Winters slow transition to spring

It was very clear this week that March has arrived and has brought with it the crazy weather that goes along with the transition from winter to spring.  We had rain and snow, 30s and 60s, calm and windy, sunshine and cloudy skies, sometimes all in one day.  One thing is for sure, March weather really keeps you on your toes!

My work days have been busier than I like lately, and I am exhausted at the end of each day.  But life outside of work must go on even when I'm tired and even if the weather isn't always perfect.  

Monday's are always my most exhausting days, and at the end of the day, I wasn't feeling very inspired to get out with the girls.  I decided to run to Costco to use a gift card I had been given.  I don't have a membership to Costco, so I only visit when I have a gift card to use.  I knew exactly what I was there to get, and made a quick trip of it, because I didn't want to spend any more time there than I had to spend.  I know lots of people love Costco, but I am definitely not one of them!

As I was making the drive toward home, I passed the El Oasis food truck in Haslett. Remembering that I have a gift card from there too, I decided to stop and pick up dinner.  We parked in a park nearby while I ate my burrito, then continued our drive toward home.  We made one final stop along the way so I could get the girls out for a walk before finally arriving home after dark.

Tuesday started out mild, and, when I ran a quick errand on my lunch, I only needed a light jacket.  By the time we were ready for our walk after work, gray skies and colder temperatures had started to move into the area.  

Despite the colder temperature, I was happy that we were able to get out for our evening walk on the South Lansing Pathway.  I had to force Peaches to keep moving about every ten feet because she wanted to leisurely sniff everything along the way and we were nevwler going to get anywhere.  But I did allow her some snuffy time along the way to keep her happy.  It was a bit windy and we were racing against some incoming rain, but overall we enjoyed the walk.

Wednesday was rainy all day.  When I forced myself to leave the house and take a break for lunch, I was happy to see my pretty little crocuses covered in raindrops.  

The girls and I enjoyed our little lunchtime drive.  When we returned home, they had lunch in their snufflemats and got an afternoon Kong.  Then they settled in to nap away the afternoon.

After work. I headed out to the shelter for Dog Walking Club.  Despite the fact that the hourly forecast and radar showed no rain after 6pm,  we started our walk with some rain sprinkles.  But we didn't let the rain get us down, and I think everyone enjoyed the time away from the shelter.  Pebble and Subwoofer were such good puppies on our walk.

It was yucky weather and dark when I got home, so I decided not to take the girls out for a short walk like I would normally.  Instead, they had dinner in their snufflemats, and then seemed content to relax for the rest of the evening. 

The weather was sunny on Thursday, and the girls spent a lot of time outside throughout the day.

After work, we headed downtown for our evening walk.  We walked through downtown Lansing to the LCC campus, where I forced the girls to stop for some pictures. 

Then we continued around downtown and along the River Trail.

As we walked along the river, I had to chuckle at some of the signs we saw.  

Finally, we headed back to the Capitol grounds to finish our lovely evening walk.  Both girls were distracted by a squirrel when I took this picture. 

Saturday we had a full day of fun planned.

We started the morning with our shelter dog walk.  We had a really nice group of dogs.

While it was cold, everyone was happy to be outside enjoying time away from their kennels.

While I was at the shelter, the girls patiently waited in the car so we could head out for our day of adventures as soon as I was done. 

Our first stop was at Grand Traverse Pie Company for a Pi Day geocaching event and a feee slice of pie.  Nothing better than a free slice of pie for breakfast!

Then we headed to Lowell for some time on the North Country Trail.

We started our hike along the Lowell river walk and continued as the trail weaves through town and past the cemetery.  

Mina had a stare down with a squirrel along the way.

While Peaches took a good roll in the grass.

Then we had to closely watch the ducks and geese as we walked back along the river.

We crossed the street to check out the trail on the other side as it enters a grassland and then the woods, but the Flat River had flooded the trail and it was impassable.  So we turned around and headed back to the river walk.

We had completed 2.8 miles on the trail by the time we got back to the car.  That was longer than I had planned on walking for our first walk since I had other plans for the day, but Peaches was still going strong and we all had enjoyed our hike.

Next we headed out to do some geocaching along the Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Rail Trail.   This was our first time on this trail, and we enjoyed it very much.

We passed a few bikers and a couple of runners, but fir the most part, we had the trail to ourselves. It was a quiet and enjoyable walk, and we found several geocaches along the way.  We stopped aftet 1.8 miles on the trail because I was trying not to do too much for Peaches and her arthritic hips.  

We did a little more geocaching and stopped for one last quick potty break for the girls and another half mile on the NCT before starting our journey home.

We finished the day with 3.3 miles on the NCT and 1.8 miles on the Fred Meijer trail...for a total of 5.1 miles for the day.  We took the slow, leisurely way home, making a couple of quick stops along the way. 

 When we arrived back in Lansing, I stopped for gas and was debating what to do for dinner when the nice lady at Speedway reminded me that they were running a Pi Day special on their pizzas, so I decided to bring a pizza home for dinner for just $3.14.  

We all had dinner, then the girls went outside for a bit. I cleaned up with a nice hot shower, got into my pj's, and then we all headed into the bedroom for a quiet evening. It was only 7:45pm. The girls slept while I worked on a puzzle books and read. It was the perfect, peaceful end to just the day we had all needed.

We had a chance of snow overnight, which didn't happen, and a rainy morning forecast, which also didn't develop.  The temperatures are expected to get into the low 60s by early this evening with rain,  but we are currently in the mid-40s.  The UP is getting slammed by a major storm with blizzard conditions.  The forecast is for 2 to 4 ft of snow across the area and wind gusts over 60 miles per hour.  I also saw the potential for 30 foot waves on Lake Superior.  That all os just crazy!  Most of the businesses are closed, the Mackinac Bridge is closed, and I hope people just decide to stay home and hunker down.  I know that's what I'dbe doing. 

It's been a fairly quiet morning here, except for Peaches' occasional bouts of pacing.  She's having a little extra anxiety this morning, and I can never figure out what triggers them.  These pacing episodes can usually be cured, temporarily at least, with a trip outside or a meal.  I think the latest bout was her indicating to me that it was time for lunch, so she just had her Dr. Harvey's with eggs and a vetprofen in case she's experiencing some soreness from all of yesterday's walking.  Usually after a good lunch, she will settle down.  I'm hopeful that will happen. If not, I may have to add an extra Xanax for today. 

If I can get Peaches to relax, we are going to have a nice quiet Sunday at home for our final Sunday of this winter.  We'll watch the Men's Big 10 Championship game this afternoon, eat some leftovers for lunch and dinner, the girls will get a Kong, and maybe we'll take a quick walk around the block before the rain starts.  Mostly, I just want a day of no work, no thinking, no people, and a lot of relaxation before heading back into Monday.

I hope everyone has a great week.  By the time I write next Sunday, it will be Spring!

Hooray! It's Match!

We kicked off the month of March last Sunday and there isn't much that makes me happier than that.  I love March.  It brings us longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures, and the opportunity to spend more time outside.  And most importantly, it brings us Spring!

The girls and I enjoyed some really nice evening walks this week.  The temperatures topped out in the 20s on Sunday, but the rest of the week we were lucky to have temperatures rise and enjoyed 40s, 50, and even some 60s.  

On Wednesday the weather for our shelter dog walk was absolutely perfect. 

Not only did we have great weather, we also had some really cute dogs to walk.

I think we all really enjoyed the time out on the town with these cuties.  I know that they were happy to be out of the shelter.

After some wonderful weather early in the week, the rain moved into the area for Thursday.  The girls were not happy about it.  It rained my entire work day and the girls refused to go outside, even when I knew Peaches really needed to go out.  But we made it through the day and, thankfully, the rain stopped in time for our evening walk.

We took a different route through the neighborhood than we normally do, and we stopped at Hillborn Park so Peaches could get her fill of sniffing and I could challenge Mina to some fun on the playground equipment.   

I love that she trusts me so much when I ask her to do crazy things.

Then we had a nice walk home.  I was pretty excited to see more of my crocus leaves popping through the ground.  Another thing I love about March.

Friday morning, Peaches had her annual vet appointment.  While she is always happy to see her friends and get treats, the appointment itself causes her quite a bit of anxiety and she did her best to make it difficult for Dr. Jason to examine her.

But ultimately she got all of her shots, got her blood drawn, and let him check her over.  She's doing well for her age and is overall pretty healthy.  The main issues impacting her are arthritis and anxiety, but we are treating them both and hope to keep her happy and comfortable for a long time to come.

Friday was once again rainy, but after her trip to the vet, Peaches was happy to nap the day away while I had a busy day to end my work week.  Mina happily napped the day away, too.

After a long busy week, I debated what fun we would have on our Friday evening.  I had thought about heading out for a hike on the NCT, but some really dangerous weather created tornadoes in areas very near to where we would have gone to hike.  So I decided to stay closer to home.

We had a lovely walk around Old Town, visited Preuss Pets, and then headed home for dinner and a quiet night at home. As we arrived at home, it started to rain, and very quickly after, thunderstorms moved in.  As I sat eating dinner, the storms really picked up and then we all heard what I ultimately discovered was nickel sized hail.  The storm moved through pretty quickly, and we had a nice, quiet evening once it was gone. 

We were up early on Saturday so we could get ready to meet with Vanessa and head out for a day of fun.

We met Vanessa at her house and then we headed North to West Branch for the geocaching Winter Social event and a fun day of geocaching. 

It rained on our drive North, but the rain stopped by the time we arrived in West Branch.  Vanessa and I checked in to the event, then headed into town for a really delicious lunch at The Highway Brewing Co.  A walk with the girls around downtown followed lunch, and then we headed out of town to continue our geocaching fun.

It was still snowy in the woods, but that didn't stop us from our mission of geocaching fun.

The girls were happy to be along for the ride and kept an eye on us as we jumped in and out of the car to locate the geocaches.

It was 60 degrees and cloudy most of the day, but it was still beautiful in the pines.

And the sun tried to peek through the clouds on a few locations.  I just loved how pretty it was.

The girls loved being able to hang their heads out of the window on this beautiful late winter day.  Here they were keeping a close eye on Vanessa while she searched for one of the geocaches. 

We stopped for ice cream before heading home and while we were stopped,  I fed the girls a late lunch.  Then they settled in as we slowly wound our way toward home, picking up some geocaches along the way.

We got home after dark after a day filled with fun.  The girls ate a late dinner, took their evening potty break, and then we headed into the bedroom so I could read for a bit for turning in for the night.  We all slept great after our day of fun and fresh air, and the girls finally woke up for breakfast shortly after 8am.  
 

We had a lazy morning, and Mina enjoyed some time soaking in the sunshine.  While the girls relaxed, I did some cleaning and then made lunch.  We sat enjoying the quiet sunny, Sunday for a bit.  What a lovely start to our Sunday.

Finally, around 2pm, we headed out for a nice walk along the NCT in Marshall.  It was just too nice outside not to take advantage of the day.

We had a really nice walk and finsihed at 3.1 miles with a very pooped Peaches.  We are now at 25.3 miles on the trail for 2026, which puts us ahead of pace for the year.  Peaches really prefers the cooler weather for her hikes and even 60 degrees was a little harder for her.

I'm hoping to get several more miles this month, while it is still cooler, to keep us ahead of pace.  I'd love to be at 50 miles by the end of April so we can avoid hiking in the heat of the summer.  I guess we'll see what we can do.  As long as Peaches is happy to keep going, we'll continue to get out with her.

After we got home I did laundry while the girls spent some time out in the yard, enjoying the lovely day.  Then we had dinner, celebrated the first post daylight savings time sunset of the year, and settled in for another quiet evening. It was the perfect end to our perfect Sunday.

Happy March! The world is waking up and I'm ready for it!