Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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Rain, a new deck and a crazy sheltie

Since I’ve been back from Alabama it’s been raining, courtesy of tropical storm Gustuv which I dodged while in Alabama, but which apparently followed me home. I can’t complain, we need the rain. But still. Katie is getting antsy, no playing in the park because I’m too wimpy to run around in the rain with her. Not that she loves the rain either. So she’s been hanging around the house getting more and more wound up. Though if I get the camera out she will pose, being the princess that she is.

And, to keep her occupied we have hired two guys to construct a deck on the back of our house. This provides hours of entertainment for Katie, who barks at them pretty much nonstop for the first hour of each morning. Eventually she can be convinced that these are the same two guys that were here all day yesterday, but initially every day she has to warn us of the two interlopers IN OUR BACKYARD RIGHT NOW! It’s so hard being a Sheltie, always on alert. When she grows up she wants to be a Labrador, or maybe a Retriever, something more mellow. But she’s young…tomorrow she might want to be a Scottie! We, however, think she should be happy with what she is. Teenagers…

This morning she and I went out to explore the deck which is almost finished.

It’s a really big deck, and she is not sure what to make of it. But she has figured out it gives her a good view of the bird feeder, and that’s a good thing in her mind. They say it will be finished on Monday, too much rain to work on it today. So we’ll have a three day weekend without workers in the back. Good rest for her and for me.

I have an interview later this afternoon for library work. I think I’m prepared. I’ll let you know!


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Not working on Labor Day

I flew back yesterday from a week at the family cottage on a big lake in Alabama.

During the week I got to ride in a new boat, climb a mountain, swim a bunch, visit a friend, sleep in, and eat really well. I’m pretty sure I did more…but I’m too tired to remember!

Thanks to everyone that helped make this a great vacation week, particularly those who helped with the boat, the wave runner, and the use of the truck! OH! And the WONDERFUL meals! You know who you are! Thanks!


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Endless summer ends

Remember when you were a kid, and the summer stretched ahead of you endlessly? How it seemed like the long lazy days would go on indefinitely? That’s how I felt this summer, with no school and no work. Graduating in April did give me quite a long summer. And the month of May seemed to go on forever; lovely spring days, warm sunshine, flowers blooming, lazy mornings weeding, hauling mulch, hauling more mulch…wait a minute…time seems to have dimmed the pain of hauling yards and yards of mulch…but I digress. Then June happened and suddenly it was July and then before I knew it August is almost gone and it’s going to be September and I wasn’t paying enough attention and that endless summer is just about to end! What happened?

I am feeling melancholy, and I’m not sure if it’s the end of summer (even though technically the lazy days could go on and on as I still have no job…) or the fact I’m not headed back to school next month, or possibly the fact that tomorrow I board a plane for Alabama to spend a week at my parents’ house and there are no parents there. Could be a combination of all of that. So I’ll be gone a week, no postings while I’m at a cabin with no internet connection, no phone, no pressure, no sheltie, nothing but napping and reading, maybe a bit of swimming and water-skiing. Who could be depressed with that?

But the truth is I’m missing my parents as I contemplate spending time in their space, I’m missing school as I watch the back-to-school advertisements, and I’m beginning to miss summer as I watch the leaves start to turn and feel the cooling air. I’m even missing library work and find myself hanging out at my neighborhood library just to be there. Gonna have to go find some chocolate or something.

Have a great week everyone, see you in September.


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Taking it easy

Yesterday I ran a miserable, hot, humid, slow 10 mile race. Today, after a second night of not much sleep (pre-race jitters on Friday night, sheltie, thunderstorms and painful knees and toes Saturday night) I am pretty much wiped out. So today Katie and I are going to take a nap. Maybe we’ll go to the park and practice her homework. Maybe we’ll just sleep. Too early to tell at this point!


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Another hot and humid Crim race completed. Just.

I’ve been “running” (and I put running in quotes for a good reason) the Crim 10 mile race in Flint for about 20 years. Each August, the last Saturday before the Labor Day weekend I and 10,000 of my closest friends crowd into Flint Michigan to enjoy their festival of races. Besides the 10 miler there is an 8K (about 5 miles) and a 5K (about 3.1 miles), a fun 1 miler for the kids and a family 5K walk. Mostly I’ve done the 10 miles, though I think once I did the 8K. There isn’t as much satisfaction in completing 5 miles, but that’s what I should have done this morning instead of struggle through 10 hot humid hilly miles.

I have been training with a group of people for an October 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) and the Crim was just another training run. Right. The group has been running for 2 minutes and walking a minute, but that seemed too slow for the race, so I ran the way I used to run, to the mile marker, walk through the water table area, and run to the next mile marker. I did that for a whopping 2 miles, not much, but still more than I’ve run in a really long time. Did I mention it was HOT? During miles 3-5 I ran 3 minutes and walked a minute…sort of. You see in mile 5 are the BRADLEY HILLS! The dreaded Bradley Hills are a series of 3 hills, one after the other. And when you get done with them there are more rolling hills (though not as steep) the rest of the course. By mile 5 I had a new strategy. Run the downhills. Crawl up the uphills. By mile 7 the strategy became; run the downhills if there is shade, and by mile 8 it was pretty much just walk and hope I survive to the finish.

I’m not even sure what my time was, it doesn’t matter. As we turned onto the final road and could see the finish line 4 blocks (downhill) I began to run again. But two blocks into that final push I wanted to stop. What the heck. Just walk. It doesn’t matter. A young lady running next to me said “Don’t stop now, you’re almost there!” and I smiled at her as I was slowing to a stop. She said “NO REALLY! DON’T STOP!” and I kept on running, ran with her the rest of the way in. She said “Congratulations!” and I said “THANK YOU!” and that was the end of my race. I ended it with a run because a complete stranger didn’t give up on me and wouldn’t let me give up on me either. That’s the way it is on the Crim course. It’s a great race, even if it is always hot and humid!

The thing I learned from this is that I am going to have to get more serious about these final training weeks before the half marathon in October. Because if I had had to run 3.1 more miles today I don’t think I would have finished. But today I got my finisher’s medal!


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New windows on the world

The past two days have been busy. We had several new windows installed which caused the disruption of the entire house. It was worth it however, as the new windows are beautiful, more energy efficient, and they have blinds between the glass so that I can close them to hide things like deer, skunks and raccoons from Katie. Here is a look at the transformation.


This is our breakfast room sliding glass door opening, after the old panels had been removed.

And here it is with the new door and windows installed!


And even more dramatic, a corner of our living room without any windows…


…and how it looks completed.


Notice that I have the option now of closing the blinds on the lower windows so that poor Katie the dog can’t see anything out in the back yard…at least from that vantage point! She’s figured that out and now camps out in front of another door with a view of the yard.

PS: Katie and I camped out last night for probably the last time this summer. She went the entire night without barking at any real or imagined danger. She’s a camping girl now!


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Employment woes

I have begun to wonder if I can be called a librarian at all. Am I the only person who knows what she wants to be when she grows up but can’t find a place to be it? Of course not! But does graduating from library school make me a librarian? Even without a library to librarian from? These thoughts were running through my head while I lay awake in the tent next to a snoring sheltie during a nice rain last night. The thoughts were rumbling through my head because a new posting for a part time adult reference librarian appeared late in the evening. The position is in a city about 38 miles from me, maybe a 45 minute drive during traffic. It’s not a large library system, probably doesn’t pay outstanding wages. But it’s a library and I’m hungry for library work. So I will drop by this library today and pick up an employment application. And since I’ll be dressed in something more presentable than my current uniform of sloppy shorts, Tshirt and flip flops, maybe I’ll stop by a few other libraries as well.


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Success!


Katie and I camped in the backyard all night last night! She only yipped a couple of times. Could be because she had spent the entire evening barking at every possible imaginary thing for several hours. Maybe she wore herself out before we even went to bed. Once again she ran to the tent and was eager to get inside, where she plopped herself down in front of her mini window.

We both fell asleep almost immediately, and she only yipped once when the rusty red van with the squeaky tires came by to deliver the morning paper about 3:30 a.m., and again when we got a bit of rain around 5 a.m.

This morning at 7:30 she gently licked my face to tell me she needed to go out, just as she does every morning. I give her an A+ in camping!

Now she’s off to play with her new favorite toy.


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Camping and a sheltie…the true story of midnight adventure.

The truth is that Katie did rather well at camping last night. For awhile. I gathered up my stuff around 10:00; flashlight, cell phone, house keys, bottle of water, leash with sheltie attached..the usual stuff. It was difficult to juggle it all, particularly with the dog dancing around my feet in the dark. I picked her up and tucked her under one arm, balanced on my hip like a kid and off we went. Of course for some reason I put the tent up near the back of our yard, so half way there I put her down on the ground and we sprinted, with her dragging me behind on the leash, the rest of the way out to the tent. When we got there she stood on her hind legs and began pawing at the door, while I tried in the dark to get the thing unzipped. Could have used the flashlight then, but she freaks out at moving light, so I chose to work in the dark. She slipped through the small opening I achieved and by the time I got my rather larger self into the tent she was already perched on her “princess pillow” looking out the tiny window at the back of the tent. Contented.

Great, I thought. I’ll just slide under the sheets and we’ll both go to sleep. And mostly we did sleep, off and on, in between her waking up abruptly to check for dangerous camp-attacking marauders lurking somewhere out there in the darkness. She moved around a lot; from her princess pillow, to next to me on my mattress, then onto my pillow which I eventually donated to her cause just to get her to settle down. After that she moved back and forth between “her” two pillows and I slept in between her movements until 1:15 a.m. when something, some apparently very dangerous thing, caused her to begin to howl. Loudly. My husband who was home from work and watching TV in the house turned on the giant back yard floodlights. She howled louder. Non of my shushing (which I perfected in library school) could calm her down, so at 1:45 I gave up and took her back into the house.

I finished my night sleeping in the tent which seemed much too big and too lonely without her there. She, of course, slept on my side of the king size bed snug and warm in the master bedroom, certain that she had won the battle. Little does she know that we’re camping out again tonight!


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Camping out tonight

I got the tent set up again. Big pain, setting up this tent. I even spent some time in it this early evening with the dog and a book, seeing how she is. She likes the little window down near the floor in the back of the tent. I don’t know what the designers were thinking when they put a window down there. Probably not that a sheltie would be fascinated by all things outside. It’s getting dark out now…maybe time to call it an early night. However Katie the dog is currently barking ferociously at a mama deer and her baby who are standing in our backyard very near the tent. So maybe now is not the time to attempt to get her to go to sleep. I’m sure there will be more to this story.