How Could I Forget this Feeling?!

September 19, 2016 By The Jolly Runner in Colorado, dogs, exercise, family, grief, Jolly Runner, running Tags: Colorado, Dogs, Family, Gunnison, Jolly Runner, Panic Attack, Running, summer 1 Comment

This weekend was supposed to be a great weekend away. I was excited about the getaway but there was a lot that needed to be done before I headed out of town to meet Brandon in Gunnison. I had to work in the morning and host a big meeting, pack, get the house ready for the pet sitter, track down our new iPhones that were being shipped separately and by different carriers, and get out of the house so I could make the 3 ½ hour drive in time for dinner. This was all after a super stressful work week with lots of events whose success laid on my shoulder and a 12 hour day. There was a lot on my to do list and suddenly I notice a huge lump on our dogs ear. Paterno had a hematoma on his ear in August that the vet drained and said either it would come back or not – it chose to come back twice as large as the first one. So, along with everything else that needed done I also needed to run Paterno to the emergency vet to make sure it was okay to leave him with the pet sitter for the weekend. We get to the emergency vet and were told our wait would be several hours. I could feel the minutes ticking away and myself getting later and later. One of the vet techs took mercy on me and told me she would look at Paterno and let me know if he needed to be seen that day or if we could schedule something for later in the week. She checked him over and told me the hematoma was relatively small (I would hate to see a large one because this one seemed pretty crazy) and scheduled Paterno for an appointment and potential surgery on Tuesday. I ran Paterno back home, finally tracked down our phones, and headed out the door with exactly 3 ½ hours until our scheduled dinner. While I finally made it out the door and on my way to our mini-vacation I just felt stressed and anxious.

Fast forward a couple of hours…I made is safely to Gunnison, enjoyed a nice dinner, and headed to an observatory to check out the stars. As we are getting ready to leave the observatory all sorts of warning lights lit up my dashboard and stated with quite urgency that I needed to have my car serviced. But, it was almost 10pm in a town that doesn’t have a Chevy dealership that is open on the weekends. I tried to put the car trouble out of my mind and decided that now is a good time to activate my new iPhone 7. To match the rest of my day the phone would not transfer my old data and just kept giving me all sorts of error messages. Finally, I surrendered to the day and tried to sleep but spent the night tossing and turning stressing out about Paterno, the car, and the thought that I’m wasn’t going to be to have any phone access.

When the alarm went off I get out of bed and still feeling overwhelmed and anxious. I realized I was on a mini-vacation and I am too stressed to enjoy it. I was being snappy and mean and felt like I was seconds from a full-fledged panic attack.

Now that I have set the stage of my fragile mental state I will fill in the details about my running. Last Friday I decided, on a whim, I was going to get a tattoo on my foot (the tattoo wasn’t a whim I had been planning that for months, waking up one day and deciding today was the day I was going to get it was the whim). The tattoo artist said I shouldn’t run for three days but after that it should be okay. After three days I was still nervous and decided to take a whole week off to let the tattoo heal. For some reason I irrationally thought that running would cause the tattoo to wear off (I do realize that is not realistic, but that is what my weird mind kept telling me). So, Saturday morning it had been eight days since my last run with the plan to go for a run Saturday morning in Gunnison while Brandon was at his conference.

So, in the midst of my mental breakdown, I decided there was nothing I could really do about any of my issues at the moment and I would go for a quick run and deal with everything when I got back. I put on my running clothes, carefully slathered my tattoo with tattoo goo, put on some super soft socks, my shoes and headed out the door. In Gunnison at 8am in September the temperature is 32 degrees. I was completely unprepared for this and was just wearing my running shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt. The upside of this was I was ready to run from the very beginning just to warm up. Because it had been awhile since my last run I just told myself if I could make it three miles I would call it good. I set out running around the neighborhoods and downtown of Gunnison and then headed east of town to the Western State University campus. The longer I ran the better I felt. The beautiful sunshine, the fresh crisp air, and the new scenery was exactly what I needed. One mile quickly turned in to two and before I knew it I was rounding out six miles. As soon as I get in to the groove of running I love being out there but I have to play mind tricks with myself to get started so I can get in that groove. At an even 10k I ended my run and headed back to our hotel.

The run was exactly what I needed. When I got back from my run I felt at peace, focused, calm, and ready to tackle my to do list. I contacted Onstar to figure out what to do with my car and they said that it wasn’t really urgent and I should be able to make it home and I should set-up an appointment for next week (the should was a little concerning but in my new mental state I could deal with it). While I was away I had connected my new iPhone to my MacBook and when I got back it had worked out its issues and downloaded all my data and music and was ready to be activated. I was still stressed about work stuff and dog stuff but it all suddenly felt so small and manageable when just an hour before it felt like the end of the world.

This summer has sucked and when I should have been running the most to deal with the stress, I did just the opposite and used my running time in the morning to sleep in and try to escape reality and it just ended up compounding the problems. This weekend was a huge wake-up call that no matter what I need to make running a priority. Running is my natural stress, anxiety, and depression buster and I need to never forget that. I don’t want to end up back on the verge of a panic attack because that is a horrible feeling! I am excited about the new week, the healed tattoo, and the reminder about how important it is to take the time for yourself. Find the activity that centers you and don’t make excuses for not taking the time for yourself. I am so excited that I found this feeling again and I am going to work my butt off not to lose it again.

Adventures in Rescue Fostering

September 3, 2016 By The Jolly Runner in Colorado, dog rescue, dogs, fostering, Jolly Runner, labs, rescue dog Tags: Colorado, Jolly Runner, labs, rescue dogs, Rocky Mountain Lab Rescue 1 Comment

thumb_DSC_7248_1024 Today would have been Nittany’s 13 birthday. Thanks to Facebook I woke up with a ton of memories of past birthdays. Throughout this process I have realized the power of posting things on Facebook. In the moment you are just sharing a quick memory or giving people a little view in to your life. Years later when the memories pop back up it can transport you back to a different time in your life and it brings back a wave of memories and emotions. After losing a pet they can be bitter sweet memories with lots of smiles and tears. While it can hurt at times I do like starting each day with these memories.

The point of this post is not to spend more time grieving but rather give an update on what we’ve been up to lately. After we lost Nittany we couldn’t even imagine getting another dog. But, as the weeks passed the house was feeling empty without a second pup. Paterno has adjusted to being only dog but we were afraid he might be a little lonely. We didn’t want to jump in to getting another dog but we did start seriously talking about potentially fostering dogs for a rescue. (We have fostered before and that is how we ended up with Paterno – so we totally know that fostering can be a slippery slope that could bring a second dog in to our family permanently but we are determined for that not to happen this time.) We talked a little about what breed of dog we would want to foster and ended up deciding our experiences with Nittany were amazing and we wanted to help other labs and lab mixes find their forever homes so we applied to be a foster family for the Rocky Mountain Lab Rescue. After a phone interview and a home visit we were approved! I completely understand why they have to go through the process of the interview and home visit but the entire time I just kept thinking isn’t the fact we have kept two dogs alive for 10+ years enough of a track record?! Yes, our lab had recently died but it was for something that was not our fault and we gave her the best life right up until the end. Yes, our other dog has a neurological disease, but again, totally not our fault and we have been successfully treating his condition for almost two years.

So fast-forward from getting approved to agreeing to take our first foster dog. We got an email last Sunday with the information about the dogs that would be coming in on the transport this week. After all the anticipation of applying for and getting approved to foster I somehow had gotten cold feet. I wasn’t sure if we were ready for another dog yet, even on a temporary basis. So, I didn’t respond to the first request for fosters and hoped that other foster families would step-up and take the dogs that came in this week. As the beginning of the week wore on the emails got more urgent the guilt set in and on Tuesday afternoon I finally pulled the trigger and said that we would be available to foster this week and selected a cute 4-6 month old black lab mix named Boogie. Tuesday night I went to the store and bought some puppy supplies (it’s been a REALLY long time since we had a puppy in the house) and got ready for the pup’s arrival on Wednesday.

Wednesday night after work we headed east of the city to the drop-off, pick-up spot. We had to drive to the DIA area at rush hour – it was a great way to start the evening. Paterno came along because the pick-up time was at the exact same time he needed his medicine. They told us that the transport van would meet us at the Petco parking lot at 6pm and we patiently waited for a passenger van to arrive with the pups. At a couple minutes after 6pm a moving van pulled up and someone jumped out, ran around to the back and opened the door to reveal cage after cage of dogs that had been rescued. There were probably 30 dogs on the van all coming from points east and going to all the different rescues in the Denver metro area. There were huge dogs and tiny dogs coming down the ramp of the van and going to their respective foster families. Some dogs were so excited to be off the van they bounded down the ramp and other dogs that were so scared and timid they had to be carried. After what felt like forever they finally unloaded Boogie. Boogie was so nervous coming off the van and tried to ran from every loud noise and sudden move. From the beginning we knew Boogie had the potential of being a handful. After we let Boogie get a little comfortable and used to being off the van we had to get him checked out by the amazing Rocky Mountain Lab Rescue volunteers. The checked him over and gave him his microchip. Boogie has some strange bumps on his ears and a scratch on his tummy that the volunteers requested we get checked out by a vet. After the initial excitement we introduced Boogie to Paterno (who became fast friends) and headed to the car for the ride back home.

During the car ride Boogie was a complete angel. He just stared out the window at the passing scenery and seemed to be a little more comfortable. When we arrived home his nerves returned and he was very nervous about everything in the house (except Paterno). Because he didn’t really seem comfortable insider he spent some of this first evening in the backyard chasing moths. He seemed to feel more comfortable outside and we wanted him to be as comfortable as possible. After it was too dark to see a black dog in the backyard (and we didn’t want to be the people who lose their first foster dog) we came inside and got Boogie settled in to his crate. Boogie really seems to like his crate and chooses to go there whenever he gets nervous or afraid so we just made his crate available to him and let him settle in for the night.

While we successfully made it through day one of fostering we knew there was a lot more to come…Continue to check in for your adventures in adopting.

With a lot of rescue dogs they don’t come with any history so you don’t really know where they came from or what their lives were before they got to Colorado. There are so many things that could have happened to Boogie to make him so fearful and timid. It was our job to make him as comfortable as possible until he can find his forever home.

New Year…New You?

December 31, 2015 By The Jolly Runner in Jolly Runner, New Years Resolutions Tags: Jolly Runner, New Years Resolutions, Quitting Social Media Leave a comment

It’s that time of year again. Time for New Year’s Resolutions. It seems so cliché to write another blog post about New Year’s Resolutions. How many times have I written this same post? Looking at the next year and coming up with everything I want to change about myself. This year I want to take a different approach to my New Years Resolutions. I want to focus on things that will make my life more purposeful and fulfilling. Instead of throwing out an entire list on January 1^st of what I want to accomplish during the year I am just going to focus on one month at a time and each month I am going to focus on something that I feel is most urgent in my life. At the first of the month I am going to come up with something I want to focus on throughout the month and give an update on how the last month panned out.

January 2016
Walk Away from Social Media

Each day I spend far too much time on social media. The first thing I do when I get up and the last thing I do before I go to bed is check social media. Throughout the day I waste countless minutes scrolling through Facebook and Twitter. So, come January 1^st all social media apps are coming off my iPhone and my iPad and I am going to spend the time I wasted on social media doing other things I claim I don’t have time for like reading or knitting. Most importantly I am going to be more present in my relationships and in my life.

***I do have to be honest about something. I manage social media pages for my job and so I can’t deactivate my accounts because they are connected to my work pages and while I will continue to update my professional social media pages I will not be looking at any personal pages throughout the month. I will also be posting updates on my personal Facebook pages and Twitter updating when new blogs posts are added, but this will done through WordPress directly and not through any other social media apps.

So, have a Happy New Year and maybe I’ll see you on social media in February…or maybe I’ll just walk away for good…