Finnegan and the food bowls

My puppy is crazy. It seems like his favourite toys are his and Poppy's stainless steal food bowls. He absolutely loves them. He carries them around, bats them like a soccer ball, puts them in his bed, and looses them outside. He's also learned how to put Poppy's bowl inside his bowl (Poppy's is smaller) and pick them both up. Have you ever heard of a dog that does such a thing?!

busy busy busy!!!

Goodness, I've been busy. Finnegan, online English course, another online course, violin and choir , and just general "school" work is keeping me busy.

And in October, I'll have ANOTHER thing to keep me busy: I got the job at the library!!! Finally!!! I go in for my orinantation on Oct. 3. My shift will be on Saturday afternoon and every second Friday. Maybe not the best shifts, but hey, I got the job!!

And now I have to go see what Finnegan's doing. :)

Redefining the dictionary (video)

This is awesome. Watch it! :D

TED Talks Erin McKean: Redefining the dictionary (video)

My dad's 'rap song'

Yup, this is my dads' new rap song. It's, umm, interesting.

1-800 M-PUMPED

For years, I've pounded mail
Just like Cliff Claven
Through sleet & hail
And marriage cave-in
At home, with pen in hand, I do my ravin'
On recycled envelopes I'm savin'. DOH!

(Since I saw God while I was shavin',
Been postin' redemption songs to soul suckahs misbehavin'.)

I don't plan to be no fossil fool a slavin'
It's my cool retirement which I'm cravin',
I've logged my time a skiddin'
Down this road to hell we're pavin'.
It's from safe within my postage stamp
That I'll be wavin'.

Maybe one day yet before I'm in my grave,
I'll get real brave
And scrimp and leave my haven
Buy jet fuel
And see the world
My pimped out smart car's savin'. DOH!

Errol Nimbly

Ahh, good news

OK, I have some good news. (for me, at least). A while ago, I put in an application form for working at the library. The library finally called me and said that they wanted to interview me next Wednesday!!! This is awesome. I'm excited.

I'll post more after the interview.

The story of the collar in the compost

"One day, Finnegans' people lost his collar. It had seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet. They looked and looked, but they could not find it anywhere. They didn't want to buy another collar and name tag for Finn, but it looked like they needed to. Then, a few days later, Finnegan's human dad found it............... IN THE COMPOST!"

I'm not kidding; this really happened. We have no idea how it got into the compost of all places, but it did. I'm glad that we don't have to buy another name tag. (the one we got cost $10).

..........

err.... picture. This is a river near where I live.

where's the toilet paper?????

OK, this was hilarious!!! I was in the bathroom washing my hands. I heard Finnegan go behind me, and I didn't think much of it, until I saw a streak of white out of the corner of my eye. I looked, and Finn had taken hold of the end of the toilet paper and was draging it out of the bathroom! Crazy dog!

That dog is SMART... in some things

I am amazed at how smart Finn can be! And also how persistent, too. For example, he's getting 'sit', 'stand', and 'watch me' down very well... 'come' is pretty good too... but there are two things he's not getting, or choosing not to get:
1. Poppy does not want to play with him, and
2. Jumping on counters is not allowed! (no, he doesn't go ON the counters, just puts his paws up).
He will get them eventually. I hope.

Puppy Kindergarten is going well. We took him to his first class last Wednesday, and he did very well, considering all the distractions. He's the smallest in the class, which is weird, because his breed in not small! And as I said, he's picking up the lessens very fast. Finnegan's also getting better at not pulling on-leash, which is good.

Got to take the dogs for a walk. By-by!

Finn update

Finn is still doing well, and he's still a crazy mouth-on-four-legs. He's getting way better at walking on our road: at first, he was scared of all the noises of cars driving by, lawn mowers, dogs barking... but he's doing better now. He's still not getting that if the leash is tight, I'm stopping, and I'll only move again if the leash is loose. Well, sometimes he gets it, but other times he doesn't.

He really wants to play with our older dog Poppy, but Poppy doesn't want to. Poppy is having a hard time with it, but he's doing pretty well.

We are going to take Finn to puppy kindergarten on Wednesday. I wonder how he'll like that....

puppy pics

I've finally got some pictures of Finnegan! *grins*

This is "The Finn"

Here's Finnegan and Poppy... sitting together, for once!

I'll write more later. Finn is keeping me busy right now. :)

The puppy has arived!

Yes, the newest member of the family is here. We've named him Finnegan, (FIN-e-gan) although I'm wondering if we should change his name to Mouth on Four Legs. Because that's what he is. He gets into everything. And he's a really sweet puppy! He's so curious about everything; always looking, sniffing, chewing. He's really friendly to everyone. He's quite a people dog.

The drive home, although it was 2 hours, was easy: he slept most of the way. The breeder did say he was calm, and she was right! (Speaking of the breeder, she is amazing; she loaned us a kennel, and gave us about 5 days worth of food for free). When we got home, he made himself at home pretty quickly, although you could tell he was a little nervous. The first night was actually pretty good. He woke up and wanted to go outside at about 12:15, and then thumped (tosted and turned) in his kennel for what felt like the rest of the night. I felt like I was half asleep for the entire night, but I did get some sleep.

I don't have pictures yet, but I'll post them as soon as I can.

(sorry if some of this post didn't make sense. I'm tired).

quick note

Just a quick note to say that I've started posting in my book blog again. Yes, I know... amazing.

rain in July???

No, I am not kidding. Rain in July. And it rained for a week strait. I think something might be not quite right here. It also had the nerve to rain on the weekend of the Folk Fest, which sucked. Oh well. At least we are back to summer wheather!

The sky, blue as the sea,
The gentle wind, cooling,
The warm sun, blessing the earth,
The birds, blessing the world with their song
In the summer.

Peace!

oh my

Wow. I haven't posted in here for a long time. (I wonder if anyone's reading this?) A lot has happened:

I attended an amazing week long teen camp. Everything about it was awesome. All the people were so nice, and the leaders were wonderful. We did a lot of fun things, and we also discussed things, like what makes a good leader. All the participants had an equal voice: we were treated like people with valuable opinions, instead of a bunch of teens that had to be kept out of trouble for a week. I really appreciate this.

A few nights ago, we (my mom, bapa and I) went to see Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It was so funny! I would totally recommend seeing it, if you can.

I'm back...

We made it back in one piece. (all right, two pieces: me and Mama). I'm tired, but happy to be home. It's amazing how tiring sitting in a car can be, yes? Anyway:

On the last day that we were there, my aunt and uncle from Holland (I have a lot of relatives in Holland) came to my grandparents house. I found it so cool to listen to my grandparents and my aunt and uncle speak in Dutch, even though I couldn't understand a word they said!

On the way back to our place, we spent the night at my aunt's house. She's gotten a new puppy named Gracey. She is so cute! She's a 15 week old fuzzy ball of energy.

And then when we got home, my dog gave us an ear-full for leaving him for a week. My dad was with him, but he doesn't like it when people go away.

quick little post

I'm writing this from my grandparents house in Castlegar. Yup, I'm on a trip. :) But the annoying thing was that I got sick the day I got here! meh. But I'm almost better now.

But I'm surprised at how HOT it is here! The first day we were here, it was 32 celsius! It's been a tad cooler these last few days, but not by very much.

Anyway.

cool singer

Here's a really cool singer that you might like to check out: http://www.myspace.com/brettdennen He has some sample music on there -- my favourit is "Blessed".

Chickens.... someone, help! :P

OH MY GOSH, we have a chicken drama on our hands. OK, this is what I mean. We are trying to get our chickens to hatch some eggs. So, we got some eggs from our friends, stuck them under the chickens, and waited to see what would happen. Well, a lot did happen. First of all, the chickens couldn't decide who should have the eggs. We finally split the eggs up among the chickens, so each got 1 or 2. Everything was going fine, until of the eggs mysteriously disappeared. We had no idea where on earth that egg had got to. Since we couldn't find it, and the chickens weren't hurt, we decided to leave it. Then one of the eggs BROKE. We think that the chickens were fighting over the eggs, and one got cracked... at least, that was the only thing we could think of.

So, I have no idea what is going to happen with the eggs, or if they will ever hatch. We will just have to wait and see.

classes ending and puppies :)

Almost my classes are done: fiddle orchestra, string orchestra, and choir are all finished. (My violin are archery lessons are still happening). It feels great to have all this free time, but at the same time, it's kind of sad, because I like my classes. But one thing I'm really happy about is all my concerts are done!! My last one, a choir concert, was on the first day of the month. All I have left is my violin recital on the 18, which I don't really consider a concert. It's still a performance, though.

The other interesting thing that happened was I saw a litter of 9 adorable 7 week old puppies!!! Someone we know is fostering them and their mom. The mom, called Chloe, is a sweetie, and the puppies are wriggling balls of joy. They are such DARLINGS!!!!

Ah, well, that's about it.....
Peace

choirs, choirs EVERYWHERE

On Friday, my choir performed at four schools so that young people could get a chance to here our choir. Oh my goodness, what crazyness. The people at the first school (a middle school) couldn't care less. You could tell they didn't want to be there. The next three schools were elementary schools. At the second school, the people there where a little better. They had less of the oh-my-gosh-this-is-so-boring attitude that the first school had. And the third school... oh my gosh. They actually asked for more. That's right! I heard kids shouting, "just one more!" I could hardly believe it! And the forth school was about the same as the second one.

So yeah, that's what kind of crazyness my choir has been up too......

pictures

Some pictures I like...
That tiny speck of a person is me.

That's Half Moon bay, on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Archery

Exciting news... I've started archery classes. It's AWESOME. I love it. There is something very satisfiying about hearing the string twang as you release the arrow, and hearing the arrow go thunk when it hits the target. It's hard, and the arrows don't always go where you want them to go, but still... I LOVE IT!

Holly

PUPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YAY YAY YAY!!!!!!! The breeder email us, and she said that THE PUPPIES ARE BORN!! They were born on the 10th... so I guess they are 2 days old. They must be so small that they can fit in your hand. We will be able to take the puppy home sometime in the middle of July, I think. Oh my gosh I can hardly wait. :) We have a name picked out: Misha. (if that's how you spell it). Oh yeah, it's going to be great.

On another note: MORE VIOLIN TROUBLES. The tail piece on my violin decided that it was tired of being attached to my violin, so it popped off. *groan* That was on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I had to play my violin the next day (to prepare for a concert). My teacher came to the rescue: we traded violins for the day: he took mine and put a temporary tail piece on, while I borrowed his. Can you believe that? He actually lent me his violin. Anyway, we took my violin to the violin repairer shop today, and they put on a permanent tail piece on. But that wasn't the end of it. Right after that, one of my strings decided it didn't like the tail piece, and... yes! It popped off! In the middle of fiddle orchestra! *groans again* Luckly, someone there kindly fixed it, so I was able to play in class.

So, that was my adventure for today.........

--Nobody can explain a dragon.

20th post

This is my 20th post on this blog. Wow.... anyway.........

We had really weird weather today. First it was an overcast day, not raining, but not sunny... and then, a little while after lunch, we hear big, rumbling boom. Sure enough, it was thunder. Then it started raining buckets. This was the first thunder storm in... Oh, I don't know how long. I used to be scared of thunder, but not anymore. (I find thunder storms rather odd now: all the light and noise and the occasional fire started by lightening... all for the want of an electron! A microscopic particle! Strange, no?) Then, as if the weather wanted to prove that no one could ever understand it, the sun decided to come out. It's been shining ever since.

peace.

humph.

I've been rather tired of late. I don't know why. I think I've been getting enough sleep... maybe I haven't been getting enough exercise. I'm going to bed early tonight: right after I finish writing this post, I'm going to bed.

I've discovered a really neat program on The Knowledge Network. It's called The Leading Edge, and it's about scientific happenings. It's very interesting. On the latest show was a thingy about the creator of the fastest bikes in the world, which I thought was very cool. It's kind of short, only half an hour, but that's life.

I'm tired. I really shouldn't write on here when I'm tired. I can't think clearly. Good night ZZZZzzzzzz..... .

very, very strange.....

You won't believe what happened to us. OK, mom and I were driving home from my orchestra practice. Mama was about to turn on to another road, but a car came the other way, so she stopped, which was the sensible thing to do. Then, just as she was about to turn on to the road, we felt a shuddering thud. We looked behind us, and there was a pick-up truck right behind us: the dude had run into us!! Not hard, so no-one was hurt, and our car wasn't damaged, but STILL!!!! I think he was annoyed that mama hadn't made the turn right away. But there was a car coming the other way. What a goof-ball. *shakes head*

later.

YIPPPEEE!

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!! I am 15 now!! :D :)

violin troubles: solved?

Well, we took the violin to the violin repairer guy, Kim, on Tuesday. He looked it over and said that the last person who rebuilt it did not do a very good job, and that the angle of the neck was off. (grrrrrr [luckly, it's not that big of a deal]). He also said it could be about 75-80 years old! Well anyway, he did something to the bridge (not sure what) and put a new fine-tuner on it (not sure why [sorry if the terminology doesn't make sense]). And since the tuning pegs were slipping, he put some "peg dope" on them, which really helped. I can actually tune the 'A' string now! WOOT! :D I think the only thing left to do is replace the tuning pegs, which we will do in the summer, when I'm not playing as much.



Peace favour you.

SO CUTE!!!

Oh my goodness! Ok, we went to visit the Flat Coated Retriever breeder again today. She kept two puppies from her last litter, and THEY ARE THE MOST ADORABLE LITTLE PUPPIES IN THE WHOLE WORLD! They are about 14 weeks old, and very well behaved. All her dogs are. I love Flat Coats: they are beautiful and sweet tempered and so gentle. Apparently they are really smart, too: you only have to show them how to do something a couple of times, because if you repeat something over and over again, they get board and start getting annoyed with you. But anyway: we are going to get a puppy from her. In July. It's going to be awesome. :)

Peace!
PS: I wish I had pictures, but I don't... sorry.

violin troubles

Yeeks. My violin is acting up. Or my 'A' string is acting up. You see, today at orchestra, my A string decided that it didn't like the tail piece on my violin, so it snapped out of it's spot in the tail piece. My conductor/teacher had to fix it. Then this afternoon at fiddle orchestra (yeah I know, two different orchestra practices in one day) my violin was totally out of tune, so I asked my other teacher to tune it, and guess what? The A string snapped out AGAIN! 4 times, actually. So I think I have to get my violin looked at. And maybe get new tuning pegs. I don't know. It's really annoying. Anyway I'll survive.

Peace!

Crazy orchestra practice

Oh my goodness! Orchestra. There was an orchestra practice today, but because it's still spring break, there weren't too many people there. Which wasn't good for the first violins. (I'm a first violin). Ok, the first violins who were there were me and two other people who love to speed. It's like they have a mission to speed up the whole orchestra. So as you can imagine, I had a really hard time keeping the correct tempo. I did my best to listen to the cellos blaring behind me (we have a LOT of cellos) and watch my conductor, which helped, but it was still hard. *sighs* Ah well, that was my excitement for the day.

Wa wa wa

I have just received annoying news. Apparently, there is to be a Clan reunion this summer, and WE CAN'T GO!!! For two reasons: One is that my dad's choir has a performance that weekend, and an important one at that. (which is not bad-- I love my dad's choir). Secondly, if all go's well we will have a new puppy to take care of and love. Which, again, isn't bad, because I love dogs. But that still means WE CAN'T GO! Which totally sucks: my cousins are going to be there, as well as aunts and uncles and my grandparents and family friends. (I hardly know some of the family friends, but whatever). I don't get to see them often, so as you would imagine, I jump at any chance I get to see them. And the last clan reunion was so much fun, but it was so LONG ago: who knows when the next one will be?

I will stop complaining now. I will have other chances to see my family: maybe we will go visit my grandparents this summer. I really hope so.

Over and out.
May the stars watch over you.

travel

Why I haven't written about this yet I don't know, but last weekend, Mama and I went to the Vancouver area for a little spring break visit. (unfortunately, my dad did not come with us). We have friends and family there that we don't see that often. :( Oh well. We had fun. I had fun. We took The Furry Face (my dog Poppy) along with us. He is such a good traveler... in the car. When we get to a new house, he's not that relaxed. Well actually, it's at night that he's not really relaxed. Weird, eh? Anyway, our friend has a young puppy (I don't know how old she is) named BB: for Black Beauty. We took Poppy to see BB to see how they got along. It was kind of sad, because BB wanted to play SO BAD, but Poppy (who's 7) just wasn't into it. She was so disappointed!

The picture was taken at Cathedral grove. Isn't it beautiful?

Ok, this is crazy, but...

My choir got invited to the Provincial music festival. The Provincials!! Only the best go there. I never even considered the possibility of us going there, but we are! Well, we won't be going physically. The way it works with choirs is you send a recording for the judges to listen to. Don't ask me who made up those rules, 'cause I don't know, but such is life. I think it would be interesting to go to the Provincials and see what all the fuss is about, but I'm not going... oh well. That's all right.

Anyway, I am sick again. I'm getting over a cold that kept me in bed for the whole weekend. Nothing has done that since I don't remember when. And now I'm coughing like crazy. No fun, but I'm on the mend.

One last thing: does anyone even read this blog? Or am I blasting into empty space?
Bye-bye!

wow...

Ok people, Check this out: http://www.jaygreenbergmusic.com/ It's the website of a 15 year old composer who wrote like 5 syphonies by the age of 12... yeah, it's pretty wacky. And cool!

Sick and other things.

I got sick a little while ago. Not terribly sick, but just a little. It was weird... it was like I was totally drained of energy. But I'm WAY better now, so it's all good.

My choir sang in the music festival last Friday. I think we did an awesome job. Although there was one little mix up: we sang "song" when we were supposed to sing "rhythm". (Oops!) But our choir directer and the adjudicator both seemed happy, so that was good. The adjudicator was funny: she used words like "scrumptious" and "yummy". Not exactly the words that you would expect, but she was really positive, and she did a good job. It was fun.

Well, I'm out of here.
May the stars watch over you.

Puppies!

Oh, my gosh! We saw the sweetest puppies! A litter of ten flat-coat retriever pups, around five weeks old. WHAT LITTLE DARLINGS! OK, you see, since my dear Teddy passed on, we've been thinking about getting a puppy. We met the sweetest flat-coated retriever in North Vancouver: she was mellow, gentle, and very friendly. So we started looking in to getting one. The breeder we visited had... I forget how many dogs she had (almost all flat-coats), but the were all pretty gentle and FRIENDLY! I wish I could up-load a picture, but I don't know how. Oh well. When I learn how to do it, I will.


ttyl
Holly

WOOOOOT!!!!!!!!

YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!! ONE OF MY CHICKENS JUST LAID AN EEG!!!!!!!! Umm, you're wondering why I'm so exited, right? Well, we haven't had eggs from our chickens for a LONG time now. (no clue why). And now we put a light in their coop, hoping it would encourage them to lay... AND IT DID! *smiles happily*

odd camara story

Well, this was odd. Ok, well, we haven't had a camera for a little while, due to the fact that I dropped it. (The camera worked, but it wouldn't down-load the pictures onto the computer). So, a few days ago, my mom and I were in Victoria, and my mom was like, Ok, we've been without a camera for to long, so let's just get one. So we did. When we got home, my dad told us that we were going to get his friend's old camera. Yeeks! So, I think we will keep the new camera until the other camera gets here, and then compare. (I said I'd compare by which one takes the better action shot).
I hope we keep the new camera. It's so cute!

later!
~holly

??? yack-yack-yack !!!

I'm not doing anything. I mean, aside from doodleing around on my blog. I probably "should" get off of here and go DO something, but I don't feel like it. Oh well, I will in a sec. I like this font. It's called "Trebuchet". funny name......
Books Rule!!!!!!!
*rolls eyes at self* Ok, maybe I really should get off....
more later.
may the stars watch over you.

late chicken up-date

My chickens are so weird I don't know what to do! *sighs* Anyway, what happened with the chickens: after a while, they went inside the coop. Humph. But today, the chickens didn't go in until it was dark. I think the reason they're acting odd of is because we just put a light in their coop, and we're not being very consistent with it: some nights it's on, some nights it's off. So I'm guessing they're being thrown off, which is understandable. We'll figure something out.

We had a crazy weekend. We had a big party/supper with our some of our friends on Saturday. They stayed so late that one family (who had a ways to go to get home) decided to stay the night! yeeks. It was alright, though. :D

Later!
May the sun shine on your road.

wow, bright!

Wow, the back-ground is bright, isn't it?!! Yeek. well, whatever....... It's raining cats and dogs. It was been doing so since from around lunchtime, and it doesn't seem to want to stop.

Oh my goodness. Chickens!! Ok, well, I just went to close my chickens up for the night... and they were still outside!!! The silly biddies. Then I went inside their run and tried the pick-them-up-and-put-them-in-the-coop-by-hand method. Didn't work. It never does with chickens. (I love them, but sometimes they can be a pain!) I'm not sure if they're still out... let me check: *runs to the window and checks*... Yes, they are!! I don't know what to do. Well, my mom just got home. Maybe she has some ideas.....

I'll keep you posted.

bla bla bla

Yup. That's what this blog is going to be about: random yabberings on whatever I feel like. What I've been up to, things that I like, things that annoy me... you name it. So... enjoy. And please tell me what you think of it! :D

Respectfully out of the depths of insanity.