Sad story...

I just read this heartbreaking story about a 15 year old girl with terminal cancer and the things she wants to do before the end...

It certainly puts all of my moans into perspective - Alice is a real inspiration. She has a blog of her own which is getting a lot of attention at the moment, and rightly so!

Catch-up

It's been absolutely ages since I last posted, and not because there hasn't been anything to write about, I just haven't gotten around to blogging!

Well my friend Taj visited for 10 days, which was lovely. We had a really good time - we went to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, then we did lots of stuff around Phoenix...

• 4 malls (she wanted to do lots of shopping)
• Phoenix Zoo
• Massages (I still had my gift card from my hubby for a 1.5 hour massage)
• Went to sit by the pool at Onel's apartment complex
• Yappy Hour at a really nice hotel/resort (for the Humane Society)

Taj left on May 2nd and on May 3rd my Mum and stepdad arrived, so there wasn't much of a gap between visitors! They stayed in a gorgeous resort, though, so hubby and I had the house back to ourselves. With my Mum and Stepdad we did the following:

• 1 mall
• Phoenix Zoo
• Spent a day at their resort in and by the pools
• Bearizona, a drive-through wildlife park in Williams, AZ
• The Grand Canyon
• Sedona

They also went horseback riding in the desert, which they really enjoyed. As you can see, we had a busy time with all our visitors!

I have to say, once everyone had left, it felt really weird. I think because since I moved here at the beginning of September 2010, I'd known they were coming in May and it was something to look forward to. Once they'd left, I just felt kinda empty. We don't have any other visitors lined up at the moment, although my friend Tamzin and her family are hoping to visit us next Easter when we'll hopefully have our new house. That's not set in stone though, of course.

I was feeling a bit down for a couple of weeks after my Mum left, but I'm back to normal now - whatever normal is, anyway!

We had a big problem with the pugs a few weeks back, their fighting suddenly escalated and it got to the point where we had to do something to sort them out. It was either get a dog trainer involved, or we'd have to consider taking Gracie back to pug rescue. The latter was something that filled us with dread, because we really have bonded with her (we've had her since early February) and we'd hate to have to part with her now. Also I'd feel so guilty because she'd have to go through the whole thing again - she was pretty messed up when she came to us, obviously confused because her original family had surrendered her, and I don't want her to go through that again! Besides, she's not really the 'problem' dog. Anyways, to cut a long story short, pug rescue recommended a dog trainer so we've hired her. So far we've had our initial consultation (which ended up being about 4 hours!) and one of our six training sessions (they're supposed to be 1.5 hours a time, and again she was here for close to 4 hours - just as well it's a fixed fee, and not hourly rates!). We still have issues with them but we're better able to handle them now. Hopefully by the end of the 6 weeks things will be a lot better. If not, well the fee covers any training the dogs might need for the rest of their lives, so we'll just have to have the trainer back again!

We've been told by our realtor that we should be hearing something about the new house in the next couple of weeks hopefully, so fingers crossed we'll get it! It's been over 2 months since we made the offer and because it's a 'short sale' these things take forever to go through - they haven't even accepted our offer yet! I just hope they don't try to raise the price or mess us around some other way...

Our pug Suzie has to go to the vet this afternoon, I think she has a stye on her eye, poor thing! Hopefully it won't need anything too much to treat it. I'm thinking maybe some ointment or drops or something. Also, hopefully it won't be too expensive either - last time she was at the vet (for a UTI) it was $132 (about £80). Actually now that I think about it, considering her 2 weeks of antibiotics and the testing etc, that's not too bad is it?!

I'm on a diet at the moment - I started on Monday May 30th so today is day 11. I finally bought some scales last Tuesday so Tuesday is now "weigh day". I weighed way too much last Tuesday... I don't really want to say here, but I don't think anyone reads this so I might as well! I was 209.4 pounds. I'm 5ft 8" and I have a big frame anyway, but even so, it's very bad! So I weighed myself again this Tuesday and I'd lost 1.5 pounds, I'm now 207.9 pounds. I was kinda disappointed because I was hoping to lose 3 pounds a week, but I think if you want to keep the weight off you're supposed to only lose 1 to 2 pounds a week so if that's the case, I'm right on track.

I've been very good and haven't broken my diet at all, so it's just a case of keeping up with it really. Ideally I'd love to lose 40 pounds but I definitely need to lose at least 30 I think. I'll feel so much better if I do it, and look much better too. If I keep losing 1.5 pounds per week, that'll be 6 pounds in a month, 12 pounds in 2 months, 18 pounds in 3 months... It'll take me 5 months (well 20 weeks, anyway) to lose 30 pounds... Yikes! That all depends on whether something else gets in the way of my diet, though. I can't say too much right now but we may have some rather exciting news in the not-too distant future! :-)