Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A Day Off!

Lately I have been REALLY stressed out with my job. So stressed out that thought of finding a new one has crossed my mind several times. Yesterday I had a great talk with my boss and I think we have a plan for setting things in motion that will relieve my stress to at least a moderate level. I don't often get to the point that I was at, but it just amazes how much I end up shutting down other things in the rest of my life. While writing on this blog is definitely therapeutic, sometimes it's hard when all I want to do is curl up in the fetal position. Like I said though, things are better now and especially after the day I've had today! I had pre-scheduled to take today off and it was definitely needed! I feel so refreshed!!

We started off the morning by heading out to the lake for some romping and hiking around. I almost turned around when we hit the first of our favorite spots. The water level out there is now so high that the vast majority of beaches that we're used to having are submerged under several feet of water. Since we were already out there, I figured we might as well take advantage of the time and I could check out some other new spots that I've thought about checking out, but just haven't gotten around to. We also did something entirely new, we actually hiked on the trail that goes around the lake for a bit! All in all, it was a great morning!
Here's Bess checking out a potentially vicious stick in the water!

And here's a shot of Heffner that I submitted as our Week 9 shot! I'm actually really pleased with how it turned out! Both of the dogs had hopped up onto a ledge and while Bess was off exploring Heffner came back to check on me. I decided to go for it and took several shots from that angle and just loved how everything came together. And this picture is completely unaltered since I don't have any software to do that in the first place.







I have a tendency to take shots of my dogs' footprints on our meanderings. Usually next to my foot so that there's a size reference. While they're footprints look totally normal to me, sometimes I wonder what other people must think when they come across them! he he he he




The only thing that I don't like about following the trail around the lake is that it very frequently pops back out onto the main road at multiple "trail heads." The problem with this is that you could be going along following the trail and you suddenly just pop out onto the road. Not my favorite thing to do with dogs off leash who enjoy racing ahead of me. It tends to give me a bit of heart failure when I realize there's a road RIGHT THERE. Thankfully the lake is still closed for fishing, it's the middle of the week, and traffic is very limited. But still, it freaks me out! And unfortunately there are sections of the trail for which you have to walk along the shoulder of the road to get to the next trail head and chunk of trail. That's why I am a fan of lower water levels and sticking to the beaches.

After the hike and meeting hubby for lunch, I decided to get crankin' on the soft crate project. Something that would have gone faster and easier if I didn't have two giant dogs trying to "help" me. I had Bess spooning me from the back and Heffner laying down in the crate (something I definitely don't want to discourage), occasionally trying to figure out the most comfortable way for him to lay down while resting his heavy head on some portion of my body. Yeah, it just wasn't terribly convenient. But I had a fair amount of time to work away at it and I did manage to finish the whole front of the crate! I just want to mention that I am doing this by hand, mostly because I think it would be a royal pain in the butt to try to figure out how to work all of that with my sewing machine. And I'm also not going for it to look "professionally" put together. I'm pretty much just slapping it together to get it done and over with. So don't expect too much prettiness! Here's the completed front:
I still need to cover the inside seams, but here's what it looks like:
As you can see, I kind of sewed the zippered part together to hold it in place while I sewed on the segments of fabric. While it makes it harder to sew on the individual segments (and causes me to realize how flexible I am NOT), it makes the overall front more stable. Thankfully this crate has two openings into it. I will now only be able to use the side entrance to get a dog in or out.
I have also heard through another friend of mine (not the one who's coming down to stay with me) that the Corky Vroom handling seminar is getting cancelled due to some health problems. I haven't officially received any notification that it's cancelled and am waiting to hear. I'm going to be REALLY bummed if it does get cancelled. I was really looking forward to it! That was also part of my push to get the soft crate all "fixed." I must have some sort of luck to have two events on consecutive weekends get cancelled. Whatever will I do with my free weekend if it is in fact cancelled??

Alrighty, I'm off to try and get some more scrapbooking done. I didn't accomplish much on Sun. It is seriously taking me a long time to put together even a simple page!

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