So many updates!

Some good, some sad. 

So it's been a year since my grandma passed. A tough year. But a year. I miss her every single day and whenever I go to my grandpas house, I know she's there. She watches over all of us. 

And now with the good.... I finished a 5k today! In 49 minutes. But it was my first and I am very out of shape, had very crappy shoes and I woke up with my back and hip hurting. I finally decided that it was time to play terribly inappropriate songs and that helped me get through the end of it! Like peacock by Katy Perry, Penis Song by Macklemore, and Jon lajoie songs. It helped. Haha. I told myself and my friend the whole time that I'd never do it again. But I really want to! I'm sore, I'm tired. But I feel accomplished! I had a huuuuge blister underneath calluses and that was painful. Thankfully I have the next two days off work! 

Second good thing is that I am going to grooming academy! Super excited. Nervous. But excited. Not thrilled with how much money I had to spend. Went from having nearly $1000 in my bank account to about $50. Yikes. Kills me to spend money. But it will help with my future and I think it's something I'll enjoy. 

Oh and something to do with both of the good things kinda... There's a 5k for Halloween. And I realllly want to do it. Dress up in a costume and bring Ziggy and have her in costume too. It would be adorable. I'm totally thinking lawn gnome for myself and pink flamingo for her. Including dye and wings for her. Oh man. So ridiculously excited. I can totally figure this out. I need to do it. I'm so excited. Haha. 

I hate shihtzus.

So on Sunday night, I noticed that my mom's shihtzus had such overgrown nails that they were probably two weeks from growing into their paw pads. I trimmed bubba's nails first and he was absolutely perfect. Then onto meeko. He did great for his first three feet. Onto his front right foot. Was able to get three nails done and he fucking snapped. I'm not talking a little nibble or a growl. I'm talking full on tried to eat me. To the point of the meat of my hand hanging out of it. That deep. So I went to the doctor. Had to call out of work. Missed a 7 hour shift. May have to call in tomorrow and miss a 5.5 hour shift. My hand hurts. So much. It's ridiculous. I'm on antibiotics. Having to take Advil like constantly. It has to be elevated or else it just throbs. Even then, it often throbs. I struggle putting my hair up, putting clothes on and my left hand is nearly useless right now. Ugh. And my mom seemed frustrated about having to take me to the walk in clinic. I'm just annoyed. I don't want to miss work. I don't want to be in pain. I didn't choose to be attacked. 

NW Grooming Expo: Brusher/Bather Certification

So I went to the NW Grooming Expo in Tacoma this week! It was interesting! I learned a lot in the brusher bather certification course, actually. It was rather interesting. Though it was really disturbing how many people didn't know some of the basic information being taught. Like how to clip nails. And where the quick is. And what the "expert groomer" teaching the class said kind of angered me. "Well it's where there's a V in the nail. Clip on the tip side of that." Uh nowhere near the quick. And if the nails are relatively short.... Uh oh hey. No v. At all. And all of the people who had no idea, terrifyingly around 9 people of the 23 person class, were amazed and felt like they now knew how to do nails. When they'd get nowhere near the quick in any way.  It makes me sad. Because old dogs won't get their nails short and their long nails can and likely will hurt their poor arthritic feet. 

I did learn a few good things though! Which is nice. And to not wet down a dog before washing it and just go straight with shampoo if a dog stinks because the smell of the shampoo will overpower and help get rid of the stink. The stink got onto them while they were dry, most likely and the hair was dry and easily absorbed stink in the first place. Especially for skunk stink. And to shampoo a dry double coated dog, use the hv dryer on them for about a minute, shampoo again, hv dryer for about a minute, then condition them and then rinse and them fully hv dry them and it should get rid of a loooot of hair. I'll hopefully be getting my certificate in the mail soon! 

However the salon certification sucked. A friend took it and it wasn't clear that you wouldn't get certification straight out of the class. You have to throw hundreds of dollars at them and take tests and make videos of grooms and everything. But that wasn't specified.  And everything that was taught was taught in the petstore that we work at's grooming academy. So it was useless to people who have gone though our grooming academy. I haven't at this point so it probably would be interesting to see the notes, which I'll look at. But don't think it would be worth the $149 that was paid.