Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Last year in December, I wrote a blog post about my 2009 accomplishments and 2010 goals. I made the list of 2010 goals rather rapidly and without a huge amount of thought. Almost as soon as I posted it, I thought, "Why did I put down 'agility?' and 'walk or run a 5k'?

Goals for 2010

GRYFF
Finish his OTCh.
Accomplished in January 2010. Did only a few other obedience trials the rest of the year, possibly the fewest I've done since I started competing in the 1980's.
Finish his MH
YES! Finished Labor Day weekend, 2010. Gryffin is only the 6th retriever in AKC history to be a CH OTCH MH. I am still beyond proud of accomplishing all of these titles with me handling & training him for everything. He is such a great dog and I feel so blessed to have him at my side, whatever the adventure.
Submit HOF info
Got it in the mail with a week to spare.
Agility?
Nope. Another one of those spur-of-the-moment additions that I'm not in the least upset about not accomplishing.

TY
Get her SH
YES! Finished the same weekend Gryff finished his MH. A lot of ups and downs. Some days, she can be brilliant, others, I really wondered how she had ANY legs at all. Getting to the Master level may well be beyond her/our capabilities, but we'll learn a lot together.
Start her UD and beyond journey - Utiility by National in June
Didn't show in Utility until two times in October, and did miraculously earn one leg. I made the very wise decision to do Graduate Open at the National in June. Signals were just too fuzzy for her at full distance, and we were spending too much time training for the hunt tests. She did get 1st place in GO at the National.
Advance her MH work
She has probably had more exposure to MH level work at this stage than Gryffin did simply because I am working on it with Gryffin. We still have a LONG way to go on water blinds. Her memory on water for marks is also pretty erratic. I doubt she could do a triple on water with any complexity. But with time, it may come.
Agility?
Nope. Another one of those spur-of-the-moment additions.

JOKER
Earn RE
He got one leg in February, a 2nd one in October, and actually did pass a 3rd time, but I was sure we'd missed a station, so asked the judge to NQ us.
Earn UD
He also only showed 2 times in October, and also miraculously earned a leg, with my first ever score in the 170's.

NDT/JABBY/WORK
Get Totally Fetching finished and released
Mission accomplished! Well, at least the finished part. Release should be sometime in early January 2011. I'm currently in that limbo period of "What if no one likes it?" that hits just before release of a new product.
Get started on Drop on Recall project
Mostly just thought about it, but I did write an outline just recently, mainly to get it out of my head.
BNI membership
Still on the membership committee. Still debating whether the effort of membership produces enough benefit.

SELF
House dejunking - keep it up!
Did a lot early in the year. Later on, not so much, partly because other projects took priority.
FlyLady work
Same as above
Keep using Things and gettin' organized via 'Getting Things Done'
Doing well with this one. I still love my 'Things' software, and use it daily.
work out consistenly
My December 2009 surgery curtailed working out early in the year, then a shoulder injury caused a multiple month layoff from Curves. Thought about giving up my membership, but I'm glad to say I went back late in the fall and have definitely noticed a difference. I'm also walking regularly while doing rehab work with Gryffin. Not long periods of time, but it's better than nothing.
walk or run a 5K
This was one of those spur of the moment, toss it in goals. Didn't do it.
Finish out MWFCR Presidency smoothly
Sigh. Because we never had an annual meeting (mainly because many of us were involved in helping with this year's National in June), the election never took place. Then our secretary resigned. We're basically in limbo and I can't stir myself to really care.
Keep on top of Marshbank's trial work
The 2010 trials saw our biggest entries ever. I hope to add a few additional classes and nice title rosettes next year.
Travel trailer
I spent a huge amount of time researching and test driving various possible tow vehicles. Test drove a fully loaded Suburban and a bare-bones cargo van in late July, then discovered the Sportsmobile website. Poured over van designs during vacation, visited the factory in August, flew to California in early October to look at a used one, 95% sure I was going to buy it. TOO BIG! Rethinking the whole thing. With Gryffin injured, the whole thing is on hold.
Apprentice for several weeks with field trainer
The timing simply didn't work out to work with Mitch White in the spring. Darn. Still hope to do this someday.

GOALS FOR 2011

DOGS
Java
o Keep on trucking! He'll turn 14 on March 3.

Joker
o Finish his UD & RE

Gryffin
o Get him sound and keep him that way.
o Qualify and attend the 2011 NOI in Orlando, FL. He has been invited 3 years in a row, but we've never gone. We will obviously need to show a lot more than in 2010 to accomplish this, since about 1/2 the qualifying period is already past. This seems much more attainable than qualifying for the Master National.
o Qualify for the Master National. He has 2 of the needed 6 passes. We'd hoped to run two more tests that counted in September and October, but his mid-September sliced hock made that impossible. This goal is probably out of our reach because of his injury, but I still want to shoot for it. Aim high, I like to say. Even if I can't go with Gryffin, I hope to make the trip to at least watch some of it.

Ty
o Finish her UD, see if she can get some UDX legs. An OTCh seems pretty far fetched right now. I'll just have to see what develops.
o Keep working on her Master level training in the field. Entering a Master by the fall of 2011 looks out of reach right now. I think 2012 is going to be MUCH more realistic.

NDT/JABBY
o Sell 400 copies of Totally Fetching
o Update website - maybe learn how to do some of it myself?
o Keep developing social media usage for my businesses
o Host a training camp
o Write the script for the someday Drop on Recall video
o Get back to using Constant Contact consistently - maybe a monthly newsletter?

SELF
o Work out at least 110 times @ Curves. I made it to 390 total workouts since joining in January 2007, and I'd like to be at 500 by end of 2011.
o Keep honing my use of 'Getting Things Done'.
o Complete AKC Open apprenticeship requirements.