These Little Moments

Life has definitely changed the past month or so, now that I'm back in (graduate) school and things have once again gotten hopelessly busy.  It's easy to want to plop down at the end of the day and totally abandon any of the other responsibilities that I have outside of school, but think I've done a pretty decent job so far of balancing my schoolwork with my hobbies and other commitments while still finding enough time to sleep.  That, in part, is the reason for my blog absence, and I'm not sure there's much I can do about that.

Since being a brand-spankin'-new PT student comes with so many questions about how I like the program, how I'm doing with it and how much work it is, I had a person tell me a few weeks ago at an agility trial that I'll have my whole life to do agility and the other things I love - that school should be my first priority right now.  While her intentions were good in making the statement, and while I suppose school should be pretty high on the totem pole, I didn't quite like the notion of completely putting the things I love to do off until a later date.

Marge is five years old; she's still pretty young for a medium-sized dog, and some would say that she's entering the best years of her life. But the gray hairs propping up on her bumpy little chin are a reminder that she will not live forever.  (To be honest, I get a little unnerved when I look at them, even though they are still barely noticeable.)

So, in that sense, no, I won't have the rest of my life to do agility or anything else.   Marge is living her life now, and I will not deny her the joy of doing the things she loves to do because I cannot find the time to do them.

Yes, I've had to make changes, like denying both Marge and myself the fun of taking more than one overnight trip for agility (but we are still taking one this semester!).  We also haven't gone on any hikes or trips to the park, but the high number of ticks we've had here are just as responsible for that as my sore feet are. But, at minimum, I'll always make sure that she gets to go out for walks, run around in the field, go to trials, and play with her buddies.

Some snapshots of the past couple of months:

It may mean skimping on vegetative stretches of time spent on the couch (kind of like the one I'm allotting myself right now...), it may mean passing on the occasional social outing, but the story of Marge will not be put on hold.  We can't afford to let that happen.