Finding Blessings In the Bullshit

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.