not necessarily in this order

  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...

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...

  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...

 Life is life-ing. It’s all happening all the time. We are a week from Lil Momma’s 12th birthday. We are two weeks from school starting. This weekend is the Mr and my 20th anniversary. I’m so unprepared for all of this. But that is not my story for tonight.  I was taking Bella, our senior Morkie (Maltese/Yorkshire Terrier) out, something that’s only my job when the Mr is at dart night. It was dark, I was tired and sore from a long walking day in office, Bella was over it and just wanted her three treats I owed her once we got back in the house.  As we came up the deck stairs to head in through our sliding glass doors, my hair got caught on the branches of a hanging plant. Easily remedied, right?  NO! IT WASN’T! Why? Because THINGS FLEW OUT of the hanging plant and I felt them on my head. ON MY HEAD. Although I love the memes of how bats look like dancing emo goths, I am deeply afraid of bats getting caught in my hair (because it happened to me once).  I screamed...

  Thanks to everyone for the kind words about my car kerfuffle. I felt so much better knowing there were people out there who understand! My claim with their insurance remains open - I received a letter from them asking me to get in contact so the Mr and I are going to call together later this week.  This was supposed to be a “what I listened to…” from my 90-minute drive each way to start clearing out my aunt’s house this past Saturday, but I had a truly on brand but still eye-opening moment that I’m choosing to write about first, haha!  My aunt’s house is old - 1800s, I believe - and there are so many level differences between the rooms. I was upstairs with my cousin and her son when someone rang the bell. I was so thrown off (this was the first time I’d been in the house, I hadn’t seen my cousin in 10 years) that I got freaked out that someone was there. I flew down the stairs - with her son in hot pursuit! The living room floor was 2 inches lower than the kitchen, so w...

When Lil Momma was a tiny thing and it was winter, one of our favorite things to do was to pack up a snack-heavy picnic lunch and drive somewhere just the right amount of far away. We’d go for a chilly walk in the woods or we’d go stand near the ocean and just freeze to see the water and jump back in the car and go grab hot chocolates. Then, we’d park in front of a beautiful view and have a car picnic with some fun tunes on the radio. (For LM’s younger years, the rotation was very Taylor Swift heavy, haha!). We’d chat and eat and warm up and sip our fun drinks and it was just this little moment of joy and good bit of distraction during those toddler and preschool years.  I’m in the position, like I have been in recent years, of having to burn vacation time during the last two months of the year. Note, being more intentional with my paid time off is one of my birthday goals for next year . I try to stay out of the house while the Mr. is working and it’s been a really fun challenge ...

We really did have a great time in NH. We did everything on our list: We saw waterfalls! We went on rides! We went out to breakfast! But, as a lot of things do right now, the whole thing felt so shaky and precarious. We are in one of those weird seasons where everything feels so wrought with meaning because it’s all the firsts – our first NH vacation where we didn’t have to wait for a call about my mom or have me on the phone with an ER or nurse. It puts a weird “supposed to” energy on things because we no longer have this elephant in the room, but we also are still finding our balance in this next part of life. So, when the boarding place called to say Bella might have a UTI but they weren’t worried about it, it was like muscle memory to start worrying.    <<this part isn’t too graphic, but it just talks about pet ick a bit, so SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAGH if you need to, but know Bella was sicker than a “don’t worry about it”, sigh.    A few months ago, Bella had...

  What a rollercoaster of a week. It’s sometimes hard to share about Lil Momma’s big life; her privacy is always the priority. However, we went through a weird parenting and social experience that I think I can explore a little without breaking the trust I have with my girl.   Getting a “lead” in her musical theater class’s recital show has been a goal for LM since she started lessons 5 years ago. She’s seen her elementary school classmates who also go to this school excel; lead roles, asked to be on the competition team, etc.; and it’s been a lot of long conversations for us about opportunities and timing and growth and proving herself and, on the other side, how “fair” is a social construct and we don’t control some of these things and how there will be other opportunities to perform there and other places in the future. She has a whole life ahead of her and also has a very fulfilling set of dance classes and competition teams at a different studio, too.   So, when LM g...

After being an avid blog reader for years, what finally gave me the boost to start this wildly random space was last year’s #NaBloPoMo ( National Blog Posting Month  - see San’s amazing write up  here ). I  love the heartfelt posts, the random posts, the struggling for topics posts… November isn’t always the easiest month but having the content helps keep me content and I’m awed by the creativity and consistency these writers display day after day. Slowly, I  dared to start commenting after years and years as a lurker and then, mid-December, I went for it and started posting myself here.  For a year where I hoped to be steady , I’ve had more than a few wobbles. I know this isn’t my year to commit to the finish line, but I hope to comment as much as I can and write here when I can - consider it practice for next year? (possibly) (no promises)  Here’s nighttime Harold just for fun!