50 Walks

Just a very quick post to brag about Ginny!

You may remember I wrote about the beginning of this journey back in August!

Well, this evening, Ginny went on her FIFTIETH walk in less than two months!!!

50 walks!!!

For those of you with dogs who love to walk, that's not likely going to impress you. But here are some facts about Ginny:

Ginny is 12 years old – a little senior lady.

Ginny had serious spinal surgery in 2014.

Ginny has had several very close calls with re-injuring her back since that surgery.

Ginny is a stubborn Dachshund.

Ginny hates walks.

When you consider all of these things – and I know I'm biased here! – 50 walks is a pretty big deal.

She's still terrified when she hears loud sounds or voices.

She still jumps when a leaf flutters by her unexpectedly.

She still avoids the same fire hydrant she's seen on about 40 of those walks, in the same place it always is.

She still turns around to look back toward the car when we begin every walk.

She still doubles her pace as soon as the car in back in sight.

But she did it!

In the first 12 years of her life, I guarantee she never went on 50 walks total, and now she's done it in under two months!

48 of the walks were pretty basic, but two of them were actually hikes and she did a great job. Admittedly we had to pick her up whenever another dog came into view because she's afraid and tries to hide behind us or run in the opposite direction, but still!

You know those dogs that stop and sniff every two feet? We don't! Ginny has one goal – to get back to the car. She never stops to sniff anything! She's not interested in anything! She doesn't stop for anything! Frankly, it keeps things moving for us, so no complaints here!

As far as her back goes, we obviously keep a close watch on it at all times. The reason it isn't 50 walks in 50 days (aside from weather) is because we give her a couple days off to rest her back when we think we've overdone it. Better safe than sorry!

So proud of her!

Happy Tails to you!

Life Lately October 2020

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post and my phone's camera roll has been filling up with pics of Ginny over the past six weeks or so. In an attempt to clean out said camera roll, I decided to get these posted to my blog!

If you know a teacher, I don't need to tell you that the beginning of the year has been A LOT. For teachers, for students, for parents…and in my case, for Ginny. She'd gotten very accustomed to being with me every day, but since school began, I've been working from my office four days a week and she is not happy with this new schedule! If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm not thrilled, either; it's actual very lonely to work in my office by myself. School buildings with no kids in them are weird places to begin with, but now the few adults who are in the building are cautioned to social distance from one another. No eating lunch together, no socializing, etc. And let me be clear: I get it and I support these policies wholeheartedly! But it's still lonely! When I do see someone, we are both wearing masks, so I can't even tell if they're happy to see me! LOL! While my office is a great place to get work done, it's just not the same as when teachers would stop by for a quick chat or when students would stop by to tell me about the book they were reading. It's just very, very quiet all the time. If you ever passed by my classroom when I was a teacher, you know it was always a lively, busy, noisy place. The silence at school right now is such a contrast to that. Anyway, back to Ginny…she's not happy I'm gone, but thankfully she hangs out with my mom while C is working. We try to take her for a lot of car rides to make up for our absence during the day, and those car rides have become my favorite daily adventures. We've always loved being in the car; for me, it's like the outside world does not exist and it's just us in our happy little space.

As for other things to report, the one big thing is that I have fallen in love with power washing. My brother and I decided to split the cost and purchase one and when C and I brought it home from his house, I had no idea how much I would LOVE this machine. We've had the house power washed before by various companies, but our deck furniture had been neglected for at least the past 10+ years. In our defense, we really don't like just sitting outside because between the heat and the bugs that dominate approximately eight months of the year here, I'd rather be inside. So our deck furniture really never gets used. Like ever! Well, we decided to try cleaning the deck furniture with the power washer, and it was unbelievably amazing! If you follow me on IG, you've already seen these photos because as we worked on the deck furniture over the course of a few weekends, I just could not believe my eyes! You'll see in the awful and very embarrassing "before" pics just what bad shape the furniture was in and then the incredible transformation after power washing the table and chairs! I also found some colorful end-of-season-clearance cushions and I love how it looks out there now!

Finally, we took a quick day trip to Pittsburgh to visit my dad. He moved back to Pittsburgh from Las Vegas in the spring, but with the quarantine, this was our first chance to visit. In addition to some great family time, we were able to enjoy some Tim Hortons and Primanti Bros., so it was a very successful day!

Happy Tails to you!