Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Category Archives: Uncategorized


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Not spring here yet

So I’m reading about temps in the 80’s, looking at pictures of flowers in bloom, thinking maybe I saw migrating birds back for the summer, really believing that spring is here.   Relaxing my guard so to speak. Yesterday it was cold and windy, but Katie still wanted to spend some time outside in her kennel where she could keep watch on her road.

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But today?  Well, see for yourself:

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We are no longer going to predict spring here.  Every year we are fooled into thinking winter is over, and then winter slaps us up the side of the head again.  So we are going to stay inside and PLAY!

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Hope you have warmer weather!

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A dog gone good walk into spring

Today it finally stopped raining, and though we had fresh snow on the ground early this morning, it was gone by early afternoon.   By late afternoon it was just above 40 degrees, the sun was out and it felt like the perfect time to get a good walk in. So Katie and I drove to a metro park where I used to train for marathons. There’s a 8.5 mile paved bike path around a beautiful lake there, but I didn’t think we’d walk the whole thing. After all Katie has short legs and hasn’t ever walked that far.  And I’d probably hurt myself if we tried.

Of course I forgot the camera, but we had a great time, maybe even a better time because I wasn’t asking Katie to pose. We walked 3/4 of a mile out and back, so a total of 1.5 miles. She moved almost the whole way with her fast little sheltie prance so I got a workout too. Of course she did take quite a few sudden detours to sniff trees and leaves and mud.

We worked on her understanding that we needed to stay on our side of the middle line. She’s a girl just like her Mom, focused on the lake and not always paying attention to other people on the path. She saw swans and sandhill cranes and mallard ducks and Canadian geese. She loved watching the swans running after each other, their huge feet slapping the water. And she loved getting up close to a mallard duck pair that swam near the shore.  She did fine with the few bikes and other dogs that went by. At first I was nervous and tried to get her to “HEEL!” and focus on me, but she wasn’t at all interested in the treats I had, too much out there to watch instead. She did notice a few cars and I could tell she was thinking about barking and chasing, but she looked at me and I said “NO!” and that was that.

So all in all this was a good experience; our first longer walk ever, the first field trip since the long winter, a wonderful late afternoon activity. If it’s nice on Wednesday maybe we’ll go back. By the last quarter mile back she wasn’t prancing out at the end of her leash anymore, she was walking more slowly next to me. I thought I wore her out, but tonight I’m the one falling asleep on the sofa.  She’s keeping watch out the backdoor for marauding possums or raccoons!


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Paw print!

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Hey guys! Katie and I finally found a pawprint!  We looked and looked but couldn’t find anything.  Then today I sat down to read my January/February issue (OK, I’m late getting to it I know) of “Public Libraries” and guess what’s on the back cover?

A paw print!

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It’s a book binding company that provides tougher bindings for books that get a lot of use!  Wouldn’t you know I’d find a paw print that relates to libraries!

Katie says;  “Enough of this reading stuff Mom!  Let’s PLAY!”

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Some kind of hope

This morning the temperature was a balmy 51 degrees when Katie and I ventured out. Last Monday morning it was only 7 degrees, so you can understand that we felt a bit giddy today. We ended up over 60 degrees this afternoon!

After I dropped (poor) Katie off at the groomer I went for a walk around the neighborhood. I took my camera, looking for signs of spring, but in reality it was a pretty dismal looking day, gray skies, still some slushy snow in the ditch, a lot of dirt and litter. At my turn around spot I ran across these guys:
trees-801 Notice the one on the right is charging toward me. I don’t think he thought of me as a friend. I backed up and got a shot of him front on…after he spit at me and showed his teeth.  Though these guys were very pretty I don’t think they’re the kind of horses you pet and feed apples!

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Then I wandered around the back yard and cut some pussywillow,  redbud and forsythia to put in a vase inside.  Hopefully soon I’ll have some real proof of spring, blooming on my counter!

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I hope spring is truly on the way now.

And Katie came back

from the groomer very pretty.  As usual.

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We've got toys…wanna play?

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Following the recent theme of toys…Katie and I thought we’d share some of hers.  Well.  Not really share; I’m not sure she’d be good at sharing being an only dog.  But she has a basket full of toys, all of which she has loved at different times.  She mostly loves whatever is the new toy.  But some are her favorites all the time.  Like Mister Froggy whose yellow belly you see in the basket above.  And she’s pretty psyched about her frisbee too.  But her all time all the time can’t resist toy is her small tennis ball.  If she can find it (it’s frequently under some piece of furniture) she will drop it at the feet of anyone not payng enough attention to her.

Today I didn’t have to work and I have to say that I didn’t get much done around here either.  It was sort of a Katie free for all day, mostly playing fetch the ball, fetch the froggy, fetch the doggie…that would be me fetching…not her.  If the toy gets flung into a scary place, say under the desk, or under a chair she will plop herself down and look expectantly at you until you give up and just get her the toy.  Really I don’t think she needs anymore doggie training, she is smart enough as it is.  I took a picture of her with her ball today that reminds me of the picture Sara took of Oreo:

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So I have to go…she wants to play!  We’ve already taken a trip to the pet supply store where we practiced heeling with distractions.  She did so so.  We’ve thrown the ball for what seems like hours.  You’d think she’d be tired, but no, right now she’s growling at a possum that is eating birdseed outside her back door.  Possum doesn’t seem to be intimidated, so I’ll distract her with a toy.  Time to go.  As Katie would say, we’ve got to go Go GO GO!!

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Sometimes snow is pretty. Even in March

Really.  Though I suppose those of you out there getting snow in the South aren’t convinced of the fact that snow is pretty.

We’ve had a busy few days here in Michigan, starting Thursday when Aunt G. died through yesterday, the day of her funeral.  In between the family things we needed to attend to I also took Katie to a couple hours of advanced dog obedience, where we worked on stuff needed to compete in obedience.  She was off the wall and not very focused, the result of days inside with none of us around to practice with.  But we did get to do a typical obedience run off leash which was very fun.  And we got to do some jumps because they are included in higher level Rally, and Katie LOVES to jump.  She came home and went to sleep.  Two hours of being on your toes apparently exhausts a typical sheltie girl.

We had some snow too…though nothing in comparison to what some of you are enduring now.  Our snow on Saturday was very pretty, soft white flakes floating slowly down while the sun was coming up.  It was beautiful and for once we didn’t mind seeing it because we know that the snow season is almost over.  Well we think so anyway.  Katie was like a puppy, trying to catch all the snowflakes in her mouth.  I told her she couldn’t catch them all, but she sure wanted to.

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I also had to work quite a bit during these past few days, the result of not being scheduled for four days in a row!  So I didn’t get to go to everything Aunt G’s family planned, but I did spend most of Sunday at the funeral home with my husband, Aunt V. and Uncle W., the two surviving siblings of my husband’s mother’s large family.  It was nice to see distant relatives but I wish we were meeting under happier circumstances.  Isn’t that always the way,  we just don’t take time for family things until there’s a crisis.  We should try harder, don’t you think, to get together for famility events that don’t involve funerals?

Katie and I hope those of you with lots of snow (we hate to tell you, we have none on the ground except where we have been piling it up all winter) are digging out and getting back to normal.  But don’t you agree that snow really is pretty? 🙂

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Saying goodbye to Aunt G.

Husband’s Aunt G. died this morning. It wasn’t unexpected. But still. I can’t say that I knew her well, though she had been my “Aunt-in-law” for almost 19 years. But I knew she loved me the last time I hugged her goodbye, a week or so ago at the hospice facility. She was one of seven children, born to an immigrant couple in Northern Minnesota. Life was hard in the beginning, probably hard for much of her life, but she loved to laugh.

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We’ll miss her laugh.


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Nothing whatsoever to talk about

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone…wait…that’s another story. But it HAS been quiet here. No real storms, nothing exciting at work, no dog school. Not a darn thing to amuse you with. Or me for that matter.

Do you remember as a kid when you got bored and you told your Mom there was “nothing to doooooo!”? Well, that’s what I’m feeling like. Not that I don’t have a ton of stuff I could be doing. Like writing a letter for the Truck Safety Coalition, finishing the sweater for my sister, cleaning out closets, cleaning the BASEMENT for heavens sake! But I don’t WANT to do any of those things. So I am wandering listlessly about, munching on things I don’t need to be munching on, and apparently waiting for something exciting to happen. Like spring.

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Blizardless Librarian

For a couple of days we’ve been warned that another big snowfall was headed our way this weekend. Four to eight inches they said. Supposedly it would start snowing Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and would continue, intensifying throughout the day, ending around 6 p.m. Great. I was working all day at the library, 9-5, and figured I’d have a doozy of a drive home.

As I was getting ready in the morning I glanced toward my front door and saw this:
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Hmmm, I thought.  “Red sky in morning, sailor take warning.”  So Katie and I went out to investigate, and to put a letter to my sister in the mailbox:

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When we got back in the house the glass storm door had steamed over.  Look how pretty!

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I headed off to work with extra gloves, a hat, and boots, prepared for the terrible ride home I anticipated.  But though it did snow, all day in fact, starting at 10:00 just like they predicted, we got 2 or 3 inches at most.  And the ride home, while slow, wasn’t nearly as awful as I expected.

The other librarian and I thought maybe we’d have a slow day, maybe with the weather people would stay home.  We were so wrong!  My favorite story of the day involved a grandmother who had a granddaughter doing an internship in Poland.  She came in to find out how to get into her email.  Since we were still slow, first thing in the morning, I taught her how to use her email.  She got to read a note from her granddaughter, view the photos that had been sent, and write the granddaughter a long note back.  She was thrilled, and even better, was proud of her new skill.

Another interesting experience I had at the library during the day included the shy young girl and her dad who came into the library “looking for poetry.”  After I showed them where most of the poetry was, at the far back of the library, she pulled out a piece of paper folded up into a small square.  After unfolding it all she informed me she needed “these five books of poems,” which turned out to be in the kids area, near the front door.  Which taught me (once again) to ask more questions at the start rather than taking the first sentence at face value.

We were busy all day; I helped a middle-aged woman figure out that the horror author she wanted was Dean Kootz, a high school student find information about steroid use, a recent graduate of law school fax her information out for numerous employment opportunities, found another student a biography about Harriet Tubman, commiserated with a woman about how we both get “click happy” when we’re reserving books from our home computers late at night.  All the books we’ve ordered tend to show up at the same time and it’s nearly impossible to get them all read.  Another family wanted help finding a book about polygamous cults as well as something to help them diet by reducing carbs.  Someone else wanted a book to help diagnose an unspecified medical condition.  And a teenage girl needed help learning Latin “so I can write vampire stories.”  And those are just the ones I remember!

The day flew by, I had lots of fun, the snow wasn’t too bad, and this morning, after another dusting of snow, we have sun!  What a wonderful weekend!

And it’s only Sunday morning! 🙂

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I don’t have to work again until Thursday.  Katie and I are going out to play in the new (not so deep) snow!

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Working at the library

Tonight I was back at work at the library. There have been several days in a row where I wasn’t scheduled to work. Odds are that will never happen again, so I enjoyed the time away and had some trepidation about heading back.  But the most wonderful thing happened. As soon as I stepped inside the library again I was glad to be back. That’s never happened with any of my previous employment…the feeling of being home after being away.

And tonight the librarian I was working with showed me how he orders books; in fact I got to spend some of the evening ordering children’s picture books and junior fiction. How fun is that!  Though I have to say I need to learn more about junior fiction.  I read descriptions and tried not to only pick the stuff that I would have been interested in back when I was a tween.  Heck, back when I was a tween they didn’t even HAVE the word tween!

The other fun thing that happened is that I got to give a 5 year old his very own library card!  It was his birthday, and his mom  had promised him that when he turned 5 he got his own card.  So we got him his card and he grinned from ear to ear.  Can’t beat an evening shared with a 5 year old and his new library card.

A man came in who had been be let go from his construction job today.  You could see the tension around his eyes.  He wanted to get on the computers to look for work.  He said he had a library card once a long time ago but didn’t know where it was.  I told him the repacement fee for a card was $2.00 and he paused before he said OK.  I did the paperwork, got him the card and used my “professional judgement” to waive the fee.  $2.00 is a lot to a guy down on his luck, panicked about where to find work.  He got his wallet out and was pulling what looked like the last two paper bills out of it when I told him no charge.  He was beyond grateful.  I hope he finds work soon.  And I hope he comes back to the library often.

Library work.  Does a body good.