Our Hearts Are Broken

Oscar

16th Oct 2013 - 27th Nov 2014

The life and adventures of Ollie & Oscar (aka spoiled rotten dog and pampered kitty)

Last time I gave you an update, Oscar had just joined us and was still a young kitten. Now Oscar is 9 months old and pretty much full grown. So here's the stories you have missed:

• Oscar is the strangest cat ever -  he has definite cat-itude and likes to get up to all kinds of mischief. This includes following the humans into the garage, and cupboards and regularly getting shut in that space when they haven't noticed. At least every week he is rescued from a space he has snuck into - and he never seems to learn a lesson about it. He also just sits and silently waits to be discovered some time later, usually when we say to each other 'where's Oscar I haven't seen him for awhile'. Why waste important energy meowing?

• At 4 months a certain kitten decided to try life on the streets. His big break happened when a certain doggie dug a kitten-sized escape hole for him to exit our yard and enter our neighbours yard - from there Oscar had a clear exit plan through the iron wrought bars and to freedom! In the meantime we worried like crazy about him and plastered the neighbourhood with missing posters. After 2 nights on the streets he returned one morning as if nothing had ever happened. Since that day the great outdoors hasn't had the same appeal. I think he went 'I've seen the world and it was overrated' and suddenly the giant dog and humans didn't look so bad.  

•  Meanwhile Ollie has been continuing at dog obedience school and passed Bronze! He is now onto Silver classes. If it was a real school, I think Ollie would be the class clown of his grade.

 

• David and I have been determined to keep our dog out of my vegie patch and it has proven to be a challenge. Time and time again Ollie has proven that he is smarter than his own good and won the battle. Oscar is partly to blame here since Ollie thinks Oscar's poop is the tastiest treat in the history of the world, and Oscar thinks the garden beds are the best place to go toilet. Ollie's favourite vegies and fruits to dig up are potatoes and strawberries and sadly these are my favourites to eat. Bizarrely I can feed Ollie practically every fruit and veg except the strawberry fruit. He thinks it is awful - but apparently the leaves and roots of the plant are the best thing ever! After months of trying multiple different fence configurations we have finally got him out.

• I get asked quite a bit about how Ollie and Oscar are getting on. Since a picture is worth a 1000 words I'm going to leave you with this answer

Pet Mania

I am completely hooked on the sad cat and sad dog diary, and these are heavily quoted at home now. If you haven't already seen them you should:



The sad dog diary isn't as clever as the sad cat diary but worth it just for the description of a cat. I laughed so hard I cried:



Ollie may be going through dog school but we are clearly not teaching him the right things. Maybe we should be working on this:

Some Changes

So it's been awhile since I have blogged - it's a combination of changing things in our new home, adding to our fur family and the sheer amount of time wedding planning takes.

I'll start with the new fur family addition:

Oscar at 6 weeks old - his first day at home

We got a rescue kitten! He was found at a university campus at 3 weeks of age and his mum had died. Despite being allergic to cats, his rescuer took him home and the family feed him through the night to keep him alive. At 6 weeks he was more prepared to go to his forever home and when we heard about him through the grapevine we decided to adopt him.

He got his name from Oscar Wilde - because he was wild! Also we have a literary theme going on - Ollie got his name from Oliver Twist because Springers love their food.

He is now 5 months old and full of life. Nothing scares this cat and he has already gone missing for a few days only to turn up later oblivious to all the fuss he caused. While Ollie was scared of, and actually ran from the vacuum when he was older and much bigger; Oscar started it down, hissed and held his ground - all at the age of 7 weeks and while the size of my hand!

Oscar during a growth spurt

After a short time, Ollie and Oscar have become good friends. They sleep together and play together. Ollie is generally very good at being gentle and Oscar sure knows how to tease the dog!

Waiting for breakfast

Biting Game - Oscar's favourite. It usually results in Oscar stretching out Ollie's jowls.

Oscar has grown considerably in the last little while and now looks like this (but it could change in a week):

They did require a lot of supervision at first - Ollie wanted to play the chasing game relentlessly and Oscar would be trying to say that's enough but Ollie didn't pick up on it. We had to intervene and rescue Oscar from corners. Then one day while we were out Ollie freed Oscar from his spacious compound we had set up with child gates. Oscar walked straight through the child gate bars and I don't know what happened after that (probably wouldn't want to know) but that day they sorted out their differences. I haven't had to intervene anywhere near as much since.

Oscar emerged as the manipulator of the two within a very short space of time. He worked out when he was still very small that dog door leads to an outdoor world. Problem was he was too little to open the dog door on his own so he began manipulating Ollie into assisting. He would stand at the dog door until Ollie came to investigate and in the process Ollie would open the dog door by shoving Oscar through.

Things That Change With a Puppy - Part 2

One
Weekends are dedicated to how to help tire out a puppy with seemly boundless energy. This usually involves a long walk and throwing around a ball. It can have the adverse effect of tiring out the humans as well.

Two
You never know when you are going to put your slipper on and step on something inside.

For those keeping score - yes that is a tooth. We have found 4 so far and still counting...

Three
There's a lot of sleeping in awkward looking positions. He's always watching, even when he is sleeping

Four
As a lover and expert of sticks, Ollie always has a ready supply on hand and it is nothing for him to bring these inside through the doggy door.

Five
He is growing up too fast. One day he fit on my lap and the next he is huge. He is now able to reach the kitchen bench and on his last trip to the vet he weighed close to 15kg. None of this can stop him from getting cuddles on demand

Things that have been keeping me busy

It has been a very busy few weeks so here is a recap.

I think the most exciting thing that has happened is I purchased a wedding dress. It's very girly of me but I'm truly excited about my dress. It feels like me, and I feel comfortable in it. Plus it looks amazing and I just love it.

The actual dress is a surprise until the big day, but I haven't told you the most awesome part. It was 50% off! I tried it on ages ago but because I got really busy with moving and Ollie I couldn't get back to the store for awhile. By the time I did, the dress had gone on sale.

In other news, Ollie is growing like crazy. I swear that his tail doubled overnight, his legs are suddenly long and he quickly outgrew the first harness that we got him. Remember this photo from when we first met him?

Well now it's more like this:

Ollie just isn't going to fit on my lap for much longer

Giant paw

Also a very special someone had a birthday. Happy birthday my David!

Homemade birthday cake, and it was perfectly delicious

Birthday wish

Our Puppy Mugged a Child

Yep, you read that right. Our sweet innocent little puppy mugged a child on the weekend and it was hilarious.

For this to happen, picture these:

held by one of these:

Throw in a sweet, little puppy (or should I say a scary, intimidating puppy)

End result, one petrified child:

Ollie absolutely loves kids, so when he saw a small child on the weekend he immediately wanted to make friends and play. Problem was the little boy was terrified of such a bouncing, excited puppy and he kept saying 'go away'. Not to be deterred so easily Olllie continued on his quest.

So how did the child respond? Well he threw the biscuit he was consuming behind him and ran. Ollie ran to the biscuit and I could almost see him going 'oh well not the reaction I wanted but I'll accept that' and he scoffed the biscuit. It was hilarious, I was keeled over laughing!

By the end of the day the small child and Ollie were the best of friends. It just took some time for the kids to realise Ollie wanted to play with them. After that all we could hear for the rest of the day was "Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, Ollie" and our puppy became the centre of attention.

The kids left begging their parents for a puppy, so everyone was happy (well maybe not the parents). Ollie was especially happy because he got himself a bonus biscuit and new friends, not a bad days work for a puppy.

Things That Change With a Puppy

Number One
Bye bye sleeping in, and hello 5.30am wake up calls. There's no Saturday or Sunday privileges either. 5.30am is the 'I've just woken up and I have to go to the toilet NOW' . This is all worthwhile when this face is looking at us:

Cuddles with David

Number Two

Constant supervision, gone are our carefree days  - 'if it's on the ground it's mine to eat, even if it is bad for me or not one of my chew toys'. It's a small price to pay for a snuggly little man.

My stick, all the way from the backyard. It's very necessary that it remains indoors with me.

Number Three
We've gone from a clean house, to a muddy one and we're not worried:

Rain + puppy = wet and muddy paws

The gardening assistant - Ollie already loves water and had a blast jumping in puddles

Number Four
Every day that we come home, Ollie is waiting for us and is super excited to see us again. It makes our house more like a home :)

Ollie - the cutest little puppy ever.

Number Five
Responsibility - we fuss over him, ensure that he always has clean drinking water and jot down his next scheduled vet appointments.

Olie went to the vets for a 2nd vaccination and took it so well that he fell asleep on the vets table!

In Summary
Having a pet again is fantastic and we absolutely wouldn't change a thing

Our Family is Expanding!

We are going to be parents to our new little fur baby. I'm excited to announce the arrival next week of our fur-son Ollie (Oliver).

The snuggly little guy on the left is Ollie. As cute and adorable as his brother is, our yard is just not big enough for 2 dogs.

Cuddles

What's this? Lets eat it and find out.

I've always wanted an English Springer Spaniel. My grandparents had one called Casper when I was younger and he was wonderful - intelligent, a fantastic temperament and protective of his family. For a very long time after Casper passed away I missed him. This is what made me know that I wanted an English Springer Spaniel.

Ollie joins us very soon. We've spent all weekend puppy-proofing our yard to get things ready for him. It was a bit sooner than either of us expected to get a pet, but Ollie was available and the breed isn't widespread in Australia so I didn't want to miss out on an available litter.

Things That Are Awesome

Photo from here

If you are a Pride and Prejudice fan and haven't already seen the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, do yourself a favour and go get hooked. Seriously these video diaries will have you wanting more but persevere through the first couple - it takes a couple of episodes to appreciate them fully.

I'm totally loving Rachael Hale right now - I mean cute kitties and puppies what isn't to love! I have one of the puppy mugs that I use at work and I love my mug.

Photo from here

David and I loved reading this hilarious Contract for Potential Future Wives. No resemblance to any current real-life situation is implied or inferred (for the record, my future Mother-In-Law is totally awesome - as I tell David frequently).

Last time I was sick, David introduced me to this Sick Day comic. It's was a totally accurate account of my days off.

Catch Up

Besides buying a house, life has continued to go too quickly. Am I alone in wishing you could pause life sometimes like you can a DVD, just to take a breather? Oh and the benefit is that then you could rewind when you've just done something bad. Like oops, I smashed my favourite vase, oh well I'll rewind and edit that. I digress though...

After the engagement party, I flew to Brisbane to attend a conference for work. It was a good opportunity to network and hear other speakers working in my field presenting new ideas. It was surprisingly tiring though, and considering that I'd already been doing too much it really took a toll on my health.

 The view from the Brisbane accommodation, from the 20th Floor overlooking the botanic gardens.

 The plane trip to Brisbane just had the most beautiful cloud formations, I had to capture it on camera.

By the time we had a planned trip to Ballina for a weeks holiday I was already physically exhausted and all I wanted to do was a day of 'nothingness'. That might sound boring but to laze around in pyjamas and simply rest and read seemed the best way to recharge my batteries.

Here's where I went wrong, rather than knowing my limits I had ignored my body. Consequently I got a terrible cold, and 2 weeks later I was still feeling awful. It turns out that I have asthma which explains a lot about why I have always struggled to throw off any colds. Now that I've been diagnosed it has made such a difference. I'm back to my normal happy and healthy self, and just having a name for it is a relief.

While we were visiting the North Coast, we (David, myself and his mum Christine) visited Coffs Harbour and swam with a dolphin called Bella (pictured). David and I fell in love with Bella, and we are both keen to eventually do the other experiences. This experience was the shallow water experience. It was the most amazing thing I have ever done.

We had a great time in Ballina, catching up with David's famly and enjoying the warm hospitality of his Auntie Ali and Uncle Allan. I also couldn't resist befriending their cat Rambo:

 How cute is that? With all the rain and the coldish breeze outside Rambo came in for a warm siesta.

On the way home from Ballina, we missed our bus back to Canberra. Our plane was delayed 3 hours from leaving Ballina airport and although I had left a 2-hour gap, it wasn't enough for extenuating circumstances. Luckily my grandparents gave us accommodation in Sydney for the night and we got to spend time with this cutie again:

We still don't have a clear moving date (since it's 2 weeks from when the tenants move out it is highly likely we will only have 2 weeks notice) and it is making moving plans tricky. I don't want to start packing too early and be tripping over boxes constantly, but I also don't want to be stressed out leaving it to the last minute. I'm really impatient to move in to the new house :)

David and I have almost booked a photographer for our wedding and we just had our save the dates printed. Soon it will be just a year until we get married ♥

Bits and Pieces

I thought once we had the engagement party stuff sorted that the house and wedding stuff would be much easier to handle. So far though we have been as busy as ever, and a weekend at home lazing around looks really attractive.

Our engagement party went well. The weather looked incredibly suspect and had me a little worried. The afternoon and evening beforehand the temperature dropped to 11 degrees celcius which feels like winter to me. Luckily summer did come back and just in time for the party. We even got some unexpected guests:

It was also very sunny by the afternoon, and I got exceptionally sunburned after forgetting to put suncreen oil on my feet. For two days I hobbled around because it really was painful. After a week my feet still looked like this:

They have faded a little more now that even more time has passed but still look red, and are still a little tender and peeling. I'm never letting that happen again.

In a country that has the highest level of skin cancer in the world, and with predominately celtic ancestry my skin is just not made for this climate.

Still we had an amazing time at the Botanic Gardens, and having everyone together was really important to us. My friend (whom I mentioned in the last post) even attended after assuring us that even the bushfires couldn't stop her.

In other news, after lots of delays and setbacks it looks like we will be ready to exchange contracts very soon, which potentially means in the next 60 days we can move into our new home. I'm so excited and I'm really hoping the settlement date will be brought forward. I'm already researching puppies and planning the garden in my head.