It's Time to Eat Our Pudding

Well, today is the day.  Donald J Trump officially becomes Mr. President.  I didn't vote for him.  I still think he's a blowhard and a pig.  BUT!  I have also been somewhat reassured by his choices to fill cabinet positions.  Many of them appear to be exactly what I think their agencies need.  The proof will be in the eating of the pudding, but there's room for me to hope.

Funny word that is though.  Hope.  What our now former president ran on.  I didn't see much manifestation of the hope paying off (except for gay people who are now rightly allowed to marry thanks, in part, to President Obama’s Supreme Court picks).  At the beginning of his first term I was in a similar situation I am in now.  I wasn't thrilled with the new guy, but at least he wasn't Hillary Clinton.  I was open to seeing what he had in mind for the country.  Of course that openness evaporated after I realized he intended to insult those who disagreed with him at every turn and then proceeded to do the absolute opposite of what I thought was the right thing.  That pudding was pretty bitter.

Fast forward eight years and I'm in the same boat.  Don't love the new guy but at least he isn't Hillary Clinton.  Once again, I'm open to letting Trump do his thing before I really decide if I love him or hate him.  Early indications are promising.  I hope this is a tasty pudding.

Happy Mother's Day!

My ten year old is a maker.  She is constantly making stuff, from rubber band bracelets to fabric baskets embellished with the sweetest embroidery you ever saw (she taught herself), to elaborate creations involving cardboard, Saran Wrap, sequins and pin wheels.  She really doesn't stop, sometimes not even for sleep.  

This morning I woke at my usual time to let our puppies out.  I could tell my daughter was already on the go because every light in the house was on and her pink coat was on the floor.  I wondered what took her outside so early as I poured my coffee but it didn't take much looking to see what she was up to.  I found the first of what will likely be many sweet things she creates just for me today.  

She loves holidays and has the most generous heart I've ever known.  I feel so lucky to be the recipient of her thoughtful, enthusiastic, personalized creativity.  She's giving a little piece of herself and I cherish it. 

It Only Matters That You Start

Some days I have so much to do I am a bit overwhelmed.  I start thinking about what needs to be done first.  Before I know it I've spent an hour spinning my wheels.  I need to remember to stop it.  I usually doesn't matter what I do first.  It only matters that I do it. 

Happiness is a Warm Puppy

Charles Schultz absolutely said it best.  Happiness IS a warm puppy.  We brought our new puppies home last Saturday and every member of the family seeks them out with a "good morning puppies" as soon as we wake and we all grin at their sweet wagging tails.  From the first night they were easy.  They went to sleep when we did.  They woke when we did.  Sure, they're not housebroken, but they are still infants so we do our best to keep them on their schedule and not leave them unattended in the house.  On Monday my ten year old was so excited to come home from school and see the puppies.  She went right outside  and I was so busy loving the sight of her romping around the yard with them I didn't want to look away even long enough to get a camera.  Yes, they are a lot of work,  but happiness really is a warm puppy.

When you're seven, holding your new puppy makes you feel very special.

We just can't get enough puppy snuggles, even if we make Hank miss nap time. 

Sunny, napping on my daughter's school things.

The cats are still a little freaked out, but even they are coming around enough to investigate the puppy space.

Sunny knew just what to do with a rubber ball.

They're getting used to their "potty corner" dog run.  They already wait patiently to get out instead of yapping or going wild when they see us.

*If you'd like to follow Sunny and Hank as they grow, I started an Instagram account just for them.  Their username is @sunnyandhank

Ghost Dogs

Rex and Ginny, last June.

I have had dogs on my mind quite a lot lately.  Last July, we lost our sweet Ginny to cancer.  Almost exactly six months later we also lost her good brother Rex unexpectedly.  We bred Rex before we knew he was sick, and his puppies were born at the end of January.  All of these dog events have been running through my brain for weeks, more than ever now that we're so close to bringing two puppies home.  It's no wonder, then, that I think I have been seeing ghosts.  Ghost dogs, to be exact.  

I have not been actually "seeing" ghost dogs, more like feeling them.  Impressions of Ginny and Rex. I'm sure I could explain it away as my brain reverting to old patterns, sensing a dog in the corner because there was one for twelve years, that sort of thing.  

This is different though.  Sometimes, I feel like one of them is someplace they never really went around the house. For example, I plan to try to train the puppies to do their business in one corner of our yard.  We have the perfect spot under some trees so there is a bit of shelter and the kids don't play there anyway.  I set up a dog run so I can close the puppies in, but while I was doing it, I swear Ginny was lying on the edge of the grass with a pine cone, waiting for me to throw it.  Of course I knew she wasn't there, but I kept feeling her, my brain kept telling me to look.  Since then I have twice thought she was lying in the dog run, even though it isn't in a place she would lay.

Then there's Rex.  I do still look for him in the corner of our room where he slept every night.  His passing is so recent, it still feels funny not to have him there, or waiting to go out first thing in the morning, but there are other things.  A section of our basement is set up with the tools and supplies my husband is using to remodel our house.  Rex never spent any time there because we don't spend time there.  We fetch the tool we need and leave.  Rex liked to be where we spent our time and no where else.  Lately though, I feel Rexy is laying by the tools all the time. Every single time I go down the stairs, I'm compelled to look for him there. Especially if it is dark, I'll actually LOOK for him before I think "What are you doing?  You held him while he died."  Yesterday afternoon,  I took the garbage out and when I came back in to the house, I felt him there, hoping to go for a walk.  

It is the weirdest thing.  I know that because the puppies are coming home soon and I am very excited that I may have a little guilt about being so excited over new dogs when really, the old dogs are barely gone.  But that wasn't our plan.  The plan was to have Rexy here to help train the puppies.  After all, Rex's father lived to be around 14 so we expected at least another year or two with him.  Also, don't these new little ones deserve to come to a home that is excited for them?  I mean, you'd have to be crazy to not be excited about these dogs, our little heirloom puppies. We still miss Ginny and Rex.  We can feel two things at once.  Could it be Ginny and Rex might still be around enough to feel excited about the puppies, too?

This isn't the first time I've felt the presence of a loved one who has passed.  So, maybe I am crazy.  Maybe my brain is making a fool of me.  Or maybe, the veil is thinner than we think.

Momentum

Momentum is a funny thing.  Once I get some, it's hard to stop me.  Strangely though, my momentum has a sense of inertia - if I change my general activity, I loose all impetus.  In January we were remodeling two rooms in our house.  The place was a construction zone mess and I didn't even try to do more than the minimum cleaning because there was no point.  In January, I read a lot.  I wrote a little.  I enjoyed January.  The trajectory of my momentum was quite pleasant.

In February, our remodel was finished. I had to pay a little more attention to the things I neglected in January.  I've only read one book instead of the five I finished last month.  I've barely written anything.  I've taken almost no pictures.  I HAVE cleaned most of my house fairly well and recovered from the construction mess.  Today, I went to switch from housecleaning mode to blogging and discovered I was just loafing around Facebook.  Then I started a computer maintenance project that has been nagging but isn't urgent, it was just a way of procrastinating.  I lost momentum.

So, I hit reset.  I strapped my laptop to my treadmill, closed everything but blogger and here I am, walking and deciding which of my posts-in-progress I'd like to work on first.  (Does anybody else think a little better when they're moving?)

One random thought:  Most people love the movie Finding Nemo.  It is one of my favorites.  One of the best moments is when Dory sings "just keep swimming, just keep swimming".  It became my motto during some rough days when I had three small kids and the great recession was eating us alive.  Recently though, I realized I was applying it in a defeatist way.  Instead of encouraging myself with it, I was  coming to think of "swimming" as drudgery.  Just getting by.  That's no way to go through life.  Another favorite movie quote sprang to mind.  Its from The Big Lebowski, and when I thought of it,  I immediately thought "But, today I'm going to eat the bear!" I like that idea.  It feels powerful and positive.  When I find I'm loosing momentum, I'm going to remind myself that I'm not just swimming along, I'm gonna eat that bear!

Road Trip! Destination: Puppies

I barely slept at all again last night, but insomnia had nothing to do with it this time.  Last night I was too excited to sleep because today is the day we will be making the six hour round trip drive to my Step-Mother-In-Law's farm to meet the Heirloom Puppies!  For that kind of time in the car, we could almost be in Disneyland.  Honestly though, right now I'd rather wallow in puppies than Disney and that's really saying something because I could happily live in Disneyland.  Oh sure, it's going to be fun to see my Step-Mother-In-Law and her husband, to let the kids run around her farm enjoying her chickens and donkeys but the star of the day will be the puppies hands down.