My First Post - A Little About Me

I'm not sure why I'm doing this as I really don't care if any one else reads it and I'm not sure how well I'll keep it up. But it might be a good thing to get with the program and use some of these tools that others are using. So as a test, I'll start this blog.

I'm a pretty ordinary fifty-something year-old woman who lives in beautiful Boulder County in Colorado. I moved to Colorado in 1978 after wanting to live here all my life -- we spent vacations here every year while I was growing up and my parents built a retirement home in Estes Park. I have no real desire to live any where else. Except, perhaps, somewhere in Great Britain for several years or part of every year. But this would have to be home base.

View from home in Estes Park

My parents moved in with me and my dog, Max, in 1998 as my mom was having difficulties breathing at 8500 feet. Several years ago, we got a kitten to add to the family group. Mom died two years ago, and I miss her lots. Always will. My dad is still going strong at 90. Interesting living with your parents again when you are older. Everyone wants to be the one in charge; and the dynamics are so different from when you were a kid. Everyone seems to whip from being the parent, then the child, and then back again. Perhaps I should put that the other way as I think we all end up being in the child stage more often than in the parent stage.

Recently we got a puppy. My old dog, Max (in the picture with my mom and our cat Simba), died about a year and one-half ago. He was a perfect dog and is still missed greatly. I did want a new dog, but thought I'd get one from the humane society -- that's where Max came from and it's a good place to find animals who need a new home. My dad, however, wanted a puppy to ensure we were instrumental in bringing him up the way we wanted him. Basically he said that he didn't want to inherit other people's problems. I reminded him of Max. He said that Max was unusual. I let him talk me into it. Silly me. Puppies are very difficult as well as being cute.

I do love our puppy, Jack (this is him at graduation from Puppy Training with me and my dad). He's an Australian Labradoodle -- or at least is father is. His mother is a multigeneration American Labradoodle. We found him at Cheyenne Valley Labradoodles in Texas. I was doing research into the breed and found a breeder who was certified with an area code in Colorado. Unfortunately, they had moved to Dallas, but we got talking and found that she knew my sister from Pueblo, Colorado. I liked our communication and what she had to say about her dogs and we purchased Jack from them.

He's a happy dog and he pretty much loves everyone and everything -- including our cat, Simba. I'm looking forward to him getting a bit older and out of the puppy and adolescent stages. He's doing well in training, so far, although he always seems to be a lot better in front of the trainer than he is on his own at home. And he also likes the puppy agility class better than obedience class. He has very little fear of the different apperatus (except, he's not sure of the seesaw yet).

I'm a consultant with most of my experience in the world of knowledge management. Over the last few years, I've also worked in the world of state government in helping strategize and implement health care systems and a DSS for a child support system.

For fun, I like to read and to garden. And I love to travel, but I haven't had a lot of time to do that the past few years with all of the stuff going on in my life. However, I was lucky enough to have one of my jobs be in Hawaii -- that was almost like having vacations over the weekends.

I guess on this blog I'll end up talking about myself, my family (including what it's like to live with parents as a gownup and how it is watching them age and needing to help them more), growing a puppy, and my desire to travel. Perhaps work will come up, too, but I'm not sure just how much that will happen.