Tag: dogs

Uncategorized

She said, “I dig you, baby, but I got to keep movin’ on.”

tec

She came. She saw. She conquered.

We volunteered to foster a dog a few days ago. Chris and I adventure roadtrip’d a half hour away to pick up this super sweet stray. Then we detoured to pick up supplies and came home.

Our dog was not fond of the new pup.

<insert super sad panda face>

We navigated and kept the dogs separate. It was a huge pain in the ass, but still totally worth it! She was sweet, but also 50lbs of pure charging muscle. We learned she was just 14 months old and it showed in the adorable way she couldn’t control her running body. I called her a flopsy mopsy cottontail of a dog.

L loved her, but not how fast she would come at him. Nor did he love her kisses. I, on the other hand, loved her excited chin licks.

Yesterday L and I took her to animal services so the vet could do a checkup and check her skin. It was a fun way to get out of the house during a quarantine.

Today Harley enjoyed sleeping “next to” MJ, but we couldn’t quite make it work better than that.

A volunteer picked her up this evening to bring her to a foster to adopt home. I hope it’s her new permanent home and that she feels safe and loved.

As I sit home tonight feeling safe and loved, I am especially grateful for a husband who not only tolerates these random acts of kindness and joy, but fully supports me in all these endeavors as well. And I’m grateful for kids who think it’s mostly sorta pretty all right too.

Uncategorized

It may be quite simple.

tec

What a strange and hard and beautiful weekend.

Friday was a long day after a long week. Saturday was me trying to learn to navigate in the face of all the everything….while also doing a 12 week goal challenge, maintaining my home, decluttering, mom’ing 24/7, attending virtual Al-Anon meetings, showing up for myself, backpedaling and flailing around in my progress, etc etc etc.

Saturday Chris and I successfully and safely walked through a conversation about overwhelm and needing help and support. Neither of us seemed to jump or get defensive and while I was reacting to the overwhelm, he wasn’t reacting to me and that brought us to a really great place.

I also talked to my sponsor on the phone for the first time. It’s something I wanted, but not something I felt “enough” to initiate. That’s an interesting thing for myself–not feeling my enoughness. I’m also navigating people and old friendships and new ones and common denominators and trying to feel a bit more whole. And I got to talk about that with someone who knows the right things to say back. Someone who is a good active listener and who can role model active listening. I need that. We talked for an hour on Sunday too. I could cry for how fulfilling it is.

Then Saturday night amidst all the pandemic and quarantine, we had a tornado touch down less than an hour from here. Downstairs we went at 10pm.

20200328_213719

Don’t let this happy face fool you. Just moments before, my sweet 75 pound pup had to be carried down the stairs because she was petrified.

20200328_215058

My favoritest girl. (And a trash run that needs to be made. Ha.)

The tornado (and R) helped me to realize that we need a better tornado plan. And I am ready to get back to work on the basement. I don’t know that it will happen soon, but I can at least put all that stuff in the car and make a trash run. Or I can start putting some of it out for trash little by little. But yes. No more basement stagnation, even with a bunch of other things going on. A five minute timer each day.

Overwhelm turned action.

Sunday brought us one last day of Spring Break downtime.

20200329_130038

The boys made a gingerbread cake and, later in the night–when it felt late and like the night should be wrapping up–S asked me to roast Brussels sprouts. I retorted, “help me then.” And he did! And we chopped together and took quality time and listened to Martin Sexton play on facebook and it was goodness and turned a hard weekend into pure beauty.

Uncategorized

I can make all the tables turn.

tec

My sweet girls taking over my bed.

20200301_234443

And I got to do an unexpected walmart trip tonight with my favorite girl and her friend! That was fun. I wasn’t keen on the idea of having to go, but gosh, I like spending time with her.

I had a really great weekend. It’s also a four day weekend for the kids. I’ve genuinely enjoyed it so much. I’ll write about it tomorrow tho. I’m so tired. I’m gonna magazine peruse for pictures for my vision board for a little bit, and then pass out.

Uncategorized

Get myself back home.

tec

Today is laughably hard to navigate. Painfully, laughably hard. Like so ridiculously hard.

But.

Despite the knot in my stomach and the clenching in my chest and the tightening of my throat, I go on.

And truly, even this is so much better than the alternative of the life I used to live. So, I’m deeply full of gratitude. And also. Because it’s always both. I am deeply in the middle of this excruciatingly hard moment.

*20 minutes later*

I was gonna tell this heartwarming anecdote about the dog and how all she wants is to go outside, and she jumps on you and then refuses to go out when you open the door because she wants you to go out with her to play, but it’s freezing and snowy and you have pjs and slippers on. And she gets all too-playfully-bitey and she just wants you to meet her when she is.

And that’s kinda what this anxiety feels like. It keeps poking me and jumping on me and biting too hard because it wants attention.

So I sat with the dog and fed her peanut butter off a spoon, so both her playful and my anxiety could have some respite.

20200117_085050

And that was awesome for about ninety seconds.

Then R came in to tell me about her plans for the day. Originally her boyfriend was supposed to come over at 10:30, and then I was supposed to take them to the movies at 11:30. But my car (my freakin’-something-always-comes-up-with-it car) is making a sound right now that makes it too scary and unsafe sounding to drive. (The car place is squeezing me in at 2pm today, thankfreakinggod), so she navigated driving plans today and was totally on top of it (that’s my girl!), which then left me totally……not.

I want to be only grateful that she has the fortitude to continue forward. But here I am instead practicing the lesson of “both” and so I’m sitting here sad to be missing out on having her boyfriend here all day or taking them to the movies myself.

And then to top it all off, she told me how she’s been telling her boyfriend all the things she has never tried (he replied, “ohmygod, you lost your whole childhood!”) because I bought healthy food and she never had Trix cereal or Trix yogurt and we didn’t keep a cornucopia of Little Debbie’s in the house.

Sigh.

And it touches all my triggers, while I already feel triggered enough. And so I cried. Because it’s that kind of day.

(I feel the need to pause here and assure my husband that she wasn’t being mean or manipulative and that it’s okay for me to sit in a moment of uncomfortable and be sad. It doesn’t touch my self-worth in a permanent sort of way.)

So I cried and L came up to me and said, “you have snot?” and I said yes and he said, very concerned, “oh! You crying??” and I said yes and he said “why you crying?” and I told him I was sad and it’s okay to cry when you have lots of feelings.

And it is.

And also, holy heavy anxiety and overwhelm. Where the fuck is my blanket fort?

Uncategorized

The minor fall and the major lift.

tec

What a difference a year (or six) can make.

The last two weeks have been one crazy thing after another. My insurance is no longer accepting my doctor and physical therapist, so I either have to change insurance or change doctors. The $673 radiologist bill I should have never gotten, that I had fixed and was taken care of in November, suddenly appeared again and hadn’t been resolved afterall. I spent an hour and a half on phone calls getting it resolved again. (Shout out to Tamika who was my own personal savior.)

I’ve been trying to get ahold of a doggie day care place so Harley can run around and play with other pups because ohmygoodness is she in anxiety overdrive/bordering aggressive because she just wants to play play play and has no outlet. (I finally heard back today! Woo!) I ran with her on Sunday (ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!! I ran! Two laps around the house!!! Freakin’ AMAZING!!!) and then promptly fell on my right knee and palm (and elbow and shoulder). Bright side: I hurt myself, but didn’t injure anything. Less than bright side holy oww and recovery time. (Bonus bright side: I tried Chris’s ghost pepper sauce and I’m a fucking rockstar!)

At 1am today instead of seeing Chris’s paycheck in the account, there was a $900+ fraudulent charge, just in time for me to pay the $150 medical bills today. Kitten’s first vet visit…wait….she has worms?… Oh, our dog’s been eating her poop when we’re not looking?…oh….well…that’s..special…

Have I even mentioned yet we adopted a kitten?! Meet Hazel. R’s early Christmas present/our new family member.

20191207_124320

And I paid the $4.60 on my daughter’s dentist account….that they were going to send me to collections for. Ha. And I was allowed to pay on (instead of pay off) another bill. Thank god. Bright side to all of it: the deposited paycheck offset the $700 overdraft and we’re blessed to have family who can help out until the bank refunds the locked charges.

R has midterms next week and is underslept and overstressed and navigating big adult problems while still being in a teenager’s body with a teenager’s brain. (Given the option to ignore the warning signs of a close friend or make the hard call to betray confidence in order to keep him alive,  she chose life and I couldn’t be more proud.) And S is navigating the end of the semester and a week of unprecedented homework he just hasn’t been able to keep up with, especially when his parents have been a bit m.i.a. in the evenings when it’s time to work on homework because of appointments and meetings. (Given the option this morning of staying home today to work on everything or go to school and own up to the consequences, he chose to go and I’m so freaking proud of him.) And L is still recovering from being sick last week and a bleeding diaper rash to boot because he’s been eating butternut squash soup for days and apparently he’s allergic. (This morning he slept in his own bed til after 5am. Whether fluke or trend, I’m so proud of him.)

Have I worn you out yet? ‘Cause I haven’t run out of material. I could keep going. I won’t tho. Because the only point I wanted to make is that I’m still standing. I didn’t even have to stand back up from this shit show because it hasn’t even knocked me down.

What a difference a year makes.

Uncategorized

What it all comes down to.

tec

Wednesday I was going to write about my son’s birthday. And how when you turn 12, you request to light your own candles. (And that at 15, you request to light said candles for your brother, and your mom giggles at you that you still can’t work a lighter.)

20191009_160324

I was going to say how grown up he suddenly looks. And that cinnamon cake is the best cake.

Thursday I was going to say that birthday week always backburners all my regular mom things and that I finally got to clean out the fridge (only a week late) and that I never felt bad about myself for the delay. Just joy that I could have a nice time with my family. And a taaaad bit of regret that we didn’t finish those vegetables and the elderberry syrup.

20191010_144135

Friday I was going to tell of the sad tale of Harley killing a rabbit in our yard at 5am. (No picture.) And of skillful (read: accidental) pancake art.

And more tales of the dog being so. incredibly. dog.

20191011_160210

But I didn’t get a chance to share those stories this week, and now all I really want to say is that I can’t find my hair tie. Anyone got an extra?

 

 

Uncategorized

Forever your girl.

tec

Three hours ago, it was like this.

20191008_152244

Screenshot_20191008-180030_Instagram

And then the kids came with me to the store! We drove the 12 minutes to Stop #1 and I came to realize I didn’t have my driver’s license or money. So we drove back home and all the while I was thinking, “It’s a really lovely day” even with the kids bickering.

And then I didn’t get stopped by a cop! Because I don’t believe in “it figures”. We made our three stops and I appreciated the luxury of being able to do my own shopping. I drove home safely, while watching the more reckless drivers from a safe distance, wishing them well all the while.

When we got home Harley ran outside to greet us and then wanted to hunt squirrels. I managed to drop my phone and trip over her twice in order to get her into the backyard because it was closer than walking around to the garage. After she was safely inside, L and I walked around to the driveway to be greeted by Harley. Apparently the door to the house was open. And all I could do was laugh at all the follies. Even feeling the creeping blanket of depression today, I can still see all the light.

My super power is my silver-lined optimism.