Back To School

Well, time has once again flown. According to the date on my last blog, I was away from this page for about a week and a half. It's been a very busy time.
The Dog is settling in quite nicely, though she is incredibly energetic and enthusiastic in her love for everyone and everything. The Cats are not nearly as impressed with the new addition and take every possible opportunity to try to explain this fact to the dog, who is, very amusingly, absolutely clueless. The harder The Cats hiss, spit, yowl, growl, and slash, the more she thinks they are playing and so tries to get them into a rousing game of tag. Tail wagging, barking, lunging playfully, running away and back, tongue hanging halfway to the floor....if it weren't for the fact that The Cats are in such obvious fury, it would be absolutely hilarious to watch for hours.
We are crate training, as she is a year old with no training of any kind. This is a tough one, as she tends to whine and cry for the first little bit after being put in the crate. She settles down and seems quite happy to be there after the first little bit, and the accidents are nearly nil, since we can get her straight out of the crate and into the yard, and when she is not in the crate, it's because we can be right there with her and hopefully catch the signs and get her out before the dreaded squat....but those sad eyes and the squeaking when she'd rather not be in there is heartbreaking. But I am told that it will be worth it for all in the end, once she is trained enough to be allowed access in and out without having to close the crate door, and it becomes, simply, her "space".
We will be taking her for a major outing today to a Duckie Race....they are dropping 25000 duckies in the river. We paid for 4 of them. We realize our chances are pretty slim, but it sure would be cool to have one of our duckies place in the top 20.
Daughter is back in school now, and loving French Immersion Grade 1 with a passion, which is wonderful to see. Son starts 3 year old preschool this Wednesday, and is excited about that as well, and for ease of remembering, it also happens that both kids' teachers have the same last name.
I'm enjoying having Daughter in school all day. I love her dearly, but it's a lot easier to only have one child (well, one child, two cats, one dog, and an overgrown kid) to worry about for 8 hours. Once The Dog settles down (she gets fixed this week, too, which I'm told will help *crossing fingers* to settle her down), hopefully it will be easier to focus on keeping the house clean and other stuff, without having to constantly keep an eye on her or clean up after her.
I have been going to the track lately, to jog, since the weight room has been shut down for yearly maintenance. I haven't been going as often as I should have, but I am quite proud of myself when I do go. I am the slow jogger on the track....I pass the walkers about once every 3 laps. The regular joggers pass me about every 2 laps. But all the same....I do 10 laps each time (plus one of fast walking to stop my legs from running away with me on automatic), and each lap takes about 2 minutes. They posted the length of each lap, and so on Saturday, I apparently jogged 2.2 km in 20 minutes. Not bad, I suppose. A friend of mine started a routine where he was going to record how far he ran on his treadmill each day in an effort to "run" as far as Vancouver. If I were to do that to my dream destination, it would take me halfway to forever.....but it would be an incentive to go to the track, I suppose. I went twice this past week, so i jogged 4.4 km. That doesn't get me very far. If I go by Google maps, to get from my house to Montreal is 2975km. At that rate, it will take me a little less than 1353 days at the track. If I go as often as I intend to, it will take me almost 270.5 weeks. A little over 5 years. Ouch. Oh well, maybe in time I will increase my laps and thereby reduce the time.