As all our friends and family know, the hubs is spending the next 8 months (give or take a few weeks on break) in Kandahar. He’s already been in the sandbox for two months.

Living & working in a foreign country can stress a person in unexpected ways. Holding on to something normal and familiar can make all the difference in the world. For Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, that something familiar is often as simple as buying a cup of coffee from Tim’s.

As with previous tours, I purchased & mailed a Tim Horton’s coffee card at the beginning of the tour. Since then I’ve learned that the card can be topped off online. So here’s hoping our friends, family & random strangers will buy hubs a coffee.

I ain’t too proud to beg. Put a smile on his face and buy him a cup of coffee.

Please note: The only way to load his coffee card is to log into his acct & use your visa or mastercard. A Tim card can only contain a max value of $100 at any given time. Friends & family can contact me for this info & instructions if they’d like to buy Drew a coffee.

A short time ago we started fostering small dogs for the CaliCan Rescue Foundation. They are a wonderful non-profit organization that brings small, unwanted dogs up from California to get a new lease on life in Edmonton. Our first foster, Cinn, was adopted on August 16th and promptly renamed Sam. He was a cute little chihuahua but not exactly the type of dog I would have wanted to keep for myself. First off, he was male, and secondly, he kept trying to eat our cat Bubba!

This week I’ve been getting to know Sandy – a 2+ year old chihuahua mix (perhaps terrier?) – who’s had quite the interesting life so far. The shelter she was being housed at burnt down when the CaliCan Founders were in California to pick up dogs that were slated to be euthanized so they made some last minute room in their plans and rescued her as well. After one adoption fell through, she remained with Rene and Kari waiting for her forever home. We don’t know too much about her history – so I’m hoping Rene and Kari can keep me honest and correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here – but she seems to have perhaps been abused somewhere along her short life.

Me, I’m a sucker for sweet tempered dogs who’ve had a rough start. Our oldest (Fenris is 13+ years old now) was severely abused, underweight, and terrified of men when we adopted her. Hypnos (now 6+) was a throw away dog. Animal control found him and the rest of his litter mates in Elk Island park wandering around campgrounds. He was the only one to survive 4-5 months in the wild.

Zoe (greek for “Life”) is a gentle and sweet dog who needed a forever home. She’s not the usual dog I’d pick. I’ve learned that I definitely have a type when it comes to breeds. Usually I’m all about shepherds. However, she’s got a gentle temperment and, giant bonus, seems to have no interest in making a snack out of our remaining cat Bubba (13+ years).

Drew and I have talked a lot over the past few years about getting another dog. Fenris is getting older and may soon go off to the great dog park in the sky. Hypnos will be devastated when that time comes. Since they day we brought him home he has been fast friends with Fenris and he’s never been alone. When she has a bad day and doesn’t want to move around much now, he doesn’t want to leave her side. When Fenris was younger, perhaps about 10, I had considered getting a puppy. At the time, Drew thought it was too soon to get another dog but we both agreed that Hypnos would need to bond with another dog long before Fenris passes away (hopefully not for years and in her sleep) or he might just pine away without her. And I, who have a type bias when it comes to dogs, wanted an Alsation (GSD). Drew wanted a smaller dog, but one that had some shepherd in it, perhaps about the same size as Fenris and Hypnos (45-55 lbs). He thought an Alsation would be far too big four our little mouse house. He’s probably right.

Fast forward 3 years. Fenris is getting much older and it shows in her walking and a bit in her personality. She’s getting old and crotchety like me. She doesn’t like long walks anymore and prefers to just toddle around the block before yanking your arm out in her haste to come home. Some days she doesn’t seem to want to get out of her dog bed in the morning. On colder days she doesn’t move around much and last winter was very hard on her. I expect this winter will be the same.

Fenris is too old now to bring a puppy into the home. She doesn’t need a little dog that can’t respect her space to crawl all over her all the time. This summer we realized that we’d waited far too long to bring a young dog into the home. Fenris could have easily handled the stress of a new puppy at 10 years old. Now it would be asking a bit much of her.

Enter my friends at CaliCan Rescue. They were in desperate need of foster homes for the dogs they are rescuing. We were in need of a dog that Hypnos could bond with. So I decided to open our home to as many fosters as we could to help out. CaliCan dogs are usually older dogs (2+ years) and are already full grown. Some have behavioural issues – but that’s old hat when you’ve had nothing but rescue dogs all your adult life – and they’re smaller breeds. Cinn/Sam was only 7lbs and 1/2 the size of our cat! Rene and Kari knew I had an ulterior motive in my generosity. They knew I was hoping to find my own little dog to rescue and keep permanently. The downside of this, of course, would be that we couldn’t foster dogs for CaliCan once I’d found one to adopt. The City of Edmonton has a very strict 3 dog maximum rule.

They brought Sandy over to my house last Sunday. We wanted to know how she’d fare in a home with a cat. At close to 20lbs, she’s much larger than Cinn/Sam was and there’s less worry about accidentally tripping over her. She’s big enough to play with Hypnos. And cuddle with him too!  Oh, and she’s female. That was one of my “make or break” requirements for a new dog. I wanted a female instead of a male. One male (Hypnos) in the house is more than enough!

She was a bit skittish at first but the introduction with Bubba went well. She didn’t seem all that interested in her and Bubba was fine with that. As the cat that frequently crawls all over Hypnos and grooms him, she’s more than happy to hang out with dogs as long as they don’t try to eat her! We had a few little growly moments during the week, but overall both dog and cat are slowly warming up to each other. This was a very good sign.

Over the week we’ve all gotten to know each other better. I warned Rene when he dropped her off for her home visit that if I decided to keep Sandy, I’d be promptly renaming her Zoe. She seemed to like this idea since I could not  get her to answer to Sandy at all but she immediately came running when I started calling her Zoe. Magic!

Today we are finalizing the adoption for Zoe. I sent Drew pictures of Zoe earlier in the week and spoke with him this morning about her. He’s agreed that she sounds like a good fit for our home and is eager the meet her when he’s home from his tour break in November.

As sad as I am to no longer be able to foster dogs for CaliCan, I’m thrilled to be welcoming Zoe into our home on a permanent basis.

If you’re looking for a new dog to add to your family please adopt a rescue dog and give them a second chance. For small dogs, CaliCan Rescue Foundation should be your first choice. Larger dogs (and sometimes puppies) can be adopted from HART or SCARS. All of these excellent organizations can also use foster homes for rescue dogs and, of course, financial support. Please consider helping them in any way you can.

I uploaded pics of the roses to Facebook and the general consensus is that hubs has good taste. I also sent him a picture of them as I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get to my blog anytime soon. He, too, was confused by the choice of orange rose. He thought they’d be white.

So he googled the meaning of orange roses and discovered that

With their blazing energy, orange roses are the embodiment of desire and enthusiasm. Orange roses often symbolize passion and excitement and are an expression of fervent romance. A bouquet of orange roses will send a meaningful message. – Proflowers.com

Which makes them sound like they’re a great choice in colour under the circumstances. Except that we both had to google it to find the hidden meaning. So, kinda a colour choice FAIL! in my book.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that hubs had these delivered to work because if he’d had them sent home the cat would eat them. Since they’re only guaranteed to last 48 hours, it makes sense that he wouldn’t wait until my actual b-day to send them. Otherwise only the janitors would be enjoying them before they wilt.

Now that they’ve arrived, I feel I can write about how I knew they were coming. Well, I didn’t know what the flower arrangement Drew picked out was, but I did know he’d ordered something from Funky Petals. [After scoping out their site, I was hoping for this and not flowers. Yeah, I know, I'm an ungrateful wife. Blah. Blah. Blah.]

So, how’d I know something was coming? Someone from the store called and left a message for hubs on our answering machine last week. Said they wanted to get some clarification about the order he’d placed. Then they called (and got me in) the next day. They asked for Drew. I said he wasn’t in the country. They said “thanks” quite quickly and hung up.

Being the smart little cookie I am, I put two and two together and scoped out their web site.

He also kinda sucked at keeping the secret that something was being delivered since he called me at work this morning (yay!) and asked whether or not his package had arrived yet. I suppose if I hadn’t known something was on it’s way, the eagerness in his voice may not have been a dead-giveaway that delivery was scheduled for today.

I’m a little stumped as to why he chose orange roses though…

I know I’ve probably babbled about this before but I just don’t understand it. I’ve been dieting and exercising since January. I’ve lost, on average, 7-8 lbs a month. There’s been no giant weight loss that suddenly happened overnight. Despite this, people have been commenting on my weight loss as if it’s something new – mostly over the past 2 months.

When I returned from our family vacation mid-June, many of my co-workers claimed to be astounded that I’d lost weight. By that point I’d already lost 45lbs and figured my lack of presence in the office must have triggered a mass realization that there’s less of me to go around once I’d returned. Oddly, this same reaction didn’t occur after returning to the office when I was away in NB for a week in May. I think there was a 5lb difference between my weight in May and June…

At the beginning of July I cut off all my hair. I’m loving it. I don’t know if I’ll feel the same way in winter but for now I’m basking in the freedom that short hair brings. Besides, after growing my hair for 3 years, I missed having cropped locks.

Chopping off my hair seems to have spurred another round of “Oh em gee! you’ve lost so much weight” around the office. It’s weird, since none of this has occurred overnight. It’s been (and still is) a lengthy process.

I’ll probably never understand it.

That said, I am a bit tired of people doubting me when they ask how I’ve lost weight. They all seem to expect me to tell them I’m on some sort of special diet or program. I’m not. I count calories. I weigh and measure my food. I do a little bit of exercise. That’s it. No magic formula. No pills. No special food.

Apparently that’s not a sexy very satisfying answer.

Those who appear to believe that I’m not lying or hiding super secret info from them tend to dismiss my plan as “too difficult” or as something they can’t possibly be successful on. I’m still not sure how that could be. There’s no bad foods in my world. Barring the obvious food allergies, there’s nothing I can’t or won’t eat due to my “diet”. If I want a chocolate bar or a beer, I have one. I just have to figure out how to fit in into my day.

I just don’t get it…

Last weekend I managed to lose my glasses somewhere in my house. I’ve been battling a nasty summer cold for about 10 days now and last Friday I must have been pretty drained and distracted when I took them off. All I knew was that I’d worn my glasses home from work and in the morning couldn’t find them in any of the usual hidey-holes.

Sure, I have multiple spares but the ones I “lost” are my favourites. Aside from being comfortable, they have the added bonus of transitions lenses to mitigate the effects of the bright yellow ball of nastiness in the sky.

After a brief search over a period of days (hey, I was sick, I wasn’t moving much), I gave in and pulled out a spare pair of glasses to wear at work and around the house.

Yay for spares!

Anywho, today I was futzing around in the spare room, working on my “decluttering the house” project, and I found my glasses on the bed. Under the brown paper wrap I use when sending packages to the hubs. Very odd place for them to be. Don’t know what I was thinking when I put them down.

We’ve been re-united and it feels so good!

Drew’s truck, while running fine, had seen better days. The last time he went to Kandahar, his truck sat untouched in the garage for months. Since I have my own baby truck, I didn’t need another one. We decided not to have a repeat of the “hurry up and wait” experience for the truck this time. And we also decide that there was no point in trading in his old truck to buy a new one before he left. Then we’d just be trading one vehicle stranded in a garage for another.

Enter the government’s “retire your ride” program.

Drew’s truck is old enough that it qualified for him to give the truck to the gov’t in exchange for money ($300) or a year of transit passes.

Parking costs a minor fortune in downtown Edmonton so I’ve been taking public transit to work since I started working for the province. Monthly bus passes cost $85 each month. Getting a year’s worth of bus passes for free saves us a good chunk of change that we can put towards our vacation in February 2011.

The gov’t is trying to get old clunkers off the road and this program was a great way for us to deal with our extra truck problem. It can take a while between registering your vehicle & having it picked up (about 4 weeks in our case) so you’ll need a place to park it while you wait. You’ll get a call for the car to be picked up by a towing contractor and it’s sent off to be crushed. Shortly after pick-up (less than 30 minutes for us) you’ll receive a call to confirm the “reward” option you’ve selected (cash or transit pass) and your mailing address. If you choose transit, a few days later you’ll get a letter in the mail that you take to the city transit office each month to redeem your free pass. The letter is good for one year but must be used consecutively.

If you’ve got a vehicle from 1995 or earlier and don’t know what to do with it, perhaps you should consider throwing a happy retirement party for your vehicle as well.

Anyone who has spent five minutes reading this blog knows I’m a military wife with a spouse currently serving in Afghanistan. This isn’t his first tour.

When he was in KAF last year I was glued to news sites and tv channels. I wanted to know exactly what was going on over there at all times. I couldn’t get enough information and the media outlets were happy to oblige.

This tour is different. I’m not stalking news sites. And the online media isn’t providing as much information (or at least not as headline news) anymore. Perhaps that’s a good thing.

Instead of panic and worry at every little thing I read or hear – bad news blaring across the headlines – I’m often learning about events after the fact through check-in calls with hubs. This lower stress level is really making a difference. Here’s hoping it continues for the next 9 1/2 months…

In February I joined Curves to increase my activity level. It seemed like a good idea at the time. An all girl “gym” that used resistence based machines for exercise. It’s a very basic set-up. I think it’s a decent service for people who are brand new to exercise, uncertain about how to go about increasing activity levels, or uncomfortable with the idea of a co-ed gym.

I’ve outgrown Curves a lot faster than I anticipated. Although, if I’m really honest with myself, I may have outgrown Curves long before I stepped foot in their nearby location.

Yesterday I came to my senses. I canceled my Curves membership and purchased a pass to the City of Edmonton Rec Centres. Now I have access to far more than limited resistance weight machines. At city facilities I’ll have access to free weights, indoor running tracks, pools, ice rinks, classes & more. There are multiple free swims a day and participation in drop-in classes is free. Unless I want to hire a personal trainer or take a specialized or limited participation (size) class, I won’t have to pay any extra fees.

Most importantly, the city’s rec facilities pass costs about $15 less a month than Curves did.

There are facilities all over the city and, unlike Curves, I don’t need special passes pre-arranged in advance to drop in at any one of them (with the exception of Terwilligar – but let’s be honest, I don’t even know what part of town that is). Not all facilities have the same services or schedules but it’s easy to look them up in the guide book or online.

For the moment I’ll need to drive about town to use the nearest gym. The facilities closest to me (3) are an extra 5-10 minute drive when compared to the nearest Curves. However, the city is in the process of building a big new facility within walking distance from my home (LRT distance in winter – far too cold to walk) which is slated to open in Winter 2011.

I don’t know why I was so hesitant to do this before. Very glad I’ve taken this next step. Onward and downward – on the weight scales – we go!

I’m in need of a new point and shoot camera. Hubs broke mine last year when he was on tour. We bought a replacement camera while on vacation last summer but hubs has taken it with him on his current tour.

While he did leave his fancy schmantzy DSLR camera behind, I don’t have the foggiest idea how to use it. More importantly, I don’t want to be dragging around a backpack filled with lenses, filters, and a bazillion other odds and ends that I don’t know the names of.

What I want is a digital camera that will be smart enough to take a decent picture no matter how poor the photographer’s “eye”. I need a camera that can compensate for my wobbly hands, poor sight, and fits in my pocket or purse.

I don’t want a large body camera with a fixed lense. If I’m going to get something that big then I might as well sign up for a photography course and lug around hubs giant bag o’ camera equipment.

Preferably my new camera will have some sort of facial or smile recognition, a sports feature that would allow me to take pics at football games, a decent zoom (6-10x would be nice) and the ability to film short movies.

So peanut gallery, time to chime in with recommendations (make & model please) so I can start comparing cameras and make a decision. What do you use? What are it’s good points? What’s it’s bad points? What are your favourite features & which features do you wish your camera had?

Thanks.