Skinner Girl.

It’s been one of those weeks. I’ve had quite the emotional roller coaster. I’ll tell you about the rest of it another time, but this post is just to tell you about a good friend of mine that we lost this week. I’m just going to be me and not pretend to be tough about it.

This week, about a month shy of her 15th birthday, my dog Skinner passed away. It was a really hard week. Skinner was old for a poodle and blind and deaf, but she was still a really happy dog. She was a great friend for so many years. I think I’ll tell you her story.

2 days after my 10th birthday, our dog Fritzy had a litter of puppies. She chewed up all the wires under the T.V, which really impressed my dad. After sufficiently chewing up all the wires she had her puppies under the T.V. stand. Skinner was born on March 3rd. Her name wasn’t skinner yet because my little sister in all of her five-year-old wisdom and creativity decided her name would be pebbles. We gave away the other puppies, but decided to keep pebbles on the condition that we could change her name. Roxy agreed; Just happy to keep her puppy. One of the special things about our new puppy was her habit of getting car sick. Once she even puked on my head. Nice. I know. So we decided to name her after our cousins who also got car sick. The Skinners. And so she became Skinner. Born a little black puppy, we were all surprised when, after her first haircut she came home gray. That’s how she stayed.

When I was 12, we moved to 100 Mile House. Skinner happily accepted her new house and bigger yard. As a younger dog Skinner could jump higher than any dog I had ever seen. She seemed to have springs built into her feet. She was fast too. One of my favorite things was how she would jump into a snowbank and disappear, only to spring out of it like a kangaroo. She loved having her tummy rubbed! I would always pretend to shoot her with my hand so she would roll over. I would pretend I taught her to play dead, but really she just wanted a belly rub.

When I was in grade 12, my dad got suckered by a pair of brown eyes, some soft fur and the promise of a shed-less puppy. He brought home a new little pup to play with skinner so she wouldn’t be lonely after losing her mom. That’s when we got Gracie. Gracie with gorgeous brown eyes, soft fur and more shedding than…well anything. Skinner taught Gracie all of the important things she needed to know. Things like chasing squirrels, knowing who in the family she could mooch off of, and how to open the cupboard door and tear apart garbage with flair.

As she got to be a senior citizen dog, Skinner would get more and more bold mooching off of my mom. As if to say “I’m old, just hand over the meat.” She slowly got cataracts and went blind and finally deaf. and yet she would still wander casually over to the kitchen, open the garbage and pull it all out. Just like a 2 year old under a blanket, she assumed that if she couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see her. I think she just realized that being told to go lay down after being bad was ok. Thats what she was planning to go and do anyways.

I will miss my skinner girl. She was such a great dog. She had this sense that would send her straight to you if you needed a cuddle to make everything ok. She made this funny clicking noise when she was sniffing for things that would always make you laugh. She was a mom, a friend, and she kept secrets really well. The stories of Skinner’s adventures could be long and lengthy. I think I’ll just want to keep remembering her in little bits to cheer my self up. She was a really great dog and I’ll miss her lots.

Me and Rox with Skinner and Gracie. Christmas a couple years ago.

Someone turned up the speed on my life.

Someone put my normal life somewhere and I can’t find it. I think I’ve looked everywhere. I’ve sat down at my computer almost everyday in the last week. “I’m going to blog” I say to myself, desperately wanting some time do just be silly and write. Twice I made it two sentences into my post and randomly closed the browser and walked away. Which I could do right now, but I wont. Life has just turned into this crazy cycle of school, babysitters, meeting, classes, screaming toddlers and quizzes. So here I am. I’ll try and catch you up the last week. AND I’ll try and make it coherent. I think I’ve been over tired forever.

I’ve still been going to the gym. I really didn’t feel like it today so I’m blogging and enjoying some very expensive me time instead. I did a good job working out, but I’ve had a harder time eating good this week due to reading so much and sitting in a chair all day long. I have bad study eating habits. So my goal it not to get the freshman 15 in the next few months. haha. I’ll go weigh myself soon and put up the CWX.

I got 18/20 on my first Psychology quiz! I’m pretty happy with that. Nothing else I’ve handed in has been marked yet. I’m finding I need sooo much more time to work on school than I thought I did. I’m a bit stressy about that, but I think I’m starting to figure it out. Morgan has been really awesome about giving me extra time and just sending my upstairs to study.

I’m going snowboarding tomorrow! YAY! I probably shouldn’t just because I could use the day to study, but I’m taking a day off to enjoy my day and be with friends and fam and not take everything so seriously. I’m going to help Morgan and Roxy get better at snowboarding and Coco is going to come with us too. It’s going to be soooo awesome. I’ll try and get some pictures or something.

Emily is waking up so I have to go deal with real life now, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll post again before next week.Cheers.

Boarders of the Son

What a day! Church was awesome. Worship was good and then I took Emily to Sunday School and she did great! I’m hoping they will let her go by herself soon. She isnt going to be 2 for a few more months, but she is way ahead of some of the kids who are 2. She did get decked by a little girl who is like 5, while they were playing tag. Smoked right in the head. It was really nice. Poor Em, she just doesn’t understand accidents yet. Then directly after church Danielle took Emily home and I went to Mt. Timothy with Nate. It was awesome. The kinda day you remember. Because first thing when we sat down to strap on our boards Nates binding broke off. So we laughed. Then we went to the ski shop and got another piece to fix it. Then…after fixing it we strapped on our bindings again…and his other binding broke. We managed to rig it so it would hold and we headed up to the top of mount krumpet. (sorry for the ill place Dr. Seuss reference). At the top of the lift we got off…and didn’t fall!Then while strapping on his Binding the last of the rigged piece broke off. So needless to say there was much laughter and muttering. Then…oops not before… I remembered that I like to pray before I ride. So I did and we took pictures to prove we actually made it to the top of the hill. Nate manage to make it down on one binding. We got it all fixed up and managed to make it 2 more runs before the hill closed. It was good thought, because for my first runs of the season it was short and sweat. Leaving my wanting more…not hurting more. Never even biffed it good. Kinda tripped in front of the ski patrol (Note to self: Die of embarrassment later), but didn’t actually fall. Hit a couple of teeny jumps too. So that made me feel good cause I used to hit BIG jumps. Since my accident I haven’t really hit any jumps.  ANYways, It was a great day on the hill.

When Emily got up from her nap I shoved her in the car and we headed for the 8. Decided to make my parents dinner. So we had night 4 of my uber delicious menu planner which was Turkey Tenders Parmesan. That one definitely wasn’t a gooder for the ole diet, but I’ve managed to work out ever day this week and I’m planning on it this coming week too.

Tomorrow is my first official day of school! I’m in now. No turning back. I start 4 courses. Its kinda crazy cause the school still hasn’t sent me the material for one of the courses. Really odd. Luckily its one of the correspondence courses and Danielle has that class too, so I can work through stuff with her assignment book while I’m waiting. I’m pretty excited to actually get going. I’m a little nervous about how much work I’m going to have to do while still being a mom, but I think It’ll be ok.

Well I promised myself I’d start going to bed earlier so I won’t be so tired to go to the gym. So g’night.

?WX

I’ve decided to start a new blog meme. Its called the “?WX”. Its the weight eXchange. Kinda like the TSX (Toronto stock exchange) or some other stock exchange. But this way I can post weekly stock in my weight gain or loss. Silly I know, but a way for me to keep tabs on where Ive been and where I’m going. Then just like when they say why a stock crashed or rose I can put the causes beside it. Please feel free to have your own ?WX. Mine will be the CWX. Courtenay’s Weight eXchange! I like Pluckymama’s “Weight Loss Wednesday” report so I think Ill try to update my stock on Wednesdays or days when I do so great I have to put it down.

CWX™ = down 2.4↓

Made it to the gym again today thats 3 times this week. They were only open that many days, or I’d have gone another time. My back is a bit sore today. The squat machine has a hit out on me. That sucker is mean. Why I otta… It was a great feeling to make it so much this week. The fall was so hard to kick my butt. My whole body feels better already. I slept way better last night too. I decided to stop whining that my gym doesn’t have any cardio and just use the treadmill we have here. I have to stop making excuses. It’s like I’ve made my old gym into this perfect place where workouts were easy and all the machines were great and I loved it more than Disneyland. So not true. There was at least 2 machines that I loathed! They only had 1 elliptical so if it was in use I was out of luck. Although I kind of had a personal trainer and it was like 5 dollars cheaper a month, it wasn’t Fitness World by anyones standard. SO. No more excuses Courtenay.

Emily made me laugh so hard I cried yesterday. She looked at me and said “18 months.” I said “pretty close. You are 20 months” So she said “20 months”. Then I followed that up with “How old are you?”. Emily looked up from her high chair and said.”I’m fine thanks, how are you?” It was one of the funniest things she’s said this week. She got 2 Robert Munsch books and 2 Phoebe Gilman ones for Christmas. So we’ve been letting her read them. She’s has gotten alot less rough on paper books. It’s so fun to read full stories to her and especially the classic books that I read when I was little. So she walks around the house saying”Murmel, Murmel, Murmel” and “Jillian Jiggs pigs”. It’s really cute. I didn’t even remember Jillian Jiggs until Jenny read Em the story with the line “Jillian, Jillian, Jillian Jiggs! It looks like your room has been lived in by pigs!” Took me right back to the good ol days.

My Feta Chicken with Zucchini turned out pretty good. I would probably add less lemon next time, but overall I quite enjoyed it. I took a picture for you. Tonight is Canton Beef. It sounds really tasty. I forget what the side dish is, but I’m sure that’ll be great too.

Oh and here is the song that is stuck in my head…Thanks Morgan!*sarcasm*

I’m cooking Fish

Well, I’m already down 3 pounds! 3 in 3 days. Not even like I’ve been crazy about it or something. Just extra Christmas weight I guess. I went to the gym again today. 2 days in a row. It was a bit harder today, but I couldn’t sleep in any longer. I made myself go to bed early so I could get up without feeling so tired. Another FlyLady tip! Sensible enough, but why do I always ignore sensible things…dunno.

I’m enjoying working with FlyLady tips. Theres lots to do, so I just end up cleaning everything my way. But I have been shining my sink and getting dressed to the shoes (crocks). It seems to be working. Our house is WAY cleaner and MK is even inspired to clean up stuff. It’s really relaxing to have a clean house. I never thought I’d care as much as I do. When my kitchen is clean, I’m way more inclined to make something healthier to eat. So bonus #2. I took a picture of my FlyLady sink today for your very much optical pleasure.

Tonight is our first night with our new meal planners too. Thanks Grama! Got a subscription to Savingdinner.com for Christmas. Tonight is Feta Chicken and zucchini. It’s gonna be delish. I’m really hoping it will help us eat healthier meals and keep our grocery costs to a minimum. Nothing like saving money whenever you can right? If It turns out pretty I’ll take a picture.

Emily has decided she hates having water poured on her head. She used to do just fine in the bath with water on her head. Now she stands up and says “It’s ok” and shakes her head. It’s kinda sad. We are just going to have to figure out a better way to wash stinky’s hair or else she’ll have to keep showering with daddy. She was sitting in the tub playing with her toys and she started pretending she was cooking. Here is word for word her conversation with me.

EM: “Im cooking fish!”(she put her soap bottle in a cup and stirred it around)
” Oops I drinked it all”(drinks some bath water)
“I’m making more” ( fills the water up again in the cup)
(Then she offers me some and I pretend to drink it) “Ooops. Mommy ate it all. Silly Mommy. “

It was pretty hilarious.

We’ve started potty training! Em has already gone pee 3 times on the potty. As soon as she found out she gets a treat for going potty she was soooo excited to go. We can hardly keep her in clothes now. We bough some pull-ups and she likes her “special panties”. The little dragons go all blurry if she pees her self. No poopies yet, but she hasn’t had any while not in her bed either. So we’ll see how this goes. If anyone has any tips they’d be much appreciated.

She’s also decided she doesn’t want to be fed at all. She will only eat if I let her “Scoop it iself”. It’s made for a bit of a messy transition, but she’s actually quite good at it. She can even eat cheerios without making to much mess. She is best with yogurt or cottage cheese, but she will eat anything if she can “scoop it iself”.

I think I’m going to make some Chai tea and fold laundry while watching Big Trouble with Tim Allen and Kronk!