Overworked

The past week has not been a great one. I've been putting in a lot of hours at the second job, due mostly to the fact the boss hasn't gotten around to hiring a new hotline assistant. My friend Judy, who helped me get this job, gave her notice more than three weeks ago. Her last day was the 16th (except that she's working today, since I'm working at the paper today and there's no way I could have done both jobs on a Saturday), and the boss is just now putting an ad for the job in Sunday's paper. Until now, all she'd done was call some people who had applied for the job at the same time I did -- months ago -- and couldn't seem to understand why none of them called her back. Duh!

It didn't help that the other hotline assistant had a family emergency and couldn't work two of her days. So I've had six days on this week's pay period alone -- twice what I should have! Add to that I had to get the paper's annual bridal tab laid out this week, and put in extra hours Tuesday and had to deal with the stupid software we have corrupting my file more than once, and I've had a very stressful week. And it's not necessarily over, at least until another hotline assistant is hired and trained.

So I'm just kind of kicking back this morning until I have to go in the paper to work. I slept in, and Buster and I went and filled the birdfeeders then played around the yard for awhile. Then we worked on some agility training, and Buster's doing quite well with that! For Christmas, my brother got me this agility kit. We haven't gotten to use it too much because of all the snow and cold and me working, but we got the chance to do it a couple times this week. I'm having fun. Buster has fun, once he figures out what I want him to do, and that the things aren't anything to be afraid of! So far, he's learned to do the high jump (actually the not-so-high-jump), and today, I got him to go through the tunnel a few times. He even did both in succession ... sort of. I can't wait for him to learn the weave poles, but the instruction book says that's usually the hardest part to train for, so I'll probably leave that for last, when the weather might be a bit warmer and we can get out more frequently.

There's no dog agility clubs or competitions where I live (not outside of 4-H, and I'm a bit old for that) at least that I know of, but maybe I'll post something somewhere and see if there's some interest. Even if there's not, it's been fun to do, so great gift, bro!