Hi all. Well, gee, this new position is taking up a lot of my time, longer hours than ever but certainly different.

Vanilla has transitioned just fine to being non crated during the day and to me being away longer hours. She only gets grumpy if she doesn't get her time with me after i get home. Then she'll bark at me till I stop working for a bit and have some vanilla time. LOL The girl knows what she wants and when she wants it.

I like the job and I like that I'm doing something different. Only thing is that 2 days after I accepted the postion, I found out that the girl training me, who is actually farily new too so we were both learning together, is unexpectedly getting married and moving to Dubai all within 3 months of my joining the team. That means that it has been a non stop crash course to learn everything that normally I would have had about a year to get proficient at. I'm literally working day and night to try to get up to speed, as I'll be taking over her base of clients on top of my own (that I'm still trying to figure out anyway) until we get someone hired and Then I have to train the new person. it is beyond overwhelming and my stress level hit over 100% sometime around the first part of December. I've cancelled a trip to California over the holidays as I need to be here to cram as much as I can in while she is still here. I think she'll leave mid February for good.

We did get out to Kelowna for the grandsons birthday and we plan to go back just for a long weekend in February for our granddaughters birthday. That's all i can manage to be away for.

I haven't even decorated for Christmas this year as just too hectic and I'm never home anyhow it feels like. We have gone out to a few friends parties but I'm not having anyone over as when I'm home I really want down time and to chill out instead of entertaining. Not like me at all is it.

Anyway, I did want to stop in during the holidays and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from me, Daniel and Vanilla. Love you all and miss you so very much