Week 21: Bonding Time

So about three years ago, my family welcomed a new little bundle of joy in the form of an 8 week-old cream-coloured golden retriever. That puppy became the highlight and focal point of that summer, and was showered with affection and attention as if she were a human newborn. She grew up to be an incredibly friendly and gentle dog, if a little rambunctious.

Puppy's first summer at home was also my older sister's last, at least for a while. Her beginning university and living away from home meant that I would have virtually unlimited access to said puppy for the next two years. She belonged to the family, but really, I thought, she would almost be mine.


As the little one outgrew her puppy collar, she started growing into a personality that consisted of more than just sleeping and peeing. As a golden, she is very much a people dog, and simply cannot get enough of any new person she meets. At the dog park, she is known to ignore the other pups in favour of visiting with their owners! She is never aggressive or destructive, and hardly ever barks. Essentially, the ideal dog.

Although she will practically do back flips in order to meet a passer-by on the street, and gets overcome with excitement when either of my parents get home, she has never shown a lot of interest in me. Of course she is perfectly gentle and friendly, but let's just say if she were human, she would by the classmate you acknowledge with a smile in the hall, but don't invite to your sleepover. Before today, I hadn't given this an awful lot of thought. My family has a dog; a friendly, bouncy and furry dog, but nothing to get overly excited about.

Last year, pup injured her leg while running in a dog park. She limped around for a few weeks, but eventually recovered and was considered good as new. Fast-forward to Easter 2013. Pup, in a fit of spring fever, tore around the backyard, accidentally putting her foot in a small hole, and returned to the house with a limp, even worse than before.

I won't bore you with the details, but the experts figured that this time her leg wasn't going to heal on it's own, and so they operated on her knee to repair the ACL ligament. This left her with a humourously "naked" leg - shaved for surgery - but it also left her quite handicapped. She can't go up or down stairs, and the long walks she used to love are now kept as short as possible. She'll likely make a good recovery, but right now it's still sort of dicey.

I haven't recently undergone any knee surgery myself, but it turns out that the void between final exams and summer job is made of tumblr and sci-fi TV. So pup and I have been housebound together. And maybe it's just the stress of recovering from surgery, or my severe boredom, but I am starting to think this dog actually likes me. She seems to really enjoy the attention I give her, and actually seems to mope a bit when I leave her alone. Of course, I am her only connection to the treat jar, so that could also be it.

It's kinda funny how after three years, we both had to have our worlds sort of messed up before we began to bond. I guess that's how these things work, right? You can never appreciate something until you realize how much you really need it. I know she'll never be just "my dog", but it will be nice to have a buddy this summer. And hey - it will give me even less incentive to go out and actually socialize with real people my age!

Here is a picture of us being adorable:
(Well okay, she's being adorable)

Goodnight, bloglings

Week 20: I Give Up

So I spent a blissful hour or so today writing a lengthy post about YA novels and the gender of their protagonists. Upon returning to said post to publish it, I realized that it....kinda sucked. It wasn't very well thought-out and some of what I said about current trends was flat-out wrong. So. I may revisit what I wrote and do a post about that topic sometime in the future. We'll see.

But for now, it's the early hours of Thursday morning, and I'm currently typing the second paragraph of a blog post that theoretically should have gone up on Sunday. (I didn't have internet access on Sunday, so technically the earliest it could have been was Monday, but who are we kidding - that was never going to happen either).

Instead, please enjoy a total cop-out, in the form of pictures I took over the long weekend. I was out on Georgian Bay, which has - in my humble opinion - some of the most beautiful natural landscapes anywhere.

Week 19: C25K and A Lot of Pain

So, as promised (because I know you've all been dying to hear about it) the topic of my ramblings today is running, or more specifically, preparing to run a 5K at the end of June. Or, even more specifically, preparing to run the Fittie 5K at LeakyCon Portland on June 27th.

Although I'm not, as a rule, against cheesy things (lacto-ovo vegetarian FTW!) I really don't feel like writing an inspirational post about Challenging Yourself and Pushing Your Limits, Achieving Your Goals, etc. etc. So instead, I'm going to tell it like it is.

And it is pain.

I mean, to be fair, I kinda signed up for that. I've never been a runner - at all - and I wasn't in great shape generally when I started this. So I knew it would be tough. I also knew that the only thing that would keep me going would be my stupid stubborn compulsion to finish ALL the things that I start. I absolutely love that I have friends who are also doing the C25K program, and that I have a fun run with those friends to look forward to, but if I'm being honest, my inability to leave things unfinished is my main motivator right now.

I've just started Week 4 of this program, which lasts either 8 or 9 weeks depending on the version. It's going fairly well - no collapsing or heat stroke as of yet - but I live in constant fear of the increase in intensity of the next workout. Not to mention the burning pain of shin splints. Unfortunately, while I do live "in the country" by a lot of people's standards, I'm "in town" enough that there are no dirt trails accessible from my house. So that means running on concrete, and more often than not, up and down hills.

Apparently this is not the ideal training ground for a running noob such as myself. According to WebMD, I should stop running until the shin splints heal completely. Which is a lovely idea, if one does not have their sights set on one specific 5K on June 27th. I honestly don't think I could catch up if I missed a week or two, and so I valiantly (stupidly) run on. With some ice pack action thrown in at the end of every workout. Because ouch.

So that's my extremely glamorous experience in my first few weeks as a Runner. I'll probably be subjecting you to more of my trials and tribulations as we get closer to the LeakyRun.

But for now,

Goodnight, bloglings

Week 18: Old Favourites

So as you might know if you follow me on Twitter (let's be real, how else would you have arrived here?) I have set my sights on completing the 5K run at LeakyCon this June. I've started a variation on the popular "Couch to 5K" or C25K program, and so far it's been going.....well, it's been going. I was going to write about that today but frankly I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it. So we'll save that for another week, shall we?

The time I spent NOT running today was mostly spent getting reacquainted with some childhood obsessions. After seeing an old rerun of the CBC show Heartland on TV the other day, I remembered that this show is still very much A Thing, and decided to go back and catch up so I would not be spoiled by the plot of the current season. 

This show started in about 2007, and I was obsessed with it for a few solid years. I'm not going to do a complete rundown, but suffice it to say: ranch that heals abused horses, based off a middle grade chapter book series, with a female teenage heroine. Exactly my kind of show. In fact - I literally just remembered this - for my final project in Grade 9 computers, I made a Heartland fan site. I wonder if it's still online.....

I can't remember why I eventually lost interest, but right now, despite having seen it several times, Season One is proving to be great.

And while I was marathoning this show, I was also busy with another childhood passion. I've been in Girl Guides since about age 6, and at some point along the way my mother stopped obligingly sewing on my various badges. I guess sewing was one of those Girl Guide skills I never quite mastered - or enjoyed - and as a result I have ziplock bags full to bursting with badges and patches and crests. Some earned, but most received as swaps at international camps.

The way it worked was this: you came to camp prepared with crests, patches and tiny crafts representative of your region, province or country. Any down time - standing in line, chilling after dinner, waiting out a thunderstorm under a screen room tent - was prime swapping time. Trading your things away and receiving (obviously much cooler) things in return, from girls who had come from all over the world.

Most people's patches made their way onto bags and blankets and hats and what have you, but mine mostly languished in a closet....UNTIL NOW! I've decided to make a bit of a summer project of actually doing something with these things. Although I'm still far from great at sewing, I can manage a weak straight stitch - some things you can't help but absorb when you grow up in guiding. Most of the patches will go onto a lovely new camp blanket, some on my backpack, and some....well who knows where they might end up?

So my summer is starting to bump along quite nicely, and actually feel like a summer. The weather has been co-operating so far, and now that I have a few things to occupy myself, missing uni friends is a little less painful.

Goodnight, bloglings