Popsicle Toes Are Always Froze

Summer finally arrived last week and it is capital-h-Hot. I'm not complaining, though, not one bit. Summer is a short season here in Vancouver so I will gladly welcome the heat and humidity.

The puppies have been less than impressed with the heat, however. Our neighbourhood is all cement sidewalks and gravel-filled dog parks - not very nice for rolling around in when it is hot and steamy - so I packed them off to the suburbs to spend the day in my parents' tree-filled backyard.

The puppies love my parents' backyard. It's big and shady and comes complete with a puppy! Toby's actually not much of a puppy anymore; he's old and arthritic and his hips are slowly twisting the wrong way, but he lets the pups crawl all over him and kiss his face. He's afraid of cameras (and has figured out that my iPhone is a camera) so I can only snap sneaky shots of him.

Since Stella's raspberry eating incident, my parents have erected fencing around their vegetable garden. When Stella discovered the fence, she was displeased. She spent a good portion of the day balanced on the edge of the garden wall, trying to decipher a way into the garden.

I didn't want the puppies to get overheated so I made them puppy popsicles. I mixed up about a cup of plain yogurt, a big spoonful of natural peanut butter (don't use the sugary stuff or you will end up with a sick pup), a mashed banana, a grated carrot, and a handful of chopped cranberries into a gloppy mix and then used my mini-muffin pan as a mold. They took a few hours to freeze into pucks of puppy popsicle goodness and then I popped them out of the pan and stored them in a bag in my freezer. The yogurt keeps them nice and chewable. The pups approve.

After hours of fun in the sun, I brought the pups home for a much needed snooze. Stella crashed for the entire afternoon, giving me a nice uninterrupted stretch of time to work on my accounting course (boo-urns to working on homework when it is nice and sunny outside.)

The ear draping over the side of the bed? Kills me. She is very easy to love when she is like this (you know, quiet and immobile.)

Tiny Little Hands Clapping

Shawn has his solo music project but he also joined a local band (Black Betty) a few months ago (side note: I love the new band. They kind of sound like Soundgarden + Ozzy.) Two days ago the band got a call from Live Nation asking if they would be interested in opening for Steel Panther at the Commodore. The Commodore Ballroom is somewhat of an institution in Vancouver. I would go so far as to say that it's the best place for live music in the city. It feels large - and attracts big name acts - but can actually only hold 900 people. It's a stepping stone - a step above playing in bars but a step below (albeit a large step) playing in arenas. Coldplay played their first North American gig at the Commodore. Lady Gaga played the Commodore in March 2009 and a year later returned to Vancouver to play at GM Place (tangent: GM Place was renamed Rogers Arena this week and ... no. Just no.) U2 played the Commodore in 1981. Playing the Commodore is kind of a big deal.Last night I watched Shawn fulfill his dream of playing on a big stage to a packed house of rowdy fans.
It doesn't matter that it was a rowdy crowd of Steel Panther fans. It doesn't matter that Black Betty was a last-minute fill-in for an opening band that bailed. All that matters is that all of his hard work paid off last night and I am so very proud of him.

We'll Design A Clever Disguise Or Retreat To The Bottom Of The Sea

I make a mean guacamole. I am good at recommending books and bands. I bake really delicious pies. I make excellent playlists. I am good at some things is what I'm saying.

However.

There are many things that I am not good at and for those things, I have my people. When I need to sound smart, I have Turtle. When I break my computer, I have Turtle's boyfriend. When I need to know what accessories are appropriate for a certain outfit, I have Robin. When I need someone to listen to my crazy without judging, I have Cat. When I have an accounting question, I have my dad. I have no problem finding help when I am unable to do something by myself.

A little while ago, I started to hate my blog. I still loved my bloggy people, I just felt like blogging was becoming a bit of a chore. I decided that I needed a blog redesign. I needed to approach blogging differently and in order to do so, I needed to change the look of my blog. I know absolutely nothing about the technical side of blogging though, so I needed a person.

I'm not sure how it happened (I'm guessing it was a combination of her kind heart and my blatant desperation) but Kyla became my bloggy person. A few emails were exchanged and it became painfully obvious how limited my technical skills are. Yada yada yada, I hired Kyla to redesign my blog.

My fancy new blog, twitter background, and etsy banner are all products of Kyla's brilliance. She did it all. The only thing I did was send bizarre emails with statements like "I like colour. Not like COLOUR colour. But colour. You know?" And she did know. Or at least she pretended to know what I was babbling on about and still managed to wrangle my thoughts into a cohesive design. Working with Kyla was an entirely positive experience - she listened to me, she gave me exactly what I wanted, and she suggested things I didn't even know that I wanted.

I'm excited about blogging again. I have ideas and plans and intentions. I still have a few things to finish (my about page and blogroll are currently sad and empty) but I'm excited to show off my blog. I removed the BlogHer ads - I have nothing bad to say about the program, it just didn't feel like a good fit for me. I dislike Blogger's inability to respond to comments (the "noreply-comment@blogger.com" makes me want to stab my computer) but I didn't feel comfortable learning a new blogging platform so I am going to start responding to comments in my comments section. Blogging is going to be fun again. Mark my words!

And I'm Out Here Banging My Head After All The Dancing And Spilling Beer All Over The Place

It is only Wednesday and I feel like I'm about to collapse. A million things are happening this week and I'm excited and I'm exhausted and I would love nothing more than to sit down with a proper mug of tea and write a coherent post but all I've got is a paper cup of espresso and bullet points.

- Robin is home from Africa! Her schedule got a bit mangled by situations she couldn't control so she hopped on a plane and came home early. I was trying to not get too excited because she didn't know exactly when she'd be able to come home but her flight landed last night so I am officially pee-my-pants excited.

- In exactly 2 months I will be in Vegas recovering from Cat's bachelorette party the night before and looking forward to Cat's wedding the following day and I am beyond excited and happy. I love Cat and I cannot wait to be there when she marries her fella. Shawn and I are staying in Vegas for a bit of a holiday after the wedding - what should we do while we're there? I've only been to Vegas once before so I'm still a rookie.

- Two of my favourite bloggers are asking for help to achieve awesomeness. Emily is trying to win a dream honeymoon and LiLu is attempting to become MTV's Twitter Jockey and if you're so inclined, voting is quick and easy and would mean so much to them.

- I have not bought new running shoes yet. Some of you suggested that I go to a running store to speak to someone about which shoes I should wear and that was a very logical suggestion. I'm not so logical though (understatement of the year) so I'm hesitating. I used to run. I wasn't a runner but I used to run. I'd get my shoes from the Running Room and I'd go on the group runs and I'd talk to people about shoes and blisters and chafing. I think I'm scared to go back now that I haven't run in a shameful amount of time. Like they'll know I'm a fraud or something. And yes, I know how crazy that sounds but hi, my name is Hillary and I am a little bit crazy. So I have no shoes.

- Shawn is playing at the Pillage at the Village festival in August and it's kind of a big deal and I'm ridiculously excited for him ... and I kind of don't want to go. It's not that I don't want to see him play at a big venue (umm ... one of the bands opening for Bif Naked!) it's just that it's on the island, in the middle of nowhere, and I won't have anything to do or anyone to hang out with when he's off doing band stuff. Plus it's a serious hassle to get to and we'd have to sort out dogsitting for the pups and I can't take any time off work so I'd be going up Saturday morning and coming home Sunday morning and ... I really don't want to go. I'm a bad wife is what I'm saying.

Troubled When It All Stays The Same Caught Between This Cold And The Waves

Exciting changes are afoot here at two L's please. Soon the final kinks will be sorted and I will return with the story behind my redesign :)

Hey Young Thugs The World Is Yours

I haven't been carded at the liquor store in a long time. The legal drinking age in BC is 19 and I am, well, not 19 so it doesn't bother me. I'm not forcing my driver's licence upon the the liquor store clerk or anything.

So I'm at the liquor store tonight and the checkout clerk looks to be about 12 years old and he's, I don't know, just got this vibe about him. Let's just say that if his shirt had a collar, that collar would have been proudly popped. So I hand over my beer and he asks me how I'm doin', all shmarmy-like. We make small talk as he rings up my purchases and then he tells me he needs to check my id. And I'm all "wtf?" because for one thing, shouldn't he check my id before he rings everything through? Also, I was buying an apricot wheat ale not wine coolers, you know? But whatever, I hand over my driver's licence and he gets all squinty-eyed as he does the math and then he says, "1982? Lookin' good for 1982!" as he hands my id back to me.

Umm ... what the fuck does that mean? Looking good for 1982. I'm 27 years old!

The older gentleman in line behind me actually snorted as I took my card back and paid, silently. I didn't know what to say! I mean, I wasn't offended (it's actually kind of funny) but I was kind of taken aback.

I should have called him a whippersnapper.

True Patriot Love

Happy Birthday, Canada!

To celebrate, I dyed my hair red in your honour.

(The red hair may be more of a hairdye mishap than a patriotic statement but I'm admitting nothing.)