The Tenth Mission: #42: Grow

The 4 R's:

Reading, (w)Riting, (a)Rithmetic, Rhetoric

I may have stretched this one...just a bit. As I only have a week for each Mission, I didn't necessarily have the time to find a class, apply, attend, or whatever...BUT...I had already scheduled our first session with a Trainer from Affectionate Pet Care for our dog Daisy.

Daisy waiting
to get adopted
January 2015

From earlier blogs, you all know that we have a dog. Two years ago, my wife and I rescued a 9-year old retriever mix and she had a bit of a rough go the year before we adopted her. As much as we can tell from her medical records, a divorce (her owners, not a puppy divorce), and there was another dog in the house and it looks like the two got separated through the divorce. At that point she was exhibiting signs of separation anxiety and was put on heavy doses of prozac. A year later she was left at the vet for a new family to take care of her and that's where we come in.

First Weekend Home
February 2015

At first she was mentally not all there, you could see the fog, until we weaned her off the prozac and then she became attentive and responsive to food and got closer and closer to my wife and myself. Daisy is a sweet girl, but can't be left alone. Her anxieties are a lot to overcome, but we've made it work. Our family's schedules are off-set a little, so at least one of us is home 3 days out of the week, but on the days neither of us can be around, we put her in day care. After a little over a year of going to day care and getting to know the staff there, we finally got a meeting with a trainer.

Pumpkin Picking
November 2015

Looking Out My Favorite Window
February 2016

Papa's Production Assistant
August 2016

Happy 11th Birthday
October 2016

Our Trainer, Mary came for a house visit and we started working on a plan for Daisy. Our hope is we will get better at recognizing some of the signals of her anxiety and getting ahead of them and redirecting her behavior. We also hope that we can get to the point of leaving her alone for a couple hours.  We'll see how it goes.  In the meantime, Mary was given card #42 and when she received it, she was a little worried because we already gave one of her coworkers something to work on (see The Eighth Mission - #39: Grow). Apparently that has gone around their office (again...maniacal laughter). I am really loving this game!

The Eighth Mission - #39: Grow

"the other hand"

This week's mission proved to be a bit more challenging.

You never realize how much you rely on your dominant hand for mundane, everyday tasks. I figured it wouldn't be so bad when brushing my hair, but then quickly spiraled downward when trying to brush my teeth and finding the micro movements of my dominant hand could not be replicated by my off hand.

WOW! This is going to be a long day.

Most of my other chores for the day were relatively easy, using both hands simultaneously, until I began cooking...

...how easily these blogs turn into something food related...

...cutting an onion for chili was very difficult, well at least for the speed and accuracy that I have practiced so well with my dominant hand. I kept having to put the knife in my right hand to get the feel for how I usually hold it, and again I couldn't replicate it with my left.  ANNNNDDDD you can't believe how much my hand would cramp up...so not used to working those muscles like that. I am quite impressed with myself for not cutting any of my digits off, but still it was quite a feat.

Later that evening, my weekly D&D group got together and I was supposed to continue the drawing our map, but quickly handed it off to one of my fellow adventurers because there was no way I would be able to properly sketch any form of detail. I even tried taking player notes...NOPE! Totally illegible.  I'm going to have to rewrite those later this week.

The first person I saw happened to be one of the gals at the front desk of my dog's daycare, Tonya. We'll see how her trials with her non-dominant hand go, and where the card ends up!

Until next week Travelers!

The Third Mission - Mission Objective #40: Growth

FOOOOOOD!

Of all the cards, I was rather apprehensive about this one...

Trying a new food!

For those of you who know me and my issues with food understand how tough this one could have been for me.

For the rest of you, suffice it to say I have a myriad of food allergies that trigger a condition I was diagnosed with a few years back.

NOOOOOO!!!

I used to like food...no...love food! A fervent Food Network fan and a love of cooking and entertaining, I had often thought of hanging up my camera and picking up my knives and starting a new career in the food industry.

But alas, my allergies have made it...interesting...

...maybe one day...

Onto the MISSION!

My boss, Rachael has on many occasions talked about one of her favorite new beverage finds: Bubble Tea!  After a long day fighting technical demons with the knights who say I.T. we took a break to Kim's Pho in Fairfax for refreshments!

BTW...the place is wicked cool, very nice decor, smelled delicious (unfortunately smell is as far as I can get as all asian food is pretty much off the menu - thank you allergy Gods!). But for those of you who can and are in the area...I recommend at least taking it in!

She ordered a Black Tea Bubble Tea and I myself went whole hog on the 'new food' mission and ordered a Lychee Bubble Tea (never having tried either)....

DAMN WAS THAT LYCHEE SWEET!

They weren't kidding everytime it comes up on one of my Food Network cooking shows.

Anyway, back to the office we went but not before handing the card off to Rachael for the next leg of this journey!

Card Updates

So far, these cards haven't moved yet...well...it's not even been a month, so we'll still give them some time!

Keep watching!