Well we had our first show in ages Saturday. I was hoping we'd win at least our class but no luck. Marli aka Ellagant Party Girl took 1st and was RUBOB and Best Puppy In Group also. I felt rather stupid as I fumbled a bit, even more noticable since I'd actually been doing quite nice in practices... d'oh! On the up side, I met up with a few people from that class and it was Terry's first show ever, so I hope our support made her a bit more comfortable. Her Irish Setter did well for his first show. He's such a sookie guy, makes me a bit wistful for setters again. (No, I am not getting anymore dogs anytime soon!)

I also took a look at our entries... we're doing absolutely nothing all of August and worse we missed the cut offs for the Royals. :cries: I'm not sure what we're doing in September either as I'm not sure what we will be able to make it to. :sad: I guess in hindsight we're not ready for Royals and it's best to wait and I also have plenty of things to keep me busy here but that really doesn't make me feel better as I'd really, really, really been looking forward to actually being IN the Royals this year since Hope was born. The reason - I simply did not get my entries in. I kept telling Nic I really need you to take Laurent tonight for half an hour so I can sit down and fill everything out but he was always too busy and when he finally took him it was the day after the entries closed.

Hope is doing well with the sheep but I'm also a bit frusterated with progress atm. The alpaca is the chief cause, albeit through no fault of his own. He cannot be in with them while herding as his job is to protect sheep against foxes and dogs look enough like foxes he'll try to protect against them. So I split 1-2 sheep and him into the other paddock while we keep the others in the first paddock. Problem being when I've got Hope working just the sheep, she'll spot the "strays" (iow the alpaca and 2 sheep) which are "getting away" and constantly wants to dash back to round them up! X-o

I still haven't picked up my Wyandotte cockrel, we haven't been able to get ahold of the fellow. I'm hoping he's not sold him elsewhere as they are -very- difficult to find. I've had some good news in that my partridge colour Silkie hen has gotten some very favorable comments from some people who think she's worth showing and should produce excellent babies as well. She was just purchased as a pet as when you buy a baby you can't really tell how it'll end up but if there are any shows nearby in August maybe I'll take her for a lark. Her breeder has offered me an unrelated cockrel which I may take up. The idea of showing chooks seems so funny to me... but I suppose really it's not any different than dogs or cats so not sure why it seems so odd!

Other than that, it seems like there is so much outrageous stuff going on in a lot of my friends lives at the moment... stuff you'd expect to read about rather than watch people you know live through. There is so much upheaval, stress, personal realizations, hurt and other miserable, rotten stuff. I guess this means that I know a lot of very strong people but it sucks to collectively have the universe grabbing us by the ear and turning the world upside down. I've started writing about stuff so many times in the past few weeks and just really lacked the words to capture my thoughts, my moods were too transient and by the time I found the way to put across one thought, I'd picked it apart from five other points of view and what I felt changed entirely. I feel like I'm at a point where I want to move forward with all my plans again but things are just going so frusteratingly slow it's hard to believe I'll ever get there.

Verity's progress is slow but steady. Slow more due to my lack of time to train as intensively as I did pre-toddler. Frusterating as I know what kind of progress we have the ability to achieve if not the time. She is happy though, dances around with joy in her eyes, so it's really a human complaint more than a dog one. It was her second birthday as well a few days ago and she got goodies and into mischief- chewed and shredded a bag of sheep wool and a bag of alpaca wool I'd recieved to try spinning with.

Aside from everything, Laurent is gorgeous and beautiful and wonderful and precious and I really, really, really, really love it when he pops out with cute new phrases, wraps his arms around my neck, gives me a big kiss and bursts out giggling so hysterically he actually falls down and can't pick himself up. He knows how to bribe Cade now into coming, "Caaadddeee.... foo-foood... go buh bye car carrrr" in a sing song voice. Today he pointed to the AB icon on my bookmark favorites bar and when I clicked on it he requested, "Bwyn! Where Bwyn?" (Sif's son Bryn) Then when I found a thread with your sig picture in it he clapped in glee, pointed and exclaimed, "See it? BWYN! Oo-ie!" (Oo-ie being Luey) and giggling and clapping more. He apparently has seen me click on the icon enough to recognize what website it symbolizes and remembered that he's seen their picture while there! O_O