You May Never Be “Ready”

Posted on May 14, 2012 by

I am a planner. I can even be a bit of a control freak. I like to organize my day, my email, my laundry, my life, my life plan, my goals for the next week/month/year/lifetime… I plan. It is who I am. I want things in the right order. I want things to be done at the right time.

One thing I am learning (well trying to learn) is that sometimes there are things you will just never be ready for. There isn’t the perfect time or setting and then when they happen – you have to make it the perfect time.

I still miss Brody. I can’t even talk about it (or type about it) without crying.
I don’t think I will actually stop missing Brody.
I still sleep with his blanket and I still talk about him in present tense.

I like having two dogs. My husband likes having two dogs.
Chili likes having two dogs. He is a worker and needs someone to boss around.

So when I decided to start looking around for a breeder who had the type of dog I wanted, I still wasn’t ready. I thought it would take a long time to find the right breeder. I had a list of criteria that were really important to be met. Once I found a breeder I liked, I thought I would hear that I would wait a year or two. I was ok with that.

The day before I contacted the breeder, her dog had a litter of 8 pups. Unknown to me, there was one puppy not already spoken for. When I spoke to her and she said the puppies wouldn’t be ready to go home until May 22nd (my birthday), I got goosebumps. Maybe then wasn’t the time but it sure seemed like I was supposed to get this pup… So we ARE getting this pup and the decision was not made lightly.

We have now known for weeks that we were going to go ahead with getting this puppy. I just wasn’t ready to talk about it, except to a few close friends. I have spent time with all of the puppies twice now.

Now has become the right time. It is actually pretty amazing how things have fallen into place. It is also crazy how ready I am for a little puppy power in my life. I can’t wait to bring home that cute, wrinkly, wiggly, shoe eating, floor peeing bundle of brownish/reddish fur.

It may not have been the right time but we are making it the right time. We are excited. I know Adam and I are good dog owners. I know we are responsible people. I know we think things through very thoroughly. I know this will be one of the luckiest dogs in the world.

What I don’t know yet is perhaps how many other things have I not let into my life because I didn’t feel it was the right time. I am thinking about it though. I am not going to start going around making huge impulsive decisions. I am going to try to be a little more open minded about waiting for the ‘right time’ for everything. Life just has to happen sometimes… right?!?

Posted in Dogs, Life | 10 Comments

Jim Loved Your Card So Much He Ate It

Posted on May 9, 2012 by

Maurice Sendak

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received.
He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything.
He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

“Fuck them is what I say. I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future.
They may well be. I will be dead. I won’t give a shit.”

“Live your Life. Live your Life. Live your Life.”

Maurice Sendak

There are plenty more quotes from Maurice Sendak on this post from Buzzfeed.

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When Life Gives You Lemons – Make Lemon Flavored Water

Posted on April 30, 2012 by

lemon flavored waterMy life has felt a little bit more like a country song than the I would like it to be lately. My dog is gone, my hip hurts like an old lady, an unexpected death that leaves your heart sick, I’m not the millionaire that I planned to be, the other dog got sprayed by a skunk yadda yadda yadda… I try to take each as an experience that touched me, an opportunity to grow, a way to make me stronger but sometimes it just feels like a kick in the teeth.

I like signs. The most mundane thing can inspire you, give you an idea or in this case – give me pause to reflect and conquer my lingering case of the blues. The other day a large sack of lemons was on sale at my local grocery store. SIGN! Know what life?!? I am going to take these lemons you are tossing me and I am going to make lemonade!

So I bought the large sack of lemons and squeezed each and every one by hand. The squeezing of the lemons was pretty therapeutic so I was pretty sure I was on to something. I was disappointed with the amount of juice I got from a large bag of lemons but my mouth was already starting to water thinking about my good old fashioned lemonade!

I looked up a recipe for old fashioned lemonade.
Equal parts lemon juice, water and sugar – Holy shit!
That is a lot of sugar!

The plan was derailed. I don’t want to drink anything that is 1/3 sugar, no matter how many lemons life sends me!

‘A ha’ moment was reached though. No matter how bad things seem to be or how many curve balls you are thrown – you woke up, you have another chance, you have another opportunity and you don’t need 1/3 part sugar!

Lemon flavored water is much better for you. One small slice of lemon can flavor a very large glass of water. Problems come and go but in the scheme of things, your problems are usually just a slice of lemon in a large glass of water. So tomorrow I will wake up (at least I hope I do) and I AM going to learn from these experiences and hopefully good things will come from them.

Photo credit: Pinterest

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When Should You Buy Skunk Odor Remover For Your Pet?

Posted on April 10, 2012 by

stinky skunkYou should buy skunk odor remover BEFORE your pet gets sprayed by a skunk.

I have had two of these awful experiences in my life as a adult pet owner and I can attest – pets don’t generally get sprayed during pet store business hours. I have heard great things about Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover. We now have some in stock for ‘next time’ as much as I wish their wasn’t a ‘next time’.

On a calm Thursday evening, Chili met a skunk in our backyard. We used the trusty baking soda, peroxide and dish soap mixture and it did a decent job. You can read more about our experience and the homemade odor removing mixture on PROXI’s blog.

Homemade works but you should stock up on odor remover just in case!

Posted in Dogs | 1 Comment

Backing Up

Posted on April 9, 2012 by

floppy discI hate it when something bad happens and it was 100% preventable. The other day I went to add an event to my iPhone calendar and I was surprised the whole day was clear of obligations. Then I was surprised that the whole next day was open too… so was the next and the next and the next. That was bad.

I am a very busy person, many would say too busy due to my inability to say ‘no’. I can handle being busy. I am meticulous about keeping my calendar and sticking to it. So the morning I realized the whole calendar had just erased into thin air, was a bad morning.

I read all the forums, I asked for help online, I went to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, I tried restoring it from a previous update but it was gone.

Most people that I asked for help said the magic words ‘well didn’t you back it up?!?’. If it was backed up, I assure you I would not have been as panicked. Those words were not very helpful.

So if you are like me and too busy to back up your devices, I am telling you to back them up because the time and information lost on the other end is really not worth it. I now have an event in my calendar every month to remind me to back everything up.

How to protect your information on your iPhone

  • Sync your calendar to Outlook or your Google Calendar.
  • Store your information on iCloud.
  • My photos mean so much for me. I don’t know what I would do if I lost them. Put a copy of your photos in another location, like your computer.

If you find yourself here because you too have lost your information and did not back it up… the only solace I found was from my old friend Carrie Bradshaw.

“No one talks about backing up. You’ve never used that expression before, but apparently everybody’s secretly running home at night and backing up their work!”

Photo credit: flattop341

Posted in Life, Nerd, Work Life | Leave a comment

I Miss My Doggie

Posted on March 11, 2012 by

I hate it when people begin a blog post by apologizing to readers for not posting in a long time. I think it is annoying so I will spare you. I know I haven’t written anything for about a month and to be honest, the two posts that were published, I actually wrote before Brody died and I had scheduled them to post on their own.

I just passed a month without my best friend and it doesn’t seem to get much easier. As Adam wrote, when I am going through a hard time it can always be fixed with a cuddle date with Brody. Now I am sadder than I can remember and my magic elixir is missing.

I know many people think they are just dogs but they are so much more than that. Brody has been my best friend since I was 20. He was my protector, the ultimate listener and my version of Prozac. There was not a single day that went by that he didn’t make me laugh.

Brody was larger than life and we lived his life to the fullest. It was not easy keeping that dog alive, even before the cancer. Brody had some special needs and an internal compass that was permanently askew. I could tell you Brody stories every day and you would find it hard to believe they were all about the same dog. His judgement wasn’t always the best like the time he jumped down a waterfall, ate a bottle of rug cleaner or approached a large skunk the way you would another dog (he went to go sniff the skunks rear – it ended badly).

Losing this part of your life is more than losing a pet. Your life, your schedule, your buying habits, exercising habits and how you just live your day to day life are around around this animal. You need to relearn how you do everything. With a special needs pup like Brody, my life very much revolved around him.

What I have

I do not have Brody but I know I do have a lot. I have a wonderful husband who has let me grieve in the way I need to. I have wonderful friends and family who have come to see me and let me know that they are thinking about me. I have an understanding boss and coworkers who have given me the space and time that I need to figure this out.

What I also have is the confidence that I did everything I could for my hairy friend. I never knew if when it was time, I would be able to make the decisions I needed to make. I know, I knew and I can sleep knowing I did everything that I could. The day I had to put Brody down, he had been in a lot of pain and a CT scan showed that he had dozens of lesions in his spine and in his ribs. The cancer was back, it was big and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

I have comfort in all the decisions I made along the way. The day Brody shattered his leg in April and we found out about the bone cancer, I made some decisions about what we would do. I took all my clues from Brody on what he wanted and what he was up for. With the amputation and the chemo, we got an extra 10 months and every day it was like he knew it was a gift. There was an actual smile on that dog’s face that didn’t go away until right near the end.

I loved that dog, let’s be honest, I was obsessed with that dog and taking the best care I could of him. He deserved it. Now I have to figure out how to carry on. I will. It will take time. I don’t know how much but I bet it is a lot. I think there will always be places and things I won’t be able to do without thinking of him and those will be little gifts.

Thanks everyone for your patience, your love and your kind words. They are truly appreciated. I will get back into blogging regularly about all the other pieces of life I come across. This is a part of my life and I appreciate that I had you and this blog to share it with.

Posted in Brody, Dogs | 4 Comments

What Will You Do With the Gift of a Day

Posted on February 28, 2012 by

Gift of a dayThis year is a leap year. It only happens once every four years. For all of us that are always too busy and never have enough time, I ask you – what will you do this this gift of an extra day this year?

Instead of making February 29th, just another day, let’s think of it as something special.

Here are a few ideas I have for MY extra day:

  • Make goals for the next four years. Write them down and then revisit and see how I did.
  • Try something I never thought I would do.
  • Make something healthy for dinner I have never cooked before.

How about you? How are you going to use your extra day?

Photo credit: Robo Android

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