Things have been a little ‘ruff’

I’ve got to level with you guys here… the past couple days haven’t been some of my favorites.

I’m the type of person who likes to have everything planned out and when wrenches get thrown my way I’m not always the best at immediately bouncing back. So I’m feeling a bit “off kilter” right now and am hoping I can get “back to normal” by the end of the week.

Last weekend was great, particularly the 8 hours I spent with a friend on a beautiful Saturday photographing at various locations and subsequently browsing through our pictures. And then Sunday was going as planned up until around 5 pm. I was leaving the gym (after an especially good workout, if I might add ;-)) when I found 2 dogs loose in my gym’s parking lot. One was a yellow lab, the other a Doberman, and they both had collars on so I knew they belonged to someone. I spent the next 25 minutes or so chasing them around, trying to get them to come to me… and was eventually able to snatch them up and get them in my car.

My post-gym plans for Sunday evening had been to come home, shower, make/eat dinner and then spend the rest of the night going through pictures from Saturday on my couch and preparing a blog post with them. In reality, I spent my Sunday evening driving all over town with 2 giant dogs in my car trying to find an animal shelter, animal control, police precinct, etc. that was open on a Sunday. No dice. I gave up around 8 pm (by this point I was still in my sweaty workout gear from several hours ago and hadn’t eaten dinner, so my mood was pretty bad) and realized I’d be spending my night dogsitting these 2 gentle giants.

(Please excuse my blurry iPhone images!)

Sunday night wasn’t the greatest. The lab never fully settled down – he knew he wasn’t in the right home – and threw up every 20 minutes or so. Once the lab’s belly calmed down the Doberman decided to have a massive you-know-what explosion… I guess his stomach was upset too :-\ I was then up with them at 5:30 am to get them to a shelter and get to work… but even that didn’t go as planned. I won’t bore you with the details but here’s how things ended up: I got them to a shelter where they were immediately recognized and the owners were called. They were home within an hour of arrival! I found out their names were Nitro and Teddy… I’m sure you can figure out which was which 🙂

Now it’s Monday morning… running on no sleep the night before and having been at 5:30 am… it’s raining… I’m a grump. Work is busy but I’m humming along until around 3:30 when a co-worker informs me of a bombing at the Boston marathon… and my blood runs cold. My brother was running in the marathon and both my parents are at the race to cheer him on. Also, one of my best friends for the last 9-ish years lives in Boston and has partaken in Marathon Monday in years past. I’m instantly thrust from the normal reality of a rainy, sleepy Monday into a panic over my loved ones.

Fortunately, I hear from my Bostonian friend almost immediately that she is safe. But I couldn’t get in touch with my parents. I don’t know how long I was trying to contact them with no luck, but it felt about 50x longer than it actually was. I started watching coverage on my computer at work and was horrified – as I’m sure everyone was – with the images I was seeing on the screen… and knowing my family was there.

Eventually I was able to get in touch with my mom and she told me that all 3 of them were safely away from the finish line area. I found out later that phone lines had been cut for a while in case those responsible were using cell phone waves to detonate the bombs, which is why I couldn’t get in touch with my parents.

By the end of yesterday I was drained… physically and emotionally. I came home, shed some tears and was basically in a fog until calling it a night… I was in bed by 9 pm. Today I’ve still been “recovering” from my exhaustive Sunday night/Monday, but my crazy work day didn’t help my situation.

I’m hoping to get some good sleep tonight and get back on track tomorrow. I have a bunch of pictures from last week and last weekend that I want to share on here, as well as upcoming plans for photo shoots with friends, plans for my future website and even letting you all know a bit more about myself now that I’m more comfortable with this whole thing. So once I get back on track this week be on the lookout for some awesome postings… I’ve got some great pictures coming your way that I can’t wait to share 🙂

But I must leave off with this… yesterday’s attacks at the Boston marathon are absolutely senseless and sickening. This was the first real instance where an attack hit me so close to home, with my entire immediate family and one of my best friends in Boston at the time. I know how lucky I am that all my loved ones are safe and I recognize that many, many people weren’t as fortunate. If you’re reading this, I ask that you just take a minute out of your day or night to be thankful for what you have, no matter how small. And make an effort to do at least one small good deed within the next 24 hours… the world could use some positive vibes right now.