Why, Hello there...

This is what I found when I went to shut down the computer for the night.

Sent from Anna's phone

The Mileage can be rough

  I've carved out a career in the Information Technology field, and as I started out low and late (second career at 27 after Military, and starting out at the bottom of the salary scale) I had a tendency to always keep an eye open for better opportunities. This meant that I averaged approximately two years per company, some more, some less. Companies are big on regular small salary increases rather than large jump so I arranged my own; the down side is that these usually ended up dragging my family across the country a fair bit. While no-one complained, I could see the toll this was taking on them.

  For the past seven years or so, I've been concentrating on stability more than anything else. The moving has settled down a fair bit and so has the job hopping. I'm happy to say this picture signifies almost five years with the same employer.

Sometimes I just don't understand my daughter...

Pulled pork and cream cheese on waffles. I don't get it. :P

Sent from my BlackBerry Z10 which totally doesn't look like an Iphone... totally doesn't

Fall Equinox

So I follow several photogs on G+, and one of them had a "sunrise and sunset shots for the Fall Equinox" event. The sunrise shots were easy-ish, as I've got a great view from my deck, though the sunrise was about 8 minutes after advertised and that's a long time to wait barefoot and in shorts in 7c weather. Sunset shots were kinda cloudy but efforts were made nonetheless :P

You'll notice that there are more sunrise shots. The longer sunset shot is a stitch of 4 independent photos.

P.

So Faaaaahbulous!

Have I mentioned that we're sucks when it comes to our elderly cat?

Yes, these are her new, fabulously pink toenails.

There is a reason behind this madness, however.

This is our 15-or-so year old cat, Tiger.  She hasn't been able to retract her claws very well for some time now, and they are huge and very sharp.  They are also brittle.  When we try to trim them, they crack and split, exposing the nerve.  So we have stopped trimming them.

While it's rough on the clothes, the real problem with this is that she has started going after the carpets again.  When we first moved here, she went after the carpeted stairs with a vengeance, completely ignoring her scratching tower.  We ended up having to cover our stairs with plastic runners to get her to stop.  And it worked.

Until now.

There are still a couple of inches of exposed carpet on either side of the runner, and she's suddenly started to go after them.  She has also discovered a slight bump in the carpet that formed under a heavy bookshelf and started to claw on that.

Yes, we do have scratching posts.  She doesn't use them.

So to save our carpets (and our clothes!), we got these little plastic claw covers.  They're glued on and are supposed to last 4-8 weeks.

She seems quite content with them.

We ended up putting some on our other cat, but just on his front paws.  Sparkly pink ones.  It was rather amusing, the first time he tried to climb up the couch with them!

These things are turning out to be worth the investment!

Update:  I didn't realize my husband had already posted a photo of our cat's new look.  For the record, the other cat did not manage to chew off the pink ones.  They're just not as visible.

Fashion statement

So my daughter's cat is a little old... and by Old I mean deaf, mainly blind and unable to retract her claws anymore. but she still loves to destroy carpeting, especially on the stairs. We found these little gems at the local PetSmart and I have to say they're definitely worth the money. Results may vary however, as our younger cat who got the same treatment ate them right off within minutes :D. 

Sent from my BlackBerry Z10 which totally doesn't look like an Iphone... totally doesn't

Playing with fire

So I got an invitation to an event this evening; essentially, one man got to risk life and limb spinning a flaming orb of molten metal for our long exposure amusement. I wish I could say I was sorry I took part in this kind of thing, but I'm totally not :P

While I took many more shots, these are the more interesting ones.

Philippe

My favorite restaurant

Pampa restaurant is relatively new in Edmonton, but has successfully established itself as a go-to business lunch location. Frankly, with their food selection and service, I don't really need encouragement to head over :D

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Ya Just Gotta...

See the giant egg while in Vegreville.
All these years of road trips, yet somehow we never stopped here before.
Quite a nice park it's in, too.

Sent from Anna's phone

Cat in a box

So my daughter loves to cuddle her cat, while he prefers to hide in whatever cardboard box he can fit in. 

...problem solved :P 

Sent from my BlackBerry Z10 which totally doesn't look like an Iphone... totally doesn't

Slight framing issue

So I'm Trying to take a picture of the presents I got for my birthday. Somehow, the cat found them more interesting  interesting than I did. 

Sent from my BlackBerry Z10 which totally doesn't look like an Iphone... totally doesn't