Mid January blues

This week I spent the majority of my time attending a work conference in Orlando.  On Sunday, I dropped Smokey off in Marshall with fellow ISR foster Ruth for the week.  After a quick 1.6 Mike hike with the girls on the NCT in Marshall, I then drove 90 miles to Farmington Hills to drop the girls off for four nights and 5 days of boarding and doggy daycare.  

I stopped for a short visit with Nicol, Tyler, and Fiona since i was only a couple miles away.  Then I drove the 30 minutes to my hotel near the Detroit airport so I'd be close by for my Monday morning flight.  I ordered dinner at the little restaurant at the hotel, got my complimentary cocktail at cocktail hour, and went to my room to eat.  I must have been tired because I fell asleep sometime shortly after 9pm and had a great nights sleep.

My Monday flight was delayed and on top of leaving late, they had to de-ice the plane before we could take off.  When we finally arrived in Florida, I had to wait forever for the luggage which they made us gate check due to a full flight.  Finally, I boarded the bus to the resort.  By the time I arrived, I had missed the first of the sessions I was supposed to attend, so I checked into my room to relax for a few minutes before getting ready for our evening reception.

The rest of my time attending the conference was spent in meetings or at evening events basically starting at 5pm on Monday until I left for the airport at 11:30am on Thursday.   On the bus to the airport, I got notification that my flight home was delayed,  but luckily it was only a 20 minute delay so I made it back to Detroit in time to get to boarding to pick up the girls before they closed.  Then we made the rest of the drive home, finally arriving home at about 8pm.  I had to shovel before pulling the car into the driveway, but we were home.  It is always a long, exhausting week, and i was happy to have the girls back and to be able to sleep in my own bed.  

The girls went out for a potty break when we got home, and then Peaches put herself to bed and Mina put herself in her cozy cave.  Other than Mina following me from the living room to the bedroom when I went to bed, there was no movement by a dog from 8:30pm on Thursday night until after 9:30am on Friday morning.

I cooked Peaches eggs for her breakfast and that didn't even get them moving.  Finally Mina came out of the bedroom around 9:45am and I got Peaches up and sent them out for a potty break.

Then they both ate breakfast and headed to the living room for a nap.

I had a busy morning of work and like them, I barely moved away from my computer.  Around 2pm Mina wanted outside, so I sent them both out for a potty break while I took a break and made lunch for all of us.  Then it was back to napping for the girls while I finished my work day.

At 5pm they were still sound asleep, but I felt like we should at least get out of the house for a drive so I loaded them into the car and took a quick drive to the store to make a purchase and then we drove back home. 

When we got home, I gave them dinner in their Kong Wobblers, played a few rounds of fetch with Mina, and then settled in for a quiet evening at home.  It was a good start to my long weekend. 

Sadly, during the day Friday I started to notice signs that I might be coming down with a cold, and by Friday night my sinus congestion and sore throat led me to make the decision to cancel our Saturday morning shelter dog walk.  

By Saturday morning,  my cold had developed more.  Somehow I got lucky and the girls both slept in until almost 8am so that meant I got a good night's sleep too. After a potty break and breakfast, we headed back to bed to rest.  The girls are very good nurses.

After a relaxing day of rest at home, I had to load the girls in the car to make the drive to Marshall to meet Ruth so I could bring Smokey home from his mini vacation.   We arrived early, the sun was shining, and the temperatures were hovering around freezing,  so I decided to take the girls for a walk on the Marshall Riverwalk section of the NCT. 

Thankfully the sidewalk and bridge section of the trail were clear because the river walk itself was icy and treacherous. 

The girls were excited to be outside on a walk, and I thought the fresh air might be good for me, but about a half mile in my nose was running and my throat was burning.  Luckily we had to turn around to head back to the car.

We slipped and slid our way back to the car along the river walk with.the sun shining on us.

It was such a beautiful day, I wish we could have done more.   

By the time we got back to the car we had completed a mile on the trail which brings us to 10 miles for the year.

I let the girls walk around the grass and sniff around a bit before we got in the car and made the short drive to the park and ride to get Smokey.

Everyone settled in quickly for the ride home.

It was a quiet drive, and I made a couple of quick stops to make some curbside pick ups of a few things I knew I'd need over the next few days, then I picked up a pot pie from KFC for dinner and headed home.

I put away my purchases and then everyone had dinner.  Now we're settled in for a quiet night at home.

While Peaches can't decide if she wants to stay out in the living room with us or put herself to bed, she's currently snuggled up on the loveseat.

I'm so grateful that the house is clean and that I did a load of laundry when I got home on Thursday.  I haven't done much cooking other than heating up some soup so that has made things easy too.  In addition to my cold, the weather is going to turn dangerously cold overnight, so we won't be able to get out for walks for the next few days.  I'm hoping that we can stay quiet and warm inside and get some rest until I am feeling better and the weather improves.

Tonight I'm hoping to be able to stay awake for the whole Lions game.  We won't be doing anything fun for the next few days and I expect that we will spend the rest of our long weekend right here. 

 Frigid weather and being sick both stink!