New Dog or No

For those of you who don't know (and I'm sure you do since everyone that reads this is also my friend on Facebook), our dog died in October. Sunday October 11th, to be exact. It is now March and I'm still crying just typing that. We had this dog longer than we had half of our children. He lived to be 13 years-old. He was an excellent dog. His mother was a pure-bred, papered Australian Cattle Dog. His father was a neighbor's pure-bred Akita that snuck out of his yard. TBone's mom's owner gave the puppies away for free because she was mad that her papered dog had mutt puppies.

TBone never played ever. I later learned that was probably and Akita trait. He had ZERO herding tendancies - as a matter of fact he would sit and watch the bunnies and birds in the yard. He looked scary but was the nicest dog I've ever met. Even when we got the puppies (a brother and sister pair, both 6 years-old now) he never guarded his food and was very laid-back. We moved into a new house twice since we've had him and he lived out at the campground with us for around 8 months, and he adjusted perfectly. The only trouble we ever had with him was he would somehow get off his chain when he was outside and he'd go roaming the neighborhood looking for girlfriends (I know he sired at least one litter) and once he ate six blocks of mouse poison.

He was a good dog.

Now, the whole REASON I got puppies was because TBone was old and my youngest child was nearing 5 years of age and I was worried I'd freak out because I have never in my life been in a house without a child younger than five years of age. So I got the puppies. TBone stuck around for a long time, but I actually didn't think I'd have three dogs for that long. There are many problems with having three dogs. It's hard to walk all three of them. For the most part I did great but the kids won't ever walk three. Vet visits are difficult ~ in fact I usually scheduled two one trip and one the next trip. And when it comes to vacation time no one will take them. At least now that we have a fence I could just hire a kid to come over and let the dogs out in the morning with their swimming pool full of water and some food, and then come back in the evening and put them to bed. Bath time was a three to five hour ordeal depending on if I had to brush TBone or not OR we had a bath a day spread out over three days. Also other reasons.

Now that TBone is gone I'm happy with my two puppies. In my mind, this will go one of two ways. Either Butterfly would (eventually) die first and Porkchop would be perfectly happy being an only dog, or Porkchop would go first and we would have to get another dog because Butterfly will not survive if she's the only dog in the house. I maintained that the next time I got a dog, it would be a Dalmatian puppy. Dalmatians have always been my favorite animal of all time and I've never had one because I had too many other responsibilities. Now I have no small children, so if it came down to just Butterfly who NEEDS another dog, I could get one (assuming I have the money ~ they are expensive lol).

The other night my husband suddenly announced that we needed another dog. I tried to talk him down, but he started looking into rescue groups looking at other dogs. So he talked me part-way into getting a third dog, but my main problem is he wants an Australian Cattle Dog. I'm not sure he understands how different an ACD would be from our TBone. They are herding/working dogs that would have a TON of energy! For the most part, Dalmatians are pretty high-energy so that wouldn't be a huge problem, but it's whole personality would be completely different from our nothing-bothers-me TBone Horatio.

Still I told him I don't want another dog with skin issues, but deafness I can handle, and for now he's just looking.

I don't think I'm ready for another dog - thinking of TBone still makes me sad - and I think underneath it all the Mr is also still just sad. I think he WANTS another dog to take away that sadness. So maybe after a few weeks he won't feel that way anymore.

I guess we will see.

An exercise in writing: Trena's Solo

I preferred a front-row seat, so if anyone else came in I wouldn't have to worry about them blocking my view, however I didn't want to make Trena nervous by sitting right in the front and pointing my camera straight at her face, so I asked my husband to pick our seat. He picked the second row, close to the door. We sat down and I looked around. There were five shelves of books on the wall, some labeled, but I only noticed the ones marked "poetry." I glanced at the whiteboards and saw several terms I learned when I was first introduced to Shakespeare, like "soliloquy" and "sonnet."  After taking in all these signs I decided this was an English room. The word "Kerns" was taped to the back of all the chairs in the row in front of us. According to my husband this was probably the teacher's name.
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I looked at yet another shelf in the front and saw a favorite book from my childhood, "Clan of the Cave Bears." I read it when I was 14. I was amused that 14 years after I was 14 I found someone else who liked the book I used to like, and out of the whole planet, here in this tiny school that was literally in the middle nowhere surrounded by corn fields.
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Two white ceiling fans spun cool air down on us as we waited. My eyes wandered to the door wondering how long it would be before they would start. I noticed a science fiction reference, specifically a STAR TREK reference, over the door!
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All kids that left the classroom were met with the words: "Live Long and Prosper," an old Vulcan sign of respect. I had no idea who this teacher was, or even if it was a Mr or a Mrs Kerns, but I knew I liked him/her!! So much awesome and my particular weird lay in this small classroom.
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Just as I was wondering if this was a grade school, middle school, or high school classroom (I was settling on the probability that it was Junior High level) Trena walked in. She was wearing a dress she ordered online that I thought was borderline too small ( I think she should ignore the stupid number that denotes size and order bigger just so she can have the outfit longer, but she constantly assures me that I am stupid), clunky black shoes, and the white knit sweater she borrowed from my closet. She walks in confidently and passes her father and I and moves to the piano that's tucked into a corner near the whiteboards. After a quick whisper from her choir coach, she walks to the back of the room and gives the judge her music.
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The judge quickly peruses the music and then motions to the choir coach, who starts playing the piano.
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Trena sings her song with good voice and with decent emotion. I tried to send Trena a hand motion signalling that her hands are clutched together in front of her, giving away how nervous she is, but she doesn't look at me. Not with the big black eye of the video camera staring at her.
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She finishes her song and smiles brightly at the judge. The judge told her to sing a scale. The smile leaves Trena's face so quickly you would have thought someone smacked it off. Trena attempted a scale. She had to start over twice. Her bold strong voice was suddenly small and shaky. She finished the scale finally and she did an okay job, except the clutching hands suddenly became wringing hands. The judge asked her to do a minor scale, and Trena confessed she couldn't. The judge told her to take her best shot. I was a little miserable because I cannot sing but after 17 years of playing the flute, I knew scales, and I could have done the minor scale for her but of course it doesn't work that way. I was also a little disgusted with the choir coach that scales aren't done and practiced every single day, but later Trena told me they are actually supposed to practice scales and in fact she practiced before she came into the room, she just couldn't remember by the time she got there.
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The judge gives Trena her review. Mostly good marks, needs to work on her hand position and her scales. Trena leaves happy that it's all over.
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The judge ended up giving her a "I" (one/first). I was happy for her.
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There will only be a few more moments like these. Trena is 18 and graduating soon. I am enjoying every moment I have. As we left I wished Mr/s Kerns a great weekend, even though it's unlikely I'll ever meet him/her.

Scary Times

There are changes looming over our horizon. Change is always scary, especially with me not working at the moment. But certain things are threatening change and I'm trying to be very calm, very open-minded, and of course very supportive of my husband and my children nearing adulthood.

Still, not knowing for sure if things are going to have to change makes me a bigger wreck than knowing for sure something will change and being able to act towards that end. Not knowing and having to just SIT here imagining the very worst is not good for me.

Today I did very well. I've gotten back into the habit of working out every day, so that's a step in the right direction. I've been cleaning and organizing things here and there. I'm trying to get back into doing laundry (if you don't know, my husband for whatever bizarre reason decided to do the laundry. He did it for two straight weeks and then stopped but didn't tell me. Now we have a mountain of clothes and I am left to deal with it. I have a wash-to-sell pile, a wash-to-donate pile, a set-it-on-fire-and-get-rid-of-it pile[this one is pretty easy to deal with LOL] and a still-enormous wash/fold/separate/put-away pile, but I was so used to NOT doing it it's been hard to bring it back into my life), and so far I'm getting one-to-two loads done a day.

I'm trying to get things ready for a garage sale.

I'm back to reading to my two littles almost every night.

Things are just now getting back to a productive state, and now I have to keep a weather-eye open at that horizon, to see before it gets too late what changes this year will bring.