Wow, I can't believe it's been almost an entire month since I've posted! I wish I could say that I've been away on a tropical island for the past month but this is reality. I've been to church camp, doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, guitar lessons, searching 2 counties for a dog, plus everyday work and home life. I register the kids for school next Friday and their first day is August 7, which is 2 weeks from today. Where has the summer gone?
We didn't make it to the beach like we planned to do over the July 4th holiday. After really thinking about it, I knew my son & I would be wore out from camp plus the thousands of people that would have the same idea as us would only make for a very crowded beach and tons of traffic and a bad time. I'm so glad we didn't go. Our plan now is to take our RV down for the month of August. So now this girl gets 5 weekends of beach time! And with the exception of gas driving back & forth each weekend, it's actually costing us less money than the 3 nights in a hotel would have.
My weight loss and working out has not existed over the last 3 weeks. While at camp, we walked and walked and walked. We also ate 3 full meals. When I got back home, my weight was the same. However, I have gained a few pounds since then. I haven't worked out at all and I've pretty much been eating whatever. I know I keep taking two steps forward and one step back and I keep saying I'm starting over and this is my last time and I'm going to do this. This is how I've gotten to where I am now, by going through this yo-yo cycle. I honestly can't say that I'm motivated to get back on track but that's my goal. I know with everything we have coming up in the next few months that it will be hard, but I also know that nothing worth doing or having comes easy. I hope by next week I can commit to getting back in a routine and at least have a plan to getting my eating back under control.
And to end this update I have to tell the story of Dan's journey through 2 counties if for no other reason than for me to look back on later! While my son & I were gone to camp, my daughter stayed with her grandmother and my husband was working in New Orleans. My parents live next door so they were 'dog sitting'. Between both of us, we have 4 labs plus Dan, the hound. They love to chase various varmits and wander through the woods. So when they were gone that Tuesday, my mom really didn't think much about it. But when all the labs came home later and Dan didn't she started to worry. She rode around and called him and looked for him with no luck. We got home late Wednesday night and he still wasn't home. We rode through the woods Thursday morning thinking maybe he had gotten snake bit and had died. We had no luck. We continued to ride around and look on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. Sunday night I posted his picture on our town's Facebook page. I got a message back that there was a dog that looked just like him that appeared at the nursing home the past Wednesday and one of the nurses took him home. I got so excited and first thing Monday morning I called the nursing home to find out if she had Dan. Well, after she took him home and fed him, he ran off in the woods and she hadn't seen him since. And, she lived about 30 minutes away in another county in a completely rural area! Not giving up hope, I googled her address and took an early lunch break and went to look for him. I made flyers with his picture to hand out. One elderly lady was working in her garden and told us that her husband had seen a dog that looked similar to him a few roads over but couldn't really explain how to get there. We continued to the next few houses. While we were leaving the last house in that area, that lady's husband drove up and told us to follow him and he would take us to where he saw the dog. I'm glad he did because after the 2nd turn I knew I would have never gotten there. After about half a mile down this road he stopped and said this was the area he had seen the dog. We called for Dan with no luck. I decided to ride a few miles to the end of this road and put up flyers just in case someone else had seen him. The road ended at the highway. I stuck a flyer on the stop sign and turned around. There was pretty much only 1 house down towards the end of the road. In front of this house we met a guy in a golf cart and stopped and gave him a flyer. There were dogs in the yard barking and we assumed this was his house so we didn't stop at the house. We came back home empty handed and mostly broken hearted. I ended up working late since I took a 2 hour lunch break. About 6:00 I started packing up to go home and I had a voicemail from a guy that said he had my dog. I immediately called him back and he told me he had my dog but he had to run to town and would call me when he got back. We waited for his call and about 7:30 he called to say he was headed home from town. The directions he gave me put me right at the house we stopped in front of earlier that day and met the guy on the golf cart. Sure enough, when we drove up, I heard Dan howling. I can't describe the pure joy I had just seeing Dan and seeing the excitement on my son's face after being reunited with his dog. I know for a fact that this was a 'God thing' because if we never would have went looking and never would have met this lady who's husband tracked us down and drove us to this area and never had driven to the end of the road and put up a flyer, I don't think Dan would be home today. Knowing that we live in the middle of the national forest and knowing that Dan is a hunting dog and likes to track and refuses to stay in his pen, I ordered a Tagg tracking collar and it has been great. I have an app on my phone that can show me his location any time I want. It also alerts me when he gets out of his designated area. We also put a tag on his collar with our phone number.
Sorry that was such a long story, but telling a story without details is a huge weakness I have! Have a great Wednesday!!
