Poor Karly

Yesterday, I took Karly to the vet to get spayed. So today I picked her up from the vet and while we were there and I was finishing up the paperwork, she was in the waiting room with me and seemed very anxious, but there was another dog in the waiting room, so I thought that maybe that was the problem (she is normally very anxious about other dogs). After we got home, she was still anxious and whining and whimpering like crazy. I also realized when we were home that she did not want to go into her crate. Before she went to the vet, she loved her crate and would often hang out in there, but today she needed bunches of encouragement (and treats) to get her to go in there. And she is more jumping up than she was before. The other odd thing is that we have had this purple squeaky toy that the shelter had given to us when we got Karly - we had never even seen her look at this particular toy and today she has been carrying it around from place to place and playing with it. Weird! I'm hoping that she will be back to her normal self soon. Tonight she wasn't settling down at all to go to sleep - constant whining and whimpering - so I gave her a half dose of pain meds (she wasn't supposed to get any more until tomorrow). So far she seems to have settled down as long as she doesn't see me.

It's August already!?!?

How amazing that the summer is flying by, but really, should I be all that surprised? Probably not.

I'm back from the LLL International Conference where I worked in the Playroom with two of my friends, Terry and Theresa. We had a good time, but it sure is a whole different conference experience when my usual 'gang' isn't there. This was a time when I really get pissed at certain peopLLLe for their actions and how it has permanently messed up our usual every two year reunion!

Overall, the Playroom experience was exhausting - there were 1000+ kids registered for the conference and we topped over 1000 kids came into the playroom during the 3 days that we were 'open for business'. It should be noted that all the kids in the playroom had to be there with a mom, dad, g'parent, or other care-giver - so we weren't responsible for babysitting the kids, just supervising the huge room. I have some video of the playroom after we got it set up but without the kids, maybe I will see if I can manage embedding it into the blog. If not, I'll just add a link later.

It was good to see my friends Jennifer (and hang out with her dh, Anth and their kids in the playroom), Paulette, Teresa, Theresa and Terry. It was also nice to see the old API gang: Barbara, Lysa, Reedy and Christy. I saw Lu Hanessian, who remembered me by name - we chatted for a while and I got caught up on all the stuff that she is doing these days. I also saw my friend Jaime who is just sooo sweet. Back when we were both tandem nursing moms struggling with meeting the needs of an older nursing toddler, we became good email buddies. I've said many times that I didn't think I could have made it through that time without her.

Because we had a 2 bedroom suite, there were a couple of nights with parties in our room, and while I did know many of the women, it wasn't my usual gang so I usually hit the hay early - sorry, no juicy stories to tell, no new tatoos this time. Have I said that it wasn't the same at all. :(

One exciting thing that has happened this summer is that we got a dog!!! Her name is Karly and she is a black lab mix (with think with terrier). She is the sweetest dog I've ever seen (okay maybe I'm biased!) Technically, she is Ahren's dog, but I tend to handle more of the general dog care - although Ahren does do pretty well with the walks and taking care of her. We are also going to Good Manners classes (both Ahren and I) and doing clicker training with Karly. She is about 2 years old and came from somewhere down south. We got her from a local shelter and couldn't be happier. Ahren simply adores her. She will randomly say, "I just can't believe that I have a dog" or "Karly is such a perfect fit for our family." It's really sweet.