Notes from my walk

This isn't a "New Year, New Me" type of thing. I think I mentioned before that 2016 is a big birthday year for me, so I decided at my last birthday that I needed to step up my game.
Part of that is actually walking the dog more often. He'll be happier, which will make me happier, which will make everyone else happier...see where this is going?

Well, since we live so far North we have about 6 hours of daylight at this time of year. All of those hours are during the day job, so I'm walking the dog in the dark. (Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit about the number of hours of sunlight, but not about walking in the dark.)  I've been noticing a few things while we're out walking.

1. High schoolers go to school REALLY early. Good grief. Those kids are barely upright before their loving parents are shoving them out the door so they can catch their bus. Plus, most of them don't appear to drink coffee yet, which is a double shame. If you have to be up that early, you should at least get the benefit of coffee.

2. Some people are afraid of dogs. Typically they send out a warning sign of some type; they'll cross the street, start walking in traffic to avoid the dog, or they'll simply yell for me to keep my ferocious beast who is peeing on everything that will stand still long enough away from them. (Now that I think about it, I wonder if they're really afraid of the dog, or just of being peed on...) Those are all fine ways to let me know, and I'll respect your wishes. The woman this morning did none of those things. She was bundled up as though she was about to do the Iditarod, looking straight ahead and walking at a pretty fast clip. When I said good morning she didn't respond at all. I figured somewhere under all those layers she had ear buds in and didn't think about it. But, when she got up next to Taz she pulled some fancy side-stepping dance move and squeaked like a mouse.

3. Our neighbor, the odd ones that are nice enough, but if the FBI ever showed up and said they had a freezer full of human bodies in their basement we'd all probably nod our heads and say things like, "Makes sense." like to clean at oh dark thirty in the morning.  They were scrubbing their windows.  This in itself wouldn't be so bad, but I'm pretty sure she was naked (yes, standing in a lit room, scrubbing the windows). I need to attempt to bleach my brain to unsee what I saw before I whipped my head around to look anywhere BUT there.

Thankfully, I'm safely back in my house, with the my coffee. The dog is resting at my feet having successfully scared the mouse-woman and I'm going to pretend I never saw anything.

I hope you all have a fabulous morning!!

Carmen

It's the most...craziest...time of the year!

I hope things are going well for all of you during this crazy time of the year.

Around here, I figured I'd take this week off from the day job in order to get things ready for our holiday. And by take the week off, that, of course means that I've answered several day job emails so far and have two meetings scheduled for tomorrow. *insert unimpressed look here*

And the kids have been to two parties so far, with another happening later today, Hubs is heading to the dentist and I have to hit the post office to ship off that one package that I forgot all about until late last night.

But, aside from all the craziness, I'm really looking forward to when things grind to a halt with the outside demands and we all take some time to hang out and enjoy just being able to spend time with one another.

So, here's me, wishing you and yours a very relaxing (as relaxing as it can be) rest of the  year. I hope your holiday celebrations, whatever they are, bring a ton of joy and laughter.

It's almost time for New Years Resolutions. Have you given those any thoughts yet?