Busy Little Beavers...

Or should I say elves considering the time of year? Well, my darling hubby let me sleep in again today- which means I didn't get up at 6:30 but rather 7:30...amazing how delightful that precious hour is!! Last night I had made up some dough for a french bread and put it in the fridge, so first thing I did today (BEFORE COFFEE even!!!) was to roll it out and put it in the oven to bake. It wasn't long before the house began smelling like your favourite bakery and with the fire roaring in the fireplace and my yummy cup of coffee in my hand and Christmas music on the radio, my day was off to a great start!

When the bread was done I took it out and then began to make a little bit of a garlic paste (smashed garlic) and then I took a couple chunks of brie cheese and placed them in a little frying pan and spread the garlic paste on it and then took some spoonfuls of honey and topped the garlic/cheese and then let it start warming up....once nice and gooey I cut myself a couple pieces of the newly baked french bread and spread my yummy gooey cheese concoction on top. I actually got that idea for the gooey cheese from another blog, don't ask me where, I am visiting so many blogs these days I get lost in blogville...but I love the things I'm learning while wandering around in blogville...it's making my life so much more exciting!!! Breakfast was DELIGHTFUL and I wore sweatpants so I wouldn't notice what I'm doing to myself as well as if I wore jeans!!! hahaha! Oh I'm bad!!!!

After breakfast we had a visit from the vet who lives here on the island. We actually use her partner who also lives here on the island but she is now in Germany visiting her family, so her partner, Eldrid came out to us. It was our first visit with Eldrid as vet and she seems like a very nice lady so that is nice to know we have a local backup when our regular vet is busy or not in town. The dogs have all gotten blood lice somehow...lord knows where they got it, we haven't had any contact with other dogs since our visitors who were here the end of November but they all said they haven't seen blood lice on their dogs. So who knows??? Point was we had to do something to get rid of them. They are thankfully not able to passed to humans or cats and do not live long when not on the dog...so that part was great but the poor dogs have been itching like crazy. We tried a dose of expot but it was doing nothing, so Eldrid suggested a shot of....oh man, can't recall the name of it but it's suppose to work like Stronghold but is a lot cheaper and considering it's more expensive for animal medicine in this country then human medicine and we have four dogs to give medicine too, we will take cheap anytime as long as it works and this is suppose to be more effective then expot. She gave all the dogs a shot and will be back in 14 days to do it all over again....oh the joys of being a dog owner!!!! ;-) But they are so lovely and I can't imagine my life without them....take a look at this photo of Isabella...isn't she just wonderful? That face...I just love it!!!! (first photo at top)

I think in my next life coming back as a cat might not be such a dumb idea, the cats are totally oblivious to the stresses of the season and life is good if there is a roaring fire, a soft couch or chair to lie on and some goodies to eat every once in awhile. Everytime we feed the dogs, Tiger (one of our black and white cats- picture of him above) sits right next to the dogs as if he is one of them. When they get their food he sticks his head in their bowl and helps himself....mostly Heidi's bowl, mamma Heidi is a very old lady (going on 13 years now) and spends most of her time sleeping (see photo above) and doesn't care to fight over stolen food...so the cats know she is an easy target to get food from...but they do actually try with the leos too....amazing as that is. It's hillarious to watch Isabella who is a total Italian when it comes to food, when a cat tries to take food from her bowl, she doesn't move her head, you just see her lip go up like a bad Elvis impersonation and the cat sees this and slowly moves backwards away from the bowl and over to Heidi....hahahaha....I'm one of those people who put imaginary conversation bubbles above animals heads when I see them interact and one day I'll get smart and write some of these interactions down but I'm usually too busy laughing....

I continued to bake throughout the day, I made three herb breads with garlic and rosemary and I made three Boboli breads which are similar to Foccacia bread. I haven't tried these breads yet but it sure smells heavenly in here.

While I was busy baking, I put Stig to work making a wreath for the front door and the above picture is the results so far. Tomorrow we will head to Brumunddal and I will look for some decorations to stick in the wreath..something simple, I'm thinking some red berries and maybe a colourful bird or something. I'll take a picture of the finished results tomomorrow. Stig was very frustrated with this project as he's never done this before and wasn't sure he was doing it right but I think it's a wonderful first effort and I'm very happy this will be part of our holiday decorations this year- I knew I married him for more then his good looks!!!!! ;-)

Well, I'm out of here...hope everyone has a great Thursday...be good and take care of yourselves during this hectic time....we'll talk again soon....