For those who haven’t found The Conqueror virtual challenges, I have found that it is a good way to make you pay attention to how much exercise you are getting. I can walk a mile a day just by taking the long way around the house when getting stuff and two miles a day if I am in the office. My Apple Watch tracks my steps and the app reads them once a day – so every morning, I can check my progress on the map.
I’m waiting until the exercise bike arrives to try the longer challenges, because a mile a day isn’t very much! Still, it is much more than I was walking before I started the challenges, and that’s the point. This is 533 miles which is more than I was doing before I started paying attention.
The challenges with Galemeadow Castle means that my wife was walking with me – we pooled our steps. I don’t think she was as interested. So, on those races, I probably did about half the steps.
In my wedding vows, my wife insisted that I promise to have a dog. “A” dog. Over the years, I have kept that promise many times over. The chart doesn’t even mention Max, who was with us such a short time, he didn’t make it over an anniversary.
I will have to update this chart each year. I thought about it after I had to update the spreadsheet I have because Katie left us the day before my birthday in 2022. When you need a spreadsheet to track your pets, you have kept the promise to have “a dog.”
It was an interesting project building the spreadsheet, because most of the past twenty-two years is a blur, and all the dogs seemed to be here at once. I really couldn’t tell who knew whom or shared the house. So, I put together a spreadsheet with approximate birth dates (i.e. the date we told the pharmacy for their prescriptions), the date they actually joined the household, and the date they crossed the bridge. I then added a function to show who was in residence on any given date. That’s how I built this table.
We know Bubba’s actual birthdate because he was a wedding gift. We know Flower’s because my Mom-in-law got her from a breeder. Yes, mistakes were made. All the rest are rescues, so birthdates were approximate. Flower was actually older than Bubba, but she didn’t move in to the house until my mother-in-law moved in with us.
Unfiltered Thoughts 