Let it snow, let it snow

I'm bummed. If Dad had just booked his flight for tomorrow or perhaps 3 hours later in the day today I'm pretty sure that his flight would have been cancelled and then he would have stayed here with us for longer. Damn. It's very disappointing.

I can't believe the snow is here again. It's stunning to see but puts a bit of a damper on things. How much snow can one tolerate? There is definitely a limit and I'm sure by Saturday I'll have reached it. Here is how today looks:

Christmas was lovely but chaotic. Mike's family all come over to their house and there must have been about 20 people there. I kept telling Daisy "if you can survive this you can survive anything". She did very well and took exception to only one person: Mike's mentally challenged cousin. I can't blame her as the lovely girl would screech her name and then squeeze her until she yelped. It was the only time I others saw Marty approach Daisy. She sort of waded over to Daisy, gave her a cursory look over and a lick on the nose and then scooted back out of reach and reverted back to her "I want nothing to do with you" stance. It was almost as though Marty was saying I've been there, I can sympathise, and since you are okay now you can bugger off. Here was the tree:

The mutt, or hound dog as dad likes to refer to her, did well on the trip. She was ill once there and once back which wasn't too bad. We had too many items to crate there and back so we landed up packing her crate with stuff and she travelled on the back seat.

Santa was very nice to me. He sent me a blanket, a GPS wristwatch for running that tracks almost every stat under the sun, some wine glasses, chocolate, cookies, money, a pink cowboy hat, a puzzle, uggs, a book, some wonderful stamps (Thank you, thank you) and I'm sure I'm forgetting other stuff.

Yesterday I closed on my new project! I'm very excited about this house and I really like it. I would actually love to move into the house but it's much smaller than our current house and will cost more per month so I'm not so sure how that will fly. It's very charming and quaint and I wish I wouldn't fall in love with homes. Here she is:

I really need to get back into the work saddle. Next year will be very bad if I don't. We have had almost a month of bad weather so it's hard do open houses, etc and not to mention the holidays. I know, I know lame excuses all around but I really am starting to feel the pressure. This is good though and typical for this time of year. I think you have to feel this every year to motivate you to get off your but and go prospect. Yuck.

The running is going very well. We ran over an hour on Christmas Day but the weather is really hurting our training. It's hard to get out there as the trails and roads are still snow packed from a week ago and it's very dangerous. We will just have to wait a bit I think. I cannot seem to get my eating out of control and I am now wearing my "fat" jeans from about 2 years ago. Great. I'm hoping the new year and absence of family will help. There is absolutely no doubt where I get my sugar habits from. There are mounds of chocolate all over the house. GRRR.

Interviewing

Ah, I hate this. Interviewing candidates sucks. I'm trying to find my office manager/assistant/whatever and it's turning out to be really hard. What questions to ask? How to evaluate the answers? How to find the real core of the individual? AHAHA. I have 2 very different candidates right now. One is very mature, experienced (knows way more than I do), and licensed. I know she would be great with all the details, transactions, and coordination. She is also expensive. The other one is younger, not as presentable, little real estate experience, but has that fire in the belly type attitude that could go a long way (assuming I'm reading her correctly). She is also the only person who asked me what I expected from her. I hate this.

We have been bombarded with snow this week that has but a damper on our running efforts. We were supposed to go for our 5 mile run today but I just couldn't get the stamina to do it on slick, icy roads. I figured I would most likely fall and kill myself. The other parts are going great. I'm eating a ton and not gaining too much weight so who could ask for more?

Daisy is great. She has gotten big enough now that she can jump on the couch (bad girl). She also ate through Mike's computer power cord while it was plugged in and she was lucky to not get electrocuted. If she had decided to eat the other side of the transformer (which was luckily under the hardwood floors which she hates) she would have been toast. Puppy toast. She is also starting to exhibit some aggressiveness which makes me really nervous. When she barks I get scared (I have a fear of dog as I was attacked by a Dalmatian as a kid and I also witnessed one of our dogs, a husky, kill another of our dogs, a bull terrier, in front of me). Anyway, I'm trying not to get freaked out because I know she can sense it. I think her new favorite person will be calm and collected Mike. For some reason I think she may turn crazy and rip my jugular out but I know this is all in my head. We never thought that Rushka would kill Suzy but she did. Animals are wild. I can't help thinking about that nice lacrosse player that was killed by her neighbors dogs. AHAHA. Why am I so paranoid?

Dad seems to be having a good visit. He is playing .25 - .50 poker online, watching movies with us, stacking the dishwasher, and treating us regular lunches. Who could ask for more?