this saturday morning: welcome back to my blog

it’s still before noon here in the central time zone. one of the almost 6 month old puppies is giving off a “please cuddle i am so so sweet also this is different than what i am used to happening right now” whine and the most interesting thing about it is that i don’t actually know if it is the boy dog or the girl dog, the caramel colored one or the blonde.

i told my husband to expect that in 4 – 5 years i would likely want another puppy: a gray one that i can master train to be a gentle giant, loving big fat amazing dog. like the kind built for mountains, treks and carrying supplies – providing warmth and emotional support.

a long, long time ago – like right when the crate and barrel on brentwood blvd went up, that plaza had a couple of shops that were for design minded people. one of the shops; it’s shop owner had two bouvier des flandres. i felt completely enamored with these gray, tall gentle wandering souls who glided behind the shop keeper’s case and looked at me only to say hello.

the baby dogs in my house now have fallen silent. the only sound in my house is some appliance hum (no laundry), the birds outside and the faint dispelling of radiohead coming from our bedroom where my husband naps. likely not dreaming of that same gray puppy.

having two puppies is – for both of us – colliding worlds of independence and order with chaos and random events. part of the reason for the two puppies at this junction is because it is all mixed up anyhow.

we are both exploring and operating.

on a personal level, i am the boss of my creative life which requires settling into ideas that are new to me:

i set my schedule completely

i take baby steps towards my dreams.

i express myself freely through music, words and song as an emotional gift to the world.

ideas i have known and always known (my husband is brilliant, his talent unending, my kids? glorious (and all on vacation) etc etc etc) are the roots of this whole new machine: my titanic, my life force, my creative energy.

gratitude, at some point, evolves from appreciating what you see to honoring what you know (about yourself and others).

trust is that gratitude’s inevitable fruit.

said another way: thoughtfulness is spacing out and forgetting’s best friend in that one needs the other to hurt in order to heal.

Trust is spacing out and forgetting’s best friend.

Me, 7.17.21

an opposites attract sort of thing.

welcome (back) to my blog. please consider sharing my writing.

for those new, hey how are ya – you usually find me on family stuff. if you got here because of the word “puppies”, let me know in the comments and let’s start sharing ideas on how to raise littermates, siblings, and establish independence.

ok. that’s all for now.

A married woman with her children lays on a theatre bench in Bellingham, Washington’s Boulevard Park July 3, 2020. #PandemicBride

When the girls were learning to walk, I cannot remember a single time they fell on their bottoms or turned a corner too short where I shamed them. I don’t recall ever scorning “you weren’t paying attention” or expecting balance. Rather, I buffered and bumped and directed and encouraged.

I watched them learn to walk.

As I sit here with my morning coffee, I am fully aware of the butterflies in my stomach related to the parenting ahead of me today.

David has office space in our little downtown now, so today is my first day with all five kids under my jurisdiction without the protection of David working so be cool or his live and in color reinforcement for my plans.

A big butterfly is related to the inconvenience of teenage freeloading and entitlement.

Another butterfly is related to the task of waking the household in hopes for some sort of order for the day.

Another butterfly is related to the fact I need to address a late night door dash that was done without permission and whose evidence was hidden in an heirloom toybox.

Sigh.

There are other butterflies too… related to dog training and in laws coming in town, to wanting to carve out my writing time in my new main floor creative space and some other things. The butterflies aren’t helping me at all.

As I walked the dogs towards home just a minute ago, I really was permeating this idea – reminding myself over and over – that how I handle all of this is a choice. My desire for some structure is a choice. My handling of the door dash annoyance is a choice. My joy or lack there if is a choice.

Any choice that feels anxious and tense is not going to allow me to find that inner hum that consistently swings at the proverbial balls thrown to me today with some sort of grace and love.

If I don’t want my day to be ruined, I can’t ruin it.

And that’s when the relaxed but ready stance of the batters from Friday nights Cardinals game came to my mind. The game that kept me up too late and had me a tired mess all weekend had also given me a lovely 40th birthday gift reminder via two really joyful home runs: keep a good eye, a ready posture, beware of distractions and knock it out of the park.

It’s easy to think your teenager should know a lot more than they do. They are a rat in a maze looking for cheese and their shitheadness is being discovered…. though you really really really want to think they know better, they don’t until they do.

But just like I didn’t label every learning to walk tumble as unfortunate or imbalanced; I really don’t want to label every learning to live tumble as lazy or shameful.

I want to encourage and direct them to better choices, more fun and therefore have a fun and more open day myself.

Swing batter batter swing…

Wish me luck 🙃

Who is the patron saint of puppies?

We are winding down with tea and the US soccer game and I allowed myself one Google search parameter and only two articles to decide on my next step for tomorrow. No. Rabbit. Holes. Erin.

It is proving to be difficult (as I start on my fourth attempt at this paragraph) to use this outlet to help myself out without going into the complete nitty gritty of everything in the top of my mental funnel.

Two months ago, I was browsing soy sauces online for 45 minutes, researching braises and comparing blueberry bushes. Tonight? I am actively processing guilt for not crate training the puppies immediately, thinking about how I am going to explain to David that this is about to become a super pain in the ass, and praying The Watering Hole is a miracle God sent angel gift that helps me have two dogs that are good to other dogs.

I did not know that you are supposed to keep littermates separate at night, people. Also, thank you internet for being horrifying with all your information.

It is starting to make more sense every day. The goal of littermates is for the dogs to be “obedient together” and “confident separate”. With this in mind, I feel pretty good about how we are managing the dogs. (They get a ton of attention and individual time.) But…. they are coming of age and rough housing and it’s like a drunk driver teaching another person how to drive blindfolded. I did not realize that littermates will not teach the universal dog language inherently. Every time I see Rey play bite Thor on the leg I cringe, use the Say Uncle command (which makes them stop and sit at my feet for a treat), and pray all this work pays off.

I feel like a theme in my life is that I make things harder for myself right when I get to a clearing. If I achieve a plateau, I add a layer. I wondered tonight if it was a super hero complex or my saboteur archetype. Paging Caroline Myss.

I was all in on Rey and Thor (my 17 week old shepherd mixes) for good reason. I wanted family dogs to help spread the love. I wanted to walk good dogs and take them to beer gardens and sunsets. I miss my old dog and how he would lay in the sun while I gardened. If I was to get dogs, now seems to be a good time. There is just always so much you don’t know until you get into something.

As I near forty (my birthday is at the end of June), I realize all these Google searches I am doing now about the dogs; trying to get enough information to synthesize into one strategic dog culture, is a lot like the conversation David and I had after we got home from Home Depot with armfuls of supplies to strip, clean, condition and paint our 100+ year old porch.

It did not take long after getting into the project for us to change our plan. We felt like we wasted the morning but both agreed it was time well spent – we needed to get into it to know how we wanted to do it.

So, here I am. I am into it figuring out how I want to do it. And I am wondering if this is a 40 year old maturation thing. I wonder if now I will have a treasured habit of contemplating everything I may want to know prior to jumping in. It doesn’t seem like me, but I think it is becoming me. I think this is a big shift where I combine bravery and experience.

When I was painting the porch, I had a little bit of clarity where this thought came, “the dogs will be what you make them”. And I felt relief. They love my kids. They love me. I LOVE THEM. I bury myself in them sometimes. I hold them like babies and they calm us all. My mom said today “they are really special, Erin”. And they are.

I just don’t know what I’m doing. lol. Ok. Good night. Mind if I talk about puppies more on this thing? This felt good. erin

this photo is titled “help me jesus”