Monthly Archives: April 2010

Guess What We Got?

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I’m so excited! We got a refund on our taxes this year and since my husband was able to find a job we decided that we’d split it and spend it on something fun. So, he of course opted for some electronic and for clothes. LOL Guess what I’m spending my part on. Nope, I’m not going to buy any barcode scanners. I know you’ll all be shocked to hear that I’m going to spend my part on the dogs. :-P

NTI Global was having a spring sale on some package sets of their tunnels, and I’m so excited that now we have a collapsed tunnel to train with! It’s their practice tunnel, so the barrel part isn’t the hard plastic one like at trials, but it’s like regular tunnel material instead. The nice part about that is that it is really lightweight and totally portable. I’m so happy. I can now take that along with my pvc jumps when I want to train other places. Woohoo!

So, anyway, here’s some pictures of the girls trying out their new tunnel.

Dare says, “No problem mom, I’ve got this new tunnel all figured out!”

Layla was next…

Raven’s picture cracks me up. I think she was going too fast, (I know funny for Raven).

So Far, So Good

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It’s shaping up to be a great week in lots of ways! :-) For one, the weather is getting better. Walks for the last two days have been really nice. Today I only wore a fleece jacket and midway through the walk, I took it off. This is the first day this year that I’ve be able to be outside in a t-shirt! Woohoo!

My husband’s new job is going really well too. I guess the employee that he replaced did nothing, so everyone is absolutely thrilled that something is finally getting done. One of the first things that the principal of the school said she’d like to see happen is to have the tv taken out of what is now my husband’s office. Apparently the old head custodian just sat in there and watched tv instead of working. Can you imagine?! I can’t, and neither could my husband. He took the tv that day. Anyway, the schedule is working well too. He’s got lots more time in the afternoon now. He keeps talking about trying to lose weight, so I asked him if he wanted to join us on our walk today, but he said he’d done enough walking at work. I think that he’d rather just find some miraculous weight loss products that didn’t require exercise and eating well. Wouldn’t we all? LOL

I’m still working on Layla’s contacts and weaves. I need to get started back up on her jump work too. (Maybe next week) I’m also thinking about entering her in the Utah Sheltie Specialty in Rally the first part of May, so I guess I better dig up some sample courses and see what we need to work on. Tomorrow we are supposed to go train with my friend that had the litter of Malinois puppies. Training should be returning to normal now that she’s down to the puppies that she’s keeping for herself.

Finally!

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Guess what? We got to walk in good weather today. Woohoo, Finally! In fact, I looked at my face later and I think I even got a bit of a sunburn. Well, that or it’s a combination of a bit of sunshine today and windburn from the last two days. LOL We’ll go with the sunburn theory though, because it sounds warmer.

We had company on our walk today too. One of the people that I train with decided that she’d like to try to get back into shape too. I’m pretty sure she’s not looking for any quick trim solutions either, just to be able to keep up with her dog on the agility course this summer. So, she drove over and brought her Aussie to walk with us.

I guess maybe we should both be thanking my friend Katie for starting her 30 day challenge. :-) I think I was a few days late in joining in, but that’s ok. In the last three days, the dogs and I walked four miles on Monday, three yesterday and another 4 today. Amazing how fast these walks add up when you think about it.

Later this afternoon, I cleaned up the agility course. The wind and storms we’ve had the last few days had blown everything all helter/skelter. After I got everything straightened back up, I ran Layla through the course a couple times. She’s doing really well. If the weather holds, maybe I’ll be able to get the video camera back out to film some training.

Another Day, Another Walk, More Bad Weather

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So, I have apparently picked the worst week of spring to start getting back into the routine of walking the dogs. LOL Today I had Zoe and Dare with me, and the weather actually looked pretty good…when we started out. I had my camera and I got some pictures of the views from pretty much all directions.

First the mountains to the Southeast of our house…

Now the view to the Southwest of our house…

and the girls at the start of the walk…

And then, I looked to the North and this is what we saw…

You might think that I would have turned around at that point, but NO!!! I just kept walking and we saw this really awesome pair of canadian geese that were about to land on the pond that we were walking past. I had to try to get pictures of that. Well, my camera battery lasted for one shot. LOL So you just have to take my word for it that they were beautiful.

We were about 1 1/2 miles into the walk, when the wind picked up and it got dark, fast. We turned around to head for home, but it was too late. We walked, and ran the 1 1/2 miles back in hail, which then turned to snow and freezing wind. The most irritating part was that I forgot that Zoe thinks that if I start running, she should accompany that game with barking. Ugh! That seemed to encourage Dare that this was some grand game and that maybe she should try to trip me by grabbing my pant legs and shoelaces. I finally decided that we weren’t going to get home without being cold and wet anyway, no sense running to get there. I really didn’t have this in mind when I was hoping for fast weight loss.

Anyway, we made it home and the snow let up enough that I grabbed my other camera, just to show you that I’m not making this ridiculous story up. Do you think I’ve convinced the neighbors that I’m crazy yet?

Walking in the Wind

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Well, things didn’t go exactly like I had planned. Instead of getting up early when my husband went to work, I tossed and turned all night listening to the wind blowing in yet another storm. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did get up, for a few minutes, and then I went back to my nice warm bed for a while. LOL In the end, I did get up earlier than normal, but it took me a while to convince myself that the wind wasn’t going to stop and that if we were going for a walk we’d better go.

I’m sure that any neighbors who might have seen us, have now confirmed in their minds that I am really the crazy dog lady. The wind blew so hard at points during the walk that Layla couldn’t walk very straight. LOL Course, that’s not saying much, since she’s such a tiny thing. The funny thing was that even though the weather was aweful, we all had a great time. I don’t think any of us will need any hgh releasers to make us feel good. Amazing how good you feel naturally after a long walk with two of your best friends. :-)

The wind is still blowing tonight, and we’re supposed to get snow again. If it’s not too bad, I’ll try to remember how much fun we had today and get back out there tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even get the camera out and take some pictures of where we’re walking.

Still Not Spring

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I’m trying to convince myself about trying out a new schedule starting tomorrow. I was thinking that it’d be a good idea to try to get up earlier with my husband and maybe walk the dogs first thing in the morning. The problem is that I’m not great at getting up early. Odd, really because I’m not really a night owl either. Add to that, the fact that they are forecasting more storms for tonight, tomorrow and Tues. isn’t giving me any needed motivation. I sure wish spring would come and stay. Instead we seem to be getting storms every couple of days and in between wind and just enough sun to help the weeds grow, but not enough to make it pleasant to be outside.

A couple years ago I got into a really good habit of walking the dogs everyday, regardless of the weather. We went rain, snow, wind, whatever. The dogs didn’t care and really once I got in the habit, neither did I. Since then though, I guess I’ve gotten lazy. Why is it so darn hard to get into a good habit, and so easy to slip back into the old bad ones? LOL Well, one thing is for sure. Whether I get myself out the door to walk the dogs early in the morning or not…I probably won’t be online looking for any pronexin acne cures. If the weather is really yucky, I’ll just work on my schoolwork and the dogs will have to settle for training inside again. :-)

Training Update

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I was reading one of my favorite blogs Team Small Dog, well, actually I think it was a FaceBook post, (either way I guess it doesn’t matter). Anyway, she said…”would like to update you about all the agility we’ve been doing lately. Insert moment of silence here.” She totally cracks me up! That pretty much sums up my training with the dogs here this week.

I really don’t even know where the week has gone. The only thing I can think of that I’ve done that counts as training would be taking Layla and Dare down to Parowan with me last Sunday for agility. Dare didn’t do anything but go along for the ride, so I guess really only Layla got in some training. Oh well, I really can’t say that I was sitting around just wasting my time shopping for new door mats or anything, I was just really busy. Just seems like every day this last week had me running in one direction or another and overall I didn’t accomplish much.

Hopefully we’ll get back on track starting today. This afternoon I’m going to take a couple of the dogs to my friend’s place to train a bit, while she has her beginning obedience class going on, for distractions. Then since the schedule around here is going to be different with my husband getting up early for work starting Monday…Woohoo!…I think it is a good idea to sit down and figure out a better schedule for myself with the medical coding course and training the dogs, and everything else that has to fit into the week. I’ll let you know what I come up with. :-)

Good News!

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I am so happy to report that I have some good news. My husband got a job offer yesterday. Woohoo! :-) It is the one with the school district as the head custodian at the High School. I know, it’s not like a dream job for most people, but it is full time and year round and even though it’s a little less than what he was making at the cabinet shop, it’s got insurance and benefits. So, that will be really nice. He starts on Monday. His schedule will be from 6 am to 2 pm. I think that’s going to be a really nice shift actually, even though getting up early enough to drive the half hour to work each morning won’t be fun. LOL Seems like when I was working early mornings like that, you just tend to get so much more done during the rest of the day.

The funny thing was that along with the job from the school district yesterday, he also finally heard back from the Home Depot. Talk about everything happening at once. They wanted him to come in a fill out the paperwork for hiring him part-time. He kept saying, “I can’t believe I’ve got a job.” I kept telling him, “I can’t believe you’ve too many jobs and you’ll have to turn one down.” Anyway, what a nice problem to have right now. When I called my mom to tell her she said, “Well happy anniversary!” I’d almost forgotten until she said it that it was our anniversary too. Bleh, that’s what happens when you’ve got other things spinning around in your head all the time. So, I guess we won’t need to out and get any personalized gifts for each other. I think we both got what we wanted, him to have a job again. :-)