Badge of Honor

Okay, I didn't exercise this morning. I woke up with a bad headache (TTOM I'm guessing), sore muscles from my upper body work yesterday and a blister on my foot. My shoe rubbed funny on my foot yesterday morning, and then in the evening while Hubby was off shopping Mabel and I were outside prowling the neighborhood. She was on her bike and I walked briskly to keep up with her, and we were out for a good 40-45 minutes. On top of that I did a lot of housework in the afternoon, so it was a physically active day.

So I made today a break day. Most exercise experts say to fit a break day in during your week, so now I'll just work out on one of my weekend days instead. Maybe this will help with the weekend eating, too.

In between my cleaning I finally tried on the clothes I bought over the weekend, including -- gasp!-- a two piece swimsuit! I was tickled to death that the Larges I bought fit -- snugly and figure forming, but not too tight. And as for the suit? I'm not sure how comfortable I'll be wearing this to a crowded beach, because there's a lot of scary stuff going on with my midsection. Besides my old gallbladder scar (I had the surgery done pre-laproscopy so it's a big 6-inch gash), my skin is so saggy and baggy and shows the deflated stretch marks. If I walk around with my abs tensed the whole time it isn't too bad, but I do actually need to breathe.

When I told Hubby about this, God bless him, he replied, "You've lost so much weight! You should be proud and flaunt it." He's definitely of the opinion that my loose flesh is a badge of honor, not something to be ashamed of, and I need to adopt more of that attitude.

We're going to dog shopping tonight. Weirdly enough, last night Hubby decided to go to the town where the puppies were supposed to arrive to do some grocery shopping. While he was gone the breeder's wife called and told me her husband was arriving at the pet shop with the dog shortly (I'll explain in a moment). I gave her Hubby's cell number and she got a hold of him, so he went and got a sneak preview without Mabel and me.

Somehow the lines of communication got crossed about this Labradoodle. There's only one left, and she is about six months old. Hubby said he was actually torn about her: she's a nice looking dog but a little high-strung and hasn't really been worked with as far as obedience, etc. He knows the little tests to do to see if the dog is dominant or submissive (a dominant dog can be aggressive and bite; a submissive dog is easier to train), and he thought she was submissive and shouldn't be hard to train.

The place he went to sells all kinds of dogs, and Hubby went on and on about some of the other dogs there, including an English Bulldog, a Great Pyrenees and a Goldendoodle. While I think bulldogs are adorable, I know they can have health problems and can't handle extremes of heat and cold. Not good in our wintry locale, and our old house doesn't have air conditioning. As for the GP, they are huge and shed a lot, and we definitely don't want that.

The Goldendoodle, however, is a definite option. Like the Labradoodle, they are bred to shed less (not allergy free but tend to cause less reactions) and are family-friendly dogs with few health problems. So tonight we need to take a good hard look at the dogs, see how Mabel does with them, and make some big decisions. Wish us luck!