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life lately in 5

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  One : Poor Maysie got spayed and had her dew claws removed last week. The weekend was sad and hard when she wasn’t feeling well, but we are glad the hardest part is over and she’s on the mend. She’s doing ok physically but her energy came back after 36 hours and it’s all we can do to keep her quiet. She has the cone through next Tuesday, so here’s hoping we can keep her healing and avoid too intense of cone bruises on our bodies, haha! Two : Thanksgiving is a whole thing because Maysie is tall enough to get her head on the table and counters (cone and all), but I think we have a plan to manage. I’m trying to make it easy on myself and baking off homemade Italian rolls on Wednesday instead of trying to time their rise and bake with a turkey on Thursday. We are also baking Lil Momma’s request of Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookies and the Mr’s “pumpkin pie from the can” on Wednesday, too, to simplify what has to happen on the day itself.  Three : I have a MRI on my back and hip...
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unexpected delivery

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  Maysie came to us with very little information; all they handed her over with just a folder of vaccine records. From our prior conversations, we had asked what food she was eating and I spent some serious time on the Google seeing if it available locally (no) or if I could get it added into our senior population dog’s auto-shipment from Chewy (also no). Finally, I found it a bag at a Walmart a ways away, but we knew we needed a more sustainable plan.  After the first weeks of chaos, I ordered a bag of food from Chewy to see if we could slowly make the switch for Maysie and then set up the auto-ship. After a messy week where we discovered she just didn’t like her original food but loved, loved, loved this new one, I went back into the app and set up the recurring order.  A week later, I received an email that the package had been delivered. It wasn’t on our side deck, nor on our front steps. It was downpouring and dark, but the Mr went outside to see if they left it in o...
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a minute on reading goals

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This is a new thing I’m trying to take things less seriously. One minute to jot down an idea, an intention, a smile in this space - nothing more and nothing less.  If I had more than a minute to write this, I’d talk about how personal goals have fallen by the wayside of caretaking and estate management and personal time functional freeze in these last few years or so. Or, about my relationship to reading and how it makes me feel like me even when I haven’t read as much in my life. Or about how much I am grateful to have books and the library and reading back in my life in this moment.   But I don’t. So, I won’t, haha!   What I will say is that I found myself at the end of October dangerously close to having read 100 books this year with 76 done. (Don’t ask me how many DNFs. Oof. So many recently, too. SIGH!)   Now, I don’t usually read to a number. Honestly, I just feel lucky to be finding pockets of time for myself to read at all vs. just freezing or doomscrolling o...
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a minute on a Sunday (1)

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  This is a new thing I’m trying to take things less seriously. An idea, an intention, a smile jotted down in this space - nothing more and nothing less.  Maysie and I were doing an early morning walk around our chilly yard when I saw her pause and notice… something. We stood together in the emerging sun and wet, cold grass (my toes!), and then I heard it, too: a slight quiet fluttering in the woods.  All of a sudden, I saw it! It was the leaves falling from the tallest trees and getting caught in branches and vines as they fell. Gold and maroon in the green and brown. We could hear fall, it was happening right there in front of us. Maysie started from the pause, ready to keep circling and sniffing while I followed so grateful I had left my phone inside and was out there with my eyes and attention. 
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when DNFs fight back

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I am a library person. Right now, 100% of the books I read come from my local library. My holds list is a source of joy and I’m so grateful that the library part of a system that will get me books from other libraries and allow me to request books that aren’t currently in any of the catalogs.   Over the last 2 months, I’ve had a library experience that I’ve never had before, and it threw my routine into such a tizzy. And I say that as someone who just got a puppy and lives in chaos.  Months ago, I had gotten on the hold list for the sequel to very popular book club read from a couple of years ago. I had mildly enjoyed the first book and just like to put in holds for sequels because the list gets so long. The book finally landed with me in late July and I saved it for our family vacation in New Hampshire in early August.  Unfortunately, I read the first chapter the day before we left and absolutely knew it was not for me. It very well may be for lots and lots of people, bu...
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pupdate #1

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Things have been… a lot. Work, parenting, puppies, estates, etc. Rather than saying nothing, here’s a list about our newest love, Maysie the Bernedoodle.  She’s so much bigger than we expected. She’s so “long” and has these huge paws. But, she’s all fluff! You can feel her poor ribs under all that hair. We are working to catch her up on weight now that she’s off the antibiotic, but it’s going to take a bit.  Maysie does a downward dog stretch on the top stair every time I take her out, which makes me think of Nicole .  Maysie just finished her vaccines so we can start walking her and taking her places to socialize, which is great. She’s a little shy around people indoors, but does much better with the space of outside (well, our backyard so far).  Maysie loves leaves. And eating things off the ground. And sticks.  Maysie does not love moths, however, as we’ve learned during a choppy battle by moonlight.  She’s almost 5 months old, so she still naps a few ti...
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on plans and puppies

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  I think where we left off was that my little family was getting a puppy in the latter half of September?   I’m allergic to everything, so we had to make some concessions in breed. I so want to be the person to walk into a shelter and save a pup, but we had been waiting for a year for a dog that wouldn’t turn me into a sneezy, hivey mess and that just didn’t happen. So, we researched ethical companies and found one that could help us get a 18-week-old    Bernedoodle from Wisconsin to us here in Massachusetts.  LM has been so excited to dive into puppy prep; she also won the name voting with “Maysie”, named after a character from Seussical the Musical . We got Maysie a crate, worked on ways to separate her and our senior population Morkie, Bella, and dove in to house decluttering while waiting for our transport weekend.  We were supposed to get a call on Saturday letting us know she was dropped off with the transporter. LM and I had seen a play the night be...
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