Dogs will be Dogs

I am house-sitting for the summer for a nursing school buddy of mine. The arrangement is working out great!

I do have to write about a little occurrence this week.
It involved mud via the rain and an increase in my blood pressure.

The rain has been incessant for a while now and thus, the one spot the dogs have previously dug around in is muddy. All along I thought the majority of the digging (they have escaped twice, once they were retrieved, this last time, they were promptly put back in the yard even though I was in the shower).
Wrong-O.
Gabe, the older Lab and one I had blamed the majority of the digging on was in the kitchen happily chewing on his rawhide. I was sorting mail, paying bills, all that jazz, also in the kitchen.
Then, suddenly, my brain says, "Hey what is that on the floor over there-wriggling?"
I looked over only to find a small mud-slicked statue that vaguely resembled the miniature pinschure I was also looking after. After screaming "OUTSIDE" the statue deftly got up from rolling all over the carpet and bolted outside.
Little monster.
Little mud-slathered mud statue.
Oh, half mud-slathered statue since the other half was now all over the carpet!!

After two doggy baths, and a fun toweling off (I forgot how fun that is!) for the dogs that is, the house is back to normal.
And the carpet is too!
Dogs are so doggy!!

Advice of the day:

Do as much as you can then let it go.

You have done all you can do.

No sense in abusing yourself because you can’t do anything more.

Just move forward.
Be the best you can be and know that you have done the best you can.

Who's your Momma??

I traveled this past weekend with my mom and my brother to one of my other brother's wedding ( I have three brothers). My mother had never been on a commercial airline before, so this was a huge adventure. I have never really traveled with her before this weekend. So many things were made evident.

1. I know where I get my wriggles from. She could not sit still the entire trip. Up/down/up/down/up/down with the window seat window.
2. Rearranging the blanket and bumping me: I was so glad she was not riding next to a stranger.
3. “What was that??!!” At every new noise that happened on the airline. And because has Alzheimer’s, none of this knowledge stayed in her memory, so it was repeated ad nauseum.
4. Questions like, “Can we go to the bathroom while the plane is moving,” I learned to accept. If you don’t know, you gotta ask. Another quality she and I share.
5. OCD cleaning. Yes, she and I clean obsessively at the same rate. She regularly “swiffered” my brother’s house ( 5 cats and one dog = lots of hair).
   
6. My love of sleeping in regardless of the previous night's festivities....yep, got that from her too.

Basically, I found that most of my science qualities I gleaned from Mom. Some good, some bad.
I am my mother’s daughter.
If I can PLEASE just avoid that loosing your mind thing....

Our partners in crime

As a single person, I have lately become very thoughtful about how one picks a mate for the duration of one’s life.

If you look at life, generally most people have three stages of life: young adulthood- making your way, discovering who you are; Middle adulthood- finding a mate, raising children, and finally, Late adulthood- retiring and enjoying a life of looking back and looking forward to enjoying that which you have planned for.

So, how do you pick a mate? I think this is one of the most difficult things to do. I think, it is very difficult to pick one person whom you can grown thru all three (if not more) stages of life with.

I thoroughly believe it is possible to do: pick someone who can grow with you and you with them. Yet, it requires the person and you obviously, to be brutally honest with one’s goals and aspirations. It requires a level of self-awareness that a great many people are not capable of until much later. Hence the divorce rate we see.

Finding one’s identity is very difficult and very time consuming; especially if you have not had a very good example as a child.

By the time you figure it out, say around 28-35 years of age, you have already gotten married. Maybe you wake up and think, “Wow, what the hell have I married?” Or maybe you get to late adulthood and think, “I don’t want to spend 24/7 with this person.”

It is really very difficult. Yet, the most important things do seem to be very difficult to get correct. Trial and error…

I guess that is why they say, “Why is divorce so expensive?” “Because it is SO worth it!!”

Being able to retain who you are and what you are is priceless. Finding someone who is interested in nurturing that in you and you are interested in nurturing that in them is the key. This takes a great level of self confidence and that in and of itself is hard to come by. Growth and change is scary. Harder still, taking that good, long, hard look in the mirror and asking, “What can I do better with me?”

Growth, personal growth through the lifetime, is where the real challenge lies. Picking someone who really wants to grow at the same level and life-time rate is where the challenge lies.

It requires that everyone involved by honest. Brutally honest at a level that most find distasteful or uncomfortable. But this level is necessary for long term happiness.

So: Take a long, hard look in the mirror and speak the truth, regardless of its unattractiveness!!