The mighty hunter

This is what little Allie thinks she is. She likes to chase various things. She's really turned more energetic in the past week. Tearing through the house, she is...jumping on things, knocking things off the coffee table, repeatedly knocking the lamp off the night table in the bedroom. Oh- and hunting and chasing things. She is a mighty hunter as she does a cute little half waddle/ stalk after one of her toys with bells. I think the mouse would have escaped, in real life. She's had a number of visitors now- which I think- makes her happy. She's a people cat. She's also starting to venture close to the door where she usually meets me when I get home. She started to walk out today so I put on her harness and took her out. Then she didn't feel like venturing far. Just outside the doorway seemed enough.

It's been a week of rain, rain, rain. (or at least showers). If memory serves, it rained Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. And today. Good thing I got a chance to cut the grass yesterday. I've had enough of rain... My exercise regime it taking a hit. I'm not motivated when I wake up at 6am and hear the rain.

Speaking of 6am- it's hard to sleep past this these days. Little Allie has figured out this is the time I wake up on a work day and she doesn't differentiate between weekday and weekend. She just knows that I'm not out of bed- and tries to encourage me. This is easier for her to do these days as she's now grown and is strong enough to leap onto the bed herself. She's a good jumper now so she has the freedom to come and go as she pleases.

I really confused her yesterday. I tried putting her moist food into a different bowl than her hard food at supper time. I showed her, or so I thought. It got around to my bed time and I heard crying coming from the kitchen. The poor girl thought I had forgotten to feed her. I showed her again the other bowl with food and this time she found it, ate hungrily, and was ready for bed.

I've been chatting with a few folk about the rental market in Nelson. It's so hard to find a quality place at an affordable rate. I was reading that insulation wasn't required before 1978. And even then, lots of houses are built without wall insulation. Crazy... What houses are about on the rental market are often not very warm. I moved into a house with a heat pump but with lots of windows and no insulation at all... Hot hot on a warm day, and it'll be cold cold in winter... Not that we've had many hot days at all. Maybe one or two days of spring like weather in recent memory. But the days are very nice and long. Hopefully the weather gets it together over Christmas anyway.

In other house news, I have an ant problem. They seem to have abandoned bedroom #2- Allie's room. She may scare them off as she tears after them and jumps on them. But they have discovered my bedroom and this doesn't make me happy. I washed my sheets and there is dead ant residue on them. Yuck. I went and bought ant bait traps this weekend. Also ant spray- I need to go treat the outdoors once the rain is over and the grass dries.

Now note- I sort of feel a bit guilty about buying this ant bait as I've just finished reading Janet Frame's "Moana Minim and the Smell of the Sun". It's a book about an ant on her first journey out. Poor little ants... Nevertheless, I wouldn't bother them if they didn't come inside.

Wowzers, Nelson town is starting to get the holiday rush... I got a parking ticket on Sat am when I headed into the markets. $12 is the going rate. I'm glad I'm done my Christmas shopping now.

Back to work tomorrow. I don't feel I have had a break anyway- since I was there a bit on Saturday and today. At least that's an anomoly, not like back in my early CA training days.