Oh, Mother Nature!!

Yup, it's been a while since I've posted. Sorry about that! I've been keeping up with jogging every other day or so, and last week even jogged three days in a row. I haven't been since Monday because the others girls have been sick and I just can't find the motivation to do it by myself yet! I started jogging almost 4 weeks ago, and to the best of my calculations, we've logged a little over 40 miles! I still don't have a distance measuring pedometer, and one of the trails that we run, I have a feeling that the distance is NOT what is marked. Hard to explain. But I'm very proud of us for having gone that distance to date!!

I've also been super busy preparing for an event this weekend put on by my rescue...it's for National Pet Memorial Day, celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of September each year. I've done SO MUCH to get ready for this event....we have a lot of local businesses participating. Big Wag Dog Bakery is giving out samples, Dog Watch is promoting their boarding facility and also giving an agility demonstration, Camp Bow Wow is promoting their boarding facility, the dog trainer for the City of Bentonville K9 unit is giving a demo...my group is microchipping (for only $15.00!!), we're selling tshirts, and low cost collars/leashes/toys. We are doing a candle lighting and moment of silence, and will have a local pastor there to give a blessing. And I spent a good hour writing up what I'm going to say to everyone and how I will introduce everyone. We'll have our foster dogs there, too, up for adoption. I've put a ton of effort into getting this organized...we're also decorating the graves at the local pet cemetery...Chris helped me make 400 flags to mark the graves.

At first, there was a 40% chance of rain because of a front coming in from California/Oregon area...but that's not an issue any more. But now there's a tropical storm moving up from Texas, and they are calling for an 80% chance of rain on Sunday!!! I am so mad that this may get rained out. We have a rain date set for a week later...but I have all this stuff sitting in my garage and sitting on the dining room table to take to the event, and I put so much effort into getting it all organized and arranged, and now we may have to postpone?!? I am so ready to just be done with it!! And on top of that, CNN was supposed to be there on Sunday to do a video feed of the event, which would give us much needed exposure, but if it gets postponed, I can't guarantee that they will be there for the rain date. Plus, the pastor doing the blessing can't do the rain date, either, so if we do post pone, it will be a mad scramble to find another pastor to do it and to redistribute all the ads to notify of the new date.... Ugh. Freaking mother nature! I'm very irritated with her right now!!

On a different note, I got some much needed shopping for the boys done last week. The big consignment sale was in town and I got Jackson some pants! The child had one pair of pants for this winter, and money is so tight right now that I couldn't see spending $12.00 a pair at the store. I also got a jogging stroller...for $35.00. It retails new for almost $500, so great buy, right? I took Jackson one night last week...and running with that stroller just kills my back!! So I guess I'll be selling it. If I can't use it, there's no sense in it sitting taking up space. I also went back to the sale a couple days later to get stuff for my friend Marcie in Houston...it was fun shopping for her b/c she has a daughter...I never get to shop for girl stuff! And I never get to shop for stuff with someone else's money, either! All around great time. :)

Of course, right after I spent all that money, several things broke at our house...the hedge trimmers. Which our bushes are out of control HUGE right now and really need to be trimmed. And the TV in our bedroom broke. But we can live without that. Best of all, our lawn mower broke too!! Chris was mowing when a chunk of metal flew off the mower and oil and gas spewed all over the place. You can now see all the gears and inner workings of the mower...and the metal piece that flew off? It broke right out of the middle of this big piece of metal, and it was a couple inches long...and a half inch thick. I can't imagine if one of us had been standing in it's path when it happened.

Time for bed for me now, so off I go to stare at the ceiling for several hours. I will try to get some new pictures posted tomorrow...the boys have been very cute lately!!