The Next Step

Last Friday I finished my summer class (an independent study). With my grade posted today I am officially three credits closer to my master's degree. In just a year-and-a-half I've completed 30 of the 33 credits required; no wonder I'm so tired.

My next (and last!) class doesn't start until August so that means for the first time in a long time I have some free time—no homework or due dates to stress over. So yesterday I made a blueberry pie:

I figured it was necessary.

Of course having free time doesn't mean I don't have anything to do; it just means when I don't want to clean the house now I don't have nearly as good an excuse for putting it off. And there's that ironing I haven't done in, uh, ages... And last but not least there's that job thing. Oh yeah, that.

As I've always said, I didn't go back to school for my health—I did it to catch up with the field of technical communication so I could get a job. And not just any job—a good job that I would enjoy and be challenging and utilize the skills I have. That's always been my goal as I labored away on reading and projects and everything else being a full-time graduate student entails. And now I'm done. Yes, I still have that last class left, but I'm done being a full-time student with no time to think about anything else. So, after I've taken a little time to relax without feeling guilty (well, try to do that, at least), and catch up with things around the house, I'm planning on starting my job search in earnest. As they say, searching for a job is a full-time job; now I'll finally have the time to do it. Wish me luck.

Exercise

I don't know what it is about exercise but I seem to avoid it. Don't get me wrong, I love feeling exercised, I just don't seem to like the process of getting there. (I also like having a clean house but I'm not so keen on actually cleaning it.) Numerous times over the past year I've told myself I'm going to get into a routine and really be serious about it, and just as many times I've had a ready excuse not to do it. Granted, over the past year that's usually been because of school, so it's also been an accurate excuse, but given how much time I waste on other things I'm sure I could have fit in exercising if I'd really wanted to.

It's not like I don't have any good reasons to exercise, either. I've had back and hip problems off and on for a while and my body usually feels like a pretzel, and I know I have fewer problems (and feel less pretzel-like) whenever I exercise.  Last year I was diagnosed with osteoporosis (something I am way too young to have, might I add) so I know I need to exercise to keep that at bay as well. Hubby even bought me some weights a while back, which I really ought to use more than I do. (My plan was to use them while I watch TV, but quite frankly I hardly ever just sit in front of the TV.)

This time of year I even have the opportunity to swim. Our subdivision has a pool which we pay to use as part of our homeowner association fees. Last summer I found out the pool is open for adult lap swim before it officially opens for the day, so I took advantage of that and swam in the morning when I could. The pool opened a month ago and I'd planned on doing that again this year, but somehow I just couldn't get myself motivated to do it again—until this week. I've gone twice now and even though I'm horribly out-of-shape I definitely feel better so hopefully I'll keep it up. I usually try to go around 8:00 or so and I usually have the pool to myself, which is really nice.

So we'll see how long this lasts. On the bright side, I've got less than two weeks left of my summer class so when that's done I'll finally get a break and really have free time to exercise (and no excuse not to). On the other hand, I'm hoping to get a job sooner rather than later, and when that happens I'm not sure how exercising (or anything else) will fit into my daily routine, which will take some getting used to after having a rather unstructured daily schedule for so long. Guess I'd better enjoy exercising while it lasts.

It's a Miracle

His name is Moe.

The weekend was tough. Little Guy did quiet down and seemed to get more used to things after the first night. We have a dog house on our deck that our dog never uses, and Little Guy took to it and made it his, spending most of his time in there when he wasn't walking around. He slept there (he's a very sound sleeper) and was warm and safe. He also stayed in there and stayed dry when it rained Monday night and Tuesday; unlike our dog who ignores the dog house and stands in the rain and gets wet.

He didn't bark as much as when we first brought him home but he did whimper sometimes, particularly when he woke up from a nap and was disoriented, I think. When I heard him I'd go outside to pet him and reassure him, then he'd settle down for a while again. Naturally, I got pretty attached to him and the thought of taking him to the shelter to let him die there got harder and harder, even though I knew it's what we had to do.

We took him to the shelter yesterday, getting there about 45 minutes before they closed. They scanned for a microchip and didn't find one, as we'd suspected. But then a miracle happened: When hubby was giving them the information on where we found him we said we lived in a subdivision and they asked for its name (every subdivision around here has a name), and when hubby said it the shelter worker said he thought the owners were in earlier looking for him. He went and got a flyer that described the dog and specifically mentioned they lived across the street from our subdivision. His name is Moe, he's 16-years-old, and HE HAS A HOME. While we stood there the man called the owners and told them we'd found their dog. We weren't going straight home after dropping him off or we would have taken him home ourselves, so we ended up leaving him at the shelter and his owners came out and got him. It was getting closer to closing time by then and I wasn't sure they could make it there fast enough that evening, but the shelter worker said since they knew the owners were coming they'd stay open a few minutes late for them (which they did).

So "Moe" wasn't starving when we found him after all; he was just thin because he's old. He's a very good eater and likes his food—and what we fed him was different than his usual—so that's why it seemed like he was hungry all the time. His toenails were long because his owners hadn't trimmed them during his last bath, it turned out, and they knew they needed to be cut. The shelter couldn't give the owners our information but we had theirs, so when we got home a couple hours later we stopped by their house to meet them. They were so thankful and appreciative. And there was Moe, in his own house, lying on the carpet next to the couch. When he saw us he came up to us wagging his tail, obviously recognizing us, then he settled back in his spot while we talked to his owners. Apparently we found him right after he wandered off on Saturday; if we hadn't taken him home maybe he would have wandered back home on his own after all, who knows. His owners had each thought he was with someone else in the house and they didn't realize he was missing until Sunday morning. When they realized it they called everywhere putting out a search for him, though if there were flyers we didn't see them in our neighborhood when we were walking our dog over the weekend. Thankfully, and amazingly, we connected with them through the shelter 25 miles from our home; a county shelter that is about as far away from us as it can be and still be in the same county.

Of course I'm relieved and overjoyed that Moe's story ended this way. A simple tag on his collar could have avoided a lot of anguish on both sides; they said he's had tags before and lost them, and a phone number written on his collar had faded off. But he did have a microchip: Apparently it was farther up on his shoulders and when they scanned for it at the shelter when we were there they didn't run the scanner high enough to find it. His owners said when they picked him up they scanned for it again—higher this time—and found it. The bottom line is Moe is home now and will live out his life where he belongs: With his family that loves him. Praise God.

Little Guy

Yesterday while hubby and I were walking the pooch we came upon a stray dog. He's smaller than our dog so I called him, "Little Guy." Since he was in our subdivision at first we thought he was lost, particularly because he had a collar, but he had no tags and now we think he's probably a stray. He's very old (probably 14 or 15 I'd guess), thin, losing hair on his back and tail, walks stiffly, it looks like he has cataracts, and I think he may have trouble hearing, too. When we found him his toenails were so long he could barely walk. We wonder if he was abandoned because he's old, as terrible as that thought is. Yet he's a very sweet dog: We brought him home and fed him, and hubby was able to clip his toenails so that helped, at least. Our backyard is fenced in (for our dog) so he's safe there. Our dog was interested in him at first but since he isn't playful she just ignores him now, which is fine.

Little Guy was quiet at first but now he wants to be with us and we're not letting him inside, so he's been barking; he barked off and on for a good portion of the night (keeping us awake) and he's been doing the same through the morning. I don't blame him but unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it, we just have to hope he quiets down on his own and our neighbors don't lynch us in the process.

Our subdivision has an e-mail list so I sent a message to it about him, but we aren't surprised that we haven't had any responses. We aren't prepared to keep him so we'll take him to the animal shelter as soon as we can; of course it's not only a weekend, it's a holiday weekend, so we won't be able to take him to the shelter until they reopen on Tuesday. We have to take him to the county shelter and we live at the edge of the county; naturally the shelter is all the way on the other side, about as far as it can be from us and still be in the same county (about 25 miles away). Naturally.

Getting through the next two days is going to be tough (hopefully he'll quiet down and we'll get some sleep). The thought of stray animals always breaks my heart and makes me sick to my stomach. I hate the thought of taking him to the shelter where they'll probably end up putting him to sleep, but we know it's the right thing to do. At least he'll be taken care of and die humanely there, rather than starving or being hit by a car. In the meantime we'll deal with the inconvenience and keep him safe, fed, and give him attention when we can, which I guess is the best we can do.

What's in a Name?

I'm trying to come up with a name.

One of my projects for this summer is to put together a WordPress blog. This will be a professional/personal blog: It'll be a personal blog since it won't be sponsored by my (future) employer (whoever that turns out to be) and I won't be representing them, but I'll be discussing professional topics related to the field of technical communication. So I'm trying to come up with a name for my new blog. In doing so I'm considering several factors:

1. The URL must be available. To simplify searching the blog title and the URL should match. When I know the name of a site I often type it into the address bar directly rather than search for it through a search engine. Using my name as the URL is definitely one way of identifying the site with me, but these days it's more common to tie the URL to the name of the site and identify yourself on your blog in other ways.


2. The name should reflect what I'm talking about. This is tricky. I'm planning on talking about technical communication, but that encompasses a broad range of topics and I haven't narrowed it down to individual facets of the field yet. Which tells me I should probably think about this more before I start my blog, including coming up with a list of tags I intend to use.


3. The name should reflect my personality. Personal branding is a big concept these days and this blog will become part of my personal brand. In my mind, how this works into the title is in what types of words I use. Does my title include an action verb? Alliteration? A made-up word? How I put the words I choose together can reflect a little about who I am.


4. The name shouldn't be too long. One word probably isn't enough for me but 16 words is definitely too long. There's a happy medium out there, I just have to find it.

I read quite a few technical communication blogs (see the sidebar on this blog) so I've seen plenty of good examples and I've come up with a few ideas that are definite possibilities. I haven't come up with that one, magical, "This is it!" name, though, so I'm still thinking. But soon I'll settle on a name, register the domain, do some design work and be off and running. Ultimately, while the name may catch people's attention it's the content that will keep bringing them back. That's where the real fun begins.