Has Anyone Seen My Two Feet?

I have completely and overwhelming lost the ability to stand on my own two feet. I am not sure if they were kicked out from under me by someone or what the deal is. Did I ever once use my own two feet to stand in the first place? Maybe not.

My internal alarm clock goes off at 4:45 am…apparently, regardless of what time I go to bed. However I have absolutely no idea what to do once I’m awake. School work would be the wise choice, yet I still don’t have my textbooks…which makes homework difficult.

I could play with Awesome, but he goes right back to sleep after breakfast.

I could get stuff done around the house, but I am not even sure where to start or what to start.

I could work on editing stories or writing new ones, but by the time I get set up and in the process of zoning out and into the story my time is up.

Additionally because I have to eat as soon as I get up, by about 9 am I’m ready for breakfast again, even though I already had breakfast.

I am getting in “moods” which carry over into everything I do throughout the day, I’m frustrated, lost, upset, emotional, undecided and confused. And that is all before lunch!

I am supposed to be standing on my own two feet but I can’t even seem to find my feet or the ground to stand on. And I cannot blame the east coast earthquake, because…

A) I don’t live anywhere near there.

B) I grew up with earthquakes and really can’t use them for any excuse unless I spill a drink.

Lately even Awesome has been giving me the “get with it Mama” look. It looks a lot like the feed me, play with me, buy me more toys look, but I know what he means.

So is there an age limit when you should know how to stand on your own two feet? (Fingers crossed that it’s a very very very high number)

rolling the ball…wanting to kick it!

That’s correct. The ball is now out of my hands…rolling along the way…

I’m struggling through my college class on law and social control, reading three textbooks in a short time frame. Yet all full of data and stats makes reading chopping. Not to mention the previous owner of the textbook had highlighted and noted 90% of the book in pencil. (I’m trying my best to erase all notes and highlights in hopes of getting more money back on the return. Although her/his hatred for former President Reagan is rather apparent with the “Thanks Reagan!” sarcastic notes next to paragraphs about his screw-ups) (Sorry to my friend who is a massive Reagan fan!!)

Next, I’ve borrowed my friend’s copy of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which is probably gonna take me two months to read. I’m told it’s a book about discovering that life is the journey, not the end result, as I just want the end result. But so far, twenty pages in, all I gather is that this boy has nothing else to talk about but his sheep and his book-pillow. I’ve already napped during the first twenty pages.

Okay, I’m also getting back into my writing. Pushing myself to find the spare time to accomplish enough to make it worth while. I’ve been able to return to critique group, which has helped push me back in as well. Learning to have faith in myself and my writing as well as to carve out time to do it. I worry that I’ll be working on a story for years and years and it won’t be relevent by the time it’s accepted. (YAY! fears of writing)

Through all this I’m attempting to pack boxes and train Puppy (as he has become something rather out of control, I’m informed!) some more. Dog parks, dog walks, exercise, cleaning house. Managing stress should really be up on the list of daily things to do. And I’ve just recently taken on another journey, one that is bigger than me, bigger than life, at least it feels that way, one that is making me shake in my boots, just a bit.

Yet how does one get all these things done in one day, and still maintain a life, relax, enjoy everything that is right now and won’t be tomorrow?!?!

So, I’m rolling the ball, although I want to kick it, for many different reasons….

The Joys and Stresses of Being a Dog Parent

Joys: 

• I have two!!
• Puppy is a Momma’s boy! And rarely leaves my side.
• Dog has more personality than any dog I know.
• Puppy tries to take showers with me, and has managed to get in a few times.
• Puppy eats anything that is a choking hazard; gratefully we are almost done with this stage.
• Puppy sleeping right below my side of the bed. (See stresses)
• Having people laugh at me trying to get my 50-pound plus puppy out of my car as he won’t jump out on his own, even at the dog park. (See stresses)
• Watching puppy snorkel his face in his water bowl (See stresses)
• The wind come up and flop around dog and puppy’s ears.
• When dog finally decides to play with puppy and both their little butts going running out of the room together as they carry the same toy in their mouths.
• Dog and puppy LOVE bath time!
• Ice Cubes, both dog and puppy think they are the most heavenly treats ever! (See pictures)

  

"Umm, only 2, he's got more than me!"

"Bad idea to look away!"

"One!?!? I had 2!!"

crunchy, crunchy, crunchy

"Nana-nana-boo-boo. I left you a present in your bed...you ice cube stealer you!"

Stresses: 

• Having never owned a dog, I was to pick up our new dog (from the shelter) and bring her home, so I did. One hour later, I was standing on the kitchen table, yelling and crying at my husband through the phone, that he “needed to come home NOW as HIS dog was going to eat me!!” Turns out, she just wanted to play. Silly me, for confusing her loud barking and constant lunging at me as playful.
• Dog is a Daddy’s girl! Well, dog is a female, so I guess they all kinda do their own thing…
• Dog, for some reason turned into an aggressive dog around a year and a half to two years old. We can no longer take her to dog parks, and have to be careful walking her. Although we spend a lot of time and money trying to get her issues fixed. Nothing worked/works.
• Puppy feels that anything containing water must be swam in.
• Getting up constantly all night long for potty training the puppy.
• Having to maneuver around sleeping puppy on my side of the floor in the dark. (See joys)
• Having to walk each dog separately until puppy is trained not to pull on leash.
• Trying to lift my 50-pound plus puppy back into my car after going to the dog park, as he won’t jump in on his own. (See joys)
• Having to build a tripod to put the water bowl in so it’s high enough so puppy doesn’t deplete our state of its water sources. (See joys)
• Worrying…today, about puppy as he’s having surgery (neutered)

Frustrations

What has happened? I have no idea! If I knew I could surely fix it.

A part of me wants to get in my car and drive away, while another part of me wants to go to bed and not wake up.

I have felt like this before, when I would grow frustrated and tired with a family I was nannying for, or a job that I simply had enough of. Or life just being…life…

My dogs, my life, my writing, my homework, my housework are all driving me nuts, sending me into a yelling frenzy!!

And to top it off, I have to drop from my writing critique group I have been going to since last October, because the group is getting too big and not everyone will be able to have their work looked at but every two months! TWO MONTHS!!!! Oh and the small, well large for me, factor, of a person returning who apparently carries a throw-up bucket with them because they throw-up so much because of anxiety or something. I have a paralyzing fear of throwing up or being around it, so…there goes my group.

But I have food, shelter, and healthcare, so I really shouldn’t be frustrated with anything, but yet I feel like a person ready to explode.

Even right now, as I type this, my puppy is having an argument with the door-stop…PLEASE STOP!!!!! And this is after I already mopped up his water bowl mess!!! (He decided it was a swimming pool)

Writer’s Week – Day 5!!!

With today being the last day of my writing week all I can say it…thank goodness!!!

Word count for yesterday was 0. Yes, I got nothing written, other than this blog. I prepared my manuscripts and cover letters and that took all of two hours, as my printer is across the room and the cord doesn’t reach….lots of plugging and unplugging involved.

Even without school this week, I am busy, and found it almost impossible to simply write straight through a single day, let alone a week of them. Maybe my writers block was telling me something the other day???

I learned that for me, some days I won’t be able to write and some days I will.

Watching my puppy play in his little dog pool and enjoying time with him is much better than me sitting at my computer and struggling to write a story, when I have other things to do, and when my mind isn’t focused on the story at hand.

I will write more today, finish off the week, after I spend time cleaning the house and bathing my dogs. And that’s what will work for me, I can’t be like the others out there that write for 12 hours a day…my end result will be just as good, and I won’t look back at my published piece and think about what I missed out on while I was writing it.

Writer’s Week – Day 3

I think I might be doing my puppy some kind of damage with this intense writing week.

He has become a constant compainion…even follows me into the bathroom…and as I made dinner last night, I kept moving around the kitchen, until he finally decided to rest his full body weight on my feet and go to sleep.
Is sleeping under my desk not enough for him? He is actually making me feel like a bad parent.

However, I accomplished a lot, despite my the guilt. I typed 2,250 words, emailed 2 submissions, research, edits to cover/query letters, squished a 760 word picture book to a 745 picture book in order to make it fit guidelines.

My downfall however was losing control and eating through a bag of caramel covered popcorn. Not the small Cracker-Jack box, no, a bag.

But today is Day 3 and I’m out of caramel covered popcorn…

Farting Dogs

I absolutely love it when my dogs fart!

Why would I love something so foul and repulsing? Something that makes me yell “oh MANNNN!” and cover my mouth and noise?

Because:

1^st it’s funny to see them startle themselves with the sound of their own farts, with a look of OH!

2^nd as they start to get a whiff of it they act like it couldn’t have possibly come from them.

3^rd and most important. When one does fart it causes the other “non-farting dog” to go investigate where the noise and smell is coming from and the “farting dog” actually takes offense to being investigated.