Puppy Love

Titus, a 40 lb, 6 month old lab mix, "moved in" at about 5:00 pm today. We're going to foster him for 6 to 12 months while his family tries to find pet friendly housing.

I've gotta admit, the last 5 hours have come with a strong dose of reality.

All through the week, I've been imagining this day. It played out just like one of Cesar Millan's Dog Whisperer episodes: Titus, a young pup, becomes 'cured' of all poor behaviors by the calm assertive energy which I exude in his direction. He becomes totally calm, totally trusting, and totally behaved with one little "Chhh!" and 'the eye'.

HA!

I had to laugh at myself as I was walking down the street, my body aching from trying to keep Ty in good following structure, while maintaining my "calm assertive" head up, shoulders back posture. How could I have dreamed that I would pick up right where Cesar Millan (who has decades more experience in dog handling-heck who has experience in dog handling at all!) left off?

Don't get me wrong. I haven't given up hope. My fairy tale isn't necessarily destroyed, it's just gone from Disney to Grimm Brothers, that's all. I've always been annoyed at Disney's sugar coated flim flam anyway.

Ty's a great dog, and I'm absolutely positive he has it in him to be an amazing dog. The question is, do I have it in me?

There are two obstacles that I must overcome to get there:

1) The constant nag that I'm wasting my energy putting all this work into a dog I won't even get to enjoy for his lifetime. The thought that I'll just have to do this ALL OVER AGAIN when I finally get to have my own canine companion.

I keep trying to tell myself that those thoughts are ridiculous. That energy spent in improving a life is never wasted, and that the process is what's so great anyway. There's nothing like the feeling of success you get when you and an animal have mastered a skill together.

2) Remembering how to connect animal to animal.

Ok-everyone who really knows me is probably rolling their eyes with a knowing smile creeping across their faces. YES! I AM A NATURE MUFFIN! A GRANOLA GIRL. A TREE HUGGER. If I wasn't LDS I'd probably smoke home grown pot while philosophizing with like minded hippies up in some tree we were camping in to save it from loggers. I'm just that kind of gal.

About a month ago, I was telling a friend how puppy hungry I was. She looked at me and said, "Maria, could you just explain to me what that's like because I really could not even begin to imagine what it would feel like to be puppy hungry!" I stumbled for words to explain how I could be puppy hungry at the same time I was preparing to invite a new little babe of my own into the family. The only thing I could come up with to say then was, "I dunno...it's just different-having kids and having a dog...it's just different."

I've been thinking intermittently about what's different about it since that conversation, and I think I finally came to it while I was preparing to bring Mr. T into our home. I was reading a Ceasar Millan book called, "Be the Pack Leader". In it, he talks about how our relationship with a dog is so much more basic, honest, and simple than most relationships we have with members of our own species. A dog will always pick up on the undertone in your heart, whether you think you're showing it or not. They'll never believe you when you plaster on your fake smile and pretend you're not about to explode at any second. There's something so liberating about that to me. And something so positively challenging. It helps me to learn to look at myself more honestly, and to be ok with what I find.

A dog lives in the moment. He doesn't hold grudges against you because you make mistakes. He isn't repelled from you should you happen to be a bit complicated. He doesn't think badly of you when he sees your most secret parts of your soul. Lucky for me, Jason is all those things for me already (on top of being a most excellent husband, friend, and partner parent).

So why do I still yearn for that connection with a dog? Because, somehow, when I connect with an animal, I feel like I'm connecting with a deeper part of me. I am forced to use nonverbal communication, which is something I have totally atrophied in since my youthful days spent so close to the natural world. When I see I have established an understanding and a trust between myself and a part of nature, I feel blessed, privileged, humbled. It reminds me to slow down. To breathe. To just be. Those are good things to remember, and easy things to forget without a fuzzy friend to remind you. At least that's my experience.

Finding Balance

Ok. I promise this is the last post I'm writing today. Whew! I just have so many things swirling around in my head. Thus the need for this final post.

I have a million things going on right now. Big things- and more around the corner. Mostly, I love it. I find it invigorating and fun to have to be sharp about how I use my time and energy. Then sometimes I have days like today, when I've missed that sharpness and have been unbalanced in my efforts/energy.

Sometimes its hard to figure out how to fit all the pieces of my life together so that they work with and for each other instead of against each other.

Right now I'm trying to 'balance'

mothering a child on the cusp of big developmental milestones (ie. potty training, moving into a 'big kid' bed, moving downstairs into his 'big kid' room),

keeping on top of our brand new and still tender budget,

learning how to garden, deciding what I want to garden, and figuring out how to afford it and find the time and energy to do it,

preparing for a possible pregnancy,

babysitting a 15 month old for increasing amounts of time,

keeping house,

eating whole, healthful, environmentally friendly foods,

staying tuned into my husband,

preparing for a 40 pound, 6 month old pup to come join our family as a 'foster dog' for the next 6 to 12 months,

figuring out how to turn our totally outdated and not up to code downstairs basement into a cozy, safe, new room for Rudy,

and being a reliable, invested ward camp director, even though I know chances are high I won't be able to attend camp. (Prego ladies aren't allowed because of the altitude and remoteness of the site).

Not a one of these things is a 'burden'. I'm excited and happy about all of them. I just need to figure out how to give each the correct proportion of my energy, so I don't end up like I did today-with a rockin' accomplishment in the backyard (cleared my whole main garden area of a 4 inch deep layer of wood chips one shovel full at a time), but no engery left to cook a dinner meal or attack the housework I'd been putting off all day to work outside or care for Rudy and Sweet Pea. Maybe now, after 2 hours of blogging, I'm rested up enough to at least straighten the house. Or maybe the most important thing for me now is sleep. Or researching the garden stuff. Sigh. I'll probably clean the kitchen while continuing to ponder about balance. (Kitchen cleaning is good for pondering, don't you think?)

Why I'm Glad Rudy is Our First

Rudy's a great little nurturer. Today, Sweet Pea had a rocky landing to her nap. She cried for about 20 minutes, and I finally went in to rock her and help her get soothed enough to fall asleep. I told Rudy I needed to go back to Sweet Pea for a few minutes and asked him to remember to be quiet so Sweet Pea could fall asleep.

While I was in rocking her and she was still crying, he came in and checked on us. He asked, "Are you ok with Sweet Pea?" I told him we were fine, and she was just having trouble falling asleep. About 2 minutes later, he popped back in with the soft pillow from the couch to see if that would help Sweet Pea. (He knows she loves it.) I told him thanks, but she already has a soft blanket in her crib to snuggle. Soon after Sweet Pea settled enough to fall asleep by herself in her crib. Rudy's such a sweetie-he's gonna be a great oldest child. :)

Scrounge Proud

There's not much more satisfying to me than making something I need out of stuff I already have . It makes me feel so self sufficient, so able to to care for my family. It boosts my ego, too. :) Anyway, here's my little peacock strut about the things Jason and I have scrounged together lately:

1) A book shelf for the living room, scrounged from the fish stand I had my old ten gallon sitting on, (which we got for free off freecycle back in the day) plus some scrap wood and hardware from previous projects, and the leftover paint from the first time I painted the fish stand. Jason did the wood working, and I did the painting.

Total cost: NADA, baby!

(sorry-no pic for this one. Trust me. It looks just like you'd imagine a mower to look) :)

2) A lawnmower. This one was all Jason (as is the next one). He ressurected the old mower that was sitting in a dusty corner of the patio when we bought the house. I'm so proud. This guy just tinkered and looked at internet guides until he got ol' Bessy sputterin', and then a purrin' like a kitten. (if any mower could be described as purring.)

Total cost: $10 (parts and gas)

3) A cool, quirky clock for our kitchen. Jason took apart Rudy's old clock which had died, fixed the mecanisim, and created a face out of wood scraps and something he'd dug out of an old TV he'd found in our attic and had taken apart just for fun earlier. I think it's way cool-even if I'm not an advanced enough time teller to look at a rectangular face with no numbers and be able to tell the time acurately. That's what my digital wrist watch is for. :)

Total cost: A BIG FAT ZERO!!

4) Curtains for our dining room. I got a queen size yellow flat sheet off freecycle, which I combined with some scrap fabric to make into some curtains with character. Jason wanted to scrounge for the curtain rods too, but by then I was all scrounged out (I BARELY had enough fabric, after creating an intricate cutting and sewing strategy.) So we ended up buying some curtain rods. Actually, I asked my mom to pick them up for me while she was already at the store. I don't know how it is with your parents, but it's hard to get my folks to let me pay for something they've already paid for. I have to really stare 'em in the eye balls and tell 'em I'm all grown up and want to pay my own way. That day I didn't feel like being grown up-just grateful. So I was. :)

Total cost to us: FREE NINETY FREE!

Ta Da! :)

Singing Time

At last. My little man has caught on that singing is a great past time. He spontaneously broke out into Old McDonald the other day as breakfast was winding down. So fun!

On Sunday, one of our congregational hymns was "I Am a Child of God". It's a song we sing together almost every night before Rudy goes to bed. Rudy piped up and sang through all three verses with us. I can't tell you how special it was to me to sing a hymn together with my WHOLE family in church. I don't know. It was just really, really cool. :)

Pink Salad

A great variation on my mom's carrot apple salad.

Combine a pile of shredded raw beets and a pile of shredded apples of about equal size

.

Add lemon juice and sugar/agave to taste. (Yikes, Mommy! We need more agave!)

Done. And how fun when your mouth can get THIS pink from eating your veggies?!

The longer the ingredients have to 'merry' the better. I like to make a giant batch and eat off it through out the week.

Spring Cleaning

We've lived in this house for going on 6 months already. Hard to imagine, huh?

Especially when you consider that I have yet to really organize my kitchen. Sure, little emergency organization moments have sprung up here and there, but I've never settled on something I feel great about.

Probably because I've never really given the kitchen the attention it needs. I mean, really- I spend tons of time in there already doing the daily 'have to be done' stuff like cooking and cleaning. Do I really want to log more kitchen hours at the end of the day organizing?! I guess it must be done, though, because I just don't feel settled when I open a cabinet full of random things from canned food to spices to extra storage containers to fish care supplies.

We've been making baby steps to this moment for months. Jason put up some much needed shelving, we scored a little table off of KSL to give us more 'counter' space, we've hung some decorations. It's beginning to feel more and more homey. Organization is the last frontier!

With all that background information in mind, you'll understand why I was excited to read that one of lady's who's blog I mostly 'lurk' has decided to declare March the "Month of the Kitchen". Hooray! What's more, she provided a link to another blog, (I'm excited to check this blog out in greater depth), which is breaking March down into week long mini projects. Double Hooray! There's nothing like a support group (even if it is an online one) to help turn a long postponed chore into an adventure.

So, in the Month of the Kitchen, this week our project was cleaning and organizing the fridge.

With the weather being so nice this week, I was having a hard time getting myself to stay put for long enough to tackle the fridge and freezer. This morning, on my way to the local nursery, I took this picture:

After getting Rudy down for his nap, I was so tempted to get out there in my garden and start preparing my soil for all the delightful seeds I'd come home with. Tempted, that is, until I looked outside and saw this:

Ah, March. Warm and sunny in the morning, snowing heavily in the afternoon. Today, the weather worked well for me, because it kept me from digging in my yard when I really needed to be digging old crusty food out of my freezer. (I found a spinach block that was best by March 2008 in there.)

Thanks to Mother Nature's prodding, I completed the first task in my kitchen organizing goals. Here's the before and after pictures:

I decided to wear my new gardening gloves to clear the freezer. I thought it might help me feel better about doing housework instead of yard work. That, and my hands are pretty wimpy when it comes to cold-they take forever to warm up again if they get chilled!

Before

After!

Before...

After!

Before...

After!

Before...

After!

Hooray! Now I can work outside tomorrow! Except for the whole snow thing...maybe I'll work on finally getting some window coverings sewn for our dining room. Sigh. Hurry up Spring!