And the Rain Came Down

And ruined my peonies - sob.

The other morning I was walking on a little path Carm had mowed in the hayfield, when I turned to go back there was a little garter snake writhing on the ground. It was all coiled and moving on itself. I stopped dead in my tracks and took a step back. The grass was high on either side of the path, and I couldn't work up the nerve to step over it... As I stood there feeling stupid I remembered back to the time I fed Kirsten's boa constrictor.

She was looking after her then boyfriend’s snake while he was at university. The snake needed feeding and neither she nor my mom could do it,  so I made the trip to Montreal, went to the pet store, picked out a rat, and then travelled to the house with this rat on my lap. Hummm... grossed out yet? Anyway, when we got home Kirsten took the snake out for a little slither around her room. It came over to me and I realized that I must smell like rat! Yikes. Did I mention that this snake was over 6' long (hence the rat, not a mouse)? Kirsten put the snake away and then left the room leaving it up to me to put the rat in the cage, and then watch until the rat was safely consumed. Sometimes the snake gets a bad grab and the rat can chew at the snake, leaving it pretty injured. What I was supposed to do if that happened I have no idea! This whole endeavour was not a job that I ever wished to experience again... it took the snake ages to finally grab the rat, and then watching till the rat was fully consumed was just gruesome. No pet snakes for me!

One more snake story and then I'm done. My brother Graham was into reptiles as well and had a stream of lizards, snakes and other creatures. One day he came home with a 12' (I kid you not) boa or python... It was disgusting... I think it was overweight as it was so big around - it probably could have swallowed a basketball with no problem, and certainly the family dog and cat were in danger! Mom gave him a couple of days to find it a new home... which really goes to show how cool my mom is that she even let him bring it into the house at all!

Sunday we went to the Saint Anthony’s day parade with Carm’s family. This was one of Carm’s dad favourite times so it was special to spend it together as a family. The parade is much smaller than Carm remembers from his childhood – he recalls up to 20 bands – Sunday there were only 2 (and one of them had bagpipes!). Different groups walked by with their own special banners.

I'm now down 30 pounds from when I was working! I still have 15-20 left to lose, but I feel pretty good :-)  I'm trying to add more intensity to some of my treadmill sessions - today for the first time I was able to run for 1/2 mile straight. Of my 60 minutes on the treadmill today, 1 1/4 miles of it were done running – this is a big thing for me. I've been doing some weights too and am starting to see the results. It is so cool to see muscle definition starting in my shoulders and arms! And my abs are getting stronger too. I've never done this sort of exercise before and I'll have to say that I'm loving it :-) Of course it doesn't hurt that Carm is always saying how great I look (very motivating!).

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
Anne Frank