Hunter or Hunted?

Last night the reality of the dogs' innate natural tendencies as, well, dogs, hit home like never before. I let them out for their last chance at going to the bathroom before bed. Lucy came back in when I called, but Molly didn't. I called and called, listened to hear the sound of the tags on her collar jingling, like they do when she's walking or running, and heard nothing. Getting concerned, I peered into the backyard and thought I could barely see Molly, laying in the grass next to the second biggest tree in the yard. Now, since she loves to jump and try to climb the trees, I was afraid she had jumped, fallen funny and hurt herself. So I grabbed the flashlight, put my tennis shoes on, and ran into the yard where she was. I kept calling her name, expecting her to move, or whimper, or at least acknowledge that I was coming to help her. I was definitely NOT expecting her to start growling as I reached down to pet her. I stopped, called her name, and watched as she buried her head into the grass, crunching on something. At this point, I figured it was one of their chew toys or something. No such luck. As soon as I convinced her to drop whatever was in her mouth, Lucy grabbed it up and ran to another part of the yard. I scanned the patch of grass where Molly had been laying, which was sopping wet from dog slobber and one tiny tuft of gray fur. Uh oh. After some serious coercion, Lucy finally dropped the prize, which turned out to be a rabbit HEAD! Ears, eyes and all, the dogs had made quick work of this poor rabbit. You can imagine how loundly I screamed when I realized what they had been eating! So gross.

Joe had been in the shower while all of this was going on, and I made him go get the head out of the backyard and throw it away, since I had to deal with the whole mess. Luckily for us, the dogs haven't gotten sick today, which I was partially expecting.

Oh, how I love these days when I am forced to remember that as much as they're family, the dogs are still animals, plain and simple!

Attempts at running

Joe decided a few months ago that it would be a good idea to run the Disney World Marathon in January. I've always wanted to be able to say that I had run a marathon, and in a weak moment, signed up for the race.

Oh, how I regret that decision right now!

Sundays are supposed to be "long run" days. My training plan says that today I should have run 12 miles. Now, I did complete a half marathon (13.1 miles) last month, but my lower half has not been the same since. I can run, but not for long distances. The weather today was quite nice, so I sucked it up, grabbed the dogs and set out my long run. I figured I would go for 10 miles, then see if I could squeeze out another two. Joe and Kyle had just gotten back from a 16.5 mile run, so certainly I could manage, right?

Wrong. The dogs were so excited to run a new route that they acted like crazed idiots for the first few miles. It got to the point where I was constantly pulling or being pulled, and decided that I wasn't going to continue like that for another 8 miles. I called Joe, who came and took the energetic girls home.

I set off, by myself, through the streets of Mission Hills, this incredible city just south of Roeland Park. If I had to guess, the cheapest house in the city/neighborhood is probably worth 1.5 million and would only have 4 or 5 bedrooms. Talk about stately mansions! I had never wandered by foot through the area, and was simply astounded by the sheer size beauty of some of the homes! Well, that only lasted for another couple of miles, before my knees, hips, feet, etc really started to hurt. I managed, in the end, to push on and complete 8 miles. Hmmm. 8-13 miles is the furthest I've ever run, and yet I'm supposed to go for 26 in another 2 months? We'll see about that... I may have really overestimated my own athletic abilities this time!

We conquered the garage

Our lowly single car garage became the storage place for everything we worked on this summer, from bags of mulch, grass seed and fertilizer to lumber, screening and trim pieces. Unfortunately, that meant that neither one of our cars fit into the garage at the same time. Now that we finished the first phase of the porch and the landscaping is sleeping until next spring it was clearly time to clean out the garage so we could use it for its true purpose! Earlier this fall I decided the walls needed a coat of primer as they were full of creepy stains and marks. It's amazing how much brighter it looks! We also realized we desperately needed more storage for all of the things we wanted to keep in our little garage. Joe and I spent a few hours on Sunday hanging shelves along our back wall, to complement the hanging storage system he put in a while ago. Now everything is up off the floor and we can actually walk around a car in the garage, without having to wiggle our way around everything! It's not nearly as exciting for everyone else, and certainly not something most people would even realize we had worked on, but it's one more space that's finished!