Adventures in Taco land

I'd say for being new puppy parents we are doing pretty well. It has been 4 days since the last accident (and before that it had been 7), Taco now knows his name, can sit and stay and come pretty well (sometimes he just looks at us stubbornly though, like what do you want to make me do?) and generally, everyone is very happy!

There are a few problems or 'issues' as Cesar Millan would call them.

First of all, The Walk. The oh-so-important walk is oh-so-difficult! I understand about the calm assertive energy and I actually tend to use it in the classroom with my students. I find it's important not to get upset or frustrated and to remember they probably just didn't understand what you wanted. I think the same goes for the dog, but the dog is a dog. He sees the world through his nose and is a puppy with a very very short attention span. Also, the whole dominant/submissive thing is tricky. As I mentioned above, in the house he does well. We have clear rules for no going on the furniture and no going into different rooms unless he's invited to do so. He has to earn his toys and food by sitting and staying. He can't jump on us or bite, and these are things that he's assimilated well. So I feel like in the house, we're in control. Go outside and it's a whole different ball game. Well the world is just so stimulating, I can imagine it'd be hard not to be distracted. Then again, if he were in the wild as a submissive pack member, he'd just follow us. Right now he tends to follow for about half a block or maybe a block on a good day, and then just start sniffing and pulling. He does his business before we start walking, so I know it's not that. And then trying to stay calm is difficult because I get frustrated about him pulling on the leash. URG! This brings me to my second point:

At times, he goes totally crazy with the leash. He bites at it, jumps and tugs and sometimes even growls. My hypothesis is this is his way of saying 'I've had enough, take me home now', but I'm not 100% sure. We usually correct him when this happens and wait until he is sitting calmly before we start walking again. It's really hard to tell what sets him off though, if it's that the leash was in his way or what.

Anyway, other than that having a puppy is really fun! He is just the cutest thing ever and I love snuggling up to him when he's all tired out at the end of the day. Hopefully these 'issues' will be resolved quickly and soon we will have the best behaved dog ever!!!

I hadn't realized...

I hadn't realized putting curtains up would take so much TIME! We started in January and thought we could put all of the curtains up in one day. We have five windows, so it seemed totally do-able. BUT, we also had our dishwasher delivered on the same day. My husband and dad spend almost all day installing the dishwasher, and we only worked on the curtains for about an hour. We got the rod above our bed up. The next day, we continued in our curtain venture and put up the actual curtains (ironing curtains takes forever!). The following week, we put up another rod and curtains, and now the bedroom curtains are done (hurray!). The weekend after that, we went to Canadian Tire to get a saw because some of the rods had to be cut in order to fit our window width. We spend all day putting up two rods. One day I decided to iron curtains and we put those up on one of the living room windows. And that is where the story ends. We ran out of steam (figuratively) and of the clips that hold up our curtains (literally). This was more than a month ago. We still have so much work to do around the house (condo), but it takes so much time and energy! Last time we went to Ikea to look for more clips, they had run out and told us they wouldn't get more until April! So I guess our curtains will be looking like this for a while now:

Notice the right-hand window lacking curtains...

We still have other home improvement projects that will most likely take forever. I'd like to put some pictures up (I still haven't put my wedding pictures into frames and it's been a year and a half!), I would also like to create a reading corner in the bedroom. And I'm guessing once we know we have some visitors coming, we'll get our act together and make the guest room an actual guest room rather than a 'lets just put everything here' room. So hint hint friends, please visit so we can continue making our house more home-y!

Taco

We are now dog owners! We adopted this adorable Golden retriever labrador mix from the SPCA last Saturday. It was meant to be, as first we went to see the main building and didn't really click with any of the dogs we saw. We were a bit disheartened, but learned there was an emergency shelter on the other side of the street for puppies and more difficult dogs, so we decided to go check it out. Just as we were walking in, a young volunteer had a dog on a leash and asked us if she could help us. My husband looked at her and said, "Yes, we came to adopt that dog.", pointing to the dog she had on a leash. She said he had just came in about 20 minutes earlier from a family that just wasn't ready to raise a puppy. We stayed with him for a long time, went for a walk, fell in love, and got all of the papers organized. His operation (to be neutered) was scheduled for Monday, so we left him (broke my heart) there for the weekend.

On Sunday, we went to a pet store to buy all of the necessary accessories: dog bowls, toys, bed, food and cage. We also spend most of the day trying to decide on a name. We went through so many options, but we wanted something that worked in French, English and Spanish, and something that meant something to us. We finally decided on Taco Anyong Titan. We call him Taco (which reminds us of Mexico and suits him well), but we just love the name Anyong from Arrested Development and Titan from a  Dane Cook sketch.

 On Monday, my husband and I were so excited we kept talking about our dog all day. We had a few pictures on our phones that we would show whoever was willing to look! After work, I rented a Nissan Leaf from Communauto (a car-sharing community I'll have to post about another time). It is the coolest car! It is 100% electric and runs great. It was a great experience. Taco was super excited to see us and the car ride home went really well.

He has been doing so well this first week. He has already learned to sit and stay before we open the door, he heels pretty well (still tugs quite a bit though) and hasn't had too many accidents in the house.

Today, went for a super long four-hour walk to the Old Port in the snow and wind (we finally got a good snow storm!). Taco is now super tired and relaxed, but was really cold at the half-way point and I felt so bad that he was shivering! We almost looked homeless as we ate outside (Tim Hortons wouldn't let us in with the dog), Taco in my jacket to warm him up!

Here are a few pictures and a super cute video I took of Taco playing in the snow. Enjoy!

Wouldn't you have fallen in love with him too?

First day home!

We think he's going to be long!

Cute things heard at work this week

This week being Valentine's Day, we had many talks about love and friendship. Here are a few tidbits I thought I'd share to make you smile:

One of my students told me he was in love with a girl from another class and that when he saw her, his heart dropped to his feet because she was just so beautiful (aw!), but that she was annoyed because he always wanted to talk to her and play with her.

Another student told me he was in love with his parents and that he would marry them one day. I'll let him figure that one out in time, but am making a mental note to tell his parents that they are ever-so-loved!

What to wear if you are a Canadian teacher

Today was the 100th day of school for my students and I. We celebrated by counting to 100 many times throughout the day and by having an outdoor carnival. My colleagues and I had set up different stations that the students could play at and they had a blast. We were outside for about an hour.

We are lucky at our school because we (teachers) are only on recess duty once a week, but our recess lasts 45 minutes, so when it's cold you need to be dressed really warm. This is the whole point of my post. Knowing that we have to be outside for long stretches of time once a week, we all decided to buy the very best winter clothing we could get our hands on. For us this means a North Face Arctic Parka (black or grey (or brown - not pictured here)) and Sorel boots. Obviously, all other 'normal' rules of winter dressing still apply - layers are a must! So underneath our matching jackets, we all had two or three shirts, and we also had several layers of pants (including snow pants). Tuques (that's a warm hat for non-Canadians), mittens and scarves are accessories, but choose them wisely because when you play in the snow with five-year-olds, things get wet pretty fast!

Notice the matching jackets and boots!

2012 Resolutions

I looked back and did not find a single post about my 2011 New Year's Resolutions, and quite honestly, I have no idea what they were! This year I am super-motivated and have a long list of resolutions.

1. Go to church every Sunday and become involved in the choir/ Sunday school/ something like that... As you may or may not recall, I've embraced my faith again this year and enjoy bettering my spiritual self.

2. Go swimming and/or exercise twice a week. There is a swimming pool literally two minutes away from my house. I have no excuse.

3. Get out of the city and enjoy nature once a month. I love hiking, skiing, spending time in cabins, and I'd love to be able to accomplish this one.

4. Volunteer. I'm hoping the public library across the street from me will call, because I told them I was looking to volunteer. If they don't, I might apply to be a Big Sister.

5. Finish my masters. I've already begun filling out applications and I definitely don't want to overwhelm myself like I did last time, so I'm thinking part-time, taking it slowly, but finishing it eventually (not in 2012) is a very reasonable goal.

What are your New Year's resolutions???

Iranian Yalda night

Iranians celebrate the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, by eating, singing and being together. I was honoured to be invited to this celebration last night.

From here

The music was amazing. I did not know any of the instruments before, but I did recognize the sound of the music. It reminded me of the music in the movie 'Incendies'. It also made me think of 'Aladdin' and being in the desert with camels under a tent, though I think these are some stereotypes I need to get rid of. The man who was singing had an incredible voice, and though I don't understand Persian, I could tell the songs were all about love. They also read from the poet 'Hafez', who writes about love and existence and the meaning of life, as my friends told me.

From here

The food was good too. There was watermelon, pomegranate and oranges. There was also cake, nuts and chips.

I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in a different culture. I felt as though I was travelling, although I was still in Montreal. It definitely made me want to visit Iran though. Maybe one day I will go with my friends!