A Little Better

Sometimes, you get bad news. Really bad news and you don't want to think about it. You don't even want to acknowledge it. So you do something else instead think about it.

Today, I got bad news. So I played with my dog, and took pictures of his cute face. It made me feel better. What makes you feel better?

Book Launch

This semester, I'm taking a publishing class at my university. This is the product of a semesters worth of work. It's finally published.

Bird Watchers

My dogs like to sit in the window and watch the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and the occasional rabbits. They could quite possibly sit in the same spot all day and just watch these animals walk around and eat. To me, that's always seemed really boring. The way NASCAR is boring to me. I'm sorry, I just don't understand why people like to sit on their butts and watch a bunch of cars go around in a circle really fast. The only time it gets interesting is when there is a crash, and wishing for a crash isn't a very nice thing to do. 

 I woke up and my dogs were watching the birds again out in the back. I hopped up on the couch and watched as their eyes followed the birds from tree to tree, as the fed from the bird feeder and seemed to almost dodge the small drops of snow falling from the sky. 

I sat with them a while and watched the pretty red cardinals fly around. They swooped through the air gracefully. They sat and looked around at the world, perhaps watching me as I watched them. A woodpecker came down to the bird feeder, a bird I didn't even know we had in the backyard. He ate with the other birds and flew away to his home only to come back for more. 

Sure there were no bird fights or squirrels jumping around, but it was beautiful to see nature in a different way. Sure they weren't digging worms out of the ground trying to find their own food, but they were still amazing to watch just because of their gracefulness. I can see why men wanted to learn to fly. 

After this morning, I understand my dogs a little more. No, I don't understand the urge to smell someone's butt, but I understand what is so memorizing about bird watching. It's not something I would do all the time, and I'm sure it's still a lot more interesting to the dogs with the better eye sight and animal instincts.

Sickness

My brother-in-law was sick yesterday with a fever and a little bit of flu. My sister was worried about him. She put him to bed, put a cold compress on his forehead. She took care of him. She worried like a good wife does. She changed the cloth on his forehead and his neck a few times throughout the night until his fever broke. 

She came over yesterday and we went shopping while Jimmy was home sleeping away the last of his flu. She told my mom and I about taking care of her husband. We listened. I said, "Avoid him like the black freaking plague."

She ignored me. She got sick this morning. She's seven months pregnant and now she's sick with the flu. She texted me complaining that she can't hold anything down and she's so sick. I said, "Black. Plague. I told you to avoid him and you didn't. If I get sick from the two of you, I'm gonna barf all over you."

So now my sick sister and her germ spreading husband are up at the ER getting my sister taken care of. Meanwhile, I'm writing a research paper and sitting with my doggy. I sent her a picture of him and said, "Baker says, will my tweet make you feelz betta?"

Love

A year ago, I had three dogs. Shiner, Gunner and Brandy. Shiner is gone now. She's been gone for over eight months now, that's hard to believe. Gunner is still around, grumpy as ever. He's become even more attached to my mom if that's even possible. It's time for the holidays again, and I feel that he misses Shiner more now then ever. After all, it was her he spent his first Thanksgiving and Christmas with. It was her. They were friends, partners, pals before Brandy or Baker even came on the scene. If it's possible for a dog to grieve, to remember, to be depressed, I think Gunner is all those things right now.

Brandy is still trying to squeeze herself into the places she went as a puppy. She's digging holes in the yard and getting yelled at for tracking dirt into the house. She's still playful and fun. She's protective of Baker when Gunner gets mad at him. She's his mother in a way. She loves him as much as I do. Brandy and Baker are pals like Gunner and Shiner used to be.

Now, we have a puppy named Baker who keeps us so busy and crazy that it's hard to believe that so much time has past. He makes my heart whole again, after the loss of such an important part of my childhood, my past. I look at him and I immediately get this sense of comfort and love. My heart swells and it's hard to breathe for a second. I love this dog so much because he's helped me through the loss of another. He's helped me smile again. He's helped me deal with that pain. He's helped me remember the happy moments instead of thinking of those when she was so sick. He helps me remember her. He helps me.

First Snow

The first real snow of the season came today. By real snow, I mean something that actually stuck on the ground for a while. It started snowing Friday night, and when Baker woke me Saturday morning I was excited to see it covering the ground. Before letting him outside, I ran to get my camera. It was Baker's first snow. I wanted to see what he would do. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything too exciting, but he was still cute running around and trying to eat all the snow. He happens to love ice cubes, so why not snow?

It makes me want to remember the first time I every saw snow. The first time I played in it, made a snow ball, a snow angel. I wish I could remember these things. I was luck enough to grow up in an area that does get snow, so I lived with it all my life. Perhaps as a baby I had a moment when I first realized what was happening, but those moments are lost to everyone but perhaps my parents.

In a way, I envy people that have never seen snow. They get to stay somewhere warm where the snow doesn't, can't touch. They don't have to have bulky winter jackets or heavy snow boots. They get to just enjoy the weather all the time. 

At the same time though, I wish everyone could experience snow once in their lives. To wake up one morning, and see the ground covered. To see the white paradise that suddenly appears. The branches tipped in white beauty and the sun shining just enough to make the ground sparkle. The silence from the snow covering the ground and the critters tucked away safely and warmly in their homes. I love the beauty of snow.