Housewife, 54

Good Heavens! I cannot believe how long it has been since I posted last.  Needless to say, I have been quite busy.  In a nutshell, we have worked on emptying my mother-in-law's house as it has sold... I have run Elvis in his first 4 Agility Trials (two weekends in October) with NO success... I also developed an abscess that eventually dictated the removal of first one, then two weeks later a second tooth - OUCH! All at the same time, my father had some health issues and I have had to travel down to visit or stay with him twice during that same time period, and then we were at Thanksgiving!  It was all I could do to keep body and soul together - and keep the home fires burning! At a tangent to Elvis' poor showing in Agility, I had entered him and Buckaroo in Rally trials in November.  Much better!  Both of the boys earned a title over just 3 trials in 2 weekends.  I was quite pleased.  Elvis is now, officially, Utchati Jailhouse Rock, RA, JC and Buc...

Ah me.... Where to begin? So much has happened since my last entry that I am at a loss as to where to pick up again..... I suppose that the most challenging occurrence was the loss of my friend, Lynne.  She was a dog-related friend, and I have gotten my 2 most recent Afghan Hounds from her; Maija and Elvis.  She has been a mentor and adviser and so much more.  Even though we were not close - we did not chat over the phone or hang out together very often - we still kept in touch via email and attended the occasional dog show together.  We had several other hobbies in common; gardening, cooking and home decorating to name just a few.  In January I had contacted her to line up spring dog shows where we could meet up and show our dogs.  She told me then that she had some health issues that were finally diagnosed as lung cancer, so she would be out of commission for a while - I was going to be on my own showing...

Okay, I am remembering the old proverb that if March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb... and I hope it is true!  March 1st was not really so bad, but March 2nd was a bear of a day!  I had all kinds of things going last weekend; an Agility Seminar from Friday through Sunday, and on Friday afternoon I was supposed to slip out of that and go to a dog show in Milwaukee.  Well... the weather forecast got worse and worse: from rain showers, to rain turning to snow, to rain turning to LOTS of snow, and instead of staying north of us, the freeze line came farther south and HIT.  Hearing these changes I decided fairly early in the day that I should NOT drive up to Milwaukee, as it was a pretty sure thing that no matter what, I was going to have to drive home that night on bad roads.  I stayed close to home and just went the 13 miles down to the Seminar, and boy, was I GLAD!  Not only was the seminar really good, but by the time we finished up Friday aft...