Daily Dose

Finding Blessings In the Bullshit

4 Comments / Daily Dose /

A year ago, I was just at the beginning of what I thought was going to be my year. The year I blogged every single day. The year that I took time off of work. The year that I stopped working 12, 14, 16 hours a day and every weekend and holiday. The year that I did things differently.

And it was. I did great. I wrote every day, even if it wasn’t always something good. I took days off. I took breaks from work during the day. I even made time for my altered book and art journaling.

And then I didn’t.

It was back to long work days. No days off. No breaks during the day. Heck, I even worked every day while Johnny Mac Pippin was here this summer. Even when I’ve taken time off, it seems like I’ve just taken time off to deal with crap that was more bullshit than anything else. Folding laundry on your lunch break is bullshit no matter how you look at it. Running errands and racing right back to work is bullshit, too.

There are days when it seems like it’s all bullshit, ya know? I love my job. I love the people I work with. I love my family. I love my puppies. But and yes there’s a but — there are days when I wake up and think “what crap am I going to have to deal with today?” When that happens for too many days in a row, I know it’s time to shake things up and just stop focusing on all of the bullshit and look for the blessings.

Which is why Nablo came around at the right time. And so did 28 Days of Celebrating Thanks.

Yesterday, I was pumped for both. Motivation to get my life back on track and focus on the good things and not all of the problems and headaches. I was even more pumped after hearing from my daughter and texting with my former mother in law about a horrible situation happening within their family (family that’s still very much my family, in so many ways.) There’s nothing like a horrible, no good, horrendous thing to help you get perspective, ya know?

Then I woke up this morning and looked at my calendar and saw that there actually wasn’t a 30 minute break for me when I could sit down and write. Where I could sit down and think about all of the blessings in my life. I almost gave up on the whole idea and just said screw it all. Seriously. I was close. Very close.

But, that’s not who I am. That’s not the way I want my life to be. So here I am at 7pm, chuckling at JMP’s mom who can’t make up her mind about a new car seat. And I’m writing about the bullshit but at the same time thinking about blessings. I’m lucky. I can do that. As TW races through the house chasing Buster because he has once again stolen (and probably half eaten) something he wasn’t supposed to have… as she locks him into his crate for a time out… as the other two dogs lay here on the floor of the office so they don’t harass him further or get into trouble of their own… as I wonder how many more emails have landed in my inbox in the last hour… and how many pieces of spam I’ll find when I stop writing this… and hell, the laundry never got folded on my break today because I went to the pharmacy (again) on my break… as the puppy somehow escapes from his crate, opens the baby gate and makes his way into the office to wreak more havoc (this time on the prairie dogs)… as I wonder about all of the fires to be put out tonight and tomorrow and next week and forever… I know that I’m lucky.

Because I do love my job. I love the blogging community that I’m a part of. I love these crazy ridiculous troublesome dogs. And the kids. And TW. I love my life, so full of bullshit and mayhem and I am going to take some time every day to enjoy it. Every second of it. Even the parts that feel like bullshit.

Now excuse me while I go retrieve something from Buster that I’m very sure he should not have.

Day one — it’s done. That’s a blessing.

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BUSTERRRRRRRR!

3 Comments / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Family Funk, Pets /

We’re doing a lot of BUSTERRRRRRRRRRR yelling around here. This puppy gets into more than Skeeter ever dreamed of getting into.

He’s a climber.

He’s also a thief.

He does chew things, certainly, but mostly he steals things and runs. Here’s a list of the things he has stolen recently.

– A plastic watering jug (that was on a shelf about chest high).
– Old photos of TW’s mom and siblings as children.
– TW’s iPhone.
– Shoes off of my feet (while I was trying to put them on) and slippers off of TW’s feet while she was walking.
– A Staples bag containing three reams of printer paper (Buster is also STRONG)
– Library books from the bedside table, from the bed, from the library cart and from the bag hanging on the library cart.
– 3 cans of coke.
– An electric screwdriver.
– Coupons from my desk and from my coupon storage ottoman thingy.
– Tissue paper, rubber stamps, and markers from my art desk.
– A bag of prairie dog hay.

As I typed this, he tried to steal the dustpan (it’s one of those that has the stand up pole thingy so you don’t have to bend over to sweep stuff into it) and a broom. He couldn’t get either of those through the door way but he tried, boy did he try.

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I Quit You, Candy Crush! No, Really. I Did

3 Comments / Community Chest, Daily Dose, Personality /

Yep. I’ve pretty much quit Candy Crush. I log in every couple of days just to send people things they have asked for and I might play a couple of rounds but usually, I don’t even do that.

Considering how addicted I was to Candy Crush, it’s a little surprising that I quit so cold turkey.

Or maybe it’s not.

I reached a level that I could not beat. Not after game after game after game and hour after hour of trying. I didn’t even come close. That made it not fun anymore and just very frustrating and annoying. I don’t really enjoy being frustrated and annoyed, I have enough of that in my every day life — I don’t need it from a stupid game.

Even better — I’ve deleted the game from my iPhone. That means I’ve really quit Candy Crush because I’ve never played much on my laptop via Facebook (my computer doesn’t like it.) I’ll still log in and send y’all stuff, sometimes. I might not be addicted any longer, but I know a lot of you still are.

Have fun — I hope you never get stuck the way I got stuck.

I Quit You, Candy Crush! No, Really. I Did Read More »

Punted

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

Well hell. Most of my big plans for my day without TW didn’t happen.

I decided it was dumb to make (non) poison caramel apple bites when I could buy six caramel apples for $1.79. So I bought them instead. Which was good since I didn’t seem able to get much of anything else done today, there’s have been no time to make them even if I’d wanted to.

Don’t get me wrong, I did a great many things — I grocery shopped (at 5 stores), I folded laundry (and put it away), I did dishes (several times), I cleaned up after puppies (more times than I can remember.) I watched six episodes of Dawson’s Creek and I did work on JMP’s stocking.

I’ve read about 3 pages of one graphic novel, gah. And the house looks like I never cleaned up after the puppies a single time. Buster… is very puppy-like and is into EVERYTHING ALL OF THE TIME. Gah.

I also tried to take a nap (twice) but the damn bed is freezing without TW and the puppies did nothing to keep me warm so my naps were pretty sleepless which means I’m exhausted and it’s only 8:43.

I’ve done quite a lot of work, which is good since my tomorrow will be nuts with driving of all of the people to all of the places but that’s ok, TW will be HOME tomorrow and she can take over puppy duty and I can relax with my graphic novels then.

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Big Plans

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

TW is going out of town on Sunday and I’ve got big, big plans.

I’m going to read a whole bunch of graphic novels.

I’m going to watch a movie.

I’m going to make (non) poison caramel apple bites.

I’m going to work on JMP’s Christmas stocking.

Wish me luck — I’ll still have puppies and TW’s mom and Elly to manage (all by myself) and I’ll probably be out of sorts because TW is not here, which can lead to mindless internet surfing and doing not much of anything at all.

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Happy Battery Safety Awareness Month

4 Comments / Community Chest, Daily Dose /

I dunno why there aren’t more posts about Battery Safety Awareness Month — it would make about as much sense as all of the posts about breast cancer awareness because yo, folks — we are aware!

I mean seriously. Batteries can be dangerous if you let kids or animals eat them. Or if you try to charge non-rechargeable batteries (who does that, anyway?) Or if you try to dismantle a battery. (do people do this? what happens when you dismantle a battery? Can someone who has tried it, and lived, tell me what happens?)

Apparently you should also not mix brand name batteries with non-brand name batteries — I don’t really know why that might be but that’s the advice and if it’s on a battery safety list of things to not do, I guess someone has done it and had bad things happen to them. I’m kind of worried that something bad is going to happen to us because I guran-damn-tee you that we’ve got some stuff here with mixed brand batteries in it. (Are there people who only have one brand of battery in their house?)

You should also always replace all of the batteries in a thingy at the same time, which I guess I generally do. My problem here is that I have a bin of loose batteries and I suspect some are fresher than others which maybe would be the same thing as only replacing one of three? I dunno but it’s not safe and I’m tempted to throw away all of my batteries and start fresh because unfresh batteries are dangrous.

I’m even more concerned about the pictures of hybrids on fire, possibly due to battery issues (and apparently October’s Battery Safety Month is mostly focused on automobile batteries but it’s also Fire Prevention Month and battery fires are included in the things you should be aware of when you think of Fire Prevention. Though I really think we should prevent fires every month but that’s just me, maybe?) Have y’all seen the photos of the Tesla on fire? Or the Volt on fire? That’s troubling. If there are PRIUS on fire photos, due to battery problems, could you not share them with me? Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ve got enough to worry about with the loose batteries in my laptop bag possibly coming in contact with each other and setting my favorite BlogHer shwag laptop bag on fire. That thought is going to keep me awake all night. Or cause me to go empty out all of the loose batteries in my laptop bag and… hell… NOT throw them in the bin full of loose batteries in the closet.

Hell. I’m gonna have battery operated nightmares aren’t I?

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I Know How to Make Coffee. Really, I Do.

3 Comments / Coffee & Tea, Daily Dose /

I made a fresh pot of coffee this morning. It was early but I was awake. I’m sure of it. In order to make the coffee, I had to clean out the pot and the grinds from the little basket. That takes a few minutes and I’d let the dogs out and yea, I know I was awake… but the coffee tasted weird all day long.

I assumed it was because I’d gotten used to Starbucks blond after drinking 3 straight bags of it and today I had to use pre-ground some not well known name bag of coffee because that’s what was in front of me and the bags of whole beans weren’t right there in front of me.

No big deal, I will pretty much drink any coffee and be happy about it. But I’d pretty much decided I was never going to buy this brand again, no matter how inexpensive it might be. It just tasted… not great.

So tonight, I was out of coffee (yea, I drank an entire pot of not very good coffee today — coffee is coffee and when you’re addicted, you drink what’s in the damn pot) so I made another pot. I cleaned out the pot. And the basket thingy. I filled the basket with that same brand of ground coffee and pushed the button to turn on the machine.

It started making that very loud airplane sound that the Breville is known for … when it’s grinding beans.

What? Grinding beans? NO! No grinding beans, I was using pre-ground coffee! I ran back into the laundry room, where my Breville is, and pushed the power button to turn it off. Sure enough, I had forgotten to change the settings this morning so apparently it ground up a few stray beans in the bottom of the basket and brewed that coffee along with the pre-ground coffee I’d filled the basket with.

No wonder it tasted weird.

The Breville has different settings for pre-ground and whole bean brews. There’s a strength difference and a difference in brewing times and hell, I just totally flubbed it this morning. I caught it in time tonight — the coffee is fine. It’s no Starbucks or Prince of Darkness or even Seattles Best but it’s FINE now.

What the hell was I thinking? Maybe I wasn’t as awake as I thought I was this morning?

I Know How to Make Coffee. Really, I Do. Read More »

#readathon – mid event survey

Daily Dose /

Half-way? Oy. Not that I can do a full 24 hours but still…

1) I’m not tired at the moment, the nap definitely helped. My eyes are a little dry so some eye drops might be in order soon.
2) The only books I’ve finished are Astronaut Wives Club (which was almost finished when I started this morning) and The Daylight Gate. I’m close to finishing two more though.
3) My favorite is definitely The Daylight Gate though there are some great stories in Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives.
4) Best snack so far? Probably the lunch time squash/onion/apple galette.
5) New to me blogs: Jehara and The Estella Society!

Page count: 726

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Fifty

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Family Funk, Friends & Family, Holidays /

Oy, this is not the 50th birthday post I thought I’d write back when I didn’t have a PUPPY (or a house full of puppies) but this is pretty much all I have energy (and concentration) for.

It was a very busy day. But also a nice day.

Buster keeps jumping into my lap and grabbing my arm while I type. If you’d told me yesterday that he’d be doing that today, I would not have believed it. I also probably wouldn’t have believed Skeeter would have taught him to counter surf or that Lola would have taught him to dig very deep holes in the backyard. I did, however, expect the vet to say he had worms — which did happen. So yay all of the dogs get to enjoy canned dog food in celebration of my birthday.

I never expected JMP would have finger painted pictures for me, though I suppose I should have — his mother is, after all, my daughter. I can’t wait to have the real things in my hands… good thing I hadn’t done anything with the ones he painted for me last month, now I can frame them all at the same time.

I did expect wonderful birthday wishes from my Facebook friends but it’s always a lot of fun to see them roll in, anyway. I didn’t have nearly enough time to thank everyone, individually, but I really did appreciate all of your good wishes.

I enjoyed my Smashburger dinner with TW and her mom — there’s not enough lime soda in my life, I should change that because my Green River float was awesome, (and the black bean burger was fabulous, too.)

All in all, fifty feels pretty darn good. Now I’m off to collapse into my bed with a pack of wild hounds and a book that I really want to finish tonight.

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Buster’s Progress Report

6 Comments / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Family Funk, Pets /

Buster (aka Hamlet) was listed as “shy” and that was a serious understatement. Buster wasn’t shy, he was terrified of people. Today, two days later, he is shy with a little bit of scared thrown in.

But, just a little less than 48 hours have passed and he’s made huge progress. Here are some things Buster can do (though not always) now that he could not do on Thursday.

Buster can:
– Take a treat out of a person’s hand.
– Eat a treat while in his crate.
– He can walk from one end of the house to the other, following dogs or people. (Though showing him the red confidence leash speeds up the process.)
– He can walk to his crate, while wearing the red confidence leash.
– He picks toys up off of the floor and plays with him. (He joined a game of fetch, once, by grabbing a toy Lola was retrieving from me — and he kept it, though it helps that Lola did not try to take it away.)
– He can join Skeeter and Lola in roughhousing, for a few minutes.
– He can walk past a person who is standing or sitting still.
– He can go in and out of the back door while a person is standing at the door.
– He can stand in the doorway or on the steps while a person is standing there. (which is why this morning’s photo, above, was such a big deal. He could not even do THAT yesterday.)
– He can approach a person who is standing or sitting still and sniff or lick them. He might even let the person pet him for a few seconds.
– He can wander into the bedroom when people and dogs are in there.
– He can put his front paws on the bed to see what the people and the dogs are doing.
– He can wander in during nap time and decide to nap on Skeeter’s bed while the people and the dogs are napping on the bed.
– He can sniff the prairie dogs.
– He can approach a person who is sitting or standing still, when called. Though he will only go halfway before he turns around to find a safe place to lay down.

Things he cannot do, EVER:

– Hold his spot or approach a person who is walking toward him.

He’s one heck of a cute puppy and once he has some weight on, and some more confidence, he’s really going to be a beauty. Right now he’s just sweet and when he lets you walk by him or stand near him or, gasp, pet him, you kind of feel like you’ve won the lottery.

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