#kar1231

Today's a very hard day, as it's the 1-year anniversary of one of the worst days of my life.

That's when our greyhound Rue died very suddenly and unexpectedly in an accident at our vet. Following a dental cleaning, she was woken up and taken outside by a technician, who dropped Rue's leash. Rue ran, and shortly after she was eventually corralled by a stranger, she collapsed from a combination of the drugs in her system and it being hot out. Our vet tried to resuscitate her, but she passed 2 minutes before we arrived.

We didn't get to say goodbye, and knowing that she died likely terrified will forever hurt. She had years of love left to give.

I've been lucky to not have experienced an abundance of family grief in my life, which perhaps is part of why dealing with Rue's passing has been so hard, even a year later. Sometime it still hits like a truck out of nowhere.

Today, we'll celebrate her life by bringing our two greyhounds to Rue's favorite dog park, and then having a backyard fire to reminisce about her.

I'll end with two things:

- I once heard that 'Grief is love with no place to go', and that's 100% true.

- Don't let anyone tell you that your pets aren't family.

We’re basically halfway through the 2022 garden season here in Madison, so it’s a good time to give a full midseason garden tour.

I lost 23 pounds this year, all from the start of March onward.

I hit at least 11,000 steps every day this year, and my 10,000 steps/day streak is now at 691 as of today (12/31). I’ll hit 2 years on February 9.

My lower back - which has had incredibly painful flare-ups regularly ever since a 2014 injury - went this whole year without one. I was much more proactive about it this year, foam-rolling a ton and stretching. Before this year I had never gone more than 8 months without a flare-up, which always takes at least a full week to recover from.

Other non-health major activity in 2020:

- We adopted a second greyhound on December 12. She’s pretty great :)

- We put solar panels on our garage this year, turning them on December 2. They should produce about 60% of our total electricity needs for the year.

- We refinanced our mortgage, taking advantage of super-low interest rates. We’re very much looking forward to just 2.5% interest for the next 15 years.

- We more than doubled our garden space this year, going from about 175 square feet in January to now right around 400. That’s a ton of garden on a 1/4 acre.