i sent along a donation to help with april rain’s care (and all the other amazing dogs at angel’s animal rescue in merritt, BC) and they sent a thank you note along with an update and some pictures.

april rain (the dog that was subjected to unspeakable cruelty by her owner) is doing great! they say she just needs to gain a bit more weight before finding her forever home, but look at her swimming! yay angel’s animal rescue! yay april rain!

i am not a good time manager.

or a good planner.

last night at 6:30pm seemed like a good time run for the border (you know, America) to pick up some custom pencils i ordered for a back to school window display at the shop. ‘cuz they wouldn’t ship to canada. and i had to have these pencils.

it didn’t go well.

unexpected (to me) border line-up due to construction. sent to “naughty area” at US customs for inadvertently being in the wrong lane (picking up pencils for a store display is for commercial purposes. doesn’t matter if you aren’t selling them.) pay $10 fee for using my car for commercial purposes even though at this point i wasn’t. (mailbox place was closed). back to canada. “road kill” accident (not my name for it, but that’s what they were calling it on the traffic radio station) highway 99. cupped hand over face to avoid seeing aforementioned road kill. cupping of hand resulted in loss of contact in left eye. drove home with impaired vision. arrived home to take dogs for late walk. auggie sees kitty (due to impaired vision, i don’t) he takes off. i lose hold of leash. mike tries to take off too. rich’s death grip on leash prevents mike’s escape. death grip on leash causes leash to become taut. taut leash takes me out at the knees. elbow hits pavement.

there will be no pencils in our back to school window today. (but the kitty is fine.)

*shelli dorfe print. geez i hope so.

after days (& days!) of trying to get my latest orla kiely order out of customs (UPS is holding it hostage) i realized after hanging up the phone with the 3rd person i’ve spoken with about this, that i really wasn’t very nice to the latest customer service rep.

i wasn’t, like, a screaming lunatic or anything, but i was pretty frustrated after days of getting nowhere.

i made a point to say, “i know this isn’t your fault, but please understand my frustration as i’ve had the same conversion 5 times in the last 5 days and each time i get nowhere closer to getting my pretty bags released from the grips of UPS.”

the lesson here…just be nice (or at least *really*really* try). it might not get your bags out of customs any faster, but they’re just bags (albeit gorgeous orla kiely bags) and in the end, being nice just feels a whole lot better.

oh, ps: you can be as mean as you want to the automated phone systems. mostly, they just like to hang up on you, “i’m sorry, that was an incorrect entry. goodbye.”

*recognize the flies? they’re from smoking lily.

when we were in oregon, we celebrated a belated birthday for my mom’s husband (he’s a big fan of birds) so of course i knew i had to have these bird cupcake toppers (wearing party hats!). aren’t they adorable?

(it’s not my fault. it just jumped off the rack & onto my back.)

i may have inadvertently purchased these for myself today. (loving the new pieces from seattle based elephantine)

i’m just getting back into the swing of things after an amazing family vaca in bend, Oregon. i just loved it…we all did, so much so that we’ve decided to go back again next summer!

i mean really, can you ever ride your bike, float on the deschutes river with your dog (who is wearing a life jacket), lie in the grass, eat fresh fruit from the farmer’s market, hot-tub, stroll through the shops of an old mill town, read, make stuff, laugh at the things that come out the mouth of a 2-year old, or BBQ too much? i think not.

i have big dreams to build a little dollhouse. yesterday we received the modern playhouse from MOMA kids, and i had a little too much fun putting it together. of course the one i dream about building is far more elaborate. it will surely require power tools.

it’s 9:28 (pm) and i’m still at the shop plugging away. (maybe this should have been a tweet rather than a blog post. i dunno. i’m delirious.)