"You're never happy unless you're making my life complicated, are ya."

This is my puppy.



This is a porcupine. They're really getting on my nerves.




The first time we had an encounter with a porcupine the victim was Knox and he had a half dozen quills in his nose. The porcupine was dead so there wasn't much of a fight and Knox learned his lesson easily the first time. He was a patient patient and I pulled out the quills and it was no big deal. A little while ago the same thing happened to Jolie only the porky was live and angry and she had about two dozen quills and she was not a patient patient. It was AWFUL pulling out her quills. There was crying and fighting and blood and Matt punched some woodwork and the whole time Knox wanted his butt scratched. It sucked. I had very much hoped that Jolie would learn that porcupines are sharp as easily as Knox did but no. Not so much.

This morning in the middle of our run Jolie and Knox ran after a noise. They do this 3-4 times a walk during 3-4 walks a day every day. So...when they don't come back promptly mostly I'm just irritated and I don't necessarily think there is something wrong. When I do think there is something wrong I stomp into the woods and it's a pain in the rump and then the doggies happily follow me out. This morning I didn't follow them in, I just kept walking and then got grouchy when Knox showed up and not Jolie. Grouch Grouch Grouch...all the way home...a mile and a half. That's how far she had to run to me with 20 quills in her leg. She had a terrible limp in addition to the dozen quills in her nose and mouth.

I called the vet from the woods and carried her home. I feel like the worst dog mom ever. The vet sedated her and did everything she could but there are still some quills broken under her skin. They won't go searching surgically unless the quills don't work themselves out. All the drama happened at 7 am and we got home after 10, she's been sleeping ever since. I hope she learns that porcupines are no fun because my guilt can't get ramped any higher.

"I'm not sure that's ethical." "It's not. It's vodka."

I don't know how this happens but I forgot about my jump rope again. I enjoy it and it's awesome and then somehow something happens and I forget about it. I remembered it yesterday and I've jump roped two days in a row and seriously my arms are permanently broken. I love how many calories I burn jumping rope for such a small amount of time and I like anything that makes me feel like I've really worked my muscles so it's a win win. If I can just remember it's there. If I take one day off my routines go to hell. It makes me feel like a goldfish "and the castle is a surprise every time".

"The three greatest lies of all time. Big is beautiful, the cheque's in the mail, and of course I won't come in your mouth."

It is ridiculously hot. When it's 90 degrees in Maine in May you can just assume that the world is ending and that we're all gonna die. Seriously. It should not be that hot. Rebecca said something about an earthquake and the earth's axis and the horror that fills my brain with those thoughts I can't deal with at all. All I can see is polar bears with sunburns, it's terrible.

The dogs think it's terrible too, they sleep all day. And then they sleep all night. They must be the most tired dogs in the whole world, you'd think the beatings would keep them on the hop but they're so LAZY...sleeping on the couches all day. With the heat we've started running between 5 and 6 so it's cool enough for all of us and we're all pooped by lunchtime. It makes a very long day for all of us. The runs have been going really well. I'm super impressed with myself. I spend the whole time telling myself I can do it and it turns out I can. When I say I can keep going I do keep going and my legs rock because I really think they could go forever. My lungs don't burn like they used to, my knees are feeling great and the new sports bra is freaking awesome...breasts of steel thanks to victoria's secret. It makes running so much better, I'm only a few weeks from running the entire mountain trail without breaks!

"God Damn, These electric sex pants!"

It's not so much that I'm disenchanted with blogging in particular I'm just disenchanted with everything...except ice cream. This weekend Matt and I found one thousand military history shows to watch on netflix so we spent the whole weekend captivated by horror and now I feel sad and paranoid about zombie nazis. I don't know, I just watched too much tv and now I need to be alone with britney spears videos or something, maybe her mouseketeers era work. I need a fluffy pink bunny to hold my hand or something because i think i damaged my soul. I'm watching the IT Crowd now while I write some resumes in an effort to erase the damage. I'm afraid we might run out of ice cream before I'm healed. Or I'll have a dairy induced heart attack. I really need to get a job...

my baby was a stock image and i don't know why but it made me mad...so i moved her. we'll see if it works.

"You're not the manager, even in your own fantasy?"

This week has been crazy, Matt has been home for two days this week and you wouldn't believe how little I get done having a boy around. Jolie, however, has had a busy week smelling porcupines and getting almost 20 new and exciting quills in her nose. It was the best, I loved pulling them all out with tweezers and pliers while she looked at us like we were killing her slowly. It was hard and sad and I really hope she learned everything she'll ever need to know about porcupines.

I am learning more about sparkpeople and it turns out that when you tell it you walk five miles a day you get more calories and also very different meal choices on their meal plan (which I can't help but look at even though it's crazy...like staring at the sun). The meals make marginally more sense with more calories and it seems less like someone spun a wheel of low cal food and picked things with their eyes closed, and also that person had tourrettes, but yeah they do better when they have more calories to work with. I get to eat awesome things I couldn't eat last week when I wasn't honest with sparkpeople, when you share your true feelings with sparkpeople they let you have vanilla frozen yogurt...like a parent might after a frank discussion. I'm still not sure how you eat a yogurt, a granola bar, carrots and 1 tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese...do you mix the cheese into the yogurt...melt it over the carrots...I just don't know.

"She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot."

The thing I hate most about sparkpeople is that I started it ONE THOUSAND years ago and it tells me about how I used to be skinnier. Rub my face in it sparkpeople, cold. Anyway, I'm using spark again just to see where I stand with things and it's not so bad. Smart dogs and eggs are just not high calorie food, so yay for that. On the other hand when I ask Matt about how long he thinks a particular walk is he estimates low and this weekend after walking with us he decided that we do in fact walk at least 4 miles a day. Adding today's exercise into spark people i've burned almost 1000 calories without any of my indoor planned exercise. So I'm left to wondering as I did when I was doing weight watchers that I'm not eating enough calories or drinking enough water. The water I'm working on with a chart on my fridge white board. I put eight slash marks on the board and I wipe one off every time I fill my water glass. If I have a soda...sigh...or lightly sweetened iced tea I add a slash mark to make up for the caffeine. It's my intensely complicated water drinking system because I can't be trusted to fill a water glass an appropriate number of times to sustain life...and/or weight loss.

Even if I can't be trusted to drink enough water I can be trusted to blow dry the rear ends of my baby chickens. Last year we monitored the rumps of our chicks very carefully and nothing ever happened. This year I'm hardly even trying to find butt problems and they keep throwing themselves in my face. Did you want to know about that? No? Shocking. Maybe we're just paranoid but when a chick has a bumper problem we have to wash it...and the downy fluff gets wet and when you put the chick back in the box: A. the other chicks are way too interested and B. the wet chick is then wet and cold. So I blow dry them. On low as to not burn the, err, region. It really seemed like the most reasonable thing to do but probably perdue doesn't bother. Lo the worries of the small and anal retentive farmer.

"He has fingers in more pies than a leper at a cookery course."

It's come to my attention that there is no chocolate in my house. And I have to go bra shopping. It's been an embarrassingly long time since I've bought new ones and I'm deathly afraid of gravity so it's my mission for the week to buy some new ones...and some chocolate. I genuinely wish I had more to chat about than buying bras and eating chocolate. Surely I haven't devolved into a bad sitcom wife? We're getting new chicks so I can work on being Amy the Farmer. And I'm cleaning out my linen cupboard to be Amy Stewart. It so happens that linens are the one thing I haven't reorganized 1000 times. Isn't that fascinating? I'm going to take out all my towels and sheets...and wash them...and put them back. 8th world wonder that. Aren't you glad I shared?

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you're a mental case."

Remember that time I had leprosy? I got it again this weekend planting apple trees. Black flies are really, really annoying. I'm not an expert but once you have more big bites than you can count there's a whole lot of bug poison in your body and it really kicked my ass. I must have some kind of sensitivity because I've felt like crap all week. Matt not only had half as many but didn't have the exciting swelling, itching and burning like I did. That's really all I have to say, I've been busy swelling and itching all this time instead of blogging. Don't be jealous!

"And which part of my subconcious do you hail from?"

Today we planted 12 trees and every inch of my person is broken. Tomorrow is going to be vastly unpleasant. I'm not much looking forward to our morning run but hey, maybe it won't be the worst hour of my whole life after all. Gotta be positive. The dogs need it even if I'm dying, which is pretty much the best reason to ever get a dog. No rest for the pooch owner. Cats don't care at all how fat you get, they probably prefer it but dogs are along for the journey, bless 'em. I had to go to the cat food store today and lo there was another beautiful adoptable kitty and his name was speed racer! so maybe he would care about my running progress...maybe it was a sign. If only I weren't too broke to adopt every kitty and puppy in the whole world. If only I could lift my arms over my head. So many things to wish for.