Last evening we took Cooper to the dog park. Usually we go, he runs like mad for twenty minutes and we latch on to him. I say latch because in a free for all field of 100 dogs there is no way in the world he is responding to the 'come' command. I have a hard enough time with that in the living room where the biggest distraction is the coffee table.
Spring is in the air, dogs of every description are in full on heat, that makes a 40lb lighting fast hormone raging puggle a little harder to catch. For 60 minutes Mike and I tried to latch on to that dog, he would not stop, he would not come, he could not even be lured into the outer paddock. We were completely at his mercy and the rest of life got sidelined. Dinner, homework, downtime, bedtime all suffered. That dog presented quite a challenge to my zen. What I really wanted to do was shoot him with a tranquilizer dart and drag him out by his tail.
I suppose I want to shoot more than my dog with a tranquilizer at the moment. There is a lot of life that is eluding me and I am not fairing too well with the challenge of it all. If you check the post date you will see that this is my first post in a week and to be quite honest my last two offerings were not nearly what I had envisioned in my head. I'm not even sure this one is turning into what I wanted it to be.
In fact I know it's not, but it is what I have time for today, it is what I can accomplish, it has to be enough to remind myself that I'm still working. My vision is the one running around in the park after 99 other dogs in heat. I don't have a hope in hell of latching on to it right now. So I'm just going to stand over here between the exit and the poop disposal and wait.
Happy Tuesday - Good luck with your puggle!
Michelle
Showing posts with label brain leaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brain leaks. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
It Takes a Pineapple Some Days to Raise a Family
Parenting met desperation Monday evening and to quote my 14 year old KJ "You can't even know" I swear you can't.
There is a saying in our home, "It's a short walk from laughter to tears" That phrase was coined for nights like this. It started innocently enough with the regular bantering and bickering around the supper table. The kids poking fun at one another, Dad getting in on the act. KJ spilling chicken noodle soup on her freshly self laundered shirt and pants. A few ohhs and ahhs, a smart remark about karma and KJ was quickly to terms with her need to perform laundry duties again.
Best line of the night goes to Lula. Just after the soup incident she looked across the table at KJ "You have a Jabba The Hut on your shirt, You know... like how some people see Jesus in their toast? Like that, only it's Jabba"
I laughed so hard my sides hurt but I wasn't in tears, not yet. We arrived at tears less than a minute and a half post Jabba sighting.
It started with a chicken soup noodle which lead to a child covered in mustard. You don't really need me to expand in detail, suffice it to say the decibel level in our home reached heights attainable only by teenage girls furiously vieing for fairness, consequence, expressive contempt and the title of 'right'.
Insert tears, internal gut wrenching - I've had enough tears (mine mostly).
Welcome to Mom-rant.
I was already there waiting for everyone else to catch up with me. I ranted about personal respect, appropriate behaviour, clogged toilets, plungers, cellphones, dog pee, homework, laundry, vacuuming, chores, suitcases, blankets, pop cans and socks. By the time I got to maxi pads and backpacks I had 2 cell phones, an Ipod and the first born child of each one of my kids.
I also had a huge case of "who decided that I was capable of this doing this job?" That's a bad place for moms. It leads to one of two destinations; 'I'll show you' or 'My kids are doomed'. I turned left and march right into 'I'll show you.' I stood in the heart of the house and summoned all inhabitants back the table where the wheels fell off. I had some things to say. Mostly things like 'I've had enough' and 'there are going to be some changes around here'. I have some really great tools in the 'family tune-up' kit.
Nobody rushed to the table. For a few minutes I sat there alone organizing my thoughts, preparing my stance, outlining my strategy, starring at a pineapple. It took Mike a few minutes to herd every one to the conference. In those few minutes the pineapple had talked me down off my ledge.
Instead of launching into my speech when all seats were filled, I left the table to grab a cutting board, my chef's knife, a bowl and Mike's brand-new-never seen before-who knows if it works-pineapple slicer. I laid everything out in the middle of the table and sat back. Somebody was going to pay for the atmosphere in the house, it might as well be a pineapple.
Within a few minutes three kids began working together to figure out the gadget and produce a long curly spiral of pineapple and a nifty pineapple drinking glass. We weren't heading to 'This place sucks' anymore we were heading back to laughter with a gentle reminder that it as easy to spiral up as it is to spiral down you just need to change direction.
Gratitude today to Mike's gadget, the curiosity of children and a pineapple which sacrificed itself in the name of family intervention.
Gratefully,
Michelle
There is a saying in our home, "It's a short walk from laughter to tears" That phrase was coined for nights like this. It started innocently enough with the regular bantering and bickering around the supper table. The kids poking fun at one another, Dad getting in on the act. KJ spilling chicken noodle soup on her freshly self laundered shirt and pants. A few ohhs and ahhs, a smart remark about karma and KJ was quickly to terms with her need to perform laundry duties again.
Best line of the night goes to Lula. Just after the soup incident she looked across the table at KJ "You have a Jabba The Hut on your shirt, You know... like how some people see Jesus in their toast? Like that, only it's Jabba"
I laughed so hard my sides hurt but I wasn't in tears, not yet. We arrived at tears less than a minute and a half post Jabba sighting.
It started with a chicken soup noodle which lead to a child covered in mustard. You don't really need me to expand in detail, suffice it to say the decibel level in our home reached heights attainable only by teenage girls furiously vieing for fairness, consequence, expressive contempt and the title of 'right'.
Insert tears, internal gut wrenching - I've had enough tears (mine mostly).
Welcome to Mom-rant.
I was already there waiting for everyone else to catch up with me. I ranted about personal respect, appropriate behaviour, clogged toilets, plungers, cellphones, dog pee, homework, laundry, vacuuming, chores, suitcases, blankets, pop cans and socks. By the time I got to maxi pads and backpacks I had 2 cell phones, an Ipod and the first born child of each one of my kids.
I also had a huge case of "who decided that I was capable of this doing this job?" That's a bad place for moms. It leads to one of two destinations; 'I'll show you' or 'My kids are doomed'. I turned left and march right into 'I'll show you.' I stood in the heart of the house and summoned all inhabitants back the table where the wheels fell off. I had some things to say. Mostly things like 'I've had enough' and 'there are going to be some changes around here'. I have some really great tools in the 'family tune-up' kit.
Nobody rushed to the table. For a few minutes I sat there alone organizing my thoughts, preparing my stance, outlining my strategy, starring at a pineapple. It took Mike a few minutes to herd every one to the conference. In those few minutes the pineapple had talked me down off my ledge.
Instead of launching into my speech when all seats were filled, I left the table to grab a cutting board, my chef's knife, a bowl and Mike's brand-new-never seen before-who knows if it works-pineapple slicer. I laid everything out in the middle of the table and sat back. Somebody was going to pay for the atmosphere in the house, it might as well be a pineapple.
Gratitude today to Mike's gadget, the curiosity of children and a pineapple which sacrificed itself in the name of family intervention.
Gratefully,
Michelle
Saturday, November 19, 2011
At the End of My USB
I was all set to begin this morning. I had the energy from a well rested sleep, the solitary time to write (the singular advantage of waking at 5 am by rote on Saturday morning) and I had the story. Actually I started out with a brain clogged with words, stories, annoyances and refection.Writing is a pleasure that has been just out of arms reach for a little too long. I can see the top of the counter I simply can't reach the cookie jar!
Somewhere between making coffee and feeding the cat I decided that I wanted to share our recent bookstore adventure. Bookstore adventures always begin with a suggestion and end with Michael tugging at my coat to extricate me from the store, as I grasp at books along the way to soak into memory before we are gone. I could quite easily be turned into a bookstore Gollem, left their long enough. I'm the one in the dark recesses cracking spines, sniffing pages and telepathically manipulating others out of my bookstore bubble. No excursion to the world of ink and words is ever quick, painless, or cheap.
So that is where I was going to start. As I assembled coffee filters, water and grounds I assembled my thoughts. I fed the cat and reached for the camera, wanting to take pictures of my bookstore bounty to accompany my words.
I reached and it wasn't there, which isn't really surprising given my challenges with domestic engineering and household management. I never panic, it's always lurking somewhere. Usually, the somewhere is under a teatowl or in the fruit bowl, but this morning my search netted me nothing. This lead me to believe that it could be in the bathroom (what is up with kids taking pictures of themselves? Remember the days when you took pictures of your friends and they took pictures of you. Remember when you used to get the pictures back from the developer and plan a meet- up to look at the pictures, share a cocoa, some laughs and your doubles?) searching the bathroom for my camera really makes me miss the good old days.
Absent from the usual haunts, I decided that perhaps Michael used the camera. That being the case, the camera would be put away, Michael always does this, a habit that annoys me to no end. If I want to find something I hate finding it in the exact place it's suppose to be, we have 3 kids, were something is suppose to be is never the first place I look. I searched but came up empty handed. I'm not sure where the camera has gone to, I am confident however, that it will surface eventually, like missing converters and underwear the dog drags into the livingroom when company is over.
I may not have located my camera but Lula's was handy so I snatched it up, took a couple quick shots and immediately panicked. Pictures are only as good as the USB that sends them to your computer .....And my story changed.
This is where I have to locate the cable....
Every person with a cell phone and a camera has one of these drawers (that's what I tell myself to cope) In a home with 5 people we have a drawer of relevant cords, a basket of possibles and a box of no longers. Cell phones, cameras, video cameras, personal gaming systems, computers they all have cords, charges or adaptors and the only thing universal about them is their ability to instantaneously tie a stress knot in my frontal lobe the size of a softball. I always go into the drawer with a positive mindset, foolish in the belief that if I expect the right cord is there, it will be. Like driving to the front of the parking lot because you know a space is waiting there for you. My frame of mind performs a quick 360 when I fail to match the first cord to my device. Worse yet is thinking you have a match because it fits the device only to find that the opposing end is rigged for a purpose other than your task. More than once I've matched a wall charger to a computer connecting device.
So I hovered over the drawer of wires with camera trapped pictures in one hand and a mess of wires in the other, wishing I had a third hand to apply pressure to the throbbing vein in my temple. I plugged and unplugged, tried to fit round pegs into square holes, cursed silently and decided that suddenly my bookstore story wasn't so relevant or relateable. In fact my little bookstore story seemed like a lame trip through candyland on the way to a thrash metal rock concert palooza.
When I finally located the cord to match Lula's camera I rewarded myself by taking a picture of my defeated opponent.
I also considered that perhaps after writing my frustration out of my brain, I should probably take a time out. Reflect on the power a drawer full of cords has over my Psyche, and find some peace.
Gratitude for the book that might just have the answer "God Never Blinks 50 lessons for life's little detours" This fabulous little book is filled with reality check stories and insight. Michael picked it up on our recent bookstore adventure.
Michelle
Somewhere between making coffee and feeding the cat I decided that I wanted to share our recent bookstore adventure. Bookstore adventures always begin with a suggestion and end with Michael tugging at my coat to extricate me from the store, as I grasp at books along the way to soak into memory before we are gone. I could quite easily be turned into a bookstore Gollem, left their long enough. I'm the one in the dark recesses cracking spines, sniffing pages and telepathically manipulating others out of my bookstore bubble. No excursion to the world of ink and words is ever quick, painless, or cheap.
So that is where I was going to start. As I assembled coffee filters, water and grounds I assembled my thoughts. I fed the cat and reached for the camera, wanting to take pictures of my bookstore bounty to accompany my words.
I reached and it wasn't there, which isn't really surprising given my challenges with domestic engineering and household management. I never panic, it's always lurking somewhere. Usually, the somewhere is under a teatowl or in the fruit bowl, but this morning my search netted me nothing. This lead me to believe that it could be in the bathroom (what is up with kids taking pictures of themselves? Remember the days when you took pictures of your friends and they took pictures of you. Remember when you used to get the pictures back from the developer and plan a meet- up to look at the pictures, share a cocoa, some laughs and your doubles?) searching the bathroom for my camera really makes me miss the good old days.
Absent from the usual haunts, I decided that perhaps Michael used the camera. That being the case, the camera would be put away, Michael always does this, a habit that annoys me to no end. If I want to find something I hate finding it in the exact place it's suppose to be, we have 3 kids, were something is suppose to be is never the first place I look. I searched but came up empty handed. I'm not sure where the camera has gone to, I am confident however, that it will surface eventually, like missing converters and underwear the dog drags into the livingroom when company is over.
I may not have located my camera but Lula's was handy so I snatched it up, took a couple quick shots and immediately panicked. Pictures are only as good as the USB that sends them to your computer .....And my story changed.
This is where I have to locate the cable....
Every person with a cell phone and a camera has one of these drawers (that's what I tell myself to cope) In a home with 5 people we have a drawer of relevant cords, a basket of possibles and a box of no longers. Cell phones, cameras, video cameras, personal gaming systems, computers they all have cords, charges or adaptors and the only thing universal about them is their ability to instantaneously tie a stress knot in my frontal lobe the size of a softball. I always go into the drawer with a positive mindset, foolish in the belief that if I expect the right cord is there, it will be. Like driving to the front of the parking lot because you know a space is waiting there for you. My frame of mind performs a quick 360 when I fail to match the first cord to my device. Worse yet is thinking you have a match because it fits the device only to find that the opposing end is rigged for a purpose other than your task. More than once I've matched a wall charger to a computer connecting device.
So I hovered over the drawer of wires with camera trapped pictures in one hand and a mess of wires in the other, wishing I had a third hand to apply pressure to the throbbing vein in my temple. I plugged and unplugged, tried to fit round pegs into square holes, cursed silently and decided that suddenly my bookstore story wasn't so relevant or relateable. In fact my little bookstore story seemed like a lame trip through candyland on the way to a thrash metal rock concert palooza.
When I finally located the cord to match Lula's camera I rewarded myself by taking a picture of my defeated opponent.
I also considered that perhaps after writing my frustration out of my brain, I should probably take a time out. Reflect on the power a drawer full of cords has over my Psyche, and find some peace.
Gratitude for the book that might just have the answer "God Never Blinks 50 lessons for life's little detours" This fabulous little book is filled with reality check stories and insight. Michael picked it up on our recent bookstore adventure.
Funny how I've come back to that.
Spend some moment everyday in reflection of gratitude and happiness. Even if the time found is standing in line for coffee...use is wisely.
Michelle
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