new year

New Year's Day

It is morning and I have been up a few hours thanks to the dog who can’t sleep past 7:30 no matter what time she last goes outside. I stayed up til midnight though I was ready for bed by 11, still trying to kick this cold. Hubby has it now and I and hope he doesn’t pass it back to me.

I stayed up not because I felt the overwhelming need to see in the new year but because I felt an overwhelming need to wait for the firecrackers. Chelsie, my last dog, was terrified of the firecrackers that went off in the area on festive days. The poor thing would cower and try to hide under pieces of furniture much too small for her.

Cassie was sleeping when the firecrackers started. She lifted her head and stared at me then moved to patio door. She rang the bells (her signal that she wants to go outside) and waited for me to do her bidding. I was trying not to make any reaction to her or the fireworks. I opened the door and she trotted outside, looking first, as she always does, to the back corner that the squirrels use for all their comings and goings. There was a movement and Cassie began to bark. Not her little puppy bark but her big dog alarm bark that she has been trying out of late.

I worried that it was a rat from the nest I know they have next door. But it was too big. A cat? Too slow. To my surprise it was a possum who, as Cassie moved closer (still staying 10 feet from the fence) turned around and walked down the opposite end of the fence.away from our yard.

I live in the city, surrounded by small houses with small yards and busy streets all around. This is the first time I’ve seem the possum at this house (we had one at our old house too.) I imagine he came to go fishing in the neighbor’s huge koi pond.

I don’t think a lot of about possums one way or the other as long as they keep their sharp claws away from me and the dog and don’t nest in the house. But it does make me feel a little bit hopeful that other creatures will find their way to our yard as the native plants grow and bloom.

Before bed last night, well into the wee hours of the new year, I wrote a bit, a few bad poems, some lines in a journal. I plan to do more of the same today. I also plan to work on my new blog for my garden. (Any one out there a LJ CSS expert? I need some help.) I want to move the garden posts to the new blog so I can track my progress.

Here’s to the new year. May it be filled with many new adventures.

Thursday, January 1, 2009|Categories: Life With Dogs|Tags: , |6 Comments
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New Year's Day – a reflection of 2007

In reading blogs the past couple of days, many people have done a look back at 2007. I can’t promise to be as detailed or even as deep in my own look back but here goes.

In early 2007 we bought a house in the over-priced market of the Silicon Valley. Which mean any time before that was spent looking for said house and packing and then moving. It was all consuming on many levels. I took most of the year off from writing to get it settled. And I fell in love with my house though the bonding process of getting settled and decorating. I bought an entire house of new (old) furniture (thank you craigslist.)

I read. A lot. It looks like 123 books (no picture books) but then not all of them were kids books. There were decorating books and gardening books and lots of books about airplanes. 

I ate too much of the wrong foods and didn’t exercise enough. 

I spent a lot of time thinking about what I should be doing and not enough time doing it. 

I worried about a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have worried about and will likely continue to do so. And I worried about some things that I always will (my kids) even though there is nothing I can do but love them and hope for the best.

I spent way too much time being miserable about having a day job. But I also spent a lot of enjoyable lunch times with work friends that make me smile and make me think. That alone makes out for the lousy food in our cafeteria.

I got to know a few new friends and got to know a few old friends a bit better.

I gave a few speeches, each one better than the last.

I realized that there are many things that I can’t do or won’t do or that I’m just not good at and told myself that it’s okay. Here’s hoping acceptance of all that will come in the next year.

Most of all, I woke up each day grateful to be married to my best friend and went to bed each night more in love with him than the day before.
If that was the only thing that happened all year I would consider myself a lucky woman.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008|Categories: Random|Tags: , |6 Comments
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My theme for the coming year

A few days ago 

[info]laurasalas 

 had an interesting post (which she often does) about chosing a theme for the year. It stuck with me but I wasn’t sure what the right theme would be for me. I often push myself to write where it hurts and go deep. I try to lose control (though I pretty much stink at it.) 

This time off work has given me a lot of opportunity for self-reflection (some might say too much.) I want to be a better writer than I was the year before. More importantly, I want to be a better person. 

I was talking about this desire with a close friend who knows me very well and she pointed out that I can often have a bleak outlook or send out downer, depressing vibes. And I admit that sometimes, yes, that’s all I can feel. I struggle with family members in great need (that I can’t help with) and I struggle with my own health issues, but as this friend pointed out, there are people who are as low as can possibly be, who have absolutely no reason to be happy and yet they are still very positive people. Of course there is the opposite as well, people who have no problems (or not huge ones) and have every reason to be happy yet they go around all gloom and doom and depressed.

She said, “It’s almost as though you’re afraid to be happy.” Ouch. So keeping that in mind as well as trying to step a bit outside my introverted zone, my theme for 2008 is to REACH OUT WITH JOY.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Happy New Year to everyone.

 

Monday, December 31, 2007|Categories: Random|Tags: , |7 Comments
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