a piece of my heart just flew to california

i put oliver on a plane to california this morning to live with his new family & man was that harder than i ever thought it would be.  not only did i get lost going to the cargo terminal (

which i've been to twice now), i left his health certificate, that he HAD to have to fly, at work.  needless to say i was a HOT mess.  & let's just add "that time of the month" in the mix for a grand ol' time.  when i finally got to the terminal to check him in, he was looking at me with those big brown eyes, like "mommy what's going on?"  i completely lost it folks.  the people - aka grumpy old man who just felt the need to scold me because i obviously almost missed the cut off for his flight due to getting lost & the airport having no idea of how to tell me where the continental cargo terminal was located... anywho...  so i just couldn't get it together.  not the whole 15 minutes i was in there.  the tears were just a flowin' folks & i'm sure the 3 people there helping me just felt so very akward, but oh well.  i felt like i was shipping my child off & i was a failed parent, & i just hated leaving that loving little dog there by himself.  it felt like selling part of my family.  awful.

but thankfully...

he is going to a loving home & that is making my day a little easier.

so in honor of oliver aka buddy bear, big bear, ollie, oli-bear & the time he was a part of my life...  i'll share a few pics of my boy.

M's, 'maters, & a sad announcement

i decided yesterday that my new little bag is going to the little Ms in my life. i thought my niece, the big m, could use it for her books or whatever she might fancy & when she grows out of it, she can pass it down to my other niece, the little m. so i added a little m to my new creation yesterday.

& check out all these 'maters (yes that is completely a southern thing, sorry if you had no idea as to what i was referring to) i scored at my grandmother's last night. her tomato plants are out of control right now. i'm going to be trying my hand at some tomato sauce with this recipe tonight.

& the sad announcement :(

i'm sad to say that after only being with us since august 7th, mr. oliver will be leaving us friday to live with a young couple in bakersfield, ca. i sadly made this decision after realizing that he needs a place to run, a place where he can be the fun little pocket beagle he is. my townhouse is just too constricting for this little guy. i am soooo sad to see him go because i love him dearly. he's my cuddle bug, the one who lets me love on him whenever. so today, i'm sad.

need to find a run near you?

so i found this great website - mapmyrun.com - last week while looking for good routes to run near my new home.

in light of my recent move & my goal to run a 5k sometime this fall, i decided to get on the ball with running outside. this site is a great community where people can post their runs, you can map out your own run & it will tell you the distance, you can keep a personal traning log, list your goals, & so much more. it's a pretty great, *free* -- (that's right... FREE!) -- tool for runners.

i've found a few routes in my area & actually ran one over the weekend with Oliver. he did really well for his first run! can't wait to challenge myself with some longer runs i've found here & maybe create my own!

happy running!

-aw