Jananas

I’ve read a lot of books this year, with a good balance between fiction and general life improvement/business books. One of the biggest lessons is that sometimes you just need to make a decision and run with it. You could spend hours or weeks or months or years evaluating options and agonizing over whether you’ve made the perfect/right choice. Or you can cut out all that worry (and wasted energy). Make a decision and GO.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks talking about wedding stuffs and planning things. People seem shocked that we’ve already done things like reserve our venue and our caterer. [really folks, I'm a planner here!].

1 – If we make a decision now, we don’t need to worry about needing to make a decision. I’m hoping that it will mean less stress over the next year and more time for us to enjoy life.

2 - I’m trying to get decisions made now so that we can go back to being our normal, non-wedding selves. I really, really don’t want the next year of my life to be all about the wedding. Its important, but I don’t want to lose myself or our relationship if that makes sense.

3 – We’re 5 hours away from where our reception is going to be held and we don’t have free time to make multiple trips to view places/taste food. So we put a little faith into the universe and just went with some things sight unseen. The way I figure, even if we find a place that we 100% love and had visited and was perfect, etc. things can still go wrong the day of.

Instead I’m going to spend all of that energy loving Jason and having adventures with him. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

We made a day trip to Shediac on Saturday morning. It was all of a 20 minute drive from downtown Moncton. Sadly the weather was not cooperating at all, so we ended up trying to pose for photos in the rain. We did, however get some fun shots of the giant lobster (giant!!!).

It had some pretty awesome realistic parts – including mouth bits and giant claws. The picture below is of our friend Naomi, Jason, and I all looking out to see (even if we couldn’t see very far at all).

After playing at being a tourist, looking in the tourist shops, and taking photos we headed through a traffic jam in downtown Shediac. Finally decided on a place to eat and I tried lobster for the very first time, even if I wasn’t particularly adventurous and just went with the lobster roll.

Jason and I are suckers for roadside attractions. On our drive from Halifax to Moncton we saw signs for Mastodon Ridge – of course we had to stop. Turns out that its also a halfway point between the equator and the north pole which is sort of neat.

The Mastodon wasn’t that much to look at, but we did get obligatory pictures. First up, that Mastodon itself!

Next, Jason next to the Mastodon as a size reference.

There were also some fun little Stone Age / Flintstones concrete items. The first gives you an idea of the kind of car we were able to rent.

The last one just proves that Jason is too tall for the Stone Age.

The only thing that could have made this road side attraction better would have been a better information section (lots of it was down/not working). Oh, and if Mastodon had been playing.

We spent the weekend up at the cottage. One the highway between Belleville and Tweed we saw a dog wandering at the side of the road. We kept driving and both of us had that “what do we do? do we turn back? do we keep going moment?” And then Jason turned around and we drove back.

We were able to coax the dog over to our side of the road and I was able to grab her collar. Another car had stopped and we spent some time talking with the driver. [Actually three cars stopped, but the other driver never got out. Still, it made me hopeful.]

The dog was very dehydrated and is very malnourished. We could see the vertebrae in her spine. You can clearly make out her hips and she’s so thin that I can fit my fingers between her ribs.

We looked at each other and then back at the dog. There was no way we could return her to a situation where she was being poorly treated. It also didn’t take long for us to name her Lila.

Jason went and rearranged the car so that we could fit her in. We tried to introduce her and Gucci on the side of the road and Gucci snapped at her several times. He wanted none of it. We were unsure of how the car ride would go, so we separated them – the rescued dog up in the front seat (which was pretty adorable because she’s so big that she barely fit) and then Gucci and I in the back so that I could act as a physical barrier.

Once we made it up to the cottage, the dogs started to get along pretty well. There were the odd dust ups over toys and moments of jealously when one dog was being pet more than the other. But they did really well.

She was starving and thirsty. It was late on the Friday night so nothing was open. The poor lady ended up getting fed diet dog food in larger than normal portions (it was the only thing that we had on hand). We fed her small-ish meals every 2-3 hours to give her stomach a chance to adjust. That Saturday we picked up some fresh stewing beef from the butcher and cans of wet food to round out her diet. She’s gotten plenty of food and more water than we thought a dog could possibly drink. Her energy was already getting better on Saturday morning, which was nice to see.

She loved the cottage. She prowled through the woods, easily going up and down hills, climbed through the stream, drank lake water, ate snails, chased chipmunks, and enjoyed being a dog.

She’s a very lovely lady. She can sit, come, and give a paw. She’s desperate for food, but won’t open packages. She’s very affectionate and will sing if she’s feeling jealous. Our guess is that she’ll easily be a 100+lb dog once she’s at her proper weight. She’s going to the vet tomorrow night to be checked out.

When we were in Ohio last weekend Jason took me for ice cream at Young’s Dairy. We met our friend Jacob there and Chris, Kerri, and Harper joined us as well. I grabbed way too much ice cream – note to self, single scoop and something light tasting is the way to go.

Then we went outside to pet goats. Jason spent all his pocket change buying feed for the goats. Some of them were super aggressive trying to get to the food (see the neck stretch if you want proof). Others were way more laid back. I especially liked the little kids and the super pregnant mama goats. Its official, I want to live in a place where we can have a goat.

After we’d exhausted our change we went into the small barn area to see some of the other animals. This calf was very affectionate and loves to lick. The big pad of taste buds in the middle of a cow’s tongue sure does feel strange. I’d also love to live somewhere were I could provide land to a rescued cow (not for dairy production!).

The best part of being in the barn was the little kid who pointed at the cows and excitedly yelled “HORSES”. Apparently someone failed the animal recognition section of kindergarten. The same kid was also stoked about the “Hickens”.

I really enjoy being in Ohio. We’re trying to coordinate schedules for this summer to figure out when we can take another mini road trip, but between weddings and prior commitments it may not be until the fall.