Living with a doggy

As everyone predicted, my little zoo is happy now. The cats and the dog all have figured out how to share space. I would say that over-all I am still a cat person, but I do completely adore our dog, and I see how people get so addicted to the instant feedback and enthusiasm that dogs give.

I am the morning dog walker as TM is not a morning person. Each morning the dog and I do a circle route: we leave the condo, go around the corner to Starbucks where I tie her outside and go in and get a double espresso, and then we continue on to the nearby parkette where she has her morning poop and pee.

This morning however, I was not fully awake, and neither was the dog. I was chatting on my cell phone with a friend (before 7am, but she has a toddler so I knew she'd be up) and as I was telling her that I had to go and walk the dog, I realized that I had my espresso cup in hand, the leash, was opening the door to outside - but there was no dog. That would have been an interesting walk. It's odd because I really wasn't cognizant of the fact that Zoe was missing. I knew that something was wrong, but it was only as I was stepping out the door that I realized that I was carrying an empty leash. I do love our morning walks together though. It's a nice way to start the day, although I did also enjoy my routine with the cats which was to let them outside first thing in the morning to have a morning run.

I think that over-all though there aren't many differences between having cats or dogs. They both need a ton of love and attention. Also, for everyone who thinks cats are moody - try living with Zoe. She is a constant source of love, but if she thinks that she has suffered on the attention scale (ie I spend too much time cuddling the cats), she pees on our bed. There's no point in getting mad at her as we never catch her in the act. It's more that at night we'll be getting into bed and realize that the sheets are damp. It doesn't happen often so we tend to laugh about our moody little dog. That and as I type this I am getting every toy thrown at me. Bear is her favourite - she stands there squeaking Bear until I pay attention to her. Honestly, between Zoe and the Fur Snake, I'm not sure who the bigger attention suck is.

Slowly returning to normal

Last night I was so tired that I fell asleep in my work clothes. Woke up that way as well. The deep sleep helped though - I feel back to myself today.

As I noted, the wedding went well. Very well. It was the perfect size and style for us, but that doesn't mean it was not without its problems. I think this is why I avoided blogging for the past month or so. I didn't want to write endlessly about the wedding, and I didn't want to complain especially when at the end of the day, the man (TM) and I had nothing but love and support from everyone. That doesn't mean that people (including me) didn't from time to time descend into insanity during the planning process, but over-all, the people were great.

However, the following gave me great lessons in meditation and stress control...

Event #1: three weeks before the wedding (when TM and I were already behind on what we needed to get done) our toilet broke and flooded our condo. Luckily TM was home so he shut the water off right away thus saving all of our possessions. However, even in the short time that the water was spurting out of the broken pipe, it managed to destroy our upstairs floor, seep through the downstairs bathroom ceiling, and spread its joy under our downstairs flooring. We had thought that we had caught it in time, but when the insurance adjuster arrived that night, he told us that we had to leave for four days while people came in, packed our stuff, ripped up all the floorboards, and installed huge dryers. When I burst into tears, the guy said that they could wait until morning.

So, I was off to my parents' place with the cats, TM went off to his parents' place with the dog, and we spent the next four days apart and with no way to really continue with wedding progress. In the grand scheme of things the flood was not a big deal. The insurance people did a great job and were able to rip up everything while leaving most of our stuff intact. TM and I both had places to stay at. We had enough spare cash to tide us over for meals, etc. when suddenly having to uproot - we saved receipts and will claim them later, but at least we didn't have to worry about getting cash upfront. Also, a flood is never great timing. Yes, it was at a time when we had to kick into high gear for the wedding, but at least it wasn't mid-winter!

Event #2: That moronic volcano in Iceland. My aunt and cousin were flying from Scotland and their original flight was cancelled. TM's sister and her wife were also flying over from Europe and their flights were in question as well. It all worked out, but it wasn't until the last few days that we knew our nearest and dearest would make it.

Event #3: Aunt Flo arrived during the rehearsal dinner. In a big way. Again, what can you do? In my case, grab the Diva cup and then grab another glass of wine.

Other little things happened along the way. TM had stayed up late the night before the wedding loading music onto his Ipod, but then forgot it in our hotel. But again, not worth stressing over. We didn't have a first dance and I didn't have a dance with my father, but it wasn't necessary. There was no specific dance area set up so no one noted anything was missing. As for TM and I - we were having too much fun already. In fact, he really showed his strength in helping me through all the stress of wedding planning.

Tired but happy

Well folks, I am now officially married. Everything went very well on the day, and at the Chinese banquet the day after. I wasn't concerned about the weather because I decided well in advance of the wedding that as weather is the one thing none of us can control, I was not going to stress about it. That said, it was a sunny day and we were able to have the ceremony outside, which really helped as the indoor part of our wedding venue was small.

One of the stand-out moments for me (apart from the whole marrying-the-guy-I-love bit which was incredible) was that we had a friend of my mother's drive up from the States to play the harp at our ceremony, and at my request she played Robby Burns' 'My love is a red rose' while we were signing the marriage license. The surprise was that my father sang the song. I didn't expect that. Luckily they did that during the rehearsal so that I wasn't completely taken by surprise during the ceremony itself.

It was a small wedding so I got to talk with all my guests.

Like anyone notes, months of planning and over in a flash. Now onto the real challenge - marriage!