December 26, 2008

One of the best parts of Christmas is doling out new catnip toys for the kitties. They're always good for about 20 minutes of catnip induced craziness, followed by at least 4 hours of napping.

Our Christmas was pretty good this year. Unfortunately Ian's Dad was supposed to come and stay with us from Christmas eve to Boxing Day, but he decided last minute not to come because it was so bitterly cold he didn't want to risk travelling. With wind chill, we've been experiencing temperatures as low as -57C almost daily since mid-December out here on the prairies. It sucks. Big time. Anyway, we spent Christmas eve with Ian's mom and Christmas day with my family.

Santa was extra good to me this year. He brought me a new set of kitchen knives (and they're awesome!) and a fancy new watch (which means I can finally ditch the $50 Walmart special I've been wearing for the last couple of years). Ian bought me a funky new bag with a dragonfly on it and a gift card to my favorite store so I can get some badly needed new work clothes.

As an extra surprise, my brother and sister in-law annouced they are pregnant! Due July 24, 2009 which means at least one very pregnant lady will be at the wedding. Here's hoping we make a decent auntie and uncle!

December 11, 2008

In the future, I'm going to do all of my shopping at "Mark's Work Warhouse". I bet they have cool presents.

December 8, 2008

Ian is gone to Ottawa for a week. When he's gone, I often try out recipes that I'm not sure he'll like. Today I made a tater tot casserole. I love tater tots. Yes I know they're horrendously bad for you, but they're so tasty! The casserole was pretty decent, maybe I'll make it for Ian some day.

Other benefits to Ian being gone include hogging the bed and the remote. Those are really the only benefits I can come up with. Mostly I just miss him terribly.

December 6, 2008

So I'm at work yesterday. It's Friday and at about 2:30pm I'm putting some flasks of cell culture in the incubator and I happen to glance at the CO2 tank. It's empty. Shit. This means my incubators will run out of CO2 over the weekend and all of my culture will die and I'll be screwed for next weeks work. I call the CO2 supplier to see if I can get a new tank in before the end of the day and they tell me they'll be able to drop one off in about an hour. Yes! The delivery guy finally shows up around 4:30 and I hook up the new tank and the delivery guy takes the old one away. After he's gone I realize the new tank is leaking. Fuck. It's now 4:55pm on Friday and I have a leaky tank. I call the supplier and I find out that there's no chance I can get a fresh tank this weekend, I have to wait until Monday and I am going to spend most of the weekend praying that the tank will hold out.

This sucks. I hate Murphy's law.

December 1, 2008

Remember way back in the spring, I posted about one of our kitties who had been sick? Well, this is her. Her name is Ivy. She has been sick with several different gastrointestinal symptoms since April. The biggest issue has been the fact that she stopped using the litter box entirely for a looooong time. Several months, many trips to the vet, and a lot of money later, we finally have a diagnosis. Ivy has inflammatory bowel disease, which means that her immune system attacks the inside of her colon and makes it all inflamed and ulcerated. Sound fun? No, I didn't think so.

I'm happy to tell you that Ivy has been feeling much better lately. In fact, after I took this picture of her she spent about 10 minutes chasing her shadow and destroying the blankets on the couch for fun. Also, she's been peeing in the litter box again! Hooray!!! It's nice to have her back to her old self again, mostly.

November 30, 2008

I have to apologize to my loyal readers - all two of you (Hi Barb and Ian!). I haven't been posting much lately. There's no particular reason for this, I just been in a bit of a blogging rut. I haven't been taking many pictures lately, which presents a problem when you write since I write a photo blog.

I'll try to do better.