Summer Vacation

Ben and I have been married for almost 14 years, Charlie is 13 and Dylan will be 11 in June. We have *never* been on a vacation. Ben and I didn't have a honeymoon. For his entire Navy career (14 years) his 30 day leaves have been spent driving "home", dividing up time between families, spending 3 nights here, 2 nights there, trying to fit a year's worth of family time into 10 days or so, then driving back to VA. ("Home" is WI, approx 1200 miles one way). Oh, it also involves finding people that are both reliable and close-to-free to watch the dogs and stock... Although we love our family, and visits are part of living across the country, it is nothing short of exhausting. THIS year we are being "selfish" and we ARE taking a family vacation. During Ben's 30 days I'm taking my 7 days and we're going camping and ATVing in the mountains of West Virginia. We're so serious about this that I skipped a breeding I'd liked to have done because it would have highly complicated the having someone care for the animals, part of the planning. Check out http://www.trailsheaven.com/ I haven't looked at it much yet, this was Ben's brain-child, but it looks like a really great way to spend the week. We'll need to buy a 15' trailer that loads from the side (Lowe's for $1500) to put 3 of the 4 wheelers and the 4th will load in the back of my pick up. I think we'll opt for the most rustic cabin type thing rather than tenting, unless it's way too expensive. I'm anxious to look thru it and see if you can do things like canoeing etc. I'm sure that's there to do. We're all pretty excited. We need to firm up a week so I can put in for my vacation at work. Work is going great. I'm finally about done playing "catch up" in my 2 new departments and have started to get some stuff done. I put in some long hours last week before "company" and about lost my mind on Thursday night. Company came Friday morning and my 2 depts. were good. In fact I guess we (I say we, because my over-night stocker is GREAT, she is big part of holding dept. 13 (chemicals) together) have the best "air care" section in the district. (that's based on number of outs, on-hands correct, filled to the latest modular change, if there are outs, they're "dotted" and ordered, etc). After an exasperating day on Thursday (7am-7pm, followed by 4:30am on Fri) Kevin (store manager) and Darrell (co-manager) made it all worth it by really being encouraging. Kevin told me "I know good when I see it and I told you a long time ago, whatever you want to do in this store, you can do"- followed by him saying he doesn't just say that to people- and I know he doesn't- most people I've talked to have never heard him say that kind of thing to them. And Darrell told me "we have several stars in this store- and you're one of 'em". I can't even tell ya how great their timing was!! It's so good to know that giving a damn and doing all you can do (along with "getting it") is noticed. I know I'm lucky to work for people like Kevin and Darrell. I know being an assistant is the next move. The money is WAY better, however it's hard to stay in the same store and my cake-walk m-f 7-4 will be out the window. Although I certainly work my share of OT, even during these NO OT months! The last 4 weeks I have averaged almost 50 hours/week.

Well, Ben is home with the pool chemicals, so I'm gonna go out there with him. I'm going to put $50 a pay check aside so I have trial money for the summer trial at Breezy Hill with all 4 dogs for both days.

Cattle Are Awesome

I had a total blast at my 2nd cattle trial. They offered both a field course and an arena course. We ran the field course first. They set 5 point markers on the field for the outrun. Go inside the marker and it's 5 points off, lose 1 point for each redirect- up to 5 points. I redirected Cruz once and he did that nicely, however he was about 20' inside the 5 points off pole. I could see he was going to be inside of it, but didn't think it was best to stop him a second time. He lifted great and we ran the course the best he could have possible run it, given the ideas the steers had. We had one steer that insisted on being back to the barn, and Cruz handled it like a seasoned pro. Of course we ate up a lot of time, and as they were finally heading to the pen we ran out of time. Gwen skated just to the inside of the pole also. She was great. She hasn't been on cows but a few times, and hasn't worked them for close to a year. She is a different dog on cattle. After the class Tom Forrester asked me who Cruz was, he quite impressed with him. Of course he expected me to rattle off some names he knew... LOL! He said he came on the cows really, really nice. (he was setting out) Later he asked me about Gwen and why a couple times I told her to not get in the cows face. Carol had told him while I was running that it was because I wanted her to be right. He told me I should have let her, and that if the cow is being "wrong", the dog can't be "right"... grin- you gotta love good 'ol boy theory! I let her get on the cows probably a bit too much during the arena course, but at least Tom couldn't get after me for cranking her down. LOL! The arena seems so cut and dry, but boy let me tell ya, cows change all that, and quick like!! Cruz ran a very nice course, but it got hairy at the end and I ended up missing my re-pen points by about 30 seconds. After the trial was over Roy Johnson told me I have very nice dogs and asked me about Gwen. He guessed she was from Steve McCall's lines. I think I'm going to start going up to Roy's a time or two a month. Me and my dogs simply need time on the field and Roy has both the field space and the stock numbers. Carol has plenty of sheep, but only 3 steers. Also, I think it would help my dogs to get on more than just Carol's fields! I need to start hitting the road and getting my dogs out more. In the end Cruz ended up 7th on the field and 5th in the arena- not bad considering the amount we've worked cattle. I think Gwen was close to Cruz in both classes, maybe 9th and 8th or something like that. I love cattle and cattle trials. There's murmurs that the finals will be out this way in the near future. From what I gather, people are getting tired of having to go out west year after year- and some of the best running dogs and handlers are from here on the east. I heard every day there are more and more handlers pulling from the finals. (cattle) I would love it if they did. I would have to really commit to some trialing in order to qualify.

Dylan has another ball game this afternoon. Two games in a week, and 2 days of practice... Although I think when they have both a Friday and Sunday game, they don't do Saturday morning practice. They didn't practice yesterday.

My house is a mess and I wish I could work dogs, but it's off the ball the field. That's what having kids is about- putting their needs before yours. Dylan really enjoys baseball, so I'm certainly not going to fuss about hauling him around to the games. They only play until about June. Someday I'll be able to do what I want, when I want... I just hope I'm not too old to enjoy it when I finally can! ;-p

Made It

Well, I made it through Easter as the candy/tobacco dept manager! Whew! I worked 10.5 hours on the Saturday before Easter. It was I N S A N E!! All I did all day was condense candy and keep moving it to the front cart rails, end caps, stack bases, etc... I refused to go in on Sunday. I was asked numerous times, but enough is enough... I had worked half a day the Sunday before, followed by M-Sat, so I was not about to skip out on my kids Easter morning. It was a lot of hours, but trust me, nearly 11 hours of OT was nice on my paycheck. But the candy dept. is behind me now, as I've moved to the paper and chemical dept. Actually right now I'm trying to keep up with all three depts., but it's getting old, and it's too much, so they best get someone into candy soon, because next week I'm going to go ahead and just let it fall apart... I couldn't bare to watch all my hard work to get my over stock bins perfect, the ordering right, the on-hands and max. shelf cap right on the entire wall, the wall nearly 100% packed full, end caps kept full with high sell items, my live freight worked and the over stocked binned the same day it came in, etc fall completely behind- but now I'm the dept. manager of 2 highly consumable departments that have been left without a dept. manager for several weeks (meaning only the bare min. has been done with them) themselves, so there just is not enough hours in the work day... I'm anxious to get the over stock bins in both departments straight. Today I got quite a bit of freight out of both departments by changing out 4 weak end caps. There is way too much over stock in both the departments, which most likely means the on hands and/or the max caps. are off. Items get "plugged" or "cut in" and that just screws everything all to *ell. I had the same issue to fix in candy, only this is a much bigger fix.

Anyway, enough about work... I have one more paycheck with 10 hours of OT, so hopefully it can be put towards something worth while.

I worked dogs a few times the last 10 days. I worked Kit for the first time in several months. I have to say, there is really something to letting them mature! I still think they show you early on what they have, but then I think they (some) kind of go through a "funk". Kit always impressed me as a very young pup, but then kind of went "oh-hum" on me. Well, let me tell ya, she was absolutely stellar the other day. I'm anxious to see what happens when I get a little more serious with her. She has a very nice stop. She has nice sheep sense and likes to drive and was staying off the sheep nicely, yet when I crowded them along the fenceline and asked her in, she came right through and said "yee-ha, this is great!" LOL! She's going to need the same kind of outrun training that Toss needed. Toss was interesting in that it took him quite awhile to open up his short outrun, but once he had the short outrun, I could send him quite a long distance. In other words it was some time before he could run 75-100 yards, but once he could run 100 yards, he could run 250. I see that same thing in her. Like Toss, she leans on the sheep if given too much distance. Also like Toss, she is very forward, which I am learning to appreciate. Apparently she's also like Toss in that she has been quite slow to mature to her potential.

Clare's sister, Sam was here for 3 days over the Holiday. I took some new pictures, just haven't had the time to get them on here. I will soon though. She and Clare are very much the same personality. Ben and the kids went to Darren's one day over the weekend and saw Loki, Clare's other sister. Ben said she is drop dead gorgeous and an absolute love. He said she is one of those fun dogs. Deal had 2 litters of 3 pups, and Loki is the only coated pup. I'll have to get Darren to bring her out one day (he only lives a few miles away) so I can see her and get some pictures.

I'm going to the cattle trial in the morning. They're starting fairly late, so although I need to get up early, it's not middle-of-the-night early! I'm only going tomorrow. I'm running Cruz and Gwen in both the arena and field course. I hope to get some photos, but I don't know who will be there to take them. I'll take my camera just in case.

Well, I'm startin' to get pretty tired, so I guess it's about bed time. I only had time to play with the dogs, not work anyone tonight. (yesterday I had time to work Cruz and Gwen and the dog I have in for training- more about him in my next post) Dylan's ball team had their first game and he had to be at the field at 5:15... Dylan made some nice plays in right field and made it to 3rd base. He was leading out and thought the 3rd baseman got him out, but he hadn't, so the 3rd baseman tagged him out as he was walking to the dug out... Too bad, as the next hit the kids errored pretty heavily, so most likely Dyl would have made it home... Oh well, it's all about playing the game. Dylan enjoys the game. He likes to do well of course, but he has outstanding sportsmanship.

FINALLY!

Finally got to Carol's on Saturday to work dogs. It was a fun day. They all worked very well, and taking into consideration how little work they have had, they did really well. Cruz worked sheep once and cows twice. We worked on shed work and Carol felt that I (as in me, the handler) am getting much better. My dog of course has "had" it for quite some time. LOL! We shed a group of 10 or so down to a single shed, that he held like a pro! Toss got a great session on control and patience. He pushed the whole flock through a fence line chute (not a Y type chute, just straight-no panel on the end to help "funnel" them in) not an easy task with about 30 head and going away from the natural draw. Then we did a few sends and some drive work. He was a very good boy. I worked on building Gwen's confidence in sweeping a large group out of a corner and then short drives that included through the fenceline chute. She did a good job and was more relaxed in the tight spaces after only a couple times. Deal... well I guess she had a good afternoon with the kids at home... Kinda a funny story there. Dylan was playing with the dogs when I was ready to leave. I got Cruz, Gwen, Deal, Toss, Clare, and Ivy into the truck. The 2 pups, Gwen and Deal jumped back out when Dylan threw the ball before I had the door shut. Well, I thought I got all of them back in, but when I got to Carol's no Deal... The puppy-girls got a short turn on sheep. Clare did a nice job. She was a little cautious. New place, new sheep, etc... She did fine, she was just a little more careful than usual. Ivy was a star. She is such a nice pup off the sheep and really, really showing super potential on sheep. She was very, very keen, covered beautifully, stayed behind the sheep, and listened to me when I called her off, and understood most of the time what I wanted her to "stand". Carol said I have a very nice pup in her- that she is a very true blend of Cruz and Gwen. :-)) I worked Cruz on the cows in both the big field and the arena. He is such an incredible cowdog. And he LOVES it. I swear he has a different look on his face when we're done working cows!! I enjoy the cattle work as well. The weekend after Easter I'm going to a double cattle trial at Roy and Debbie Johnson's. I'm currently trying to decide if I can swing 2 dogs, both days, both trials, or 2 dogs, both trials, but only one day, or just one dog for both trials one day... I don't get to many trials, and I really enjoy the cattle trials, so I'd love to be able to take both dogs (Cruz and Gwen), both days, both trials. It'd be smart to get 2 trials into one trip. Unless something pops up, I don't see any trials for April or May. I'm not going to the April sheep trial at Longshot, and there aren't any other VA spring trials posted that I've seen, and I hate summer trials, so.... Now that I have the hours that allow me to get to trials and can set aside the money to actually go, hopefully we'll have a pretty active fall season. I would guess Ivy and maybe Clare would be ready for a few novice runs by then- but I'm sticking by my vow to not push them even if they seem ready. I have plenty of other dogs to trial. I may even just train them further along before they trial- rather than paying $20 to run them in Novice. I might just wait until they're ready for Ranch. Who knows, too far off to make any plans for.

I'll be SOOO glad when Easter is over!! I am a one man show in the candy/tobacco dept. and other than one 3 hour blitz that has held true even through Easter! At one time I had 8 pallets of candy up in the steel. It was my job, in a matter of only a couple days, to pull them (with the lift) down, down stack them to find all the price points, set end caps, cart rails, 2 aisles, stack bases, and oh yeah, still do all my usual dept manager stuff with the real candy. (order, clear my count requests, need to counts, pick lists, price changes, label changes, work my live freight, keep my over-stock bins straight, etc...) One day last week I set 5 end caps, 2 cart rails, and 2 stack bases in one shift!! And like I said, I first had to down stack my pallets to find enough price pointed merchandise for all of that! UGH! If it was just sitting there, ready to go, that wouldn't be such a process, but it's not. To give you an idea, we get zero, none, naada overtime. Two weeks ago I got 2 hours, last week 5 hours, and as of today- which is MONDAY I already have 6!! (I worked for almost 5 hours on Sunday- I was not in a good mood...) I've already been told Thursday will be a late day, Friday will be an early day (as in late to leave and early to get there), and I'll be there on Saturday. I will not be going in on Sunday. That's over the top and if they can't take no for an answer than I will take the hit for a call out. Every bit of Easter is out as of today, so if they need someone to zone Easter on Sunday they can find a few people who are already working. In fact as of tomorrow, the condensing down will begin... Seasonal is a crazy thing. I'm hoping I don't have to be in a seasonal dept. for very long. New mods. can be a pain too, but it's not like seasonal. I'll have a break now until about (well once Easter is done being condensed and reduced, and reduced and condensed) Sept. when Halloween starts and then won't have a seasonal break again until May of next year... Ewww....

I hope I can get some good videos and/or pictures at the cattle trial.

Oh, the living room/dining room is 90% done!! Yahoo!! I'll have to take some pictures when the new sofa comes in. It's such a pretty room now! The floor is gorgeous! :-)))

Been Awhile!

I guess it's been awhile since I've posted. I wish I had some new pictures to add. Maybe next weekend will be better weather and I can do that. My new job and position are great. 7am-4pm, Monday thru Friday has got to be everyone's dream hours!! Especially when management is very good about letting you work over a bit during the week and got it on Friday (within reason). This week I had 90 minutes to cut. The best thing about these hours is I won't have to ask off from work to get to trials!! How great is that!!? I've worked 3 weeks of my new hours and position and it has made a world of difference in my mind-set already!! Ben and I have worked on the house (remodeling) more in the last 2 weekends than we have in the last 6 months combined!! And now with the light change I have plenty of time to work dogs when I get home from work. Carol has been ill and/or busy with her real job the last couple weekends, so I haven't made it to her place yet, but hopefully this coming weekend I can enjoy a productive and relaxing Saturday at her place- or at Ella's. It took me 2 weeks to figure out how to get my work-out in and discovered the only way was to get up early. So everyday this past week I got up at 4am to have time. Wednesday I was tired (and sore), so I did some house work instead. Hopefully it won't take long for just about everything to fall into some kind of typical routine- something we haven't had since I started working last April. It was exhausting living everyday by the seat of your pants and never having much a routine.

The dogs are being patient, waiting for me to figure out how to get them worked on a regular basis- it's coming... I had planned to work everyone both days this weekend- but the weather did away with that plan. It's only in the 40s and a steady rain- since Thursday!! Yuck! However, should we get a nice warm up now the grass should just shoot right up!! I've worked them a little bit and they have all been very good given the amount of work they have gotten in the last 6 months! Toss in particular. What a nice working, mature, team-player he has become. Funny what age will do and how long it takes some dogs! I can see now that he will end up being my "step-up" dog when Cruzie can no longer. I never dreamed he would be that kind of dog. Of course I should have known, since Carol called him almost 2 years ago. She told me when he matures he will be my best dog- I can see that now. His biggest change is that his intensity is no longer running the show. Intense, yes he is still that, always will be, but he is allowing himself to think and therefore act correctly on his own so much more. The sheep aren't over-reacting to him because he's not over-reacting. He's staying off, and not leaning in on his flanks, and yet will walk right in when it's needed/asked. I finally feel like he is ready for the trial field and I'm so excited to get him out!!

The pups are doing fine. Clare and Ivy are just simply going around sheep and being asked to stop (stand or lie down, their choice) at balance and then walk up for a short fetch. Clare is very good about staying behind her sheep on a fetch. Ivy is getting the idea of staying behind rather than flanking around to their heads. I'm asking not either of them for much at all- we have lots of time.

I guess it's time to get to more painting....

Normal Life?

Thursday night was my last night working 10-7!! It came a week early and I didn't know about it until Tuesday morning! As much as I wanted and needed both a better position and humane hours, it was also a bit sad. There are people I will miss, people I've gotten to be very good friends with. This is my first job since Charlie was born in early 1996, so it was a little scary and the people I met and befriended on 10-7 are special to me! I actually had to go in the bathroom and have a good cry after lunch. They got me a cake and a card and one of my best friends got me a card and a very pretty bracelet. It's not like I won't ever see them again, but I won't see them 5 nights a week!

I hope working 7-4pm m-f will normalize my life some. It's a very hard thing; sleeping during the day. And days off are confusing- do you sleep away one of your days, or do you stay up and completely run yourself into the ground? Same with weekends- it stinks so much to come home Saturday morning and have to sleep until 2pm (which would be a whole 5-6 hours of sleep) when everyone is home- then have to start getting ready for work at 8:30pm... Yuck! So glad I'm done!

I still need to down-size on my dog numbers a little, but I'm not sure how. I don't think anyone is looking and I'm not sure if I should lower the price on a couple of my very nice dogs just to get them moved on, or if I should hang on to them... Ella's coming this morning to take 5 of the sheep home with her. She's really excited! That will leave me with just 3 ewe lambs and the ram. Not sure if they're going or staying. I might be better off just letting them all go and depend on Carol, Ella, and another friend's place to work sheep. My yard is too small to work the trial dogs and I'm sure they'll be turning the field over in the next 6 weeks or so.

My parents are helping us out on our credit card debt and the way it looks we should have $27,000 worth of debt paid off in about 30 months. That will leave us with another $20,000. Credit cards should be illegal! It's insane what we let ourselves get into and I know we aren't alone. It will be a very tight 3 years, but it's necessary if we wish to ever get out from under it. $50,000 is credit card debt- wanna guess what we're paying on that and not getting anywhere with? It's crazy! The super low interest and super low monthly payment my parents were able to get is going to save us probably 10 years of payments! (because we'll be able to pay about 3 times the required payment)

Gotta get outside. I have a normal weekend and start 7-4 on Monday!

10 More Nights!!!

Glory Be!! Ten more 10pm-7am shifts!! I got the Dept. Manager job I interviewed for last week! It comes not too much before nights would have gotten to be un-doable, both because it's an insane shift for someone still trying to have normal life, and because when Ben goes back to the ship in June, I will not be able to be gone during the night because he will have duty days, be out to sea, possibly have some shift work schedules etc... The boys are now old enough to be alone during the day if needed, but we would never, ever leave them for 10 hours during the night. The boys proved their growing maturity the last 2 weeks, getting up, getting ready, and onto the bus alone. Ben had to be at work at 6am, so the kids had to set their alarm and do the morning routine alone. I will get a raise (somewhat small because I lose the 50 cent shift differential) which is nice, (I'll get an additional .40 or .60 in April after my review- which should result in .60 since in less than a year I've had 3 different positions, had a 90-day "exceeds" review, was given an associate of the month award, and now, have been hired as a dept. manager) but more importantly it's 7am-4 M-F!! Wal-Mart may be a lot of things, and one thing it is is a company at which you can "grow". Never in my wildest dreams did I think at this time last year that I would have a job, let alone a dept. manager position in a year's time!! Even when I started work, I only anticipated to go to work, get paid, and that'd be that. Funny how that happens. Now I'm seriously thinking about salaried management! The bummer is I can't do any further stuff with that until I'm 6 months in my current position. If I had stuck with nights until about March/April I would have been able to go forward with stuff- but I'm surely not going to pass up dept manager because of that.