Why My Weekends are a Blur

Most people look forward to the weekends as chance to have some downtime. I know better. My weekends are always chaotic, and I'm probably one of the few people who actually look forward to Monday. To give you a taste, let me fill you in on how my weekend went...

On Friday, I was up early with the puppers to prepare for career day at Jacob G. Smith Elementary at 9:15. I got everyone fed, out to potty, and back into their crates. I had stayed up late the night before to bathe Bailey as she was going to accompany me. I got in the car with her and got about 12 miles down the road when she went to the bathroom in her crate... something awful. This less than 10 pound puppy quickly made me have to roll all the windows down in my SUV even though it was raining. We made a pit stop at CVS where I scrounged in the car for the last puppy pad, paper towels, and plastic bag. We got back on the road and made it to the school. As I open up her crate door to take her out, she sneezed on me. It wasn't pretty, and I had to look under my seats for anything that might be used as a kleenex. I grabbed my cell phone and called one vet to cancel Bailey's appointment for shots - sick puppies don't need injections. I hung up and called our other vet near my house to ask for medication to be picked up on my way back home. We made it through the presentation, one hour with 60 kindergarteners.

After leaving the school, I had to go pick up my best friend to drop him off at the airport. I had a rescuer from South Carolina meeting me at that exit to hand off a 2-year-old Golden Retriever male that was coming into our rescue. I was over 30 minutes late picking up Bandit at 11:30, and what a sweetheart he is. We had made arrangements for him to be netuered at SNAC before he came over, however, he had developed a fascination with licking the area that had been taken from him. So I made another phone call to the vet to get an e-collar on the way home so he could heal properly.

We arrived at the vet around 12:15. I took Bandit with me to get fitted for his collar. It didn't go as easily as we had hoped, but we made it back home by 1 pm. I got into the house and let the two adults and three puppies out into the yard, then brought Bandit in and put him in his new crate. He hadn't mastered how not to run into things with the lampshade on his head, so he had to have help to get in the crate. I then let the other dogs in to do their sniffing thing, have an afternoon snack, and take a nap.

With everyone settled, it was now time to do some work. I went into the office and got into returning over 100 emails that had come in that morning, and set about prepping for our volunteer orientation on Saturday morning. I gathered the documents to take to Kinkos, let all the dogs out one more time, and headed out the door around 2:30.

First stop, Kinkos. I don't know why, but for some reason, I am always speaking a forign language when I go there. I don't think I'm asking for much, black and white copies, double sided, with a yellow cover and staples, yet there is always a look of "huh?" from whoever I get to take my order. I was even more impressed that he was jotting things down on a sticky note as opposed to putting the order in the computer. I even had the print out of the order from the last time I made it and offered it to him, but he did not need it, so he said. I was told my order would be ready by 8 pm. So rather than head all the way back home and into town again, I decided to pay a visit to our friendly Verizon guy as I hadn't annoyed him in about a month or two.

I'm not a big fan of cell phones, but it has become necessary in my work. However, this particular phone and I have not been able to get along since I got it several months ago when we switched our plans. We were needing to add a fourth line anyhow for our new foster coordinator, so I planned to give her my phone and get something else. It only took about an hour and was much less painful than when we first tried to sign up with Verizon, and Eric didn't seem the least bit phased by any of my requests. Apparently, it is really hard to find a cell phone that just sends and receives phone calls without all the other gadgets and whatnot.

It was only around 3 and I just didn't feel like going home, so I decided to do a little birthday shopping for myself. However, my mom called and wanted to do lunch, and I'm never one to turn down a free meal at Fiddler's. So we went and did the mommy/daughter thing. By then, it was almost 5:00, and I realized I wasn't going to make it to my work out on time in Richmond Hill, and I really wasn't in the mood anyhow, so I decided to go shoe shopping. I didn't find what I wanted, and that somehow propelled me to want to go get my haircut. I still haven't figured out the logic there either, but it took going to two malls before I found someone who would do it. And that in itself was an experience for another blog post.

So, around 7 I left the mall and headed back to Kinko's. Oh yeah, forgot to mention they called me twice because the guy didn't understand my order. Got my documents and remembered I had to get papertowels to clean up after puppies. A $60 shopping trip at Target and I was back home by 9:30. Ended the evening at home, surfing the net, and listening to puppy UFC going on in the kitchen.

Mornings always come early when you have puppies, and Maya prefers to be my 5 am alarm on Saturdays. So up it was, to let everyone out, put some food down, and take a nap before I had to be up and head to our volunteer orientation at 11. Our new best buddy Gary from Daniel Lumber came over at 9:30 to work on repairing our storage shed which holds all our supplies, crates and food. I left at 10 so I could stop and get breakfast for our new recruits. Four new volunteers showed for the class and my two leadership team members were actually late. Oh well. Just how we roll in the world of rescue.

We finished class at 2 pm and the three of us decided to head for lunch at Outback. Awesome food and good conversation. Afterwards, Ashley and I headed over to animal control to evaluate a puppy she saw online. We ended up staying there until almost 5 evaluating dogs and trying to make decisions. So we're getting two from there today.

I went home and took care of the puppies again and did some more work in the office. I was bored, so I called over to Wendy's and went there for dinner and a movie. By 10:30 I was tired and decided to head home. As soon as I walked in the door, my phone rang. One of our adopters with a heartworm positive dog was on the other end just bawling. We had her dog in for his first treatment earlier in the week, and he had just suddenly collapsed after getting off the couch. I talked to her for a minute, tried to reassure her, and told her to get to the ER vet and I'd meet her there. I let all my dogs out and back in again, and then I was on the road. By the time I arrived, King was already looking better. We were there about an hour, got some meds, and sent him home. I got back on the road and called my best friend to keep me awake until I got home.

Somehow, I have learned to function on very little sleep, and Maya seems to understand this as once again, she had me up at 5 am. Not very considerate if you ask me. I went through our normal routine, then went back to bed about 6. At 7, Bailey woke me up, and being in such a great mood, I kicked everyone out of the house and into the playyard and went back to bed. The phone rang at 11, I missed it, and returned the call a few moments later. I had forgot I was training our new foster coordinator that morning. I threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth, and negotiated my hair into some sort of position as to not bother me - what was supposed to be a low-maintenance haircut has really been more of a PITA. Lucky for me, Patsy is a quick learner, and was in and out in 30 minutes. I was finally ready to take a shower and get out the door with Maya to her adoption interview.

We arrived downtown about 1:30, once again 30 minutes late. But she's so cute, the family didn't mind. However, Maya is a big baby, and when their 8 year old Golden came to see her, she cowered and screamed. So, we were there for over an hour trying to get her to feel better about being in the same room with their dog. She gave lots of kisses and showed her belly for some lovin', and they were hooked. My little alarm clock will finally go home on Thursday morning.

As with most people on Super Bowl Sunday, I, too, had plans. However, due to dealing with people, returning emails, and chasing puppies around the yard, it was after 5 pm before I got to head to the first party with my parents out on Tybee. I did the obligatory patient and loyal daughter thing at the Shrine Club and American Legion, but as I'm not that really into football, I didn't much care for all the screaming at the TV. I kissed my parents goodbye and headed to a friend's house on Wilmington Island for a more intimate viewing with fellow animal lovers. We watched and rooted for the Giants and I went home a little before 11. The dogs know the routine, so out we were and back in again, and I was in bed, to be up at 6:30 as we had a spay day with SNAC at 7:30 am.

I returned from the pickup a little after 8 am this morning. I put all the dogs out, and went to sleep for an hour. I slept through my alarm until 11 am, so I am now two hours behind on my day. Technically, I'm only an hour and a half into my day, and already swamped with phone calls and emails. And I still have to go deal with the DMV to get my tag registered since they still haven't fixed all the info from my divorce four years ago. Maybe today isn't the Monday I was looking forward to. Wonder if I could go back to bed and try again next week.