Happy Birthday Sidekick!

Happy 1st Birthday Sidekick - although some days (ok many days) you drive me crazy - we are so glad to have you as part of the family!

A relaxing late afternoon (& Doggy Daycare)

Monday's and Wednesday's are my crazy days - at the centre for 7:15am with non stop programming until 3:30pm - and then leave to go and pick up the dog, followed by picking up Ewan and then home to face making dinner - they are long days!
But the last few day's have been a little easier and have just felt like Spring to me - it has been so bright - not exactly warm though - and light out when I leave in the morning and still bright while I am making dinner. And today was an even nicer surprise - Alan left work early at 4pm and picked up Ewan so I could get home earlier, make dinner and go to a yoga class.

So today, I enjoyed making a cuban chicken dinner - (another new recipe and it was delicious!) in a bright, sunny kitchen. 

  With my dog fast asleep. 

            And Ewan and Alan happily reading books while dinner was being prepared.

I also have to highlight that if you want your crazy, hyper dog to look like mine above - you absolutely must try out Dexter's Den Doggy Daycare located on Fallowfield, in between Greenbank and Woodroffe, even just one day a week - it will truly change your life. Sidekick usually goes on Wednesday's for a full day and absolutely loves it! He knows the minute I take the leash out at 7am that he is going to visit his buddies. He practically sprints from the car to the front door of Dexter's Den and jumps all over Paul (the owner). And then when I pick him up I am always given a run down of his day by Adrienne. Once home, he gets into his bed and more or less doesn't leave until Friday evening!!! Having a few days of calmness in the house is amazing. Visit the website at http://www.dextersden.ca/ for more information.

Just one of those weeks....

So this week started off with walking into the centre Monday morning realizing that the front entrance was flooded and I was then flooded with complaints about the front entrance from what seemed like every single person that had entered the centre over the weekend. By the way, I do realize that the front entrance is very small - we tried to do the best we could with the space we could afford. I have also come to realize after speaking with many business's that avoiding wet feet still remains an ever present and impossible problem to solve. With that said I agree that it is not a good way to begin an experience at A Gym Tale.

The other problem that comes with wet feet in the centre are salt stains - EVERYWHERE. Salt stains are so ridiculously difficult to get rid of that it makes me want to cry. The floors were washed about 20 times over Monday and Tuesday in an effort to get rid of them. And we finally succeeded!

Now much of the week was spent trying to find some sort of solution for the front entrance before the following weekend. I had hired a company to professionally clean the mats, thinking they had lost some of their absorption power. The company cancelled twice and finally showed up last night at 7pm only to say that the mats were not what they expected and would need to remove the mats and clean them off site. Well, having no mats was certainly not an option! So they will be back Monday to remove the mats and clean them as fast as possible. Let's hope it does not snow again this weekend!!!

Another idea we had is to schedule another staff member to work just the front entrance in the hopes of someone keeping all boots and coats tidy so that guests can more easily move around within the small space. The third attempt to solve the problem is to offer slip on slippers in the event that guests' feet do get wet. This way guests feet will be drier and salt will not be carried into A Gym Tale.

So I am crossing my fingers and hope that this weekend we will be able to better deal with the issue of the front entrance.

The week also brought with it a mysterious illness in my dog, which resulted in me being at the vet's office for test after test any time I was not at A Gym Tale. Just when it looked like all options had been exhausted and no one seemed to know how to help my dog (very lethargic, bleeding gums, and fever); yesterday when I arrived home he bounded out of his crate, running, jumping and back to his old self with no more bleeding! A miraculous recovery!

And Ewan is teething again. Enough said.

So, I am hoping that next week is a very different week.