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 :)