the sound of green

New Years Eve has somehow managed to sneak around again much sooner than I thought it would. As cliched as it does sound, it really doesn’t feel like it’s been 12 months since we were celebrating the end of 2006, and trying to adjust to writing “07″ in the date. I’m guessing it does have something to do with how much we’ve crammed into 2007 – it was a lot.

Over the course of this year just gone, we’ve managed to get settled in a new house as a bachelor, get engaged, travel to Thailand for 3 weeks, throw an engagement party for 300-odd people, pick up a one day per week contracting position at the BUV, Beth turn 21, me turn 22, grow that job into a 4-day/week position where I work all the time, get married, spend a wonderful 2.5weeks on holidays following the wedding, buy a puppy, celebrate our first Christmas as our own family, sell my car, and buy a new one.

No wonder we’re tired.

So in stark contrast of the year gone by, we decided to celebrate by staying home, having a quite night, and spending most of the time sitting down. Our housemates parents are down staying with us for a couple of days, so the night has six people, two eskies full of drinks, plates of nibbles, two puppies, and a game of celebrity heads. Come 11:45pm, we head upstairs to the balcony to spot the fireworks around our area, and go nuts with a handful of sparklers. We’re real party animals, let me assure you.

But once again, Zahli has managed to get into things in her own way. She told me to wish you all a happy and wonderful 2008. And that she looks forward to posting a similar picture in one year’s time where she’s fully grown.

It’s 5:30am Christmas Morning, and our present to each other has decided to wake me up now. She’s whining next to the bed – and I don’t blame her. For a puppy that’s only beginning to learn bladder control, she hasn’t been outside for a good 7 or 8 hours. I take her out; it’s crisp and fresh this morning. A whole collection of birds have congregated on the red stones in our backyard under the bird feeder, no doubt searching for anything they’ve knocked over the side.

I place Zahli on the box we’ve made for her that sits next to the back door – it’s filled with sand and soil, with a layer of bark chips over the top. It is my effort to recreate the area where she currently visits in her toilet trips, but under cover and close to the back door – call me old, but I’m starting to get sick of standing out in the backyard in the middle of the night, under an umbrella saying over and over in a high-pitched voice, “Go wees Zahli” for ten minutes until she gets the point. Today she’s ready (that’s what the whining was about), I tell her what to do once, she squats and makes her dad very happy. I pick her back up, giving her a cuddle and a lot of praise, and head back inside. I am happy – it’s only the second night the box has been there, but every time she’s getting more and more confidant in the fact that that is her area now.

Five minutes later, Zahli starts whining again in what can only be a reminder that she wasn’t exactly finished. With a sigh, I jump out of bed, put on a jumper and head out again. “No smoke without fire, eh?” I mumble as I put her down outside in the backyard, and she runs off to complete what she started on our last trip. I know she’s finished for good this time, when she bounds her way back to the back door. She stops short of running up the steps and through the door today – the curtain is closed which makes her unsure whether she can get through. A good thing too – the glass door is shut, and it wouldn’t have been the first time she’s seen through, thought the door was open, and made a fool of herself.

Another five minutes pass and again Zahli’s making noise. I look down off the side of the bed to see her sitting up as straight as a little puppy can, on top of Beth’s ugg boots; she sees me look and gives me a little woof. I tell her no, but know there’s not much point to it – it’s 5:45am, but somehow she’s got herself up an our earlier than she’s supposed to.

This dog knows it’s Christmas.

I throw her in the bed next to me, and pull the covers over both of us. She wriggles for a few minutes, then settles down to sleep again.

*   *   *

It’s 7:18am. Something I can’t quite pinpoint has woken me. Then I feel it again. Zahli’s managed to work her way down to the end of the bed, and is licking the soles of my feet. For the third time this Christmas morning, I throw the doona off, roll out of bed and find my jumper. I pick up Zahli before she manages to pounce of Beth (her favourite morning activity when we’re all in bed and Beth’s asleep), and take her out to the hall. Realising we’re out of puppy milk (my fault), I get her some of her puppy food for breakfast. It’s the last bit left, which means I have to remember to clean the can and put it in the bin, or we’re all going to come home to a dog food smelling kitchen.

The sound of the spoon hitting the side of the bowl has roused May dog from upstairs, and she’s worked her way inbetween my legs and the kitchen bench, and sat down in that small space. She’s just woken up too – she’s still yawning and stretching and looking at me with bleary eyes – but the chance of cleaning up Zahli’s food is too good to pass up. I put the bowl down on the food matt, try to get Zahli to stop pouncing on the very sleep May, who I have to make sit-drop a couple of feet back from the bowl, or else Zahli is going hungry. She’s too excited to eat though – May has shown up earlier than usual, and we’re eating out in the hall to top things off. Usually her food matt is in our study/office, part of a giant room split into office and bedroom by a row of bookcases, but there are too many factors this morning. May’s down already, it’s a good 45 minutes later than usual, and Beth’s still asleep – I want her to stay that way, so we’re eating in the hall. In the end I have to sit down next to the matt before Zahli will stand at her bowl and do more than sniff, thrown off by the festivities no doubt. She finishes, takes two steps and squats to wee, but I manage to catch her in time. It’s outside again for us.

I grab some pants this time, drop Zahli on the box and slouch down on the couch we have outside. She’s happy enough to empty her bladder and have a wander around. I let her – this can be part of her Christmas present; we don’t normally play outside this early. I’m happy enough to just sit there, however, so she gets the run of the yard.

It’s peaceful out here. All I can hear right now is birds waking up, the breeze through the trees and Zahli’s bell tinkling as she walks along. It’s a marked change to if I was sitting out here at 7:31 any other morning. There’d be trucks, cars, neighbours, trains, radios, showers, doors opening and closing – the whole cacophony of normal suburban wake-up sounds. Instead for this Christmas there’s peace. And so I sit out here in the morning sun and enjoy it.

It’s the end of the year work-wise, and it’s time to start winding down. Both print deadlines I had to make this week were met, with only minimal changes to the major one this morning. The other one… let’s just not go there, k?

I’ve spent the morning cleaning my desk, dumping pages and pages of proofs from the last project (with a considerable amount of glee, I might add), playing Super Mario Bros on Facebook, and generally wandering around the office waiting for our Christmas Party at lunchtime.

We have the next 11 days off, which is going to make a nice, considerable break, especially considering they’re paid. And not from our own holiday pay either. However, there is a few projects waiting for me to return to work. Including one whose rough design changes make me laugh every time I look at it stuck up on the wall next to my hard drives.

I’ll see you in January, business cards.

So here’s the thing. I’ve wanted a dog ever since my housemates got one back in January this year. Before that, I’d been fine – I’d had a dog all the way through my high school years (a beautiful big Irish Red Setter named Rusty), but she was given away when both my sister and I moved out of home completely early 2004 – and I’d been fine. But then May came along, and it just rekindled all those old feelings.

Beth and I agreed that once we were married, we’d get a dog – she wouldn’t let me get one before then; it would have ended up being entirely my dog. I wanted a big dog too – another Red Setter or a Golden Retriever or similar. However we realised that our house just wasn’t suited to a big dog, and the compromise was agreed upon: a little dog. We got married, and although the inital plan was to get a dog the week we got back – we had a week at home, and what better time was there to get a dog settled? – but that changed when we realised we just needed sometime to adjust ourselves to living together. Christmas as agreed upon as the time to add to our family, especially with the news that I had 11 days off over the Christmas/New Year period. And so we waited. Until two weeks ago.

We’d begun our look through the trading post, looking for a dog that would suit us, and I found a breeder who was listing their puppies for the first time that day. One of the pups was a beautiful black & white Maltese x Shitzu, something not quite so common as the fluffy white versions. I showed Beth when she got home, we fell in love with her, and that night went and collected her.

Her name is Zahli, and she’s super cute. She loves pouncing, playing in the garden, and going psychotic with May. But they get along great, and we couldn’t be happier. And our Christmas present came early!

I know this does fall somewhat out of order, as there may be some of you yet to get up to date with the news that is the little bundle of joy that sleeps next to our bed, but hey – it’s Christmas, right?

The most important fact is that it’s our first Christmas together as our own little family unit. It’s the first Christmas that Beth and I will spend together as husband and wife. And it’s the first Christmas that Zahli has been around for! As such, we decided that an effort had to be made – tree, lights, the whole lot. So a week and a half ago, we trundled off in search of a tree, and managed to find one outside a servo. It was a good size, not too big, and we grabbed it there and then. Stopping off on the way home after remembering we had no decorations, we eventually got the tree set up and looking all pretty. Well, Beth and Kerrie did…I took photos and played with the dogs. And then took photos of the dogs.

We put presents under the tree, only to discover the next morning some suspiciously May-sized paw marks that had ripped open the wrapping paper. The presents were immediately removed, lest we blow the budget on re-wrapping each present every day. So alas, our Christmas tree will not have presents under it this year. So we’ll put something else there instead.

Yes, this isn’t your imagination playing tricks on you. The Sound of Green is back. Again.

By way of an explanation, at some point late October, our server decided to die, and to lose absolutely everything with it. There went my work site, my blog, as well as my web guy’s stuff – his work site, other projects, etc. When he started chasing them down to get it up again, that was when they told him that alas, no, they’d lost everthing and we had to start again. Previously, we’d been pretty unhappy with the server, and were considering changing. It just made the whole decision moot.

We changed, but then my domain had to get registered again (the joys of a .au address), which took a few weeks. So, a week before Christmas, here we finally are. Back up and running again!

The JBP site will be up shortly, and in the meanwhile, my life will feel complete again, now that I can blog!