It has been a while

Alright, so, the world changes quickly. An update on my last entry, we did lose the dog. About 27 hrs after the attack we put him down as there was more shaking than we had originally anticipated. It was heartbreaking, and I miss him terribly. Even now I can barely think of him without welling up.

Also, I started a new job on the Monday after that (July 16) . This caused me great joy at the beginning because I was finally back on a computer, and I was promised lots of work to do. This has since evolved into being not nearly as busy as I had hoped, and the challenge to create ways to make it seem like I'm doing work when in fact I am not. This I have truly excelled at. One of my co-workers is highly entertaining and keeps my ears full of helpful advice be it to become a cop, or to read one of the files he is working on. For some reason he seems to care about my life, something that I am not used to from people like him. My other co-workers love hearing about my personal life, and two of them know people in my life as well, which makes the stories a little more entertaining and the advice a little more relevant.

In other news I got a new toy which is much faster than my first one, and a lot of fun. I am not sure where I will store my motorbikes during the winter, but I hopefully have a month or two of snow free weather to figure this out. Leather, I have discovered, is one of my best friends as it keeps me safe and warm when all other things are against me.

School also recently started. With any luck my last day will be Dec 17, if I have bad luck, my last day will be sometime in April and I will get to curse the program for holding me back and charging me lots of money for another 4 months.  So far the one group I have is not fun. We'll see how that turns out in the long run.

The big event in my life are my future plans. Oh how it is confusing. In four days I find out for sure that the town will let me buy about an acre of land in the small town of Pelly Saskatchewan. Yes, this is a town of around 400 people, with all the basic amenities of life in town, and all the extra ones available within a hour drive on the highway. The plan has been to build the house of my dreams on this property. Yes, I have a floor plan ready and am just waiting to hear back from the builder on a cost estimate. This estimate will determine if I want to build or buy. I have put the worth somewhere around the $150,000 mark for the fully completed house, including garage. While I could buy an older house in the same town for around $60,000, my house would be bigger, customized, and on my wonderful land. The older house needs a lot of work, which would take a lot of time and effort. Of course funding for this new property and life would come from the sale of my condo downtown.  I am willing to do this because life out there is so much quieter than life here. As I sit and type I can hear the traffic on the main road, and the occasional siren reminding me that life is quickly moving around me. While sitting on the grass that is my new property I heard crickets and it was wonderful. The stars shine brightly and the world moves slowly. No stress, and little hurry. Many of you will wonder why I would like that, a year and a half ago I moved downtown to be close to school and work. After a year and a half of stress sitting in my shoulders, and hearing traffic, snow plows and sirens at any time of the day or night, I am ready to move to quieter ground. Yes, I will have to commute to work, but instead of sitting in traffic for an hour each way, I'll be driving 120 on the highway. I won't have a mortgage, or a very small one, and at 22, that is a great accomplishment. My close friends will know that I grew out of my party stage a while ago, and I'm settling into grownup life. And, as much as I thought that I was a city girl through and through, the city is driving me nuts, and I'm discovering that I'm a country kid at heart.

No, this is not a 100% concrete plan, as mentioned above, I can not move until January, maybe as late as May. A lot can change between now and then. But I like my plot of land with it's views of 10km of field and trees. Oh yeah, Saskatchewan has rolling hills, it's not as flat as people say.

Enough ranting for now, I really should do my homework that is due at midnight,

Melina

bike crash

it had rained, and i was heading to a friend's house
I was heading to his house, the setting sun glaring back at me in my side mirrors. Very distracting. I was going around 60km/hr. As I near the intersection of 104 ave and 106st I notice two pedestrians starting to cross the street. They notice me, and start to wait for me to pass. I slam on the breaks, and lean back (fearing an impact) to the right. The leaning causes my bike to lean, and my rear wheel to skid left. I go down. based on injuries, I started to role, but my left knee and hand hit the ground hard, and then I just slid back on my right side, and curled into a ball.

Vacation

yay, I'm going away for a week. I'll miss my riding buddies, and my bikes are going to be so lonely without me. I just hope one of them starts when I get back... or I'm going to be late for work that day. I'm going to visit my friend in rural Sask, so hopefully I'll de-stress nicely before I go back to the really hectic life of work and school. The good news is that in less than 4 months I'll be done with school for the foreseeable future, YAY. Can't wait to have all of my evenings back, I'm going to miss them. Hmm, gotta leave in an hour, I'm all packed though... sigh

This is why

The other option I have been looking into (and I know you don't understand why I want this at all) is small town Saskatchewan. The fact that I can buy a pretty nice house for $60k or one that needs work for $30k (or one built in 1992 with over 2100 sq feet for $245k) is a really interesting prospect. Because I work with the RCMP, I can request a transfer to one of the detachments in the area and have a job almost right away. The fact that I would not have a mortgage means that I could waitress and still put money away into savings. It would be a total change in lifestyle. But, whenever I would go out and visit my friend who lived outside the city, within an hour my shoulder muscles were totally relaxed. That never happens even when relaxing at home now. It's a different atmosphere which I really enjoy. There are three towns that have about 75,000 people in them, and many smaller towns around those bigger ones. Realistically the only thing keeping me in Edmonton right now is my school, my house and my job. School is almost over, house can be sold, and job can be transferred/a new one found. This is probably the only time in my life where I will have the freedom to just pick up and move. In a few years I will have the startings of a family, and starting that somewhere else is an option. Yes, this did start because my friend moved out there, but it's the starting reason, not the reason I've been looking into it for so long.

Tragedy

They found more swelling this afternoon.... and the shaking was worse than they originally thought... he was on a morphine drip, but there were complications with his Addisions disease... they put him on a weaker pain killer.... he was yelping randomly because of the pain.... He passed away at 9:35 tonight, less than 27 hr after he got attacked. This house is never going to be the same.

Friday the 13th

This morning one of my co-workers asked if I was suspicious and worried about today because it is Friday the 13th. I told her that it had been a pretty good day, and it had been. But overall, it was a scary scary day.

Terrifying

I've never been so scared in my life. My family was visiting some friends, these friends have three dogs, one of the dogs is very territorial. These friends didn't mention the territorial bit, they probably didn't think that we were going to bring Merly with us. So, we get there, and my dog, Merly, is sniffing around, and their dog comes running up to Merly. Merly is the most friendly dog I've ever known, he trusts everyone and everything. So, this dog comes running and Merly expects to play, except this dog grabs him by his neck and starts shaking. There's four people in my family and nothing we can do. The owner of the other dog finally manages to get his dog off. It seemed like an eternity before this happened, was probably closer to 20-30 seconds.
I've never heard a noise like the one that was coming out of my puppy. I can't even describe it. Nothing I ever want to hear again.
We finally make it to the ER Vet (after 6 on a Friday night, not much is open) and they take a look. It's just his back skin that was ripped open, so hopefully no major damage.
I can't get the image of my poor little puppy being shaken out of my head. He's only 9lbs, and this was a big Border Collie cross, she was probably 50-60lbs.
Friends only entry posted on Friday July 13, 2007, 9:23 pm

Edit:
I was just informed that the Vet called, Merly will be ok and allowed to go home tomorrow. He will have to wear a cone for a couple of weeks, but he will be fine.