Random thoughts

So I have moments during the day where I think, that would make a good blog post, but then forget about it later on.  Or I’ll see something like a guy collar correcting his german shepherd dog which is on a prong collar and think, man I should rant about that. But then I finish my run and forget about it, so when I do get to the whole blog thing, it’s not as big a deal to me.

I admire those folks that either have instant access or remember to go and post about such things.  On Tuesday I was running laps at Minto Brown Island Park with the dogs. I saw a woman with her dog on leash (in an off leash dog area) collar correct her pit bull type dog, which was wearing a prong collar.  Her dog did nothing wrong because it was the rude young dog that ran into it’s face that was in the wrong. The leashed dog told off the young in-your-face dog and the owner corrected it. <sigh>  Then not two seconds later (imagine this in a DOG PARK) another dog ran up to the leashed dog and the leashed dog simply froze.  The leashed dog even turned his head to the side a bit.  The owner, thankfully didn’t correct the dog but didn’t praise the dog either. I happened to be running by and told her she should praise her dog, he did good.  I did see her pat her dog before my running took me too far away.  <sigh> So sad to see so much “wrong” in the world regarding dogs.

I’ve had quite a few bad weeks lately.  Sad, depressed, over-whelmed, home sick. 🙁  Last week was especially bad.  Just wanted to go “home” to Indiana. To all that is familiar…. but I can’t.  This is my home now. So I’m trying to “get over it” and “get on with it” but it’s not easy.  I find myself occasionally thinking things like, let’s get a better RV and maybe it will be better. But I honestly do not want to live in the RV anymore. I don’t want a huge house or anything but I do want a house. One without many stairs, on a bit of land for a back yard. I want to rent for a while and try to decide or find the right place to buy.  I want to take my time doing that because once I move into a house we buy again, I’M NOT MOVING FOR AT LEAST 10 YEARS! lol… Kris and I moved 3 times in our 10 short years together. And that’s not even just moving houses, that’s BUYING 3 houses! You can’t make any headway on a house in 5 years or less.

And it’s time to start feeding Mickey again. Who’s Mickey? He’s my 16 year old ball python. I got him my sophomore year of college and he’s traveled from NY to MA to MT to FL to IN and now to OR. He lives in a tank on the front dash of our RV.  And of course the only pet store in all of Salem that sells rats is Petco, which is on the FAR side of Salem, completely opposite where we live.  Very much like in B-ton where the Petco was on the East side and I lived on the West side. <sigh>  How annoying.

So I’ve been running for 9 weeks now (took a week off for vacay in Mexico).  Week 8 run 2 today. I’m running just over 2.5 miles in 28 minutes. My sister Steph told me about this cool website where it lets you map your run with google maps.  It’s called mapmyrun.com.  It’s pretty cool and I’ve mapped my last 6 runs now?  Anyway that’s how I know my distances in the 28 minutes I’m up to. Next week is week 9 and it’s a full 30 minutes of running. I don’t think my back likes it when I run though. It’s fine during the exercise but afterwards, it gets pretty sore. I’ve taken to icing it and my knees, which also hurt.  🙁

On Tuesday, when I was running laps at the dog park, Shadow ran along with me the whole way! I ran for 28 minutes straight and that little pooch ran the whole time with me.  🙂  I tried to lose them and take off down the trail where dogs must be leashed, but her and Tasha spied me taking off and caught up to me.  So I turned around and took them back to Kris, but they turned around with me and stayed with  me.  Such a trooper that little Shadow. She was VERY tired that night. Luckily it didn’t break her and she seemed to be moving ok the next day.

Kota is doing ok these days. I think he may be losing muscle tone in his other leg now. Not sure if that is from less exercise or if there is a spreading problem…  🙁  He limps a bit more and has a harder time getting up and down from lying down.  I wish he was healthy but at least he still has fire and attitude.

I’m trying to stay busy doing stuff. Running, taking the dogs for 2 to 4 mile walks. On Saturday Kris and I are going to go to Cape Lookout which is a 4.8 mile walk out and then back.  We’re going with a local Meetup group that is doing this, to watch the sunset.  Not sure if we’ll take a dog with us or not.  Might just make it a binoculars and camera hike.

So aside from working in my new office space, which is still great! I’m just staying busy taking care of the dogs, the RV, the laundry and occasionally making dinner for Kris and I on the evenings he comes home early.