Having a combo meal for dinner.  I am making a beef roast with butternut squash!

Pumpkin pie in a cup with pecans will be dessert. Low carb is not boring! I do not miss all the bread and sweet stuff at all! I am thankful for that, too. 

Wherever you're at and whatever you're doing, have a great day and be happy!

Dog Snobs has an amusing and insightful article: The Types of People That Do Agility. 

Have a humorous look!

I had been having a lot of pain in my knees. It was an odd pain. On again, off again, mostly on after a lot of activity. I stopped running agility. For the most part, I stopped the daily one-milers with my dogs. Walking on the unstable gravel was painful. 

Knowing that my muscles were tight, I was pretty sure the pain was more related to muscle than to bone. I lost some weight. I tried stretching, which was nothing new, I'd been doing it for years. Then more stretching this summer, from a regimen I found on You Tube. The result was that I really hurt my left knee. Ouch, talk about painful! It even kept me from going to the Michigan field trials. 

Early this month, with a free coupon for a first visit to a chiropractor in town, I went, he twisted my leg around and told me that I should schedule an MRI. I mentioned this to my regular doctor who said forget the MRI, it's very expensive and I don't think you need one, call the fitness center and get in to see an exercise physiologist. So I went to the fitness center and saw the fitness guru who specializes in stretching. I have have had one session with him so far. Tam gave me a 15 minute totally painless stretching routine to do each day until the next time I see him. It is so easy you wouldn't believe it could be so effective. But the pain in my knee has been gone for more than two weeks! 

Tam explained that I had always been stretching the same muscle groups - so actually over stretching them - and said that I needed to also stretch the antagonists of those muscles which I had not been doing. He said that the over-stretched muscles on the back side and the under-stretched muscles on the front side were putting relentless pressure on my knees and no wonder I was having knee pain! I am back to walking every day. A few days ago, I spent more than two hours tromping the woods trying to find a deer. No knee pain! I am posting this for the benefit of someone else who may be having a similar problem. 

Also to say that my doctor is smart and I am THANKFUL for her.

This morning was the second time in less than a week that I woke to toilet paper strung through the bathroom and into the bedroom. The first time, I didn't know if the main culprit was Viljo or Taya; they were both in there. This morning the mystery unraveled. Taya still slept. Viljo was in the bathroom playing snow machine again.

Where there's a will there's a way!

Then watch the video sideways. It gives great perspective of a dachshund moving in tight quarters.

Double Congratulations to Cliff and Tasha!

Congratulations to Stan (t-shirt) & Alecia Wenner and  their 9 year old longhaired dachshund Axel Odin von Dorndorf. 

GREAT JOB!

I have two photos of my father as a boy. This is one of them. Owen Dwight Nance is in the back row, first one on the left! He would have been about 11. I believe it is his brother Richard front row, also first on the left. There were three other brothers and two sisters, all older. I don't know if any of them are also in the picture. The only writing on the back says: "The last year class of Arthur School before it was abandoned about 1941-42. Teacher Mrs. Jennie Cummings." It may have been soon after that that the family moved from Oak Hill, Ohio to Columbus.

 I think of the Little Rascals every time I see this picture! I'm pretty sure their families didn't have much; I'm also fairly certain they weren't complaining about it. Can you imagine a bunch of kids barefoot in school these days? Likewise, imagine what these kids would think about what is happening in schools today! For one thing, if you told them that no one could carry a pocketknife or play with a toy gun, they would think we'd gone crazy! Maybe we have.

I have no photos of my mother before age 19 or 20. Early pics would have been in the 30s and 40s in southern Germany so of course also during WWII. She was raised working on a farm in southern Germany. They didn't own the land, but families from the village worked on the farm to get some of the food it produced. Plus my father was raised on a small farm in southern Ohio. Equals I'm pretty sure my love for the country is genetic.

In a previous post, I congratulated Marvelous Mieka and Super Seiko on their accomplishments this weekend in Georgia. It is about time I mention Outstanding Oslo! 

Oslo was called back 2nd and Won the class of 22 Field Champion Dogs on Saturday! 

Oslo was called back 4th and Won the class of 20 Field Champion Dogs on Sunday!

ABS13 FC Audi Oslo von Dorndorf, 9 years old, is owned by Stan Knoll of Mississippi. Devotion between these two being mutual, complete, and pretty well known, I should say that it almost didn't happen. The Stan-and-Oslo-team first took oxygen when baby Oslo's prospective home with a deer hunter in Louisiana fell through. It further developed upon the death of Stan's young bitch Anika. And it was born in a light bulb moment in the shower in Poplarville, Mississippi in 2005. I'm not sure that Stan had dried off yet when he phoned me and said that he wanted Oslo. A couple of months later, Oslo left Ohio for the second time and he wasn't coming back.

Stan phoned this past Sunday evening on the drive home from Georgia. He said he believes that Oslo has moved into the Number Five spot among the top trial competitors on the All-Time list of DCA field trial merit points. Wonderful! But Five, Six, or pick up sticks, the boys from southern Miss have done their little fan club proud!

Congratulations to Stan & Oslo! I didn't actually have much to do with it, but I sure am glad that you two teamed up!

New photos of two of my brother Mike's five awesome grandkids! Emma is on the left and her sister Naomi on the right. I am guessing that they had just gotten dressed for church this morning. Beautiful girls!