Adjusting

So, our first day, and a work day st that, in our new home. L & D have been kind enough to open their doors to us and give us somewhere to regroup.

Last night we got here after work and I was disoriented. I did what I always do in such a situation and began cooking and cleaning. By the time they git home, the kitchen was clean and a pot of spaghetti sauce was simmering on the stove.

One of our co-workers, and a mutual friend, stopped by to visit. We all talked and laughed for a few hours. It was a nice change to the completely anti-social atmosphere of where we've been.

By 2:30 am, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I feel into a dead, dreamless, sleep and didn't know anything else till almost 9 am. With my insomnia, that's quite a stretch.

This morning, I awoke feeling more rested than I have in months!

I won't lie and say that a small part of me doesn't feel guilty for being the first to go, but my heart, mind, body and soul need to start healing. It's over anyway, so why prolong it?

The stress isn't over yet, I know. We still have to get our stuff and I'm sure there will be guilt involved, but I know I still have Man-hide and good friends and at the end of the day, I have peace.

Until next time...love, light & happiness

Everything's Changing

Everything is about to change. We are finally moving out and moving on. I can't say that I'm happy about the circumstances, but I can say that I think it was inevitable.

Even though no one has wanted to see it or admit it, things have been moving in that direction for a while.

We will be going to stay with friends in a few weeks while we try to put things together to get our own place.

I wish we could just go on in to our own place from here, but we've put everything in here. It's going to take us a minute to put together deposits and find something we can agree on.

We went and got boxes last night, but that was as far as we got. It still seems a little surreal.

I've been quiet lately for a number of reasons. Events leading up to this hasn't left me much time to myself. Maybe as we finish this chapter in our lives, we'll be able to take stock again and decide where we go from here.

Blog Dare ~ Road Trips

I realized, somewhat belatedly, that starting a new blog challenge during my work week(end), may not have been the best idea I've ever had.  I wasn't able to post yesterday for the March 5th prompt, which was "What I  never leave behind on a road trip" so I want to do that one today.

The actual prompt for today is about Pinterest, but I have to be honest, I never really got caught in the craze.  I made an account and pinned a few things to see what all the fuss was about, but it just never caught on with me.

So, a day late, here is my post about road trips.

Image via Wikipedia

Road trips, of every imaginable variety, have always been part of my life.  My great-aunt that I lived with until I was 12 was forever going on trips, rides, vacations, etc.  My parents loved the mountains and we were always taking rides and vacations every year (and we always traveled by car).

As an adult myself, I've made going for road trips a part of my life, as well as my daughter's.  I wanted to share the beauty of the world with her, and I did.

One thing that has been ever-present on my road trips was a cooler.  Always packed with drinks for the trip, but often it was also packed with sandwiches and snacks.  Many impromptu picnics have happened next to a lazy stream, a roaring waterfall, or a look-out on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Image via Wikipedia

One of my favorite memories of my little family from when my daughter was about 7 or 8 was a summer day in my old pick-up truck, just the 3 of us out exploring the world with our trusty cooler packed in the floorboard of the space-cab.  It was loaded down with soft drinks, juice, ham sandwiches, fruit, and a box of Little Debbie cakes.  We headed for the mountains and ended up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  After about half an hour, I saw a breath-taking view and a pull-off.

We sat on the tailgate of the truck and enjoyed the view while Mini-Me looked through the viewer set up to take quarters.  I pulled the blanket and cooler out of the truck and we had a picnic, in the bed of the truck, with one of the most spectacular views in the world.  Had I not packed that cooler to take with us, we never would have had that memory.

One final thing that has always been a major part of our road trips was music.  A good radio station with a strong signal, (cassette tapes back in the day), CD's, a good playlist, whatever floats your boat, but music is crucial on a road trip.  I've cruised many a road to the beat of Green Day, Third Eye Blind, Alanis Morsette and many more favorites.  The three of us singing at the tops of our lungs as we boogied our way through our rides made the day that much more enjoyable!

What do you consider a must-have for a road trip?  Leave me a comment, or go link up with Blog Dare!

Blog Dare ~ Goals for Spring

Today, I joined up with Bloggy Moms and the Blog Dare Challenge.  The idea is for them to offer a prompt for every day of this year (366 days since it's a Leap Year).  Today's prompt asked what our goals for Spring are. Here are mine.

1. Get the enrollment started for school.
2. Find a job, either through the school, or on my own, working with animals.
3. Get us in a better financial situation for when we move this summer.
4. Go through all the boxes and bags packed up in the attic, building and on the back porch so that we know what we have, and what we don't have, for the move.
5. Decide on the area we will move to. (Close to Man-Hide's job, close to the school I will be attending, or close to the shelter where we volunteer)
6. Continue on the medications I've started taking and work on improving myself even more.

This is the short list.  I'm sure if I had more time, I could think of more, but the day has gotten away from me and now it's time to get ready for work.  I'll be back tomorrow though with my answer for the prompt "What I never leave behind on a road trip."

Until next time...love, light and happiness!

Celebrating the right way

As I mentioned, March 1st was my 37th birthday.  Most of the time, my birthdays are a little "lack-luster".  I generally get a "Happy Birthday" or two here and there, but there usually isn't much celebrating to be had.  This year was different.

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Wednesday, the day before my birthday, BFF, her daughter and her boyfriend, took us out to lunch to celebrate.  They took us to somewhere we'd never been, a restaurant called Ramano's Macaroni Grill.  I had the Lobster Ravioli and now I'm on a quest to find a recipe for it.  Man-Hide swears we will find one, and that he'll make it for me, but so far, none of the recipes I've found sound quite like the real thing.

I'm not kidding about how good this dish was!  Let's put it this way, I'm sure you've heard of the Food Network Show, "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" where all the famous chefs get on there and talk about the best dish they've ever eaten and where they got it from, right?  Well, if I was a famous foodie on that show, that would totally be my pick.  It was fantastic!

They also bought me a cake with my name on it.  I had a blast and I will love BFF for forever for trying to make my birthday special!

After that, we went to our 2nd orientation at the Humane Society.  We were expecting a large group of people again, like it was at the 1st one, but it ended up just being us and the lady doing the orientation.  With my social anxiety disorder, that was awesome!

I got a BIG birthday surprise while we were there, too.

At our first orientation, we were told that we'd be starting in March sometime, but last week, I saw on their Facebook page that they were having some trouble with their system and that the lady in charge of setting everyone's schedules had lost everyone's email address.  Per her request, I dutifully sent in ours.  Her response was to say she appreciated it, but unfortunately, everything was now behind because of this system crash.  She'd get me a schedule as soon as she could.  I was disappointed to say the least, but tried to take it in stride.

Since we were the only people to show up for the 2nd orientation, and the lady doing the schedules was there, we were given our schedules on the spot, and since we'd put Thursdays on our availability, we were penciled in for the very next day, Thursday, which just happened to also be my birthday!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Thursday, we were up and raring to go early and went and did a little of our weekly shopping and errands, then we were off to the Humane Society for our first official day as Volunteers.

When we first got there, in spite of the two orientations we'd been through, we were still a little disoriented.  We wanted to start with the Rescue Room, (which is where all the new animals go that are waiting for a clean bill of health from the vet tech, or behavior testing, or maybe just an open kennel on the floor.  This is a different room than the regular kennel area that the public sees.) but the kennel worker was cleaning their kennels, so we decided to wait.  We checked the Isolation room, but all the doggies in there were too young to be walked yet (and they have to be walked at the end of your shift with special leashes in a separate area so they don't get the other doggies sick), so we headed for the main kennels.

There was already a volunteer there that was letting the doggies out for free-play in the yard kennel by kennel, so we just kind of jumped in and started rotating kennels.  She would take one kennel resident out on a leash to the field and we would wait for her to get out of the gate, then we'd let the next kennel out for free-play.  When she would get ready to come back in, we'd leash our charges and get them back in the kennels so she could bring her charge through the yard.  (You have to keep dogs from different kennels separated because they might not get along.  Not all dogs at the Humane Society are necessarily good with other dogs.)

We did this until she left, then Man-Hide and I just started going kennel by kennel, taking them out to walk.

I walked one old girl named Emma.  She's a yellow lab, about 8 years old, arthritic and a little over-weight.  I bonded with her immediately.

As I walked behind her and watched her booty bounce with every step, I told her it looked like we had some things in common.  It was my birthday, after all, and I was feeling my age right about then (about an hour in to our session and I'd been chasing puppies all morning).  I could imagine our booties bouncing in unison as we walked around the field.

A little later, we finally made it to the Rescue Room, where I met the most adorable Boston Terrier named Angel.  Now, as you can guess, we have a passion for anything bulldog, and Bosties and Frenchies are both a breed of bull-dog, but they are small and manageable and, frankly, easier to get a place to live with.  When we get our own place, we fully intend to own one or the other.

Angel's paperwork listed her at about 8 years old (like Emma) but with a digestive problem that required a special diet (this is why she was still in the Rescue Room).  We took her out and enjoyed a nice walk around the field, just like with Emma, but Angel decided to take a break about half-way back to the fence, so we sat down with her in the grass and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, one of the Adoption Counselors headed our way.  To begin with, I thought we'd done something wrong and they were coming after us, but as she neared, she said Angel's new family was there to pick her up!  She got adopted practically right out of my arms!

I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how I would handle dogs I bonded with getting adopted to someone other than me.  I was afraid I'd be sad and maybe even cry, but when we got there, we found out Georgia had been adopted and then Angel gets adopted practically from my arms.  I was thrilled for both of them!  Now I understand how people manage to work in shelters.  There is serious satisfaction in knowing one of "yours" found a home and that you made a really stressful time in their lives just a little bit better.

After we finished up at the shelter, we went up to Bald Rock.  For those that know me, this is a religious experience.  I find so much peace with myself and my life up there, and it was exactly what I needed after all the stress and drama I've been dealing with.  We even took some pictures while we were there, but I've been having a hard time getting around to getting them off of Man-Hide's phone (my battery goes dead the minute I think the word "camera").

All in all, it was an awesome birthday!  Truly one of my best yet!

Love, light and happiness...until next time!

She's Home

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I finally get a day off that isn't filled with running, going and doing.  Ok, so I have stuff to do this evening, but right now, I'm just kicking back and trying to enjoy a relaxed morning.

Mom is home from the hospital now and she has nurses and technicians in and out daily.  This morning, someone is coming to draw blood.  Tomorrow, someone else is coming to install a machine in the kitchen that she can weigh on and test her blood pressure daily.

She came home Friday night while we were at work and it's been good to have her home.  It's taken some adjusting, and she isn't at full-strength, but I'm just happy to come home and see her sitting in her chair in the living room again.  It was getting hard to come in and out every day and see it looking so empty and forlorn.

Dad's still struggling with good days and bad days, but Mom, as always, takes the brunt of it.  I think she's just relieved that she got to come home and he was still here.  There were a few days that we were afraid we might have to seek outside help, but we managed to get through it.

Tonight, we go for our 2nd orientation (the actual volunteer orientation).  I was supposed to go get an eye exam and some glasses today, but that's not going to happen.  After the orientation, I'm not sure what we're doing, other than maybe going to see our BFF.

Tomorrow is my birthday though.  I'll  be 37.  Yeah, I said it.  40 just seems to loom closer and closer on my horizon.  What happened to 30???

Life is moving along.  I did go yesterday to the herbal store and picked up some new medicine.  So far, it seems to be helping.  That's always a good thing.

So that's it for me today.  I wish I had something more exciting or entertaining to share, but right now, I just can't think of anything.

Love, light and happiness....until next time...

Hanging out

Sometimes you just need a break and today was my day.

Yes, I got a lot done today, but now, I'm just taking a second with Man-hide to breathe.

Everyone needs that once in a while.

So, no long post today, just a quick hello.

Until next time...love, light & happiness.