Week 2 being accountable/week 1 of POWER community challenge and Odda

 Being involved with two challenges for living a healthier lifestyle (replacing the dreaded diet word) is making me accountable if to no one else - ME!  I've been doing really good this past two weeks, except today was not so good.  I had 2 cokes today, and 1 candy bar!  Bad Girl! - but it was a mixed up day, and I couldn't cook and was on the road. 
Our Odda has had a bum eye for about 2 weeks, the right eye (not the eye itself, but the area around the eye) was all swollen, and hair rubbed off.  At first I thought she'd punctured the upper lid with a branch or something, but our local vet thought it was a dermatitis type thing going on and we'd been giving her antibiotics, and after a week there was no change.  You could tell it itched or bothered her because she was rubbing it with the side of her paw, and on our pant legs, etc.  It has been swollen shut, and she did not always open her eye up, and this morning it was pussy.  Our vet is on vacation, so I called the Vet hospital out of town that he recommended and drove the 60 miles there to have them check it out.  They determined that she has  Entropion of the lower eye lid; which is where the eye lid is turning under and scratching her eye, and very irritating.   I'd called about 10 am and they wanted to see her at 1 pm, so that meant I was on the road during dinner time, and didn't even have time to fix something for Steve.  He was outside cleaning the barn, so told him where Odda and I were going and off we went.  So now Odda is scheduled for surgery on Monday Feb 1st and needs to be there at 7:30 am - another car ride early in the morning.   The doctor said it isn't uncommon for large dogs to have this happen, and there was nothing we did wrong!  (Thank goodness.)  They will pull the lid out, do a little clip/cut of extra lid, and sew her up.  He called it a little plastic surgery.  She'll come home with a cone on, so will be staying inside a few nights then.  As long as she is under they are going to do a prelim OFA check also, saving me about $60.00 as she is already under.  They said she was such a good girl.  I told him we were doing obedience training now, and he said she was better behaved than any other 9 month old large dog he's seen for a long time.  So I had to let Sue (our dog teacher) know that Odda wouldn't be there for 3 to 4 weeks.   Odda has been doing so good at classes, and I was going to have our daughter come this week and take pictures of us and all the dogs.  Oh well, that will have to wait.

Didn't get home until 3:30 pm and husband was getting ready to head to Iowa.  He was loading a couple of young boars to take to a boar stud station.  He's staying overnight at friends, and then the two of them will be driving to Iowa and back tomorrow.  It was Hi and Bye again as I had to be in town to practice bells at 5 pm and had to leave home before 4:30 pm.  Didn't get home again until after 7 pm.  So that was my day.  Had left overs for a supper by myself, and had Odda inside, thinking maybe she could stay in all night.  But she wanted to go out.  So I put in her eye ointment in twice before putting her in her kennel now at 9:30 pm.  Her house is nice and warm, but not as warm as being inside.  After her surgery, she'll just have to stay inside overnight and sleep by the door.  We'll need to be able to watch over her more then. 

So my day of not eating well today is over, and on with the program better tomorrow.  If I'd thought straight, I'd have taken  cut up celery and carrots in a baggie with, or make and take a sandwich with.   It's not that it wasn't available.  I did drink water, but did have a diet coke on the way there, and the way home.   Other than today, I've really cut back on the pop, which is good, and I feel better for it. 

So I'm being accountable for what I'm doing; and also on week one of our community POWER UP challenge.  POWER stands for
P-rotein/produce; O-ptimism; W-ater; E-xercise; Resist grazing.  Leah, went with me to sign up for this at our Community Education office.  We will report every Monday on how we are doing.  You grade yourself from 1 - 5 on how you feel you are doing each day for each of the POWER catagories.  You pick 2 goals each week  and mine for this week are:  Water - drink 8 - 8 oz glasses of water daily, and reducing the cola drinks.  Doing fine on this goal (except for today- so my number today for Water will be a 4.  2nd Goal this week is Proten/produce - eat protein and veggies with each meal.  Well - today that was a bust!  So grade today will be a 1.   My Optimism today will be a 3 and Exercise a 0 and Resist grazing a 2, as I'm not grazing tonight!

So it goes - A busy day and not planned, but I'm going to pack up some celery and carrots in baggies and have them ready to grab when I go out the door unplanned.  That will help.  Need to dig out the water bottles and have some ready to take too.  Then I won't be so tempted to stop at a gas station to get munchies.

The drive to the Vet Hosp. was pretty, and the drive home was not so nice.  It was blowing snow and getting slippery.

On our way to the Vet Hosp.

This one is on the way home - icey roads and blowing over. 

Odda slept the whole way home.  She is such a good traveler. 

More again another day!