny, especially when viewed from behind! This trait is actually a breed standard for the icelandic sheepdog. Some breeds of cats commonly have polydactily too.

Party

Stína´s birthday party friday night was a success, we all had lotsa fun and she definately liked the present. I made her a denim handbag with a purple fake snakeskin border, and a small coin purse to match (from leftover fake snakeskin). I wish I could post a picture, I´m very happy with the way they turned out.

Saturday we slept ´till noon (this is usually not possible, so we enjoyed it to the fullest...), and then went to pick up our son and the puppy from my sister in-law were they had stayed the night. Then a shopping trip to get som coke & chips & candy & video films... Unfortunately I rented "Ash Wednesday" (starring Elija Wood), which looked interesting on the cover but turned out to be pretty boring. Not as bad though as "Scorpion King" that my husband got for us a few days ago, a heavy metal version of Xena, warrior princess. There were a lot of naked ladies, I guess for the guys to look at, but the main actor looked like the men on the cover of soft porno books for bored housewives, long hair, shaved chest and underarms, constantly oiled... and he never took off his loin cloth... Boring!

Sunday there was football practice for Baldur, and afterwards a birthday party, the daughter of a friend of mine turned 7. We had lots of lovely food and cakes. For dinner I made a lovely fish soup. I have never made one before, and I have to say it turned out pretty well, I will definately try it again another time.

Why do people euthanise their pets?

Yesterday I promised to caugh up the answer, so here it is. Jeff, was on the right track regarding the dogs. About half af the dog euthanasias are because of old age or disease. But a disturbing finding is that almost every fourth dog (23%) is euthanised because of behavioral problems! These are treatable in most cases, but need work. The cats are a different story, according to my research only a quarter is euthanised because of disease or old age. Convenience reasons (we are moving, taking a long vacation, someone developed allergies (I suspect this is often given as an "excuse" because people can´t deal with the responsibility of having a pet)) are 35% of the reasons given, another 17% is behavioral problems (this was a big surprise for me, I thought these were much less common in cats), and 15% is trauma (usually run over by car or fell down from window). These findings are consistant with the few studies that have been made on this issue, in Denmark, Scotland and Canada.

How am I feeling?


Balanced. You accept your emotions as normal and
are not overly happy nor depressed. You are
emotionally balanced and should find peace in
the way you deal with life situations. Your
emotions are normal and well understood. You
see the light in the dark.


How Emotional Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Let it snow

It´s snowing outside, beatiful, large, flaky chrystals of snow. And I feel drunk from the new caugh syrup the doctor gave me... In future I will not take it in the morning... I don´t feel so good today, after four weeks of caughing night and day, and this week I have a cold too. I have been feeling very warm for the last couple of days, but refuse to admit sickness, as I have a big party at Stína´s tonight (that is if she hasn´t postponed it again, I haven´t checked my e-mail today ;-) The present has been ready for a week, and I can´t wait to see if she likes it. Now I have to figure out what to give Herdís for her birthday that´s coming up on feb. 20th, if my memory serves me right? However, she is not turning 30 like the rest of us, no, she is so young, the hurricane.

My husband told me last night that he was disapointed that he can´t tell people "my wife is dirty and I´m dirty-two", since he´ll be thirty three before I turn thirty, ah well, it still is a good joke!

My friend, who will remain anonymous, told me the other day that her husband gave her a hands-free set for her mobile phone for her 30th birthday last year. I was shocked to hear this! I hate it when people expect you to read their minds (women do this a lot), so I decided to tell my husband right away that I was not getting any mobile phone accessories for my big 3 O! I´m not usually very sensitive about presents, I often choose them myself, and they tend to be sensible presents. Like last year I bought the present myself (they were new hiking boots, with shoes you have to try them on yourself anyway), and even haggled the price down 30%! This year, I told Gísli, I want something impractical and romantic, like jewels, and you have to buy them yourself. And there you have it, we will not be having an argument or anyone being hurt, because they wanted something and didn´t tell the other one, because "if you love me, you´ll know what I want" That´s crap. Noone I know can actually read minds. The people that tell you they can are fakes for sure!

Crafts

I haven´t done any crocheting for a while, however I have been sewing some, got the bug after making my sister that bag for christmas. I bought some fabric for a bag for myself, but haven´t started it yet. I want to make the design myself too, will have to think some more before cutting the fabric, it is some pretty expensive velvet... I have also taken up knitting again, after finding an old project in the garage. The weather has been really bad and I want to make myself a big, fluffy and warm scarf.

Now you are all going to think that I have stopped working on my paper, but I haven´t! Honest! Crafts are for nighttime and weekends only. The writing is coming along slowly, not having much luck getting results from the vets out of town though, so I guess the results will be from the city mainly. Do you want to know the main reasons people in Reykjavik have for euthanising their cats and dogs? I will tell you tomorrow, I have to do some calculations today...

Caugh, caugh

I have been caughing non-stop for almost 4 weeks now. Finally gave in and saw a doctor this morning to get me some prescription caugh syrup, the kind that makes you unable to operate heavy machinery... I have been having trouble sleeping because of the caughing, after drinking some of the codein/morfine solution I should sleep like a baby from now on...

Ain´t that the truth

From the movie "the Matchmaker": The relationship pie: Love, havin´a laugh, eating and sex.

My weekend

I went to see a play on saturday night, with my friend. It was a monologue about the stress of a modern, working mom´s day. It was hilarious, so many things reminding me of my own life. The actress and writer, Björk Jakobsdóttir, has sold the rights to several countries, including the USA, so more people will get to see it, the play´s called "Sellofon", after advice she read in a woman´s magazine on how to turn on your man; no. 8 wrap yourself in sellofon and wait for him to return from work...

Yesterday we lay around the house, not doing much of anything, just relaxing. Drove our son to football practice in the afternoon, and watched a video after he was gone to bed. As a result of this lazyness we didn´t watch the dog closely enough, and we had several accidents in the house. Today is starting out better. It´s true that dogs are creatures of habit, and they definately do not understand the concept of a weekend... She seemes to understand that it´s better to deposit outside, but still hasn´t figured out how to tell us she needs to go, she just needs a little time. I think it´s now time to gently start teaching "sit" and "down". She responds to her name by now, and comes running when you call her, well, at least most of the time... It´s important to imprint a positive experience with her name and calling her to come, never shout or tell her off if she runs away and then comes back. Only praise.

Our team wound up in seventh place in the handball world championship. I think that´s pretty good for a nation of 250 thousand souls. Most of the other countries have millions of athletes to choose from. We were the only scandinavian country to ensure ourselves a right to compete at next year´s olympic games in greece.