Christmas!

We had a great Christmas at the Long house in Cary, Brittney was off work Friday and Monday, and is now returning home to Winston on Tuesday morning. Dad had off work the same days and is also taking off Tuesday and Wednesday to get some work done around the house.

I decided that this year we should try a new church for Christmas Eve. We're Catholic and so we usually attend Christmas Eve Mass. Usually is a bit of an overstatement as Mass has become so dry and boring (the Catholic religion as a whole, in my opinion, has become out of touch) that we rarely attend, and can't really even call ourselves "Christmas and Easter Catholics" anymore. I looked up non-denominational churches in Cary and we went to Triangle Community Church and had a lovely service. The Children's groups sang a few songs at the beginning, then the band took over and we sang Christmas Carols for about 20 minutes, had about 25 minutes of a sermon, and then ended with more Christmas Carols. It was fun! It's still new to me that church can be fun and something to look forward to rather than dread.

It renewed my need to find a "church home", I've heard good things about Summit as well as Hope but haven't made the commitment yet, so if you have a preference, let me know and I'll check it out!

Anyway, hopefully this week will conclude with a little more work getting done by me, and a little less sleeping than before Christmas.

It's been a while

As usual, life got the best of me and blogging fell by the way side.

I finally finished my exams, Hallelujah! Exam week is the worst, I decided that I'd be happier staying in school longer and not taking exams, rather than the current situation.

The past few weeks have been crazy with finals and Christmas coming up and lots of doctors appointments, but now things have calmed down and I'm at home (all of twelve minutes from my apartment at State) for the break. It's really weird sitting down in the evening and not having a list of assignments I need to get done, it's a good feeling, but I can't help but think I'm forgetting something.

I (finally!) met Grace in person yesterday (Grace's Blog) at her MILA party. I won't do it justice by trying to explain it, but look up MILA and see if you think some of the health benefits could go to work in your life. I'm hoping it will help with my fibro and energy levels, others have reported that it does, so fingers crossed! I had a lovely afternoon spent learning about MILA and getting to know Grace better, I also got to meet her baby boy, Jansci, and her parents who were in town visiting. Grace and her husband have a communal living situation with another couple (http://longmirenews.blogspot.com/) who have a baby girl, so I LOVED getting to spend a little bit of time with the little ones. I love babies! They're my absolute favorite at that age, before the real talking and attitude begins :-).

Tonight, I'm going to Lights on the Neuse with my parents, we're hoping it can replace Tanglewood (http://www.forsyth.cc/parks/tanglewood/) for us here in the Triangle now.

 Anyway...here are some pics from Thanksgiving weekend with the fam :-)

The last one is of my sister and her bf, Brittney and Bryan. Sounds good together, no?
:-)

I thought today was going to turn out to be a rough day....I missed my first class as my professor, for whom I have no appreciation whatsoever, locks the door promptly at 8:30am. Which this morning was more like 8:29am because I stood outside the classroom door and watched the time on my phone tick away from 8:30 to 8:31am....oh well. I had a restful afternoon though and a lovely evening.
Tonight I visited WakeMed Cary with Pogo. We're a Hospitality Pet team and we visit consenting patients to help brighten up their day. 
Today we visited a woman who had been involved in a car accident several days ago, she was being kept for observation but was still in a lot of pain from the accident. She missed her dogs who were at home being taken care of by neighbors so she really enjoyed getting to visit with Pogo for a while.
I wish Pogo enjoyed it more than he does, he does it for me and not because he particularly likes it. I don't think he minds the attention but he's a mama's boy and it gets tiring for him to have to keep track of me all the time :-)

We go every other Tuesday for about two hours, or until I can tell Pogo is done. Tonight was a special treat for him because we stopped for fro yo on the way home and he got his own doggie fro yo.

I have a pooped pup for the night...we'll see how long this lasts :-)

By the way, who else is loving this weather?! The temperature is perfect! I thanked God all day long for such a wonderful day. With my Fibro, my body has a hard time regulating temperature so when it's so nice out I really appreciate it!

Gluten Free Goodness

As some of you may know, I recently (August '11) found out I was gluten intolerant. How did I find this out?
Well I cut it out of my diet completely and by the end of the week I was feeling tons better.
Many fibro patients eat gluten free because it helps with fatigue and sluggishness. For me I just feel all around better. I think it's also helped my digestion and reflux issues.
So, I'm feeling better: great! But...I have to be really dedicated to this because now if I slip up and eat something gluten-y a battle occurs in my stomach.
If this is all it takes to feel so much better, I guess I can handle it. But I can't start thinking about how I'll be able to do this for the rest of my life. Luckily, I'll be an actual engineer (God willing!) soon, not an engineering student, which will mean I'll have money and no longer will be a poor college student.
Gluten free food is so expensive!
I buy a lot of it at Whole Foods because they have a big selection in one place, especially when it comes to bread and baking mixes. Most grocery stores don't do a very good job of identifying gluten free good and also have a terrible selection, so it's very time consuming to go and read labels before I can buy anything. Wal-mart surprisingly has a fairly decent amount of gluten free food, I found gluten free bisquick there! It tastes pretty much the same, a little grainy, which is typical of GF food, but to make it there is no such thing as just add water. It calls for oil, eggs, milk, butter, etc. But, still much easier than starting from scratch.
If anybody has any ideas on good gluten free food or restaurants with gluten free options please let me know!

Pogo's Story cont.

Continued from the other day.... Pogo is currently asleep at the foot of my bed. I refuse to turn the heat on, or let my roommates turn it on because our apartment heats up so quickly, so he's snuggled in blankets at my feet.

     This is at my house house, not my apartment. But still a picture of him snoozing, or trying to :-)

         I got Pogo when I was 14 years old. I was in 8th grade and we lived in Memphis, TN at the time. It was not a good move for my sister and I, we hadn't adjusted well because we hadn't found a good barn for our horses, and starting new schools got harder as we got older. For myself, riding was as much about the social aspect as it was about the horses. When we couldn't find that same atmosphere as we had had in Jamestown, NC, I regret to say that I began to lose interest. But, I became more and more interested in dogs. Finally my parents caved. They could see how unhappy I was and they hoped that a puppy was just the thing to cheer me up. My mom likes to joke that I paid for Pogo in nickels and pennies, while this isn't quite the truth, it did take just about all the money I had at 14 years old.
           We found a breeder in the paper and went and visited his house on a Friday evening. My mom, sister and I drove way out in the country with no cell reception. We joked that if they turned out to be crazy and we couldn't call 911, at least we could throw the phones. Cell phones were much heavier in 2004. They turned out to be perfectly normal, if only just a little country, people who just happened to love Papillons. The litter had been four total, but only two were left. Two little boys. I knew I wanted a boy because our family dog is a girl and allegedly they get along better this way, who knows. I went down to their play pen, in the sun room. I climbed in and sat down on the floor. Immediately a little black, white, and brown fluff ball jumped at me. I caught him as he flung himself in my lap and I realized he had just chosen me...not the other way around :-) The other puppy was sweet but not nearly as interactive or playful, it also didn't have the correct coloring which was important to me. I also got to meet his parents and some of his older siblings, they were all the epitome of a Papillon. I fell in love right away but it was a lot of money and I needed to think about it. The man told us not to wait too long as other people were coming to see the puppies the next day.
        We went home and I thought and thought and talked it through with my parents and before long I knew I had to have him. We called the breeder back late that night and told him we would be at his house first thing Saturday morning to get my puppy. We got up early and back headed out to Millington, TN. I immediately went back to the puppies and looked at them again to be sure, but my mind was already made up. I counted out tens, fives, ones, and more than a few quarters which I'm sure the breeder really appreciated :-) Money is money, right?
          He gave us his pedigree, some shot records, AKC registration info, some dog food and toys and we were ready to go. After stopping at the pet store for toys, bowls, a collar and leash, etc we went home and got his crate set up for him and introduced him to Pumpkin (the family dog) and Pickles (my sisters cat). I spent the first few days with him constantly. It was spring time, the end of April, and the weather was nice enough to spend time outside, so I set up a little playpen on the deck and sat out with him all day for a week (it was Spring Break for me).
          I still remember his first night. His crate was in my room and I had been instructed by my agility trainer that he should sleep in the kennel from day one, not in bed with me (that lasted long....haha) or he would get too attached and not be independent enough. Somehow he managed to get out of the crate and climb down half the stairs crying. My mom heard him (their bedroom was on the first floor) and she came out to find him wedged up against the wall in the corner on a stair. Our stairs were hardwood until halfway up when they changed to carpet, he made it down the carpet steps but couldn't go any further. My mom spent the night on the couch with him whimpering into her neck. Thank you, mom! I really never heard him!

                                                                     Halloween 2008

To be continued later....

Trying again....

Last year I got the great idea that I would start blogging. I was following a few blogs at the time and they were a joy to read. I quickly realized that my life is certainly not interesting enough for a blog to be written about it. However, now that school has started again, I think I might be able to pull if off. So, I'm sorry if you get bored, I'll try harder this time :-)



Anywho...down to business. Something that has really piqued my interest lately (again) is dog training. I have a seven year old Papillon named Pogo who is such a love and I'm so thankful I have him! And I trained him myself. I adopted him when I was fourteen, and we've been together ever since (minus two years of dorm-living when my mom can tell you Pogo missed me just as much as I missed him). Now that I'm out of a dorm he lives with me almost full time, when things get really busy with school or extra curricular's my parents, who live in Cary, babysit for me. Just as I do for them when they travel, the family dog is Pumpkin who turned 16 in September!

I'll start at the beginning for now...

I did a lot of research before getting Pogo and I had been training Pumpkin to do all kinds of tricks but she was getting too old for it even seven years ago, so I decided I needed a dog I could train from the ground up. Somehow I convinced my parents to let me get a dog :-) I paid for him with my own money, although my parents paid for his food, vet visits, toys, etc, until I started a big-girl job and was able to afford it.

So I started searching classified ads for Papillon puppies in the area, not easy to come by if you know anything about the breed. I chose a Papillon mostly because I love their personality. They're usually described as a self-assured little dog who has no idea he only weighs 4-9lbs, and it's so true! Pogo is great little watch-dog, very alert, very busy, and very curious. I've said since I've had him, "If I don't keep him busy, he'll find something on his own to do and chances are I won't like the results". Papillons are also number two on the list of dogs rated by intelligence, just behind Border Collies and just before German Shepherds.

If I could go back and train him again I would do everything the same....except for socialization. Papillons are fine boned little dogs and if a big dog playfully swat a paw at him, it could cause serious damage. Same goes for children, they could unintentionally drop or squeeze him too hard and the outcome could be very serious. As a fourteen year old with my precious new ball of fur (he was two pounds when I got him!), I was very protective. I let him play with our family dog, (she's only twelve pounds), and my family, but not many other people or animals. As a result, I raised a very needy dog...sigh. Papillons aren't lap dogs, though they're small and fluffy delicate looking dogs, they are too smart to be happy sitting on your lap all day. They much prefer to have a job. They excel in obedience, agility, rally, and even herding small animals like ducks or sheep.

This has gotten longer and in a different direction than I had intended, so I'll continue later.