Catching Up

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Our summer started off nice and calm, with a good rhythm to our days. And then camp started and everything went crazy. My son did one week of camp and loved it so much that he asked to go back this week. Since they had open spots, including for swim lessons, we signed him again. So instead of just having one kid in camp (my older daughter), I've been juggling two and my poor little one has been suffering with very short naps the last few days. The up side is that all three kids have been going to bed very early, so my evenings have been pretty quiet.

I finally had time tonight to get some little chores done that I've been putting off. My older cat, Ben, has always had an amazing coat. She sheds like a German Shepherd and I periodically have to really go over her to get her undercoat out or she mats badly. I've put it off too long this time and now I do have to battle big chunks of fuzz under her coat. She is not a happy kitty when I start working on her and she lets me know loudly. It should at least decrease the hairball puking, if nothing else.

I also sat down and trimmed Zatarain's feet. Leonbergers are pretty low-maintenance as far as grooming goes. They have a lot of coat and do require brushing, but you aren't supposed to do any kind of fancy trimming. The one thing that does need to be done on occasion, though, is trimming the feet. Audubon's mom, and therefore Zatarain's grandmother, had amazingly fuzzy feet and both of my dogs ended up with the same. Left alone, they start to look like snowshoe rabbits. It's not the best look for a Leo, so I trim Zatarain's feet when they start to get furry. I let them get pretty long this time, so it took a while to get them under control. Zatarain closely monitored my scissoring, resting his head on my left arm while I trimmed his feet with my right. It was very cute and he was very patient, wagging his tail when I would talk to him and tell him how handsome he looked. He was less happy when I started working on his nails, but he cooperated better than usual and I was able to get them done fairly quickly.

I've also been trying to work out more the last few weeks and that takes up a chunk of time in the morning. I'm having foot surgery on July 22, so I want to get into the best shape I can ahead of time since I won't be allowed to work out for a while afterwards. I try to run on Mondays, do a cycling class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and do Pilates on Fridays. I just added the cycling back in after 2 1/2 years and it's been miserable getting back into it. I'm finally feeling better during and after the classes, so I think I've gotten past the worst of it. I'd love to add one more day, but I've never been good about working out on the weekends.

So that's the update. Hopefully I'll be more timely over the next couple of weeks since our pace will be slower.