Planning session

I had to work late tonight, trying to close one of my books, poor Cadie had to wait an extra hour for her walk. She had a good time though. We headed to the park to chase the ball around for about 30 minutes--there has to be some benefit for a girl who waited an extra hour.

I'm currently rethinking my career. I'm wondering if I shouldn't recareer. As I've hinted, I've been struggling at work, sitting at my desk, hating my life. I have been wondering lately if I should become a dog walker. I'm wondering if it's just my imagination or if it would be too perfect for words to spend my day, and earn my keep doing the something that seems almost ridiculous.

In the mean time, I'm going to focus on walking Cadie

An Optimistic Moment

So realized today that I have not been blogging, as I said in an earlier post, I have been sick for a good chunk of the month, aside from that I have spent a lot of time in introspection. I realized that I have been obsessing about everything that is wrong in my life, and not doing what I had promised myself I would do, focus on the positive. So I needed a break, but when the fog from the allergies, et al started to lift I started to feel better about a lot of things.


The weather is getting warmer, which means more time spent outside, which will help with the weight, it will also mean more time spent with friends, which will just make me happier. Also, better weather means a happier dog, and a happy dog means a happy me.

Unfortunately I have not done much posting in April, but I hope that I will be more committed to it in May. The GYST plan is set to heat up, and I am very optimistic.

Where's Patti

So where have I been, and why haven’t I been posting. I was hoping that Easter had been the worst of it, but then I spent another weekend in bed, and I decided to focus on getting better. So I made up my mind that I would not push myself last week, you know, that I would do what I needed to do to get by with, but beyond that I wasn’t going to be reaching for any stars. The plan seemed to work, by last Saturday I was feeling a lot better. But by Sunday at 4 I was back in bed, and I stayed in bed until a doctor’s appointment Monday mid day. I did force myself out of bed on Tuesday, only to be home from work by 2, I was also home today. So that is most of April that I have spent capitulating to this respiratory infection/allergies. The good news? I’m on the mend, and looking forward to getting back on my feet.


Poor Cadie has been such a good sport. She hasn’t pushed me at all, but I can tell by looking at her that she is so frustrated. She has all of this pent up energy that we need to burn through. We headed out, for what I had been hoping would be a big, long walk, but ended up being a short one. Oh well, maybe tomorrow night.

Walking Salt and Cadie

I walked Salt and Cadie again today, and this time I won. I managed to get all the way to the end of the walk, which was a huge victory. I also discovered my mistake, the other times I was walking them I was letting Salt set the pace, this time I didn’t, I dragged her along and we had a great walk, a little longer than normal, but a great walk none the less. So now, I am full of confidence that I could handle another dog. I don’t think I’ll get a second one just yet though, I’m really starting to like our routine.

Monday's Lamentations

So I’m at home on this beautiful night, which also happens to be the Jays home opener. So what you may say, well, I had bought tickets for this event back in February. So all of my friends are family are at the game, I am watching from home, and my seat is being used for coats. Why would a person miss something that they had obviously been eagerly anticipating since winter? I am sick. I don’t know what I have, I hope it’s nothing more serious than a cold, but I’m a mess. I woke up this morning at 5, sneezed 15 times, and headed back to bed until 6. I got up again at 6, sneezed another 25 times and decided that it would be irresponsible to spread this to all the unsuspecting commuters on the subway and headed back to bed until 8:30.


I had high hopes when I went to bed last night. Saturday had been a bad day, but I couldn’t go to bed early because I was involved in an intrigue involving C’s husband. It’s nothing salacious, C’s husband and I were planning a surprise party for her, and I had to play my role. So I got C out of the house, but I screwed up royally, although C had no idea that we were doing anything at all, I was almost an hour late getting her to her party. That meant that most people had a little less than an hour before they had to leave, which was terribly unfortunate. On the plus side, for me anyhow, I left C’s place at 8, and was in bed by 9:30.

Sunday was terrible, a good friend of mine was in town, and I had made plans to meet her and her husband for brunch. But I cancelled at 8:00 am, and spent the day in bed.

Cadie has been such a good little sickie friend. She hasn’t been too demanding, and she has been good company. That being said, one of the challenges of being single is that you are the only resource you have. That means that even if you are not feeling well you still have to get up and walk the dog. Sunday I took Cadie on a bit of an adventure. Our path is fairly clear, but has some tree coverage off to one side. In amongst the trees is a narrow path, worn by a million doggy feet. I however, don’t trust Cadie off leash on the path, so I took her up to the narrow, dog-feet-worn path, and I did my best not to slip while I was up there.

Cadie it turns out is a hunter. She was not interested in walking along and smelling things, instead she decided to lie in wait for some prey. Which might have worked had her huge mother not been standing beside her, giving away her location.

Fortunately today was better, we got to the park for a good run, but I can see that all of this resting is taking its toll on her, she’s anxious and stir crazy, so I’m hoping to get her out for a good long walk, and run at dog park tomorrow. I am finally feeling human again.

Drama Queen

Poor Cadie, she thought she was going on a play date to the park, we were within view of the park when the freezing rain started. Salt’s mother stopped, turn to me and said, “this isn’t pleasant is it?” So we stopped, turned around and headed for home. Surprisingly Cadie didn’t object, she just quietly headed back with the rest of us.


Seeing as today is Friday, A and I decided to treat ourselves with Chinese for dinner, very yummy. All the drama that Cadie didn’t give us about not going to the park was poured out over dinner. She begged shamelessly for a sniff. She sneakily tried to slide her head below our blocking hands to steal food from A’s plate. When all of this failed she jumped up on the coffee table (oversized foot stool, so it’s okay), turned her back on us and sighed, loudly several times. When she finally felt that she could forgive us she turned back around and gave us the wounded bird look, that dogs give you to try to get their way. It was all very funny.

Uter is happily swimming away is his overly full tank, and Cadie is sleeping on the couch. Great Friday.

Changing Direction

Having a plan means a lot more responsibility. It means that I can look at it and tell when I’m not on track. The day started out with me feeling like that, but now I think that I am more on track than I was before the Easter break. This afternoon I hit the place that I was dreading, I walked out of a brief meeting and knew that I could do nothing more to improve my situation at work. To be honest in everything that I have been through I never felt so helpless as I did at that point. It was easily my lowest moment. It also left me with a huge dilemma to sort out. I had some great company this evening. I made a delicious meal, had some more great company, and now, with only 30 minutes until bed I feel a lot better.


What’s the difference? I have decided to back off of the fruitless pursuit of fixing my job/career. This is not the time, I have put so much work and energy into this and I have not seen a single improvement, so it’s time to walk away. Treat it like a job, just the way I used to when I worked at Biway or Laura Secord. Instead I’m going to focus on fixing my home, and regaining my sense of pride in myself and my home. This makes me feel like a weight has been lifted from me. So now I am choosing colours, and talking about where furniture should sit. What a breath of fresh air.

I replaced the water in Uter’s tank tonight, so he is swimming away like a brand new turtle. Cadie has settled in to bed for the night, so everyone is happy.

Poor Cadie

Poor Cadie. The first truly great weekend of the year and she had to spend it inside with her sick mom. I headed out to my mum’s on Friday afternoon, and by late Friday afternoon I was in bed. This was supremely disappointing to Cadie. My Mum has a new rabbit, which fascinated Cadie, unfortunately she was stuck in the bedroom with me. My Mum’s dogs were in and out of the house, playing in the back yard, not Cadie, she was stuck with me. I did manage to get her out for at least 1 walk a day, so she did get some exercise.


The saddest moment of the weekend happened Sunday morning; my mother was taking her Roz out for an early walk, and my brother was taking his dog, Griffin, out for a walk. Cadie saw this happening, and came flying down to come and tell me. Unfortunately I was still not up for going for a walk, so poor Cadie had to sit at home while all the other dogs got to go out and enjoy the sunshine. I made it up to her, I took her out after dinner, and the other dogs had to stay home.

Today we had to see the vet. We get along well with out vet. It’s fantastic, she’s mobile, so I head over to my mum’s, and get a book, or turn on the TV, and when it’s our turn she shows up at the door. We love it. It also means that Cadie doesn’t have to deal with the stress of going to the vet’s office. Now, we are back to trial and error with Cadie’s food. I need to start keeping a food diary to try to get to the root of her digestive issues. Anyway, I should go and brush her, so that I can give her a chewy stick.