The dog ate my...everything

L'il Abbey is a whopping 4 months old!

She has the body of a 7-month old lab pup, the strength of a bull, and the mentality of a coked out toddler. Love her to bits, but hellz, I was not prepared for this amount of investment! I knew it'd be work, but the 24-hour supervision gets exhausting! How do people have children?! Still, she has stolen a huge chunk of my heart…and my shoes…and my shirt…and my jeans...oh, and she killed my hard drive.

Yellowfoot here is turning into a true water hound and it's getting hard to keep her from hopping into every pond and puddle we encounter. It's really great that we have friends with dogs and one of those pooches is a swimmer to the core. She's an adult yellow lab (larger version of Abbey) and can swim for miles as long as there's a ball floating somewhere in the distance. I'm hoping Abbey's learning by example and it seems to be working so far. She's going to be so much fun to swim with when it warms up! I can't wait to camp with her. I'm not so sure how she'll sleep in a tent, but it should be hilarious.

Just spent a weekend in Halifax with N's fam. Fun to see them and really fun for them to meet Abbey. The fam wandered the market on Saturday (mmm…baclava) and I stayed outside with the pup (no pooches allowed), and she made a zillion new friends. I'm relieved to see that this bundle of energy has some manners with strangers, including small children and other dogs. She's best outside of the house, so the Halifax waterfront was a great spot for getting a little diversity into her life.

In non-pet news, the Blue Nose is less than 2 weeks away! Woohoo! My excitement has taken a while to perk up, to be honest, but I am now officially pumped to walk my third half marathon. Finding time to exercise regularly (for anything more than an hour at a time) has been a bit trickier since getting Abbey, but I spend more time wandering beaches and trails, so it all balances out. I hope. I've done a few 18km walks lately and they've been fine, so the 21 shouldn't be too much of a leap. The only pestering unknown is how fatigue may affect me. I'm hoping for a cool day. If it weren't so inconvenient, I'd wander through life with a water tower strapped to my back, but the Blue Nose has plenty of fluid stops to keep me cool. Oh, did I mention that the half walk starts at 7:30 in the morning? Yeah. Apparently there is a 7:30 in the morning too. Who knew? [Sue me, it's one of the few awesome benefits of being a company of one!]

I also tend to get a bit lost inside of my thoughts when I'm tired, so I'm hoping walking with 2 other people and an iPod will help. When my body gets tired, I tend to start noticing my movements more…convinced that I'm slapping my left foot more…wondering if it's an early predictor of drop foot. It's not a thought pattern that I'm proud to have and it only raises its head when I'm working myself hard. It bugs me that I can get lost in the worry when I'm tired, but I try to recognize it for what it is and get beyond it.

Continuing on the MS side of things, I'm still waiting for insurance to give me a green light for Avonex. I've paid for several months out of pocket so far and…well, that's not fun and my bank account is dwindling (Avonex is around $1800 a month). It's such a process, but I've been through the first steps - getting denied by the provincial government for funding. Fingers crossed that special authorization is a go!

Overall, life is great. I've had a few external reminders recently that every moment is precious. I am grateful for this life the universe has carved out for me, MS and all.