nova

Up North

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! There was no blog last Thursday because I was on vacation and attempting to unplug as much as possible. I was pretty successful, and it was an absolutely wonderful time away.

Nova did great on her first road trip, and we all had a really lovely time!

We ended up going up to Duluth a day earlier than originally planned, which made the whole trip much more relaxing than I think it would have been had we tried to cram everything into a day and a half. Nova was a bit anxious the first night, but by day two she was fine – she had a lot of fun making friends with the other dogs on the boardwalk. Taking three days off from work was just what I needed, and I came back feeling much more settled and rested than I’d felt in a while.

I’m going to leave this as a short blog this week – I have an exciting thing in the works right now but I’m not quite ready to share it with the world at large yet. Hopefully in the next week or two I’ll be posting about that here!

Little Moments

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to another Thursday. My brain keeps thinking it’s either Wednesday or Friday; not sure why I seem unable to land on Thursday this week. But here we are, the last day of September (how did that happen?), and I’m staring at the blank space on this screen wondering what to write about.

This week has been good, overall, though there have certainly been stressful pieces. Mostly, though, it’s been a week of noticing the little moments.

On Sunday, we went to a Twins game with my husband’s dad and brother, which was super fun. Their brother decided it would be funny to throw his hat at the end of the national anthem (and again during the 7th inning stretch), and even though the Twins lost, it was still a really fun time. I hadn’t been to a baseball game in quite a while (since well before pandemic times), and I was reminded how much I enjoy baseball, even though I don’t follow it closely. I played softball for many years as a kid, and because of that, baseball is the one sport where I feel like I actually mostly understand what’s happening.

While we were at the baseball game, my dad came and watched Nova for us, which I think they both enjoyed.

On Tuesday evening, Nova and I went for, I think, the longest walk I’ve taken her on so far. It was a really lovely evening, weather-wise, but there weren’t a lot of people out for the first half of it, which was odd but made for a very calm walk. We noticed the trees that are just starting to change color down by the river, which gives me hope that when we go up north next weekend we’ll get to see some pretty leaves.

I leave you with this snuggly picture of Nova that my husband took this morning. Take care of yourselves and each other. There might not be a blog next week, as I’ll be headed up north on Thursday, but we’ll see what happens.

Allergies for Everyone

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Good morning, dear readers – we made it to another Thursday.

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, some of us have sneezed and sniffled our way here. Ragweed season is really bad in the Twin Cities right now, and I am struggling…and so is Nova. We’ve been giving her Benadryl all week to help with it, and it is helping, but it’s pretty heartbreaking when she gets really itchy and is clearly uncomfortable. I’ve just had a perpetual sinus headache and continue to want to sleep all the time. I’ve made it to my desk on time for work every day this week, though, so that has to count for something.

I’m not in the best mood today, mostly because of how sniffly and gross my head feels. To counter that, here are three things I’m grateful for this week:

  • My friends. I’ve had several reminders lately that I really do know the best people who really care about and take care of each other, and I’ve really been overwhelmed with gratitude that I have such incredible people in my life.
  • D&D (and other games). I got to play D&D on Tuesday night, and even though it kept me up well past my bedtime, it was so worth it. I’m also working on starting a game of Wanderhome with some other friends, and I’m so excited to try this system out. The importance of play and of story in my life is huge, and I’m reminded every time I get to dive into a fantasy world with some friends how much of a difference it’s made to have those things.
  • Fall weather. The heat seems to have finally abated, and now it’s been in the 60s the past few days. It’s supposed to get back up in to the 70s today, but I think the 80s are behind us, and that is just fine with me. I’m looking forward to wearing sweaters soon!

I will leave you with this ridiculous picture of Nova, who was definitely not at all interested in what my husband was eating when they took this photo:

Hello, I see you have pizza. I also would like to have pizza.

So Sleepy

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday. It’s a weird week.

I woke up yesterday and just could not get myself out of bed. I ended up calling in sick to work and slept until around 11. Thankfully my husband usually takes the morning dog walking shift, and they were kind enough to let me rest. I spent a lot of the day reading, which was lovely. Managed a shorter-than-usual walk with Nova after dinner, and then we had week 2 of obedience classes, which was fun, but also extremely overstimulating for everyone.

This morning I overslept. I’m working but still feeling pretty tired. Hoping coffee helps. I’m 99% sure this is all just another round of allergies – on top of being sleepy, I’ve also been sneezing a lot and my nose and ears itch. It’s just annoying.

Nova’s personality is continuing to come out – this is our third week with her, and we are learning she is quite the opinionated sassypants when she wants to do something (i.e. dig in the couch) and is told no. Thankfully she still doesn’t bark much (*knock on wood*), but she does talk back a little bit. We are learning that she loves attention and will demand it if she doesn’t feel she’s enough of the focus in the room. She’s also quite the hunter…last Friday, she caught a pigeon right at the end of our evening walk! Thankfully, I was able to get it out of her mouth and it fluttered away. (Also, thankfully, birds don’t carry rabies and after checking in with the vet, they let us know we probably didn’t have much to worry about. She’s been fine since, albeit a little hyper-focused on birds when we’re outside.)

I think that’s it from me for today – short and sweet is about all I have the energy for. I hope you’re all hanging in there!