NEW YEARS RESOLUTION SPORTS INJURY

Do you know that friction plus panty elastic can create quite a painful welt in your butt? I have been enjoying working out on my cardioglide, but my error in not having an ass that has been broken in by such frequent workouts.

So first week doing so so. Workouts, missed two days, but can make those up. Eating more healthy, calorie wise not so good, but logging and keeping track of what I am eating doing very well on. Plus, still loosing weight so my body is adjusting any way, still.

I have missed a couple days on a couple of my blogs, but am meeting my goals on those better.

Did check out my Ms blog yesterday after being so good all week long. Nothing new to report any way, so a spanking to myself.

I have completely failed on keeping a schedule that I make myself everyday, and have not come up to speed on training Jackie, which is hugely important. Also have not gotten much done on my to do list or business goals.

New Years Resolutions/Other Blogs Listed Below

And, just so you know, no that is not me but a yahoo image that I found. I am sure this has been photo shopped . Talking about loosing weight, so there is my chubby girl photo. Baby's got back, and while I don't have that back, I do have more "back" than I would like.

Due to my priorities this year, and my new year's resolutions, I may not be posting to this blog on a daily basis any way. I will therefore post links to my other blogs, in case anyone is interested, and as I have been in contact with some really cool people on this blog. Interesting thing is though, my other blogs (and I am not saying I've been good at keeping them updated) have received almost no attention. Now this could be for several reasons 1) lack of updating 2) blogger might have exceeded tools that I have on type pad 3) I may not understand blogger promotion and tools yet 4) nobody may be interested in happy news and 5) I haven't dug deep enough into my "happy" self to make it interesting. Any way, I would like my other blogs (especially my business blog) to receive at least as much attention. So in order to do that, I need to start making that my priority, and update this blog only after certain other tasks have been done.

So here are my New Year's resolutions by prioirity:

1) Business promotion (including website and blog, as well as outside marketing).
2) Business contracts and pricing updated. Includes liability and insurance updating.
3) Loose weight and get healthy (put this third as my business needs to continue being a support of the family). But perhaps should be one or parrell to 1-3 above.
4) Training Jackie for obedience trials next year. Stop procrastinating on this and develop actual plan.
5) Schedule days so that things to get behind, and make me stressed out when a flood of work comes in or the unexpected and can not be planned for happen.
6) No matter how tempting, do not visit www.estrangements.com, my estranged mother's blog!!!

LOL, darn this blog service let's you see that I have cheated by posting tomorrow's blog today. On typepad, it hides this fact for you.

My other blogs:

http://mannerlymutts.typepad.com/mannerly_mutts/ Although I have not posted here since October 8th, this is the priority along with my dogs web logs. This is my business blog, and unfortunately takes some plan (or should now) take some planning to post to categorize. Tips and articles for dog owners and novice trainers.

http://mannerlymutts.typepad.com/jacky_attackdog_training/ On this weblog, starting tomorrow, you will be able to follow my actual progress bringing a dog to competition level. Not that I have done this yet LOL. And Jack is "special" in that he has a fair collection of "issues" to be dealt with. In fact, he wasn't going to be my dog at all, he was a foster that I wanted to train during a "slow" period when I first moved here. An adopter was not found in six months, and I had gotten attached to the funny bunny. We call him Wacky Jacky or Jacky Jingle Joy. He's extremely hyper, has a real fear of humans, and deals with that by trying to bolt. Not exactly what you would pick to do obedience competition. But my pick for this "Leon" is injured, and I don't want four dogs, so Jack it is. Plus, he should be a real good challenge. If I could bring Jack through competition, I should be able to bring just about any stable dog through competition. Plus he loves the attention.

http://mannerlymutts.typepad.com/leon_dog_training/ This will be posted every day. Although, this is called a "training" blog, my dog Leon has suffered an Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury (ACL) and right now his progress is being tracked to be sure we are following the treatment that makes sense. We are hoping to avoid a TPLO surgery, but I won't allow Leon to be lame for the rest of his life. It seems we are making progress without the surgery, but this blog right now is tracking whether that really is correct or not.

http://mannerlymutts.typepad.com/adventures_of_jazzaboo/ My next priority is my Jazzabelle's blog. She is 14 years old, and while I hope it's not so, we probably only have so much time left with her. She's left senior and gone onto geriatric. She is in better shape than most dogs her age, and can still make the boys run for the hills. I want to be sure to capture all I can of her activities for my future enjoyment and reminiscing. She is our only girl and our very first dog. Anyone who has a senior dog, or wants to prepare will want to follow along. I try to write this blog as if (or maybe she is) Boo (aka Jazz) is actually writing it herself.

http://mannerlymutts.typepad.com/middle_aged_princess/ I don't know that this will be updated every day either, but it is an important blog to me because it compiles many cherished days and memories.

Legacies

Okay, I want to post fun stuff today, but this is not my fun blog . Actually this subject matter isn't too depressing, I just need to give thought to some family members who I do not want to take any more space in my brain than they already have. In fact zero, time, effort, and space for three people would be just fine with me. Alas, that doesn't really work:( It just gets improved, you past and the people in it tend to stay with you forever and ever in some way. Whether you want them to or not.

1. Grandma Italian Side. She gave me her stubbornness. This actually worked out very well for me in education, the business world, and changing my career now. If I wasn't the type to dig my heels in and go forward period, I wouldn't have been able to make the accomplishments that I did.

She also gave me her OCD. LOL just kidding, but I do have this obsessive need to have everything in it's place. The husband, he is opposite of me. For instances dishes and dish sets, I like to be able to find like with like. Robert likes to just put whatever dishes came out of the dishwasher in one cabinet (same with laundry, food, tools), you get the picture. Now I view this as a necessary skill, as I can find most of my stuff. Robert is forever loosing stuff, so you would think that a system of putting it in a certain place each and every time would make sense to him. Sigh.

I did not acquire the cooking gene from my grandmother. And while I am pretty good at cleaning these days, my grandmother was amazing, and I never did quite acquire her knack for it. Course she did have a mother they called "The General" who would inspect her adult daughters homes LOL. My Great Grandmother was nothing but doting to me. She passed when I was 9.

A real sense of what it was when someone loved you, even if they did make you crazy LOL. My grandmother was one of the few people in my family to love unconditionally.

2. Grandfather Italian side. It's different than mine, but he gave me a love for animals. We used to watch National Geographic and Omaha's Wild Kingdom together. Grandfather would also hunt and kill for food, so that's not like me. Not that I mind that, I just can't do it myself. I prefer to think my meat grows on a tree in cellophane packages which are harvested and brought to the supermarket. My Grandfather did have a definite love of animals non the less. He was always making ingenious things to feed the squirrels and birds in the back yard. He was an engineer, so they were often quite involved. I did not get the engineering from him, or the handy/carpenter skill from him. He was excellent at both.

3. My father, that same stubbornness. My "temper" when I was younger. Unfortunately I took some of his reactions to anger with me, but I have learned to manage them well with maturity. An understanding of what I did not want in a life partner, and a real life demo of what that was. My rebelling was definitely a reaction to my father's controlling ways, and I think drove me forward in life after moving out. Never wanting to move back in is quite a little motivator.

4. My step monster. Nothing, other than a real knowledge of how to definately not treat people. Pretty sure I had that before knowing her though. An unfortunate knowledge that there are people out there that feel it's their right to be mean and vindictive. That do not seek to hide that fact in private, while they put on a different face in public. She did make me see what a shell of a being my father is. That there is no feeling or integrity in him. To allow her to abuse me, was to in fact abuse me himself. To make excuses for it, was unforgivable, and I forgave him when I was younger. I forgive or excuse him no more. I guess my step mother speeded that whole process up for me.

Love, love of horror movies. The one thing we ever bonded over was watching Godzilla movies together, and an occaisional Friday the 13th (not my favorite horror series). Later on, I used this and tv in general to escape a lot from my family situation. Even now, in times of stress, I revert back to that. Trying to at least change that by exercising when the need arises for me to immerse myself in movies or my programs (going back and watching Nip/Tuck season that I never saw before now).

5. My mother. I like to write. I will not say I am especially good at writing, nor do I think my mother is. But I like to do it, and it's a great means for me to get "stuff" out. My ability not to want to let go, and fix things immediately when I am pissed. I am better at letting go now, but clearly need some work to still do on that.

Ironically, there was a piece of advice she gave me when I was very young that has stuck with me. To not let life sweep you away, but to make decisions and events happen on your own. I think she said something like "everyone needs to make a decision is some higher power controlling your life, or are you controlling your life". Yes, there are things beyond our control but our reactions and dealings with those things are ours alone. Ironically, it appears my mother does not think that way anymore. Life just swept her away, and her reactions are under the control of a higher power alone.

6. My Swedish Grandparents. Nothing directly from them, other than an understanding of what not to be. They were both alcoholics, abusive, and I don't know if it was a sickness or just a horribly developed personality, but neither were nice people. However, I did correspond with some relatives across the pond, that I don't know, but who do keep up our family tree. They let me know that my Great Grandfather founded a library and was a musician. I might have gotten my limited musical talent from there!!! My uncle R also has some musical talent that he has used all his life. The fondness for reading might also have been passed down through there.

New Years

Okay, my New Years resolutions have not gone so well in the past. In fact, it has seemed that if I want to completely not only not do something, but fail at it, I should be sure to make a New Year's resolution about it. My resolution this year is to make and keep my New Year's resolutions . Probably managing my medication well will help in that vein.

http://www.nubella.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2608&Itemid=44 Five tips to reach your resolution goals.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/DandelionSeeds/259501/ Another person's resolutions for 2007.

http://www.colleenpatrick.com/blog/2006/12/new-years-resolutions.html Another person's resolutions as their goals for 2007.

http://neohippy.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!CD6D31BE7405C6EF!2103.entry Analysis of a person's progress and journey in 2006.

Merry Christmas/Patience as Another Tool for Success

One area that I have had an extra amount of patience is dog training. Thing is, you just aren't going to be successful without it. It takes time and work, and there is no short cut around that. Also, illness and injury will hamper you, and there is no getting around that either. Time and understanding (ie patience) are things that are crucial to the career that I have chosen.

Not so in my previous career in accounting management, as you can put in all sorts of crazy hours and speed things up. A dog is only going to be able to take so much a day, whether they are a high drive working dog or not. At some point, you need to recognize when the progress has stopped, or you are impeding progress by burning out your dog. Also if you are burned out as the trainer, you are not helping anyone. Same thing with the owner, a burned out and frustrated owner is going to fail in bringing their dog along. Other factors go into it too like age, drive, behavioral problems, individualism, motivation, effective reinforcements, and health.

So with my dog Leon, his whole training program has just needed to be put on hold to see what he realistically needs physically. He has a fairly nasty knee injury. So my point is, in this one aspect of my life, I have understood the need for patience. I am not always perfect at it for sure, but it's just something that naturally comes to me in this one instance.

In every other part of my life, I want results right now. I want to be able to work 24 hours, and magically everything is done for the next two months. Whether it's weight, my health, cleaning, bill paying (I am actually on top of that more than most, especially with my previous career and technology), finances, and investing. I have no patience for these things. Combine that with the fact that I have a hard time sticking to a schedule.

It's important to stick to a schedule by the way, so when something happens, you have some leeway if you ended it. Like I didn't do a couple things yesterday, and today (of course) Leon has a stomach bug or something. He's actually throwing up right now. So I need to be in the moment today, ready to put everything down to take care of him. Which I am happy to do, but because I don't use patience and I indulge procrastination of myself, it puts me more behind on a day I have been (previously) holding for my procrastinated projects. First priority is always to take care of living beings in my care (husband and animals LOL). Poor Leon really is feeling not well today, undoubtedly will have to break out the pink stuff. That's always a battle.

So like today I was going to wake up at 6am and get a whole bunch of stuff done. But as life would have it, I was up all night with Leon bringing him back and forth to outside and cleaning up some throw up inside all night long. Thanks to hubby, I did manage to get some sleep between 9 and 12 this morning.

I also need to be patient with myself, because if I swing wildly one way, I will completely undermine myself. Going to try to do some trial runs before the next year starting......let's see when I can procrastinate this too LOL!!!!

Christmas Eve Day

Haven't decided completely just what to write today. I have some ideas, but I don't know that I want to waste them on this day. I am just trying to be disciplined at this point and write every day. Not even necessarily for this blog, but so I will carry tat discipline into other parts of my life that are becoming are should have always been very important.

I am an all or nothing person. I swing wildly one way or the other, and in the process either get a lot done and burn out or procrastinate ridiculously. It's one of those New Year's resolutions. I don't think I have ever effectively kept a News Year's resolution.

It's like this morning. I have spend much time lying in bed, debating with myself, be a lazy bones here next to my dogs and not write because it's "Christmas Eve" (I mean every day could be a lazy get nothing done day to me) or continue on with the discipline I have given myself. You know my first argument was that the world is not going to end if I don't write. And that's true, but I am just still here in my comfortable bed near my warm dogs writing instead of not writing. How hard is that for God's sake? In the event I actually get so busy and there are money making or save the world kind of things to do, I can let my guard down.

That's just it though, if I don't watch out at some point it will become ridiculous. I am way addictive or OCD about things LOL. But is that going to be so bad if I can get to an exercise regime, business regime, and house cleaning regime that runs.

I mean, I spent like ten hours yesterday organizing and cleaning. I am much better to sticking to a week or two week schedule for tackling the house, but I know darn well if I just had a schedule with an hour each day doing it (or two) it would be way easier on me. I mean yesterday's cleaning just would not end. That's because I wait and wait, and then I have to tackle every aspect of it at once. For instance, I got the master bedroom done yesterday for that ten hours. But that started with grooming the dogs, because let's face it, all that loose hair is just going to build up in a couple of hours if you don't. You might as well do their nails too because if you wait until it's clean, no matter how careful you are, those flying nail chips just get everywhere. So that takes an hour to an hour and a half to do all three. I should just pick a beginning point each week.

So then I usually dust (a step my husband would just ignore) but the whole closet situation has been getting to me. I decide to move and reorganize my husband's closet, so he can take care of his, and I can just close the door and ignore it if I want. Mind set is that this will in fact save me time in the future if I don't want to deal. That of course ends up taking about five hours, and also ends up involving other closets, purging, and size organization. A project of just doing this one day would have made yesterday much more endless.

So I guess what I am saying, is that I need to get more disciplined in every aspect of my life. Instead of letting "have tos" dictate and get me stressed, I need to help myself out. Especially in my getting fit and business life. So this blog, while also being therapeutic for me, also ends up helping in those aspects of my life.

I had a legacy thing that I was going to write today, but I found it a little sad to deal with on Christmas Eve. Hopefully I remember this topic for when these happy holiday days pass. So that's the break I am giving myself this Christmas Eve. Not a bad compromise. Now for the other disaster area of the house today. The family room. Yuck!!

Sinus Medicine/Showering/Bed Pals

I always say about procrastination, especially to my dog training clients, just do it now, you never know when you are going to be sick. I cleared the month of December from any serious dog training to get ahead, and don't you know got something.

My theory is always to take care of whatever it is you have, if you indeed have the luxury to do that at the time. Otherwise you are just sicker longer and your performance ultimately suffers. Therefore, while not 100% I do feel relatively perky today, and am ready to get "caught up" on some very important (inside anyway) tasks today.

One outside thing I need to do is let my two and two and a half year old Doberman boys run a bit and have at least a short adventure with them. When I am sick in bed, these boys are so good. They aren't perfect, I will find myself giving the "quiet" (well when I am sick yelling the command) command and down command at least a few times, while I am trying to nap. Overall though, these two very energetic and "can play all day" boys are the perfect sick girls companions. Leon, who sleeps under the covers with me, is excellent at chasing away the aches and pains with his body heat and enormous size. Jack is usually at my toes. And my 14 year old, Jazz has the spot on the pillow near my head. She, at this point, is also greatful for some great naptime in her geriatric years. She is also good for quieting down the boys for me on most occaisions.

So I guess it's time to shower, clean, bills, some medical paperwork, claims form, and those taxes filed from last year. Yuck. All my favorite stuff....Not. Well, showering I like. Course I am still morning the 40,000 redesign of a bathroom in my old house. I assumed we would be living there for another 15 years. Then we found this place near the ocean, and well, it was painful but I gave up the bathroom. Needless to say, it's going to be a little while until we can do the work on our masterbathroom to get an incredible shower like we had. My husband basically designed it with the contractor, and I doubted it, but I could have taken 6 hour showers in there every day after it was built. Really, it was a think of beauty, and don't even start me on the jacuzzi that I specially picked out for myself.

Ocean really pretty much wins out though, as does the four acres of playground that my dogs can romp in without me ever leaving the yard (had .10 acres before and had to drive somewhere to get their yayas out). Dobermans can live in an apartment et, but they really do need to stretch their legs unencumbered most days of the week, if you have a healthy one. They are thinking dogs too, so an adventure needs to be thrown in there.