New House

We finally got the internet connected today, hurray! It also occurred to me as I was glancing over the posts that I had written in the middle of my 12 hour overnight shifts at the ranch, that I never actually wrote about the resolution to our housing problem. Not that it was anything dramatic or inspiring. We just got lucky that a block of houses on base just got finished and approved for residency. There was, of course, no lack of squealing and jumping up and down when we got the call.

So, new house! Brand new house! We are officially the first residents which is at the same time awesome and daunting. I was putting the dish with baked spaghetti in the oven tonight and noticing how incredibly shiny the inside of the oven was... shinier than any I'd ever seen. Now I'm scared to death of messing it up. Oh well, do our best to keep it looking nice, especially since we'll have to pay for every little nick in the moldings!

Overall, life is good and the house is amazing. There have been a few snaffus, but nothing that isn't easy to deal with. We were warned that the foundation might still be settling, and to watch out for cracks along the walls for that reason. With our luck, of course, there were. As we were beginning to move our stuff into the house out of the garage, where we unloaded the moving truck to, we got a knock on our door from the maintenance guys. Apparently someone had been by for a last-minute inspection and noticed cracks in the downstairs bathroom. They guys were really nice (and loved the dogs). They got the cracks patched up (found another one on the stairs and in the kitchen, boo!) and everything is good as new. We just have to keep an eye out for more cracks appearing so they can fix them before they become an issue.

The other small issue is the yard... lack of yard, rather. Due to the flood, there have been strict watering bans in place for a while as the city tries to conserve clean water. Because of this, the landscaping around the new units is a little behind schedule. So we don't have a lawn. We have dirt. And, as of yesterday, a few shrubs out front. The only real problem with this (other than it looks kind of ugly and I don't get to feel the soft grass between my toes while hanging out outside with the dogs) is that we have to wait until the lawn has grown enough for the root system to be established before they'll give us control and responsibility of it. Which means we can't put up a fence yet. There are really strict pet restrictions on base, so if I put my dogs out on their tethers, I have to sit out there with them. It makes it harder to let them outside to potty while I'm getting ready for work in the morning, but it just means I'll have to be up a few minutes earlier. Oh well. I'm sure I can live. The important thing is that we should be able to have a fence up by winter before it starts to snow. I'll be really sad if I have to sit out there with them during a blizzard...

The advantage is that I've gotten to take them on some nice long walks since we moved in, exploring the neighborhood. Had to put them back in their gentle-leaders, as apparently coming to a new place means that they no longer remember any of the training from before, but they're remembering quickly with the head-collars back on.

So life is good. Moving forward Trying not to dwell on what we can't control. Unpacking is tedious, but we're working on it, slowly and steadily. Learning the new way of life that comes with living on a military base. Overall, things are looking up again. Which is a nice change of pace, certainly.

#28 - back again!

Apparently when I made my list I had a double in there somewhere. I don't remember what it was that I had doubled, but I deleted one of them and there has been an empty spot staring at me ever since. I finally decided on a goal to put in there, though I feel like it's cheating a little bit since it's something that I'm planning on doing anyway, but heck, it's still an accomplishment! The store that I work at decorating cakes always enters the competition at the Annual Grocers convention. Or something. Anyway, usually, we clean up. They brought home five awards last year, including two first places, a second and a third. I don't know what the fifth was, unfortunately. Probably my boss's fish cake. But suffice to say, we've got a pretty good reputation. It's a high standard to live up to, but my friends have offered to help me with my cake to make sure it's competition worth. I'm working on deciding on a design that is doable right now. I found a really cute rocking horse cake that my friend wants me to do for my novelty entry. I'm going to have to see how my time is looking as the competition approaches, but I'm thinking of doing cupcakes as well. I'm picturing some sort of coral reef idea, though I'm not sure how I would put the display together and what I'm picturing might be completely outside of my ability level. Some more research and planning will definitely be in order.

Competition is the weekend of September 10th, so it'll be coming up soon.

In the meantime, this is overnight shift #2 and I'm almost finished. I'm really hoping that I have the hotel room to myself tonight so I can get some sleep. I'm not going to make it through night #3 if I don't get some rest today. I can't wait until we get back into Minot next week.

I'm also playing with a plan in my mind to start getting back into serious riding. There are a lot of variables though, so I'm going to hold off a bit before I reveal it to anyone.

Why you should practice running barefoot

To start off with, an uplifting update! We are in housing! We only had to stay at my friends' house fro about two and a half weeks before they had something ready for us on base, which is incredibly lucky. They just completed a new section of housing, so we're the first residents of our home! Which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the up side, no damage or anything from previous residents. Awesome. Disadvantage, since it's so incredibly brand new, a lot of things aren't quite as finished as they would ideally be. For example, we have no lawn. Just dirt. Which will eventually be lawn. Because of the flood, water conservation has been a major button issue lately (seems odd, doesn't it? Because there is too much water we need to conserve it? But the problem is clean water, since many water lines were broken or contaminated during the flooding) and therefore there was a ban on watering lawns. Putting down grass seed when you can't water is a waste of time, so they've been waiting. The ban has recently been lifted, so they're going to put down seed soon and we're hoping to have the grass up and the roots well enough established to "take over" the care of our lawn by the end of September, beginning of October. At that point, we can buy or rent (most likely rent, seeing as we don't know how long we'll be in Minot) fencing for the backyard so that we can let the dogs out to play without having to worry too much about them.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

I am not a very big person. I'm about five feet and one inch tall with a very petite frame. I weigh maybe 120 lbs. but if I were in peak physical condition (which I haven't been in quite a while) my ideal weight would probably be closer to 105-110. I own two large dogs who are both pushing 80 lbs. I am very adamant about good obedience training with them because, quite frankly, I can't rely on strength to control them. They're too big. I've spent a lot of time working on door training with them so that they know that they are not to run out the door as soon as it opens, but wait for me to go through first and then issue them an invitiation to follow. This has the dual purpose of reinforcing my place in the "pack" as well as preventing "door dashing" while they go gallavanting across the neighborhood. Apparently, though, being in a new house makes them forget everything they've ever learned.

I got up this morning shortly after Matt left for work and went to take the dogs out. We had set teather stakes close to the house so that we can let them wander a bit before we can get fencing put in, though base regulations require that we supervise them while they're tied up. Not too much of a problem. Both dogs were sitting politely behind me as I opened the door this morning and reached out to grab the teathers and hook them up. While I was bent over, Shadow slipped past me and trotted out into the yard.

It took him only a few seconds to realize that he wasn't attached to anything and that he could run, and with a joyous leap, he took off across the dirt that will eventually be the field between my house and the next. I swore with considerable color, slammed the door in poor Abby's face to keep her inside, and took off after him. Keep in mind that I had just gotten up. I had had the foresight to get dressed as there were supposed to be repair workers coming this morning to finish up some cracks that needed to be patched due to a settling foundation. So at least I wasn't running around bra-less in a way-oversized tank top and boxer shorts.

The difference between "the running game" when we're in a fenced area and when we're in the open with my dog, is that in a fenced area, it's "run in a circle, then come back for a scratch and run again". In the open, it's just "run as fast as I can! WHEE!" If it wasn't 8:30am and I wasn't terrified of a cop driving by and seeing my loose dog (leash laws are strictly enforced on base) I probably would have enjoyed seeing how incredibly happy he was about running. As it was, I was not amused in the least. I found myself hoping as we sprinted past other houses with fenced in back yards that someone would have a dog that would be outside already which would distract him long enough for me to get a hold of his collar. No dice. About 4 or 5 blocks later he found a bed of flowers with a very interesting scent, and I was able to walk up to him and grab a hold of his collar. I then stood there and heaved for a few minutes, as I don't know that I've ever sprinted that far before in my life. I am not normally the kind of runner built for speed. Wishing for a moment that I had a small dog that I could pick up and carry home, I then dragged him back by his collar, because I hadn't had time to grab his leash, and put him back inside.

My planned productive day of unpacking ended up being spent laying on the couch watching The Sound of Music because I had spent my entire day's worth of energy chasing the dog. I also took both dogs for an hour-long walk when the workers did show up, as they warned me that the mud they were using was going to stink something awful. The walk was more of a drag, because remembering training in a new palce is apparently incredibly difficult. I'm going to have to put both of them back in the Gentle Leaders for a while at least, until they remember how to walk on a leash.

The point is, I didn't even worry about not having shoes on, since that's how I always run. Now, my training runs are quite a bit slower than that and I haven't been training for the past few months, thus my exhaustion, but I didn't even hesitate to take off without shoes. And my feet feel fine now. I had a little bit of top of the foot pain, often associated with pushing yourself too hard in the barefoot world, but it has since subsided. I'm very surprised. If I'd tried to run that hard over uneven and soft terrain in running shoes, my ankles and knees would be killing me, and I ceratinly wouldn't be sitting cross-legged in this chair as I am, it woudl put too much pressure on the sore joints. It really is amazing what the human body is capable of. When I needed to, I didn't think at all about running or form, where to optimize my strike, my posture, staying relaxed. I just ran. My body just took over and did things right.

#99 Volunteering

Volunteering has always been a tricky subject for me. On the one hand, Heck yes! Volunteering! Helping your community! Awesomeness!
But on the other, I've always been crazy busy, and a lot of my "normal" activities are awfully feel good. Do I still need to volunteer when my job is helping teenagers recover from drug addictions and sexual abuse?

The answer, of course, is yes. There is no such thing as "good enough" when it comes to making the world a better place and helping out your fellow man. Trying to find a place to volunteer, that gets trickier though. Not that it's hard to find volunteer positions, but finding something that I'll actually enjoy and want to come back and do again, that's harder. I am unlikely to ever volunteer at a hospital because I just honestly don't like them very much. And anything that would be a fun job is probably a paid job, so I'd be miserable. And I'm not interested in misery. I want to volunteer as much to uplift my own life as those I'm helping. Which probably sounds selfish, but I think it's true of most people. I'm not adverse to hard work, but I want to get some benefit out of it, whether it's that feel-good feeling in your gut or just a fun afternoon. There needs to be some incentive and data-entry just doesn't quite make the cut, I'm afraid.

As I think I've mentioned before, Minot recently flooded. Like, holy bejeesus flooded. I've never been around this kind of flooding before and it's kind of freaky. Where I'm from, the water just goes down the hill and away. It's why you don't live right on the river. We get mudslides, but not standing water that lasts for months. Lots of people have been displaced and lost their homes. People are living in hotels and staying with friends. We were lucky enough to find friends who welcomed our animals into their home, but not everyone has that luxury.

So a shelter was set up with kennels and cages, a place that people could leave their pets until they were in a situation to reclaim them. Buildings were filled with dog kennels and distressed animals of all shapes and sizes. There were full-time volunteer staff there from Noah's Wish who took charge of the volunteers and the immediate care of the animals, but volunteers from the community were still needed for simply tasks like walking the dogs. The job served two purposes. First, it got the dogs out of their kennels for a little while, which was very good for all of them. Also, it gave the staff there a chance to clean the kennels while the dogs were out and occupied.

It wasn't a glamorous job. I didn't spend the day strolling leisurely around the property with well-behaved and grateful pets. I think that they might have judged you to some degree on the leash that you grabbed in the beginning (I grabbed a heavy-duty nylon leash as I'm used to larger animals and I'm not easily intimidated. The woman in front of me took a delicate pink leash with rhinestones on it). I walked 5 dogs in a period of 3 hours, ranging from "Zeus" who could not contain his enthusiasm for being outside (we ran a few laps around the property) to the little Irish setter who was so intimidated by the whole situation that he spent most of his walk with his belly close to the ground. I did manage to pull a few ticks off of his scruff while we were there though.

All in all, it was a good day. I was tired and thirsty and hot and my arms hurt from being dragged by ill-mannered dogs, but it was a good day. I went home feeling good about myself and glad that I was able to help. I still don't feel like Minot is "home" or "my community" but I'm still living here. And I can still help to try to make it a better place and to help the members of it, both two and four legged.

I'm also intrigued by Noah's Wish now. Reading through their website, it sounds like their trip to Minot is one of the tamer "deployments" that they go on. They're often out rescuing and providing first aid to animals in major disaster situations, like the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. It might be something to keep in mind. We'll see.