This has been one heck of a couple of weeks!  I’ve had so many big plans for projects:  new jewelry, Finnish recipe, making Lucky Charms from scratch in response to learning they contain cancer-causing elements (I know, everything does).

BUT, the last two weeks for me have been dogs, dogs, and nothing but dogs.

I took the CPDT-KA exam yesterday morning, the one I’ve been wanting to take for two years and have been studying several months for.  Long story short I’ll just have to wait and see, it takes up to 8 weeks to get the results and I’m really not confident one way or another.  It was a really disappointing situation for me when about 80 questions in to the total 250 I realized there was a lot of material on the test that I didn’t know to study.  Some stuff I’ve never even heard of.  I felt deflated.

I’ve never really known how to study, a mixture of diagnosed ADHD and nervous anxiety have always kept me from reading more than three pages of anything at a time before losing focus, but this test was different than school.  This was something that no one was making me do – I wanted this for me – and I am proud of how I studied, read, took notes, researched, etc.

I’m not going to lie, I moped around a lot yesterday, cried a little, napped a lot.  But that’s okay, it’s what I was feeling.  Maybe two months from now I’ll get a notice in the mail saying I passed!  Either way, I took notes on the terms and concepts I wasn’t familiar with on the test and I’m just going to keep studying.  After my naps I realized it shows a lot more character to buck up and take the test again next year if I need to rather than give up.  My husband helped me get to that conclusion, he’s pretty great

To keep my momentum up Kyle and I took our pup Gavin to a beginner agility course a coworker of mine started today.  It’s in no way AKC related and is mostly just for fun, but we all had a blast!  The pictures are kind of blurry because they’re “action shots” and I have to make sure to give photo cred to my husband, because he told me to.  And because he took the photos, hehe.

Gavin learning the tire jump. © Kyle and Krista Lemke

Gavin’s acing his “through” command! © Kyle and Krista Lemke

I’m so proud of how Gavin ran through the tunnel, he was the only dog in the class of four that had never used one before!

This dog will do anything for food! © Kyle and Krista Lemke

Look at that happy guy! © Kyle and Krista Lemke

You can get excited about just about anything and he’ll get excited too, haha!

The boy was pooped! © Kyle and Krista Lemke

He’s going to sleep good tonight!!

Kyle and I went to Orange Leaf after class and then watched the Packers kick some Chicago butt.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

What kind of fun things do you do with your pets?

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Krista Lemke, creative editor, is a crafter, dog trainer and animal lover who shares her Milwaukee apartment with her husband, Kyle, a collie, cat, and three small parrots. Some of Krista’s favorite things are cooking, sewing, eating cupcakes, not cleaning her apartment, and watching How I Met Your Mother, usually all at the same time.

Learn more about her work by following her on Facebook, checking out her boards on Pinterest, and visiting her Etsy shop.