Feeling Good!

2 weeks ago my Dr. gave me some samples of a pill to add to the anti depressants I am already taking.
The ones I am on now I have been on for 2 years.  They are working, they helped me out of a terrible depression that I had 2 years ago, but did nothing for my anxiety. 
If you suffer from anxiety you will understand just how awful it is.  If you don't I will try to explain.  You can't just, "get over it", like many people think.  You can't just go out and exercise and get out of the house to help it either.   For me it felt like a gnawing pressure in the middle of my chest, almost like the weird feeling you get when you are frightened.   It was never ending, day in and day out it was there.  Trying to keep busy helped, but the problem with my anxiety/depression is I didn't want to leave the house, ever, and the second I stopped being busy there it was again.
I would get anxious the morning of a dog class for instance, already feeling like I didn't want to go.  I had to force myself to take the dogs out for a walk.  It was all consuming, even at bedtime.  It was absolutely exhausting.

I have monthly visits with my Dr, the last time I said to him, " what I feel like doing is going home and drinking an entire bottle of wine, getting drunk so my mind will be numb and I won't feel like this"  That's when he gave me Ambilify to try.  I thought what the hell, nothing else seems to be working , and quite frankly I was at the end of my rope. 

Within 3 days I felt a bit less pressure, less worry.  Within a week I felt more energetic, I was guarded though, thinking there is no way this could happen so fast, if it was happening at all.  I went online to check it out and so many people said the same thing, that within just a few days they were feeling better.

I am hopeful that I will continue to feel better, I am not waking up hating to face the day.  I am going to my 3 classes a week and I am not stressing about leaving the house!! That alone is huge!!  So fingers crossed this is the pill that helps me feel normal again.

I am sharing all of  this in hopes that if someone with anxiety reads it they will not give up trying, keep on your Dr, tell him exactly how you feel, no sugar coating. 
I am also on a wait list to see a psychiatrist at the advice of my Dr.  I would love his opinion on what he thinks  about what I go through.   It is defiantly gotten worse as I age.   I  hate that I  need pills, I would rather not take them, but until you have been in my body and mind, don't judge, trust me when I say, this is a huge relief!!

Spring In January!!

I can't believe this weather!  It is supposed to be a high of 16 today, unheard of for January, it's like spring !!!
I have so much to do today so I better get at it, cleaning out my van for one.  It is so full of sand. Yesterday Judy and I took the dogs for a walk and the Old Man River was open so the dogs went swimming!  That meant mucky dogs however, which meant a dirty van but they had so much fun!

I also want to get out and do some training with Lync, mostly hand signals for field, , left, right, back for the dummy, I haven't worked on that all winter and my plan is to try for his WCI this year if possible! 

I have been so busy with training Lync, he has Obedience on Tuesdays, Agility on Wednesdays, and Scenthurde on Thursdays!!  It is fun though and he is so smart, he picks things up pretty fast, the other night he finally had an "ah ha" moment and figured out how to do a left turn with me in heel position!! I was so flipping excited as we have been working on this forever!!

This weekend is a trick workshop we are attending, Lync has quite a few tricks he can do which I need to video!  I am working on him putting rings on a pylon right now, it's coming along prettty good.

Well that's all I have time to write, need to get outside and enjoy this weather!!!!

Going to Camrose :)

I am so excited !  Yesterday Amanda asked if I was interested in going to the Camrose shows with her.  I had decided I wasn't going to Camrose as it is quite farther away and a bit more expensive for the hotel.   But, sharing expenses with someone makes it easier!  I really like the hotel we are staying at, I stayed there last year when going to the Collie National, it is a gorgeous hotel with a restaurant right inside, you don't even need to go out to eat, the food is amazing!  Another bonus is the show site is 5 minutes from the hotel, so awesome!

The judges are decent AND the entries are only $20.00 as they are celebrating their 25th Anniversary so they dropped the price of the entries.  It is a great show for people who are doing obedience as well as it is in a whole separate room by itself, so nice and quiet.

It has been forever since Amanda and I have gone to a show together, we used to always travel for Agility , so that will be so nice.

Dianne might come to watch as well and have a bit of a vacation, she came last year to watch the National and we did quite a bit of laughing !  Especially going to the Karaoke night,  very fun listening to the drunk people who thought they could actually sing haha!

The show is not until the end of March so I have time to work on Lync's stack, I can never get it quite right when I am in the ring, there are times when I think it would look nice to have him stacked, right now I just free bait him, like a Collie lol

Credit Cards, Hate Them !

Grrrrrrr, so frustrated!

Almost 2 years ago Brad and I decided to try and change our financial situation.  We had been struggling since moving here, I had left my business and was only working part time, and Brad's situation changed when he was off work for medical reasons for a year and a half.  Now I have been off work for over a year as well.

One of the things we did was get rid of every credit card we owned.  It has been such a struggle to not have one!  Not in the way that we need to pay cash for everything, that is the good part, but I travel alot for dog shows , that is where the problem is happening.

This morning I tried a couple of hotels, I wanted to reserve a room .  The first hotel doesn't accept anything but a credit card for payment, not debit and not cash!  The second hotel accepts a credit card to hold the room, but if you are paying in cash you need to pay up front and they want a $200.00 damage deposit up front as well! eeek!  Also because it is my moms credit card, she has let me use it for holding rooms, they now want to fax her an authorization letter, have her mail it back to them, super, that is not going to happen, my mom has been quite sick for some time and she is not going to want to bother with this.

I will figure it out, they can hold the damage deposit on my moms card I suppose, I was just so stunned I didn't end up reserving a room, geez Louise this sucks!

AKC Show

Home from the Dog Show yesterday without getting Lync's final point, ugh!! I hate sitting on 9 points, it's like a curse!  The same thing happened with Kort, we sat on 9 points for what seemed like forever !

On the first day we had a Booster with 16 Flatcoats entered!  It was wonderful !  Lync showed very well and took Reserve Male !  The next day the judge didn't like him at all and we didn't get anything.
I am hoping to go to Red Deer in April , I am glad I get to keep showing him as I love it, BUT, it gets so expensive with hotel rooms when you have to travel.  I wish we could have a summer show here in Lethbridge! I wonder why we don't?

This was Lync's last show as a 12-18 month old.  He is now in Open, which kind of sucks as he still looks so young , which is another reason I was hoping to finish him before he had to compete in Open.

Anyway, here is a video with Lync competing at the booster, he is Blazingstar Galwey WC for those of you who don't know his registered name :)

Show Weekend!

Lync competing at the Flatcoat National in August 2014

Taking a short break from packing and getting ready to leave tomorrow for Calgary.  It is the AKC winter show at Spruce Meadows.  It is so hard to believe that this was Lync's very first show ever!  He showed last year in Baby Puppy class, he was a rockstar and I knew he loved the show ring.  Pat Kopec showed him for me as I was still recovering from my accident, he won Best Baby Puppy In Breed.

I also competed in Scenthurdle with Kort and he got enough points to get his Scenthurdle Masters title.   Tate was alive and doing well, he came up with us as well.  Things sure have changed since last year.  This year I am traveling up with only 2 dogs, Kort has been retired from Scenthurdle due to his continuing back problems, and Lync is sitting on 9 points toward his Championship with only 1 more to go!
The entry is great, 16 on Saturday and Sunday!   He just needs 1 Winners Male to finish, fingers crossed, it won't be easy as the entry has some gorgeous dogs in it!!  If I am unsuccessful this weekend I will go up to Medicine Hat in July , and possibly Red Deer.  There is a show in Cochrane that is sooner but I will be going to Thunder Bay at that time for my sister Joanne's Wedding, maybe I can convince someone to take Lync to the show?  We will see, I would like to be the one to get the last point on him.

I would also like to travel to the States this year and get a start on his American champion.  I have never had an American champion, I never took Tate or Kort to the States, I showed Drake in the States and he had 7 points I think but I never finished him.

Lync will be the 4th dog I have put Championship on, and the first Flatcoat.  My plans are to let him grow up until he is about 3 before Specialing him in any capacity other then our local show.  We have Obedience, Scenthurdle and now Agility to keep us busy until then .

Ok, off to finish packing, then I need to bath Lync too!

Agility !!

Tonight was Lync's very first agility Class.

It felt good to be back doing Agility.  I wasn't sure I would ever do it again after having to retire Kort so young due to injury. I will continue to go and see how Lync likes it.
Tonight Lync amazed me by running through the tunnel with no hesitation at all.  This sounds simple, Tate liked tunnels, but Kort wasn't sure of them at first, I had to do alot of encouraging.
Lync was running full blast through a full length tunnel and speeding out the other end like a bullet!!  I know one thing for sure and that is I won't be able to run fast enough to keep up with him.  I will definitely need to teach distance, something I didn't take very seriously with Kort.  I am looking forward to the challenge though!

I am also very excited  to be in the very first class of Amanda and Cindy's newly formed Agility Club, Sundog Agility.  The arena is beautiful and bright and clean.  I am very very happy for them both !

Training

 This was my first attempt to video some training with my new tri pod, I need some practice oviously lol! 

Coming Home!!

I miss this face !!!! taken by Amanda

Tomorrow afternoon I leave to return home to Lethbridge.  I hope the flights are all on time and there are no delays!  I really miss home, can't wait to get there even though it will be so hard to leave Thunder Bay and my family, home is now in Lethbridge .

I am sure my dogs are wondering where I am by now and if I am ever coming home lol!

Today is Jane's Birthday so we are going out for supper which will be nice, then hopefully I will be able to get some sleep tonight as tomorrow will be a long hard day.  I won't be getting to my house until about 1 am, and that is only if things go smoothly, so fingers crossed!

Kort with his bestest buddy Pixel :)

News from Thunder Bay

Saying Vows

 Still here in good old Thunder Bay!  Time is going by so fast, I leave for home on Friday.  I am already getting a bit of anxious about the flying part, hoping that the flight home goes smoother then my flight here.

To re cap, I left on December 29th , my plane was to leave at 10 to 1 in the afternoon, instead it left at 1:30,  that put me in Calgary at 2:15, by the time the plane stopped , we got off, I collected my luggage and made my way to the Westjet counter, my plane was already fully boarded and leaving.

The best they could do for me was get me on a flight that left at 12:30 in the morning, 9 1/2 hours later.  If that wasn't bad enough that flight took me all the way to Toronto, a 5 hour flight, arriving at 6 am.  I managed to occupy myself in Calgary for the 9 hours by going for something to eat, listening to music and talking with other passengers.  The flight was horrible, I had packed all my medications in my suitcase never thinking this could ever happen.  My fibromyalgia causes my nerve endings to jump or twitch, the entire flight my left leg was twitching , it ached and my feet felt numb.  I removed my boots and stood up for awhile, I had a window seat so I couldn't stand there for very long so I woke up the young man sitting in the isle seat and went and chatted with the flight attendants.  I also was nauseated and had a stomach ache.  They gave me a ginger ale and I headed back to my seat.  Everyone on the plane was asleep but me.  I woke up the young man again and asked if he would mind moving into my seat by the window, he was very happy to do so, thankfully!

When we arrived in Toronto I found my next gate to board my plane which was to leave at 8am, when I got there I found out that flight was also delayed and wouldn't be leaving until 10:30,  by this time I was so exhausted I didn't care, I hadn't slept now for 24 hours. I finally arrived in Thunder Bay at 1 pm, 15 hours after I should have!

Anyway, the Wedding was on the 31st and it was perfect, one of the most beautiful Weddings I  have ever been too.  My niece Sherri was absolutely stunning.   My mom was still not feeling well so I left with her at 11 o'clock and we rang in the New Year at home.

The complete family! and my head hahaha!

Today my mom started her experimental treatment for her blood disorder.  Her blood doesn't make red blood cells anymore so her blood pressure continually drops and she gets weaker and weaker.  I took her for her weekly bloodwork today and sure enough her blood is so low again that she needs to go for another blood transfusion tomorrow morning.  With any luck the pills she is taking will work and she will never have to have another transfusion ever again.  The pills come with many risks, one being blood clots.  My mom has already had a stroke so she is on blood thinners thankfully.

It is going to be so hard to leave, my mom will be so sad, I hate to think about it.  I would stay longer but my dogs and my husband are back in Lethbridge and I miss them.  My sister Joanne is getting married in May so I am thinking of driving here, that way I can stay longer as I will bring the dogs with me.

That's about it for news from here.

My beautiful family at the Church