Operation Move January 2014

Last year I joined in with Kate and participated in Operation Move. Well, Kate has joined forces with Zoey and together they have created Operation Move community.

 

Now apart from wanting to get fit and healthy, we are attending a wedding at the end of January and after being a lounge lizard since at least July, I'm unsure whether I will fit in the dress that I am planning to wear. So fit, healthy and slimmer was the idea behind my plan had been to walk 7.5 to 8 Km's every day in January. Luckily I woke up to myself, because after not actually doing much walking since August, I decided it was a really dumb and possibly injury causing idea.

Instead, I've signed up over at Op Move and joined the Walk 400 Challenge. The premise is to kickstart January by walking 400 minutes over the course of the month. Now that's more achieveable and much more sensible. I'm using Runkeeper to keep track of my activity. This is what I've done so far:

 

 

 

Of course I need to go in to every entry to see my times but that's okay. So far I have recorded 222 minutes and 32 seconds of walking. That's not a bad start to the month and the Walk 400 challenge. I'm hoping to get more like 1000 minutes but I'd be really happy with 800 minutes.

My Word for 2014

You may have seen this floating around Facebook.

Mr E. had jokingly suggested that I use it to come up with my word for the year which I have done for the last few years with the wonderful Bron from Maxabella loves.

The first three words I saw were:

experience,

love and

success.

I didn't really think of any of those as words that I wanted to strive towards or use to describe my expectations this year. I was considering using Focus because I think I need to do that. But then I thought about the things I want to do this year: a family holiday to Uluru, go to see the Lion King on stage and go to the Gold and the Incas exhibition at the Australian National Gallery. These are all things I want to do, I want to experience things.

Image from http://www.ventiq.com/experience/

Here are the definitions from the Free Online Dictionary:

ex·pe·ri·ence (noun)

1. The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.

2. a. Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair.

2. b. The knowledge or skill so derived.

3. a. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.

3. b. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.To participate in personally; undergo: experience a great adventure; experienced loneliness.

I’m really wanting to be a more active participate in events in my life in 2014. I’m sure I will experience a lot of things this year, both positive and negative. I think my attitude will have a lot to do with the way I see things. This Victoria Holt quote appeals to me.

Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.

- Victoria Holt

Here’s the link to Maxabella Loves Word for 2014. What word is your word for 2014? Why not join in or even just check out the words others have chosen for 2014?

Farewell to our beautiful dogs

On New Years Eve, our 12 year old Labradors Serious Dog and Smiley Dog went over the rainbow bridge. I haven't posted a lot about them but they were a big part of our family. They were half brothers from different litters 8 months apart. Serious Dog chose Boy Child to be his when Boy Child was 2. Boy had seen an ad on TV for the guide dogs and said "I love that yellow dog, Mummy." I had always wanted a dog but I grew up in a house with cats so it didn’t take much to convince me. We looked around and found a reasonable priced litter of puppies within a reasonable drive and the rest was history.

Boy child and Serious Dog

 

A very tired pup

 

About 8 months later I was on training course in the same town where we got Serious Dog. One of the bonding activities had us walking around town and I noticed that there was a little pup all alone. I felt bad for the pup all by himself and discovered that the pup had the same father as Serious Dog but a different mother. At the time I was planning on getting my motorbike license and a motorbike and I rang to chat to Mr E. I was prepared to give up my motorbike dream if I was able to bring the pup home. So our family grew to include another dog.

Smiley Dog

 

Once at home together, they were a force of nature and inseparable.

 

We used to have a sprinkler system but it was eaten.

 

They were always together as puppies

 

And as adults (Serious on the Left, Smiley on the Right)

 

They both had health problems but the last half of 2013 was bad for Serious Dog. But in the end he had a fast growing tumour in his mouth.  It was melanoma and it appeared quickly. It was cut out but it grew back. Serious Dog wasn’t in pain but on New Years Eve we were told he would be to be put down by the end of this week. So we made the decision to have it done later that afternoon.

As Smiley was deaf (read here) and blind he was utterly dependant on Serious. He also had severe separation anxiety which meant that anytime Serious was away from home, Smiley stand at the gate or back door and just howl mournfully.  We (and the vets involved) felt that it would be cruel to force Smiley to adapt to life without his brother. It was an extremely difficult decision to make.  Heart breaking, really.

They went to sleep peacefully and lying down next to each other.  Afterward, Smiley Dog’s tail moved as though he was wagging it. I know it was just a side effect of the medicine but I have taken a bit of comfort from that. He never held his tail still so I have taken that as a sign that he was okay with our decision.

Goodbye my boys. You will be forever in our hearts and memories. Thank you for being part of our family and for showering us with love. You are very missed.

Happy 2014!

It's been a long time between posts again. I've got no excuse or explanation. It just happened. I also haven't read many (or any) blogs during my hiatus. I did try to keep up but every time I went to read some posts I literally had hundreds (even thousands) of posts waiting from me. And that was overwhelming. I know that in my absence bloggers children have been born, bloggers family members have died and still others have left blogging. I'm sorry that I have missed all these things.

So I need to say belated Congratulations on the arrival of your babies, my condolences on the death of your loved ones and there are some bloggers who I will really miss reading.

My word for 2013 was Connect. In January I wrote:

My plan is to connect with people, to make new connections and to strengthen those I already have. I need to make connections with schools to get some work and stay connected to my family (both nuclear and extended). I would like to help connect my children with their peers and friends as well. Part of my plan is to also have time with my husband. We need to connect with each other as adults as well as parents.

I didn't do so well connecting this year. I stopped blogging back in August so I haven't been connected to the blogosphere. Mr E. and I haven't really had much time together as adults. That said, we will be going out to a museum and to have lunch later this week.

Because my work hours changed a few times, I didn't really manage to catch up with many of my friends. I made a point to schedule coffee time with my friend W (a widow who I have spoken about here and here) but it seemed just a bit too difficult getting together with the others. I only managed 2 catch ups in about 15 weeks. I guess the people who are true friends will always be there for you even when you don't see them.

Boy Child went to a things with friends so he was connected but I dropped the ball a bit with Girl Child's connection to her peers. That said she also did the Cool Kids program in Term 4 to help with her anxiety. We haven't seen that much difference at home but I heard that it made a big difference at school.

While in my personal life I didn't do so well, I did connect with people in my work life. I participated in the Secret Buddy (like a Secret Santa but all year round) as well as giving and receiving presents for Christmas (I've never worked anywhere where gifts were given). Of course I was connected to the two teachers I worked directly with as well as all the kids I worked with. I'm calling that a win.

I hope that everyone is doing well. Happy New Year. I don't don't New Years Resolutions but I am going to put more focus on things I haven't done so well this year.  I think Focus might be my word for 2014 but that will be another post.

Here's to fresh beginnings.

Photo A Day August 2013

While I enjoy looking at photos, I'm not a fan of having mine taken. I also think that photos I take tend to suck. Despite this, I thought I would participate in Chantelle's Photo A Day for August. I won't be posting my photos every day (as you can tell I'm already behind) but I will be trying to post my photos once or twice a week.

Here's the list of prompts for August 2013:

I think some of the styles that other people have used to show their photos look great so I'll also be playing around formatting etc. Anyway here are my first three photos for the month my something starting with N is a notice, incomplete is a blog post and the skyline comes from a bush walk Mr E. and I went on.

Are you playing along?