Truth & Perspective

Eight years ago, I fractured my ankle. I rolled it while running on vacation. Life lesson: don’t work out on vacation. It’s dangerous. I didn’t need surgery, but I couldn’t bear weight, and I had to wear a boot for months. It took a lot of physical therapy to get it back to normal. And even now, I’m a little more cautious when running and walking outdoors.

I didn’t know how grateful I was for my legs until I couldn’t use one of them. Every once in a while, that ankle will ache or I’ll get a tinge of pain. I try to use it as a remember to be thankful. I try to find the positive, which sometimes means readjusting my perspective.

It’s harder for me to find the positives when it comes to emotional pain. Today I had a moment that I hadn’t seen coming. Grief hurts, and sometimes I can spot the triggers and prepare myself, but today it blindsided me. Thank God it happened at home, and I wasn’t bawling my eyes out in a store somewhere. But I didn’t feel grateful at the moment. I felt angry. I did a mad dash right through the stages of grief. But first was anger. And I asked God, “Why did this have to happen to me?”

I know. I was throwing myself a pity party, but grief blinded me of the truth. And the truth is, I’m actually very happy. But for the brief time I got caught up in my despair, I couldn’t see outside of my pain and anger. That’s what grief can do—the dirty, dirty bitch. It felt like a suffocating fog surrounding me. I knew the sun was there, I could almost feel it on my skin, but I couldn’t see it until I got rid of the fog that blinded me.

I didn’t want to suffocate on my own negativity. I am more than my grief. I am grateful, and remembering that truth released grief’s hold on me. I made myself list the things I was thankful for like I was at a thanksgiving meal. It felt dumb at first, but it worked to flip my perspective. I saw the positive instead of going on a negative downward spiral. It doesn’t mean that I won’t feel sad sometimes, but remembering to appreciate the good keeps the bad from pulling me under.

I know everyone suffers one way or another. It’s part of life, but those low times of suffering make the highs feel that much more significant. In a roundabout way, my moment of grief reminded me not to take all the little things for granted.

At Least We Have A Choice!

VOTE.

Or Don’t. It’s your choice.

I voted today. 

I am not a huge fan of politics. Blue Party, Red Party, Green Party, Purple party, gold Party. I’m a member of the in-between party, the party that wants to take bits and pieces from every party to create my own candidate because, honestly, I don’t particularly like any of the options laid out for me. And I know I’m not alone. 

During my senior year of high school, our class split into political parties, and the whole high school had to vote for the group they liked best. Each party made so many unrealistic and impossible promises to the underclassman. Some people would say whatever it took to get the votes. I can’t remember which party I was a part of or who won, but really, it didn’t matter. The most important thing I took away from the whole experience is politics are unpleasant, and politicians can lie. Politicians are the human equivalent of Instagram. They present their best selves and see how many likes they can get on their picture-perfect lives, but really, we don’t have a clue who they are beneath their shiny filters.  

As I read about candidates, I recognized some of them painted a pretty idealistic image of total bullshit, giving the idea that they can do more than they can. I voted for one person simply because they admitted that what they wanted wasn’t possible, so they’d try for the next best thing.

Maybe I’m a cynic, but I don’t believe everything I’m told. I’m also not a conspiracy theorist. Most political issues are messy, with a million degrees of complications, but often they are presented as yes or no questions—black and white. Or, in this case, red and blue. And all the in-between people resolve to choose which option they can live with, but at least we have a choice. 

No matter the outcome of this election, I am grateful we have the right to vote. I am thankful for many of the positive changes I’ve seen in my lifetime. As for those changes I’m not happy about, well, at least we have a chance to change them. I am grateful I have a voice and the ability to make a difference. I’m glad I could do my research and vote my conscience. Despite the problems our country faces and the many yet to come, I’m still grateful to be an American.  

Cue the Circus Music!

Sometimes our house is calm and quiet, like when the dogs are napping. But other times it’s pandemonium. Each day is a mix, but some days the chaos outweighs the quiet. That happens when you live in a house with three dogs that possess distinctly different personalities. Our oldest is a twelve-year-old German Shepherd/Doberman mix named Lucy. She’s a stubborn old girl with selective hearing. We also have a very neurotic 40-pound mutt with little man syndrome who is really sweet, but only to those he deems worthy. His name is Watson. We recently added a third dog to the mix because we love animals and we’re a little crazy. Well, I’m crazy, at least when it comes to anything cute and fluffy. My husband is just the sucker who fell in love with me and is now stuck on this crazy train I call my life.

Our newest addition is a 4 months old Doberman puppy. We named her Keeba. She’s mostly housebroken at this point. So yesterday, when she full-on peed on the couch, which she’s NEVER done before, I was a little shocked. I didn’t even see her do it. Nope, I was lying on the couch reading. She was sleeping between my ankles, cuddled right up to Watson who was growl-cuddling her. (Growl-cuddling is when Watson growls as he cuddles. Just like it sounds. He only does this to Keeba and I think he wants to hate her but secretly loves her.) She’s immune to his growling and grumbling, determined to make him like her. Anyway, I don’t know when it happened. At some point, both dogs got down and started playing. It wasn’t until I stuck my foot in the cold puddle that I was like, “Why is my foot wet? Why is the couch wet?”

I jumped up and stripped the blankets, pillows, and couch cover off only to find a big dark stain on the tan couch cushion. NOOOO!

I put the dogs outside and started cleaning it up immediately. With three dogs, we’ve found the best scrubbers, cleaners, and gadgets. I’m pretty sure Keeba was sitting in her pee for a while, judging by the smell of her when I let her back inside. So I’ve cleaned the couch, now it’s time to bathe the dog. Thank God for short-haired dogs! Lucy is a bear to bathe with her German Shepherd coat, but Keeba’s coat is short and quick to dry. She was so excited to be out of the tub that I put her outside to run off some of that crazy puppy energy.

I continued to play with her and after a while, things calmed down, but I was worn out. Keeba’s boundless energy can be exhausting some days.

I let the dogs out one more time before bed. Watson and Lucy came back inside the house, but Keeba wasn’t done playing, so I encouraged her to do a few more laps around the yard with the help of a laser pointer. We all love the laser pointer. The dogs love to chase it, and I love that I don’t have to be the one running around the yard, getting her to chase me. So once she’s out of breath, I encourage her to come in, but she stops to smell something on the back steps. That’s when I realize with horror that one of my dear puppies stepped in dog poop and tracked it up the steps and into the house. 

FACEPALM.

Remember, I had already put the other two dogs in the house a while ago so I could focus on sweet energetic Keeba. Let me say, it could have been a lot worse. I got Keeba in the house, and Lucy was still standing in the kitchen. Only because she wanted to get to the laser pointer that I still held in my hand. Watson, on the other hand, was watching from the safety of the living room carpet. I'm pretty sure he thinks the kitchen floor is lava.

I call for Watson to come into the kitchen, and he starts to, walking across the vinyl floor planks with the concentration of a deer toddling on ice. As soon as I try to grab for him to look at his paws, he gets scared, completely freaks out, and almost wipes out as he runs for his life.

At this point, I’m desperately hoping Lucy is the one who stepped in poop. And now I can smell it. That awful dog poop scent fills my nostrils and I know it's gonna be gross. This is when Lucy decides she's going to follow Watson into the living room, so I grab her.

Now, I’m on my knees—most likely kneeling in dog crap residue—trying to hold back a very stubborn, very strong old dog while the puppy is jumping all around, under the impression that we’re playing. She’s jumping on me and jumping on Lucy which only makes Lucy more determined to get away. Realizing I’m in over my head, I started yelling for Justin who was tucked away in his man cave.

Thank God, he heard me and gallantly came to the rescue. He found me in the kitchen giving Lucy a bear hug while Keeba bounced around all over the poo covered kitchen floor, and Watson had gone and put himself in time out. (Yes, we have a timeout spot for our dogs.)

I feel like I should mention, Justin HATES dog poop. I mean, no one gets excited about dog poop, I hope. But Justin REALLY hates it. It makes him gag. He’s thrown away multiple pairs of shoes after stepping in dog poop because he felt it wasn’t worth the psychological anguish it would take him to clean them. He’s gotten better about this.

So I sent him over to check Watson’s paws. I would’ve done it but I knew my socks had poo on them and I don’t want to walk across the carpet. Judging by the struggle Watson put up, he was still convinced we were trying to murder him. Poor sweet irritating Watson. His paws were clear, though. Whew! 

We finally discovered Lucy had it caked on one of her back paws. 

We have a special paw cleaning contraption (because three dogs) that's super helpful. Still, between me overfilling the container and Keeba wanting to “help”, we ended up spilling soapy poop water all over the floor. 

I opened the door to dump the rest of the grossness outside, and a moth came flying in at me, going right over my head. It was the least of our worries although we never did find it.

Once we finally got Lucy’s foot cleaned, dried, and I wiped up the poopwater spill, I prematurely stripped out of my poop socks and pants. It was premature as there were still big poo pawprints all over the kitchen floor. And that ladies and gentlemen is how I ended up mopping the kitchen floor in only a hoodie and underwear at 10:30 at night.

I’ve totally got this whole adulting thing down!