well that was cool...

Tweak did well, even saving me a few times with her amazing catches of my incredibly crappy throws. If she had someone who knew what the hell they were doing, she'd be unstoppable. Of course that's from her stupidly proud Mom who is totally biased. :p

She took 2nd place in Distance & Accuracy, which is confusing since I sucked ass throwing to her but whatever. The biggest surprise, and I think I'm even more shocked about this than anything else she's accomplished, is her 1st place win in Novice Freestyle. Seriously, I wasn't expecting that at all.

Considering I really only had the beginning of the routine down and totally forgot the 2nd half which made me wing the rest of it. It's much harder than it looks!

I knew I wanted to do certain moves at certain points in the song and that just never happened. Other moves weren't done at all. I got really nervous beforehand and kept saying I was going to throw up but I never did, thankfully (although the judges said they'd give me an extra point for Wow factor if I did.) So Tweak & I went out there and had fun to "Help!" by the Beatles.

She doesn't care about anything but playing with me and catching the disc. She doesn't care that she got 2 medals to take home. My little girl is curled up into a little ball trying to keep her eyes open and failing miserably at it. This is right after she came over, put her paws on my shoulders and snuggled her head under my neck. That's better than any medal anyone could ever give us!

But since they did happen to give us a couple, I might as well put them up. I'll get the video of us up on YouTube in a couple of days. But really, it's not much to see.


And on that note, I am off to shower. I can't even begin to describe how badly it is needed.

D

fun...ouch

I didn't mean to drink enough to have a killer hangover, really I didn't. I wasn't drunk last night either so you can imagine my surprise when I woke up feeling like my head was in vice grips.

Water. Need water. Lots and lots of water.

Of course I had a good time! The weather cooperated, I saw a few people I haven't seen in years and years, got to hang out with some of my favorite people in the whole world, eat (should've ate more), drink - it couldn't get much better than that!

Now I have to hit the shower so I can go pick up Donna and head to RI. I shouldn't be nervous about freestyle, but I really am.

D

day off

I had the day off from work yesterday so I could spend time with Vince & Nancy who are up from NJ on vacation.

I ended up working in the morning anyway, but the rest of the day was nice. I brought Tweak since Vince hadn't had a chance to meet her yet and Millie is still pretty skunky, which is her new nickname btw. I still can't believe that one. Anyway, it was a relaxing time!

I guess I should bitch about the weather since I think it's rained every single day since I opened the pool but I just don't feel like it. Maybe I would if it was just raining, who knows. But we're not getting just rain, we're getting thunderstorms and I love thunderstorms!

I was showing Vince some of Tweak's tricks yesterday and she clocked me in the head while trying to get up for a back stall. I haven't checked to see if there's a bruise yet but boy does it feel like there should be!

I'm not sure what kind of affect the rain is going to have on my weekend. Saturday is Glen & Zeke's birthdays cookout. I'm bringing my EZ up and planning to get wet. Sunday is the frisbee competition and while it being washed out would give me more time to clean up our freestyle routine, I doubt I am available on the rain date. I really hope it doesn't get canceled.

Other than that, it's the same shit different day. Still waiting to hear back from my lawyer on some business stuff. Still trying to finish up some web stuff. Still trying to clean the house, train the dogs, socialize, relax, etc., etc.

Next weekend I'm having a cookout at my house for my sister's birthday. Her husband will also finish replacing the deck railings that day. I'll have to get the stairs in the pool by then. Fingers crossed it doesn't rain - even if it is a thunderstorm!

D

Caring...

I need to learn how to not care about stuff.

It's one of my biggest downfalls in some situations and one of my highest accolades in others. Maybe I should buy one of those stop sweating the small stuff books or something.

Or maybe if I go rub up against a really self-centered the-world-revolves-around-me person it will rub off.

How do people shut it off? How do you say "I don't care" and really, truly mean it? There are sooooo many things I can do that for; just not work. And I really, really need to.

But if I'm going to keep my sanity in this place to earn a living, I need to stop caring.

I'm having a really bad day at work and it's only 10am.

The only thing that could make this day better would be to end it at the dentist's office or something.

Oh wait. I do have a dentist appt. today.

Excellent.

D

Not *even* kidding....

I couldn't be more serious when I say I'm really not even kidding a little bit when I write that Millie got skunked in the face yet again tonight.

I've lived here 4 years now and this year is the year of the skunk it seems. I haven't even seen, heard or smelled a skunk in this area before this year. I don't know how they're getting in the fence but I really, really wish they'd knock it the fuck off.

Can you even imagine how less than pleased I am about waiting for the dog in the tub to dry before going to bed? I'm having about as much fun as a cat in a pool right now.

Millie came up to the screen door foaming at the mouth. I seriously wondered if that's what it looks like when they get rabies and whether or not she was 'safe". Then I saw the stuff dripping out of her nose, her eyes watering (pouring would be a more accurate term) and she was doing the "there's-something-in-my-mouth-and-I-want-it-out" thing that all dogs do.

I own dogs why?

This was after Tweak and I spent a fair amount of time down the park, in the rain, trying to figure out how to put a freestyle routine together. I totally forgot they were doing novice freestyle in addition to toss & fetch this weekend. I spent all day glued to my iPod trying to pick a song. I finally did and it wasn't really because of the music or how it flowed as much as the name of the song and what it was about. I'm hoping to video tape it this weekend so I can toss it up on YouTube. After all, it's good to make people laugh.

You would think that the youngest dog - the one with the least amount of knowledge and experience when it came to skunks - would be the one to get smack dab in the face by a skunk instead of the almost 11 year old dog who's done it more times than I can remember.

I know they don't generalize well but c'mon! It's not like skunks come in different colors or have different markings!

Sheesh.

D

Movies

There are a few movies I want to see. I have to write them down so I remember what the hell they are when I can go. :p

In no particular order, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted and Wall-E.

Chances are pretty high I won't see them in the theater because I *hate* going to the movies alone. I've done it once or twice but it's really not my thing. I can do just about everything else by myself, just not that for some reason. So I'll probably catch them on DVD unfortunately.

What a great weekend!! My sister, cousin & I had a girl's day Saturday. We went out to breakfast, went shopping, hit the farm stand, hit the flower stand and hung out for a while. It was a really good day. :)

Flyball practice was at 8am this morning. Tweak did pretty well I think. I can't run with/train her and watch what she's doing at the same time so I rely on everyone else to let me know if she's doing what she's supposed to. We ran her off the box, did some full runs and even got to throw her in at the end when we did team stuff.

I so need a training center of my own. :p

After practice, I took the kids down to hang out with Ellin for the afternoon. We did a bunch of errands and ended up staying out longer than we had originally planned. She had a dinner/meeting to go to and needed to bring stuffed mushrooms. By the time they were done she was 10 minutes late. I made the rest of the mushrooms she didn't have time to make and did some work for her.

All in all it was a really good weekend - nice and relaxing.

Next weekend will be pretty good too! Glen & Elissa's BBQ is Saturday and a disc competition is Sunday. They're offering beginners freestyle at this competition, which I will enter with Tweak. I have this week to pick a song and get some tricks choreographed. Not a lot of time, but some. I wish I could head down to Mike & Robin's to get a little help on it but I don't think it's going to be possible. Nancy & Vince are up in Maine this week in the RV (ha! I should say tour bus...) and I'm taking a day off to go visit them.

Say Good Night Gracie.

D

overslept!

Yikes! I must have been exhausted! I haven't slept this late in I don't know how long.

Forgetting to set the alarm attributed to the situation without a doubt. But I have no idea what the other factors are. I went to bed at a decent time, I didn't stay up that much later reading and I know I didn't run a marathon yesterday so that's out. Weird. I guess I just needed the sleep. :)

Since I'm running so late, I'm just taking my time. I'll have a nice relaxing shower after this, stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way to work for coffee and a muffin, and then Sunday drive it to work.

I actually finished *all* of my homework and turned it in on the day it was due. I'm not sure you can imagine what 6 weeks of homework (some assignments in various stages of completion) look like but I can assure you it's quite overwhelming.

Now that all of that is done, I will play catch up with web updates I have. I wrote down a list of all the web stuff I need to change for all the different sites I work on and I was a little surprised. I didn't know I was managing that many sites! More of that biting off more than I can chew thing I guess. I'm only redesigning 3 of them - the rest are just updating existing pages, which isn't that bad. I can probably blow through the list today at some point.

Oh, I have to figure out if there's anything I need to do to get my diploma. The class I just finished was the last one I needed for my Associates degree. I guess I can say I'm edumacated now. Yay.

I won't make light of the accomplishment, I'm happy about it, but it really wasn't all that difficult - just time consuming. Wait, I think I remember the math sucking in a way words can not describe. Ok, so maybe it was a little hard. I'm not even in the blue room this time, I swear!

I know I have stuff to do this weekend, I'm just not sure what. I will certainly be visiting my grandfather now that I can. I found out yesterday I could've been visiting him this entire time as someone passed out misinformation. I'm trying to be a big girl and not want to rip someone a new asshole about it. Fingers crossed I'm successful.

I think its about time I shellacked the bookcase so I can get that project done. Remember that? Yeah, it's been incomplete for that long.

Vince and Nancy will be up in Maine. I was going to try and visit over the weekend, but I think I'll just take next Friday off and spend the whole day with them since I made plans with my sister tomorrow. Did I mention I'm going to be an aunt? :p I am. Can't wait!

Time to get moving on the business stuff too. Have to get that up and running, organized, etc. I actually had an idea for another product today that I'll play around with. I need my lawyer to pass over that agreement she was supposed to write up so I can get busy on making the other things that will be offered. I'll bug her today about it.

Jeez. I need to write all this stuff down if I'm ever going to remember it all! One of the first signs of aging - needing lists!

D

I'm an aunt!

I *finally* got permission from my sister to be able to rave about this! You have no idea how hard it is to keep it a secret when all you want to do is shout it from the rooftops.

My sister is due to have her first child December 27th. She's not thrilled about the due date but I told her she could just go 2 weeks late and then the kid would have the same birthday as me. :p For some reason she's not so keen on that idea. Go figure.

I think my sister's life is about to get interesting. I'm also pretty sure that's the understatement of the year...

I'm thrilled! I am an aunt now but my nephew lives far away so I never get to see him. At least this kid will know who his aunt is. I think Nicholas is of the age where he can remember me after a couple of years of not seeing me. It sucks that he lives so far away.

In the meantime, I'll be "Aunty John" to Zeke and Max and spoil them ridiculously. :) I got permission for my latest gift the other day - a Mentos rocket launcher. I can't freakin' wait for him to play with that one! I'm getting lots of refills of Mentos and tonic. Man is that gonna be fun!

D

nothing but homework...

I am soooooo taking a break after this freakin' class. Seriously. I just can't keep up with everything during the summer. Wah, wah. Yeah, I know.

I have done nothing but homework while on the computer (except for my blog earlier today.) Even at work, I wasn't as productive as I could've been due to my distraction with making sure I could get everything done.

I left work early to go see my foot dr again. She gave me another laser treatment, which seemed to help it last time so maybe this time I'll be all better. No sprinting for me for a bit though so I can give it some time to heal. Sprinting seems to make it worse. :(

After my Drs appt I spent an hour or so with Ken so he could add more color to my tattoo. I'm anxious to get it done now that we are that much closer to completion. We didn't get to do as much as either of us hoped today - just the body of the Phoenix and the last part of each wing. As soon as I stop leaking blood I'll take a picture and post it.

I figured I'd spend some time with George and his friend afterwards but the timing didn't quite match up. I got done early, he wasn't getting done until late. Ce la vie.

After that I came home, threw the disc to Tweak a dozen times and then came in to do homework. I've finished what I hoped to for today and am hitting the hay early so don't call or text me.

I had a dream the other day that I asked for something on this blog and people started commenting like crazy. I don't know what it was I asked for... wish I could remember so I could duplicate it and see if the response would be the same! Doubtful since people like their anonymity. I'm no different even though it might not appear that way. You don't see me tossing my last name or phone number out there.

If we were conversing and you changed the topic, then proceeded to tell me that you changed the topic (like I couldn't have picked up on that...) and I responded with something along the lines of I noticed the change in topic because it was as obvious as a bull in a china shop, would you have understood what I meant by that analogy? I'd really like responses to that one so I can shove them in someone's face.

D

opinions...

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.

I am no exception to this rule - I'll just add that I don't usually have one opinion, I often have 10.

Today's topic is no different - flyball jump heights.

NAFA has proposed dropping the jump height from 4" below the withers to 5" below the withers. There's a little bit of buzz about it but I think people were mostly keeping their opinions to themselves until a few days ago.

Some opponents are worried that some teams will choose to not accept any breed but a small enough Border Collie or other fast dog and use that as the their height dog. This will ultimately, in their opinion, affect how many breeds are in the sport.

Other opponents are worried that slower small dogs will be pushed to slower teams or out of the sport all together. Not to mention what it might change in the sport.

Guess what. Things change. People change, things evolve, we get better as time goes on (hopefully!) The sport is going through another growing period. Who can really say what difference a 1" jump height difference will make? We can look back a couple of years later and say this is what changed but we can only guess right now.

Having a height dog, and planning on always having a height dog, I'm for the change. I think anything that makes the sport safer for my dog is a good thing and I truly don't care about all the rest of it. That's not to say I haven't considered it or I don't worry about it but the safety of my dog comes first.

I wrote an email to the big flyball list today. Usually I lurk and I'm not sure I've ever written to it but today I did. So what if the fastest teams gain .05? All teams have the potential to gain .05! So what if they break the record? Isn't that what some teams strive to do? Let them! I'm sure some of the higher teams would welcome the competition. Teams might not allow anything but BCs on the team. So what? Unless you're on that team and do not own a Border Collie, it really doesn't effect you. Let them! If you are on that team and do not own a Border Collie, change teams or start your own. It really is that simple.

Is it safer for Freddie? Yup.

'Nuff said.

D

p.s. I soooo want to go see Wall-E. :)

Hollywood Tails

I keep forgetting to add a link to Hollywood Tails.

You'll see my friends Susan and Donna in the outtakes videos. They are my partners in crime in New Jersey that I go down to visit and work with. Susan owns the training center that puts on Camp. (I love camp.)

I'm heading down there in October to do a disc dog clinic... now I just have to learn more stuff to teach. :p

D

that sucked

Weekend? What weekend?

Work destroyed just about all of the plans I had because of an upgrade. So much for my relaxing weekend!

And as I suspected (I think I even put it out here...) as soon as the pool looked like a pool again, it's cold and rainy and will be all week. When it's not supposed to be? Next weekend, where we'll have thunder storms in place of 60 degrees. Having a usable pool in New England is tough.

Today is all about homework. Since my weekend was taken with work, my workday is being replaced by homework. I don't get overtime and I don't want to fail so that's the way it is.

We weren't allowed to see my grandfather yesterday, which sucked big time. Actually, were not allowed to visit him this week at all. I hate that. I know he needs a transition time but we haven't been able to see him in weeks. I don't know what psycho is directing the shots but surely being cut off from his family can't be good for him. What the hell do I know, don't listen to me.

I finally got the "correct" username for the disc dog site. I'll go in sometime today and revamp that awful calendar page. I could understand breaking it up into months if there were dozens of things going on each month. But there aren't so it's stupid.

Ellin's birthday was Saturday, which I missed. We hung out with Dad on Sunday, which was awesome as usual. I need to schedule some kind of family gathering here so my b-i-l can fix my gate/deck. A lot of people say they'll help you but it's funny how those people never follow through.

I'm out of practice with throwing the disc. I brought Tweak down a couple of times this past weekend and I sucked. Bad. I think I've been focusing on flyball so much that I'm getting rusty with disc. There's a competition at the end of the month that I need to get back into the swing of things for. I won't be in novice so I expect we'll get spanked in Int or Pro. We'll see.

Gym time!

D

Poop colored glasses...

Most of the time I like to look at the world through rosed colored glasses. Heck, I even *own* and *wear* a pair of rose colored glasses. They're pretty cute too. :)

There are days, however, when I sit back after a conversation and say to myself "Seriously. Did that just happen? Did they *really* just say that out loud in public?" I'm sure I am just as guilty as everyone else at that but the cynical side of me is having a field day today. Today I'm looking through poop colored glasses.

The amount of idiocy that surrounds each of us on a daily basis literally boggles the mind. My mind just can't wrap itself around the knowledge. I think it's in denial and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to make it move. Denial is a nice place to visit sometimes.

I almost want to jot down alllllll the little things that make me do a double take during the day and create a show using Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck" skit. I'll name my "Shazam! You're stupid!" instead.

For example: Overheard at Dunkin Donuts this morning -

Customer: Can I have a Medium Iced coffee with cream and 2 sugars.
DD employee: You want cream in that?

Shazam! You're stupid!

I know I can be a judgmental person. I try not to be but I fail pretty frequently. It's a failing that I know about and continuously work on.

It drives me absolutely batty when stupid shit happens. There is so much freakin' irony in the world that makes me stop and question what hand basket I'm in that my head spins sometimes. My father notices these things too and he laughs. I laugh at first and then worry about where the world is going to be in 50 years. Hopefully I'll be dead and it will be a non-issue for me.

My Dad told me about an email he got in response to one he sent. He asked a co-worker to let him know asap when something came in. He received an email shortly afterwards stating he would as soon as his computer was up and running.

Shazam! You're stupid!

He tells me these things to see what kind of reaction I have. I, of course, ask how he was able to send the email if his computer wasn't up and running. That was my Dad's question too, which made him laugh at the idiocy of the entire situation.

I personally wonder what other substantive contributions that Einstein offers to society.

And before you play devil's advocate or suggest he might have been using a different computer, he wasn't. Dad checked.

And just to show you I'm not immune, I had a conversation with Susan yesterday. I mentioned that I bought a book on going green. I just happened to mention this while I was filling my pool. She said if I wanted to go green, I should put the water back. She's got a point...

Shazam! I'm stupid!

D

what day is it?

I know the calendar says it's Wednesday but I'm still spinning like a top. I'm certainly *not* complaining since I like hump day - it means the week is almost over. On the other hand, it means I have far less time to catch up on homework than I thought I had. Seclusion city, here I come.

I started pumping out the pool yesterday. The cover collapsed in over the winter after one of the 4ft of snow storms we had. It isn't all the way in the pool, just half way - but it was enough for the water to turn a glorious swamp green when the sun started coming out on a regular basis. I prefer swimming in see-through water so I'm pumping out the majority of non-see-through water. I have to leave a couple thousand gallons in so it won't collapse but it'll get nice and diluted when I add 10k gallons of clean water.

Of course, as is always my luck, I'll get the pool completely set up and ready this weekend and the temperature will drop 20 degrees rendering the pool unusable for anyone but a penguin.

My Border Collie that *hates* water went swimming (kinda) yesterday. I usually just about have to drag her into the kiddie pool to cool her off. A couple of weeks back (at dog camp) she jumped in the pool herself and proceeded to shock the shit out of me by lying down in it. This was after about an hour of disc flips for the camera. Anyway, I brought the kiddie pool out from under the deck yesterday (a place it will no longer reside during winter due to the sheer explosion of spiders that erupted from it), cleaned it out, scrubbed it down, and started to fill it with water.

One of Tweak's favorite games is trying to catch the water coming out of the hose at jet speed. So I usually tease the hell out of her with it. :) I started teasing her with it and the next thing I knew she was standing in the pool waiting for the hose to come to her. The important thing to note is that there was water in the pool - not an inch of water either, more like a foot of water. I told her to lie down to see what she'd do and she actually did it - she lied down in the pool again.

I'm excited about that because once she starts racing, it'll be important for her to cool down during the summer and that's the best way to do it.

I had an idea about the business that has me a little excited. It would be a freebie thing to give away when people ordered something. I'm still chewing on it but I see potential. :)

I suppose I should go work....sigh.

D

On the road again, again, again...

We stopped at a campground after dinner and stayed the night. We had full hook ups so it was very comfortable with the AC full blast.

Driving a couple of hours last night makes todays driving that much more berable. It looks like we'll be rolling into Jo's around 4pm - putting me and the kids home around 6'ish after unloading the camper and loading up the car. Not too bad for a long weekend but I should've taken tomorrow off - just to recoup and clean up.

I will be doing nothing but homework for the next two weeks to make up for the last 3 long weekend trips. I have a ton of stuff to do for the business too now that I've heard back from my attorney and my accountant. It'll just have to wait until school is over.

All of the dogs are passed out, well all but the puppy. I know I shouldn't be jealous of dogs but right now I'd give anything to stretch out and take a nap. ;)
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Sent from my Verizon Wireless LGVX9900 device.

Back in the us of a

We're in New York somewhere - close to Batavia I think. It was a grueling weekend but lots of fun. We had 3 teams running in a double ring which boils down to lots of racing with very little down time inbetween.

Freddie's team (NET open) won 1st place. There was one race where it came down to him literally racing for time against a sheltie, which we won. :)

I ran Squish on the B team and managed to get a few good starts with him. Both A and B were in 4th place (Something they're probably not used to...) :P

The puppies all got warm ups over the weekend and did excellent! Peach and Grit actually got a few full runs in during a few heats. Tweak did recalls the first day, bounces off the box and full warm up runs on the second day.

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless LGVX9900 device.

on the road again... again...

Or should it be on the road again, again, again? I'm not really sure at this point. I'm guessing my little brain is going to a sound similar to an electrical system shorting out soon.

I am packed, the dogs are packed, the car is packed, I just need to shower and hit the road. Not too shabby. :)

I got a call from my cousin Danny this morning, which really threw me for a loop. He found out about my grandfather the other day and went to visit him in the hospital. That was really nice of him. Considering he sees my grandparents maybe once or twice a year, I was impressed.

I'm sure all of my cousins love my grandparents. I just wish they would pay more attention to them. Sure it's great that they're rallying now. But what about the last 10 years?

I guess I should ignore the fact that they're coming to the party sooooooo freakin' late and instead applaud the fact that they came at all. I should, but I probably won't. I think it's sucky and I currently don't feel the need to excuse bad behavior. Fuck them.

Anyway, so the kids and I are heading to Caledonia, ON Canada. It takes about 9 hours to get there, probably more since we'll have to stop for fuel more often. I don't even want to guess what it's going to cost us this year in fuel. Yikes.

At .70/min for the international rate, I will not be blogging this weekend at all! Have a good one and take care of my grandparents while I'm gone...

D

conversion update...

Well, I learned something new today! I'm a good sharer. I like to share. So I'm sharing what I learned.

The conversion formula is °F = °C x 9/5 + 32 or, in reverse, °C = (°F - 32) X 5/9. At least according to http://meteo.gc.ca/mainmenu/faq_e.html#weather11 anyway.

Another formula, referred to as the "simple" formula is °F = 1.8x°C + 32 and °C = (°F-32) /1.8.

In order to simplify it even further I've created another formula, which is what I'll keep in my head and will be close enough to give me an idea.

°F = °Cx2 + 25 and °C = °F-25 / 2

I can't really do the Cx1.8 thing in my head so 2 will work. The disclaimer on my "easy to remember" formula is that the result will be +- up to 10 degrees F or C.

It appears the low and high end of the spectrum has the most variance, for example:

°C = 5

°F = 5x2 + 25
°F = 10 + 25
°F = 35

(The real conversion is 41 - off by 6 degrees)

°C= 30

°F = 30x2 + 25
°F = 60 + 25
°F = 85

(The real conversion is 86 - off by 1 degree)

°C = 55

°F = 55x2 + 25
°F = 110 + 25
°F = 135

(The real conversion is 131 - off by 4 degrees)

So, it's not perfect, but I'll be able to remember it (I hope.)

Plus, I really don't need to know the *exact* temperature. I'm trying to determine whether or not I should pack jeans and sweatshirts or shorts and tank tops. For that purpose, it's close enough. :)

D

Caledonia weather.

I was trying to dial in on what the weather was going to be like this weekend in Caledonia but I quickly realized they only give it in Celsius. I am a complete moron and don't know what the translation is from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Or at least I don't remember.

So I'm going to learn, today, how to translate it.

I'm sure there are converters out there but I'll just figure out how to do it manually. It's just math after all. When then made me think that I should probably put some time into learning to convert distance as well. I learned both in school but never retained the "other" way. Why would I when we don't use it that much? I just won't learn that today, I'll learn it some other day.

Yesterday I spent most of the day with my aunt doing doctor stuff for her. She's been sick for 3 weeks now and she needs to get better. Now. If she loses anymore weight she'll be a skeleton.

Tonight is finishing laundry, packing me & the dogs and shoving it in the car so we can leave stupidly early tomorrow morning to get to Jo's.

If you can find out what the weather will be like in Caledonia, ON for the weekend and share that information with me, that would be great. In Fahrenheit. Thanks.

D

Almost....

The craziness is almost at an end.

I know I'm the cause of my own problems. I know I bite off more than I can chew continuously. That's not up for debate because I'll fully admit that. No big deal.

This weekend we're heading to Caledonia, Ontario for a flyball tournament. I haven't been to this one before so it should be fun. Plus, it's always fun to camp on site.

After that, blessedly, I have a few weeks off!

I've decided not to do the disc demo in June. As much as I'd like to, this weekend is going to be expensive paying $5 gallon for diesel. I really can't take on the additional expense of yet another weekend away. By not going, I'll have 2 weekends in a row to myself - to do things around the house, get the pool going, catch up on homework, work on the business, relax, turn the spare room into an office or any other number of things.

The weekend after that I have Zeke's party on Saturday and a disc competition on Sunday. How sweet is that?

I'll so need some time off from life after this weekend. I need to visit Ellin at some point since her birthday is coming up and I haven't seen her since December. I also need to just zen before I lose my fucking mind.

D

oh man.

I'd rather lose a leg than go through that again. I'm so not even kidding.

I'm going to go drink myself into oblivion now.

D

sad day

Well, today is the day. That thing that had/has me all bummed out? My grandfather needs to go into a nursing home.

I am, like with everything else, split on how I feel about this. I see both sides and it doesn't much matter in this case.

On one hand I understand that my family is no longer able to fulfill all of his needs. I get that and I don't blame anyone for not being able to. A nursing home is just the place for those high maintenance old people - they have 24 hour care and nursing staff on site. Those things make a huge difference and he desperately needs them. I totally understand that.

On the other hand, it's still quite depressing to see how frail my once strong grandfather has become. I'm afraid he's going to hate being separated from his family. I'm afraid he's going to feel abandoned. I'm afraid he's not going to be visited as much as he'll need to be. I'm afraid he's going to die alone, without his family surrounding him like it should be.

Of course that's assuming he will still have moments of clarity while there. I think he will. He might not remember what he ate 1/2 hour ago but he remembers me. He remembers to ask how the dogs are doing and how school is going.

It's really not that bad a situation and I probably shouldn't be emotionally troubled by it. It happens all the time. I wonder if it's in the same ballpark as survivor guilt. I'll have to ask Susan, she'll know.

This afternoon I'm heading over my grandparents to spend time with them before the transition. I'm hoping it goes well. I'm hoping there aren't any issues. I'm hoping my grandmother will be able to handle it. I'm hoping I won't break down while trying to be strong for my family.

I'm probably going to hibernate with the kids tonight. I'm probably not going to answer the phone or text messages so don't bother trying.

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