Little fishes, big fishes and beautiful seals

Check this out.  Here's a video of life in the ocean in British Columbia's north.  This is a lot to put at risk from an oil spill.

http://vimeo.com/80332528

Still working on the upstairs apartment

The upstairs apartment is coming along... slowly.  We spent the weekend painting baseboards and closets.  The week ahead will move us forward big-time. Ben is tiling the bathroom and putting in the cork floor. Harry is finishing the closet in the downstairs hall and our pal Ritchie is painting the woodwork.  It always takes longer than you might think.

Harry and I spent Saturday and Sunday sanding, priming and painting trim and the insides of closets. We're hoping that it will all be finished by the middle of December so Sue can move in for Christmas. You can see from the photo that there is still much to be done. Today I made and posted a list in every room of the tasks that have to be completed.  There are quite a few of them.

But if things go well we'll have the washer/dryer, the dishwasher, the stove and the range hood installed, plus most of the electrical finished. Then all that's left is sewing it up.

We were there, freezing our fingers off

On Saturday we went down with a friend to join this group of stalwart demonstrators at Victoria's Clover Point to tell Stephen Harper, Christie Clark and the Enbridge Pipeline people that we say NO. 

 No pipeline, no tankers, and no expansion of bitumen mining in Canada's tar sands.

Over 1,000 people stood in the cold wind and rain to make this point yet again.  It's far from over. This will be a fight to the bitter end.  Too much is at stake to succumb to bullying tactics and pressure from politicians and corporations. The people are speaking!

A dog's eye view of the world

I think this photo might have been a mistake. But it cracks me up.  This is what our dogs see when they walk into the room.  They don't see the tasteful colours we've chosen for the walls or the elegant accessories on the coffee table.  No, all they see is the ball.  Or the food bowl.  Or the piece of garbage that came in from the sidewalk on the bottom of your shoe.  

Geordie loves this ball because it squeaks and when he's too distracted to play with anything else, this will get him running around the back yard.

In the background here you see Maggie.  She spends most of her time on her cozy pillow in the kitchen but she still likes her breakfast and dinner.  And today she came to the park with us and ran around in circles with the Frisbee in her mouth.  Although she's had a couple more seizures since we've been home, she seems comfortable enough most of the time. So we are enjoying the time we have with her.

Inspired to drink green juice

I'm probably way behind in hearing about this,  but I just watched a movie called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, that extols the benefits of drinking fresh fruit and vegetable juice.  If you haven't seen the movie, it follows an Australian guy on a trip across America for a sixty day program of having nothing but juice.  On the way he meets a 400+ pound truck driver who also signs on. And looses over 200 pounds. Both of them also end up off all medications and feeling great.



Well, I'm not one to follow diets but I thought I'd like to try this experiment to see if it might help me with knee and hip pain from my osteoarthritis and at the same time lose a few pounds.



Today I got my juicer on sale and tried a juice of kale, spinach, celery, cucumber, green apples, lemon and ginger.  Just delicious.  The thing I liked most about it was the sense that enzymes and healthy nutrients were being absorbed into my body.

I think I might start with a three day cleanse, as featured here on Dr. Oz.  You have to work up to this one with a few days of eliminating heavy proteins and dairy and adding in hot water with lemon and ginger and herbal tea.  I think I can do this and I'd like to try.

I'll keep you posted.