Ah shoot

I somehow forgot what email account goes with this blog and now I have to post from my app until I figure it out. Anyone have me on their watch list that can see my email? Lol 

Sunny Days and Healthy Choices

Hello Tuesday.

The days are slowly getting longer and one wonderful thing about the approaching summer is that waking up at 5:30am no longer means walking down into the pitch black of night. Today I got to enjoy the first rays of sunshine on my back as Zoey and I walked to the car. The daycare is lit up and running from where I park to the entrance is no longer a game of ‘omg-its-dark-and-someone-is-gonna-get-me.’

This stunning weather we’ve been having has just done wonders to my mood. One day, I hope to own a beautiful house with Corey that has tons of big windows to let in all the summer sun it can. Yep. Its hard to feel bad when the sun is shining.  I cant wait for summer. I am determined to spend as much time outside as possible.

Despite the glorious dawn, I still failed to spot a HUGE spiderweb that was made on the door of my clients house when I went to go pick up their dog. Ew, ew, ew. I keep wiping my face or patting down my clothes because I am not sure if I have a spider on me. *Shudder*

I’m currently downing a huge bottle of water. Corey and I started working out almost three weeks ago and I’ve done workouts all but three days. Go me! Paired with eating healthy and starting a fitness Instagram to motivate us, it’s been going pretty darn good. I even bought a yoga mat for work so when the dogs have their down-time, I do a number of exercises. I have 100 days

100 days!

Until pender and I am determined to have a rocking beach body. Corey and I bought me some bikinis that are adorable but I’ve never been totally comfortable in my own body. That’s gonna change soon. I’m already seeing changes. Dropped half an inch off my stomach and my thighs. I’m  sloooowly looking leaner again which is nice. The weight on the scale is what’s bothering me but I have to remember that muscle weights a lot more than fat does.

The bottom picture is also comforting! Look how toned she is and her weight went up! Yay =)

 Anyway, I’m getting much better at doing the plank and I have been learning all sorts of cool exercises. The hardest part of it all is eating though. I tossed all the chips, junk food and pop in the house and bought nothing but healthy choices on our last couple of grocery shops. Thing is, I loooove cooking and I loooove eating. Favorite things and habits are hard to change. Yesterday I had a sweet craving so bad that I was eyeing the hot chocolate mix and considering just downing a spoonful of that to sate my craving but I opted for grapes instead. I bought and cut up a ton of fruit and put them in separate tupperwear containers so Corey and I can just grab one and take it with our lunch. Healthy choices yo. I struggled passing a new mini cinnamon donut cart at the flea market on Sunday. Good god those things smelled sooo good.

Right now I just want a platter full of candy, fried foods and chocolate. Arg!

A little bit of everything

Soooo. This past week has been quite busy. Remember that job I wrote about last week? Yeah, that didn’t last long. From the moment I walked into my first shift I felt uneasy. I didn’t like the atmosphere, I didn’t like the obsessiveness of the cleaning regimen, I just didn’t like it. Nothing felt right there. It was an emotionally cold place and it didn’t hold the friendly, animal loving environment that I had expected. I never really liked the idea of kennels in the first place but then I thought that I would give it a chance. People who start kennels must love animals right? They are providing a safe and loving place for them to stay while their family is away. Right?

That’s not how this place felt. I understand kennels need to be clean and sanitary but the level of obsessiveness was obscene. Certain cleaners for certain areas used with specific sized cloths and scrubbers. Squeegeeing out kennels must be done in three strokes all in a particular order. Same goes with squeegeeing the floor after mopping it in a certain way. No modifications. There are signs everywhere that say lists upon lists of things to clean and do. None of which involves giving the dogs love and care. On top of one of these lists read “Just because something was done already doesn’t mean it can’t be done again.”

Wtf. We wiped one counter close to 7 times. It was clean the first time we did it! Carrying along with this OCD mayhem was how storage boxes had to be situated perfectly in line with kennel door hinges. Paper notices with lists of items inside the storage boxes had to be perfectly taped in a certain way. The girl training me even went back to re-adjust one she just did, stating that the owner would start tweaking out if she saw it misaligned or if the storage box got bumped and was a tad tilted. Red flag?

For the first couple of hours we were there we didn’t get to interact with any of the dogs. Clean, clean, clean, clean. Running back and forth like chickens with their heads cut off. Finally 11 o clock rolled around and it was time to let the dogs out to exercise. The whole day I had my eye on this one big dog that I desperately wanted to pet. All the dogs run out into the yard like they’ve never seen blue sky before. With my past experience with dogs and knowing what to do, I waited for the dogs to file out and saw the one I wanted to meet most. He was slow and calm, just sniffing the ground. I called him over and got him to sit. Finally I got to give him a good pat and scratched him all over. He looked like he was in heaven and all he wanted to do was sit there and be close to some sort of interaction.

The owner tells me then that at the kennel they don’t pet the dogs for 5-10 minutes after they get out so that they can calm down. Fuck that. The dogs are only outside for half an hour during my 6 hour shift and what then, each of them gets maybe a minute of one on one interaction. Shit. This seems more like a concentration camp than anything.

The dogs are outside for half an hour before being let back inside. More cleaning commences until we’re off about an hour and a half later. I’m then handed the most ridiculous contract ever. Three pages of double sided bullshit. No working at any other related business for 2 years after leaving this kennel. If you’re part time, you must provide full time attention to the kennel, no second jobs, any ideas I have while on the job strictly belong to the kennel.  The list goes on. Jesus. This wasn’t feeling right. I have never not wanted to go back to work that bad before. After talking it out with Corey and my friends I decided that this place wasn’t for me. I wouldn’t ever leave Zoey there, so why would I want to put my name behind a company like that.

Ugh!

I felt like passing out when I sat down to make the phone call. It wasn’t as bad as I expected but they wanted the contract back. WTf? Print out more pieces of paper you cheap-os.

All in all I’m glad I got to experience that so I know for sure what kennels are like now.

On a lighter note, Nicole and I are business owners! We started our own in home dog obedience company and we couldn’t be more excited. We had our first client on Saturday and it went surprisingly well! Four people came to attend because they all live with the dog and it was great seeing them all ask questions and engaging in his obedience. Nicole and I make a super team. We flowed so well together and I know with practice we will be dog whisperers of our very own. We hope that this little side business will help out not only our finances but our future careers too. I can’t wait!We need to figure out a logo soon so we can get business cards and letterheads going. The pressure is on though. This is our very own company. I want the logo to be perfect and exactly what we want so as per usual, art block swings on in. Lame!

In other news, Corey and I will be moving by the end of the month. Not all bad though. I will miss these stomping grounds as we’ve been here for over 3 years but our new suit looks amazing. Its ~1100sf compared to our 900 right now. It had two big bedrooms, a HUGE bathroom with two sinks and an all glass shower and tub, a kitchen island, washer/dryer, dishwasher, tons of counter space and a fiiiiiiireplace! Good god I think I’m going to love it there. They even will allow us to have a BBQ in the back yard. Did I mention that we get a parking spot too? That will be sweet. No more hiking a few blocks to our suit. Haha

Well

So I started my new second job today. Honestly, I don’t know if I like it. I should be fair and give it more than a single shift to develop an opinion about it but you know how they say first impressions are the most important?

I dunno, we will see if all this time and effort is worth the extra 120 bucks a week.

Yesterday was a pretty good day though. Work, walking dogs in the sunshine then going for a run with zoey at Campbell Valley Park. It was beautiful out and I got to feed the chickadees from my hand. So cool. I haven’t got to do that since feeding the Whisky Jacks up at Coldwater Creek.

More running around lead to dinner with my family and grandma. I really need to visit her more often. Can we have a few more hours in a day please?

Warmth

There's something almost obscenely delicious about sitting down in a car warmed by the sun on cool days.