There’s nothing that’ll put the fear of God into you like the knowledge German relatives are coming. I look at the house and think this place is a dump. What to do other than scurry about phoning a roof cleaner, a handyman to do the deck, and the garden helper to prune and haul away pine needles. My French doors lost their seal and will be replaced next month. I need to arrange for window cleaning.

I’ve hated the chest of drawers in the guest room since I bought it 20 years ago, so finally made a serious search, putting out positive vibes, and found a nice replacement on Facebook Marketplace. Bit by bit I’m going to slap this house into shape so that it no longer resembles the old shack it really is. But you know how I love this place, crappy or not.

Thinking about summer I decided it’d be nicer for the public not to have to deal with my large stomach so went online and checked out Weight Watchers recipes and generally thought I was on a diet. How wrong a person can be. I haven’t lost one single ounce in three weeks of trying to eat like a normal person. I feel like I may as well go back to the gargantuan amounts I like to power back as it appears to make no difference.

Trevor, a young man who I’ve known since he was about 15 as he’s a friend of Luke’s, is going to illustrate my Kindle Direct Publishing book, the one which is a compilation of newsletter articles. I said to him since the book is supposed to be funny, and as dachshunds are known as the comedians of the dog world, perhaps we could scatter cartoon wiener dogs here and there. He sent me a couple of drawings before we began to have a look at what he could do, and I loved them instantly as he has that ability to put soul into their eyes.

Here’s one of the awful things I have to do before I die: I have to figure out what to do with my grandfather’s old stamp collection. I met with a nice man who’s in the stamp club here and he’s taking some samples to a convention in Vernon where collectors from up and down the Okanagan Valley will be meeting. As you can imagine, I dream about having that one special stamp, but I’ve already Googled quite a few and have gone drat.

A wonderful thing I discovered are two young gals who were able to clean the dogs’ teeth without anaesthesia. I drove Louie and Frieda over to the place and the dogs went in all confused, and the girl said the dogs behave a lot better without their owners there, so shooed me out, and said they’d call. I said as stubbornness is a trait of dachshunds, I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope.

I drove home, and as one hour passed, I knew one dog had been done and then when the second hour came and went I thought yahoo! Both dogs have had their teeth cleaned, and Louie’s were really dirty and his breath stunk. I was so enthralled by their ability I took a dozen butterscotch chip cookies as a tip for a job well done.

It’s sunny and nice and supposed to go all the way to 18 C on the weekend, so I’ll have to haul my carcass out to rake and start to do some preliminary work in the yard. March is an exceptionally ugly month in the Okanagan as everything is grey, but today the sky’s blue so all’s well.