Sunday, June 21

...whoops...

Summer -- the time when all of your days start to run together because adulting is exhausting and if you're going to keep up with blogging you need to invent a way to get more hours out of your week.
Apologies, but oh well. Here's the past two weeks in weekly photos.


First, the Pendinator. Gosh guys, this little corgi totally stole my heart and could totally work her way into even the most angry, dog-hating soul. I am not kidding, she just radiates joy and energy and trust and this crazy, total, unapologetic love of life.
So while her rescuing humans were gone, we took naps and went on walks (and she even took me on a run:) and made a trip to the weekly church league softball game, where she unofficially became the good luck charm and team morale booster in about .2 seconds.
This was the last week her humans were gone and the last week that I could just go hang out with her on a whim whenever I felt like it. It was good stuff, and the softball game was just the icing on the cake.
Running...ohhh, running.
So I may or may not have (ok, yeah, I did) gotten talked into running a 5k this upcoming week, which means last week training had to really kick in.
I'm still perfectly comfortable with little one or two mile adventures, but this day (Tuesday I believe it was) was the first 'long' run in quite awhile. [I don't know if 3.25 miles really constitutes a long run, but compared to what I've been doing, we'll call it that. Tonight the kid and I are trying to go four, so we'll see how that goes.]
This run was at one of my favorite places to go adventure running: the Zeeland Wetlands. A mixture of paved, gravel, dirt, and boardwalk bridges that has me running in lots of little circles, but I don't even care. It's beautiful, it's quiet, and it's usually pretty empty.
Mentally I had to get my stuff figured out for this run...and I was reminded of my 'thirds' mentality that keeps me going on longer runs... the first third with my legs {because I can run, gosh dang it!}, the next third with my head {because shoot, I've trained for this}, and the last third with my heart {because I want this and I refuse to quit}.

Sunday, June 7

Penny the corgi.

Every week I tell my self that "this is the week my photo of the week is going to be up on the blog on time!" and every week I'm wrong
Oh well, you get the gist of it anyway.
To compensate, this week will have THREE photos of the same glorious little furball in order to attempt to convey the joy, sass, energy, and hilarity she brings to every moment.


Without further ado, meet Penny the corgi!
She actually does love me, I promise (:

This beautiful lady had a pretty rough start to life; they think she was bought as a present for a little girl who didn't care & became a breeder dog, living for seven years in a cage getting abused and having puppies. Now this beautiful momma has adopted new humans who love her very much, but also love to travel. Luckily for both of us, I'm the go-to dog-walker, poop-picker-upper, plant-waterer, puppy-snuggler, etcetera.

Especially considering her background, Penny is so incredibly affectionate and trusting. One of the things we're working on {aside from simple stuff like 'sit' and 'come'} is getting her to receive my typical Julia forehead kisses without spazzing. 

Like I said earlier, her sass is hysterical. She's already learned how to manipulate her people and her expressions have me rolling almost every day.
Some of Penny's favorite activities while we're together include taking me for long walks and runs, randomly stopping suddenly in the middle of said runs to rest in the shade, napping in the sunshine, being an uncooperative participant in photo shoots, watching movies, refusing to go potty when you need her to, and sleeping right next to me on the couch.