Extraordinary Easter Sunday

Every Easter weekend I wander through the bush and look for crocuses. And every Easter weekend I find some. It's sort of odd, really, because Easter is at a different time every year, so it doesn't really make sense that the crocuses would come out on that particular weekend. I mean, Mother Nature doesn't know it's Easter.

But this year seemed different. We have had snow and freezing weather up until 2 days ago. We must be at least 3 weeks "behind" in Spring weather. Even yesterday (Saturday) as we scoured the bush for crocuses we found more mud than anything. But, today I was determined to take another look.

Well! What a day! To my great delight, not only were there quite a few small, purple, fuzzy crocuses (croci?) pushing their way towards the sunlight, there was also ground squirrels, doing their herky-jerky dance along the forest floor, gophers blinking in the sunlight and whistling to warn their compatriots that an intruder (me!) was in their area, and the stately Canadian geese returning for the summer. What a great way to celebrate Spring. Mother Nature never ceases to amaze.

Little gopher, peeking his head out of his winter burrow, whistling his warning tune.

Squirrel looking for his hidden cashe of nuts? Below, the geese. Remember to click twice on each picture for greater detail.

Good Customer service.

I ordered 2 little sterling silver "urns" to put a little pinch of Gypsy's ashes in. They're from a company in the States called Ashes to Ashes. I had looked in town first because I do like to try and shop local, also, if you have a problem with something, it's so much easier to run downtown as opposed to long distance calls and emails and credit card rebaits and so forth.

However, we only have 3 jewellery stores in town, and two had never heard of them, and the third, Delamonts, had some (they are called "cremation jewellery") but they were $199.00 each while they were nice, they were just plain silver, and not what I had envisioned. I think they had a ball, a heart, a cross and a small teddy-bear. I wanted something with a paw-print on it.

So, I found this company and they had exactly what I wanted, and as well, they were waaaay cheaper. The total, including shipping, for the 2 pictured here, was $117.00 (Cdn) Plus they came with the tiny heart shaped screwdriver to open the small space, as well as a tiny funnel to fill, and they arrived tucked into 2 small black velvet bags. That's $117.00 for BOTH, not each.

However...when I went to put my silver chain in the star one, I realized that all my chains have too large of a closing link thing, and none of them would fit. Damn it!

So, off I went to Delamonts to see about having a small silver link put through the teeny hole in the star. They told me it would only take an hour, and cost about $10.00, which was pretty much what I figured they'd charge.

On the way out the door I spotted a nice silver chain, nicer than the one I was going to use, plus it was a box-link, which is much sturdier. I asked the lady to set it aside and I'd pay for it when I returned. Long story short...when I came back, the jeweller hadn't put the link in, he wanted to ask me if the chain I was buying was for the urn, because this chain fit perfectly through the little hole. If not, he said, he would quickly do the link in two minutes. He came out from his jewel-room and showed me the whole thing and explained which way he thought would be best, both in sturdiness and visually as well.

I was really impressed that the saleswoman mentioned it to him, and that he waited to talk to me, instead of just doing it and making a quick $10.00. And yes, $10.00 for that link isn't a lot of money to him or to me, but the point is, he (and she) paid attention to me, the customer, and I was really very appreciative of this. Good customer service is just so hard to receive these days. Plus, he (this is Mr. Delamont, for those who are in Cranbrook and area) put the little urn on the chain, and put it in a lovely blue velvety-type case. And then they put the whole sha-bang in a nifty yellow gift bag. And this chain wasn't an expensive one either, but they made me feel like I was a valued customer.

So "Hooray" to Delamonts for being such good sports for what they thought could easily just have been a $10 sale. I have shopped there before, and I will assuredly shop their again.

Finished product. So now I wear a bit o' Gypsy near my heart.

Open for business, sure, but how do get there?

Snow tunnels being put to good use.

Click on this one twice to see the full beauty. It was a spectacular day!

Above, the house. Below, Linnea getting ready for her first snow machine ride.

Inside, Chino knew he wasn't allowed on the furniture, so he just sat and looked mournfully into the distance.

Sloooowly working his way up.

"If I stay really still, maybe no one will see that I'm up here..."

"ahhhh...bliss...."

Whoa...snow!

We went to Revelstoke last week for a 2 day Min-Vacay...and all I can say is that I'm sure glad that Shane got there first and shovelled a way into the house! He had to get his snow machine out of the above shed....a little bit of sweat and swearing there,I assume.

I've never seen snow that totally covered the kitchen window before.

No one even attempted to get into the attatched garage.

Amazon.

So I have fallen in love with my Kindle, as you may know by now, but I have had some trouble with it freezing up. Not during use, but when I "put it to sleep" and then later, when I go to read some more, it sometimes has frozen. It only takes a minute to restart, and nothing gets lost or deleted, but you know that something isn't right. I was really hoping I didn't have a lemon.

I Googled "frozen Kindle 3" and to my amazement, found all sorts of forums and boards for Kindle users, and a lot of the folks who have the Kindle 3 (which I have..."The Latest Generation", making it sound like a Star Wars movie.) Anyhow, many of these owners were voicing their despair in the freezing of their Kindles. "Hmmm" I mused to myself, "I think there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." So I perused all these forums and came to understand that there is something not quite right with the "unlighted leather Kindle cover." It clips into the Kindle, you can see the little hook things, and there are corresponding holes in the Kindle itself, and they all hook together securely so you have a cover for your Kindle.

However, it seems that somehow, there is a connectivity (pretty certain that's the wrong word) problem, and something to do with metal hooks and computer parts and the gee-gaw connecting to the widget sends wrong messages to the motherboard.

So, they said, so, phone Kindle Support, and they'll credit you $60 and send you a new and better leather cover, with a built in light.

"Pshaw" I thought to myself, "That ain't ever gonna happen".

So I found the phone number, called them at 11:30 at night, listened to a robot tell me that my wait time would be less than a minute ("pshaw" I thought again, "as IF.")

And in a minute or less, a real woman answered, and as I told my tale of woe, she clicked her magic computer fingers and a credit of $60 appeared on my Amazon account, and she led me through the process of ordering a new (burgundy coloured) lighted Kindle cover. As well as a $10.00 credit since I will have to pay a $10.00 shipping & handling fee...no fault of theirs, it's a cross border shopping problem.

So Hoorah! for Amazon...that was customer service above & beyond. Yes, if their original covers are causing troubles, of course they should be taken care of, but it was handled quickly, and I get a better cover, and I get a real person who was nice and spoke English (yes..we've run this route before, and it's my blog, and if I despise outsourcing, then I can say so.) And, there is no returning of the old cover, there is no looking up invoices, it was all done with the utmost professionalism.

So three cheers for Amazon.

Only her shadow knows....

Look closely......"only her shadow knows..."

Something new

I

I have always wondered what a dragonfruit was like, so I finally broke down and bought one yesterday. That makes it sound like it was a massive, huge amount of money; I "broke down and bought one", but it was $2.47, which is sort of a lot of money for one piece of fruit.

To me it looks like something Spielberg-ish, or James Cameron-ish, a "thing" that someone finds, and it eventually either comes to life and burrows it's way into your innards, or you have to help it find its way back to the depths of the ocean.

In either case, I decided that it would be better off if I sliced it open and ate it. So, after a bit of Google-ing, I sliced it in half and scooped out the insides. I guess it's like a cross between a kiwi and a very bland strawberry...sort of crunchy (the seeds) and pulpy. Not a lot of flavour, I think it would be especially nice diced up and added to a fruit salad.

If nothing else, it certainly is beautiful.

3 reasons to stay home.

Things that are good about today: I can look outside and watch this amazing bluebird who has been hanging around all morning.

It's Feb 1st, so that means it's Calendar Flipping Day at my house! I have about 13 calendars, I'm a bit addicted to them, ever since my mom bought me my very first "real" one when I was about 12. Not a bank freebie calendar, but one with stickers...and I was hooked. I still have that one somewhere, I should go and dig it out and see what things I have written and noted on it. Every year, ever since then, my Mom and I made a point of finding a special calendar to buy for each other at Christmas. Sometimes we lived in tiny airforce bases in the middle of nowhere, and it wasn't always easy to find a decent one, but we always managed.

The year that I was hooked on The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (ahhh, yes children, that was years before the movies were even dreamed of...)she managed to find an amazing one with visions of Gollum and Frodo. The year I read Watership Down, she found one with dreamy, watercolour-style pictures.

And one year it was maps...ancient maps, maps from the 1400's with "Here there be dragons" and "terra incognito" in places that i would someday go.

*sigh* The notations are little slices of life, Shane's first tooth, Scott's first step, doctor appointments, and birthdays. Births of babies, deaths of loved ones. Anniversaries and messages to take out the garbage and pay a the taxes. Buy insurance.Weddings and funerals. The good and the bad, all marked down there, year after year after year. My calendars are a journal of my life.

Well, this turned into an ode to calendars, I tend to sidetrack and digress so easily.

The other good reasons to stay home today? I can read my Kindle, which has a newly downloaded Stephen King that I haven't read yet (he's my favorite author, well, him and Agatha Christie.) And if I don't feel techno-savvy, I can read the tried and true hardcover of his that I also have.

It's a good day just to be here.

Led Zeppelin said it best..."We come from the land of the ice and snow..."

My favorite new piece of technology is this Kindle. I'm not really one for new and modern items, I still eschew cell phones, although I can more and more see their place in certain peoples lives. I can't get the hang of the place-finder thing...what's it called? In your vehicle? It escapes my mind right now, but you know what I mean, however I really need to get mine set up and working because I do have quite the knack for getting lost. Of course, I get lost while on foot, not in my vehicle, thus the lackadaisicle effort in hooking it up.

But, I am digressing. I am here to wax poetic about the Kindle. I am a very tactile person, and I love books...the actual book, I love to touch them, smell their booky-scent and above all, to read them. I love to flip the pages and close them as I ponder the adventures yet to come in the pages unturned. So, for me to love my Kindle is something that sort of surprises my family and friends.

I love that I can download a book in less than a minute, and as I read it it, I can take notes, look up definitions of new and unknown words, I can see what passages other readers have thought memorable and I can even quickly send highlighted passages to my Facebook or Twitter accounts. (I don't Twitter, but I could if I wanted to....)

I love that there are thousands and thousands of free books, many of them classics that I always mean to read, but I never quite get around to it. Now I can download them in seconds and read them whenever (and where ever) I get a moment.

I love that I can hold 3,500 books in the palm of my hand.

Little Miss Gypsy

The death of a dog is not a trivial thing. I am finding the loss of Gypsy to be much more poignant and upsetting than I had possibly imagined. To think that I am now living in a world without her seems hard to believe.

I was going to write an eulogy of sorts, but the words just won't flow properly, so I'll just put up this picture, which is one of my favorites.

Gonna miss you , my little Gyps.

Signs of Christmas.

A new Christmas item is the sushi that my friend from South Korea makes me...mmmm~~

Kids are home.

Ornaments are up; both new & old

It snows real snowflakes.