Tag: women

Writer’s Block

What do you do when you want to write and nothing will come out?  I’m been sitting here for over an hour staring at the computer, playing solitaire off and on hoping for inspiration to strike me from – somewhere – I don’t know.  Maybe if I knew, then the words and thoughts would start to flow.  There are so many things I want to say but for some reason, no cognitive thought let alone creative thought has come to me. 

It’s enough to make me crazy.  How do I progress and improve as a writer if I can’t get past this huge wall in front of me?

Fast and Deadly Charlie

Charlie once again proved that he is a fast and deadly hunter.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.  I let the three dogs out to do their business and Charlie shot up the steps, and disappeared behind the car before I could run up the steps behind him.  As I walked to the back of the car I heard a squeal and found Charlie flinging a squirrel to the ground.  Evidently he had run it down before the squirrel could get to the safety of a tree.  I called him off the wounded squirrel before he and the other dogs could finish it off.  The squirrel laid on the ground panting heavily for a few moments before getting up and scrambled to the closest tree, barely escaping death. 

I took the dogs back inside and checked Charlie for any wounds from the squirrel and found a couple of places below his right eye that looked like the squirrel had scratched him trying to get away.  I cleaned the scratches up and put ointment on them.  He looked up at me with a quizzical look of his face.  He wanted me to proud of him for his quickness and precision at snagging his prey and a part of me was.  I’m proud that he is fast and doesn’t have any hesitation when going after prey.  When we’re pheasant hunting it’s important that the dog is willing and without any hesitation, rushes into brush, tall grasses and plum thickets to flush and retrieve birds.  But at the same time I was appalled that he ran the squirrel down, grabbed it, flung it to the ground and if I hadn’t stopped him, he would have gone back in for the kill. 

Does that make me a hypocrite, it’s okay for us to hunt and shoot pheasants (we do eat them), but not let the dogs do what comes naturally to them?  It’s not like squirrels are on the endangered species list, and are terribly destructive, but somehow my sense of fair play was bothered by it all.  I felt bad for the squirrel and at the same time was proud that Charlie had once again proven that he will be an asset when we go pheasant hunting this fall.

My Burr-Fect Dogs

All three covered in stick tights, happy and tired after a three mile hike.

Charlie always on the hunt.

 

Orso, watching the others and waiting.

Games dogs play

Cooler weather means more wrestling

 

 A great game of keep away

What Do You Think – I Want Your Feedback

I’ve updated the look of my blog site and would love any feedback on the look.

Come on in the Water’s Fine

Cooling off before finishing the hike

My Mental Health Day

I took a mental health day today.  It’s just the dogs and me today and I decided that I needed a day to do something that I really love to do, (besides going wine tasting).  I mulled over all the different things I would really love to do if I had a day all to myself.  The winner hands down is taking the dogs hiking someplace pretty rugged and primitive.  There is a place not far from here that fits the bill perfectly.  The only problem is that I’ve only been there once and am not sure how exactly to get there, so I came up with the most logical solution.  I co-oped a friend of ours that takes his dogs there all the time to take us along. 

I’m so excited, the weather will be great, 58 degrees this morning with a high of 70.  The dogs are already out of control, using the front room as their personal wrestling arena, killing time chewing on each other’s faces.  I know, we’re really warped.

I promised that I would wait until 8:45 before calling our friend, but could only make to 8:30.  Thankfully he was up and had started on his first cup of coffee.  I loaded up the dogs and headed his way.  The morning was beautiful.  Sunny and cool, perfect for a hike.  The dogs were so excited, pacing around the back of the station wagon on the drive over.  We parked the cars, unloaded the dogs, he brought one of his, Stella, a Belgian Malinois mix.  She weighs in at about 65 pounds and the sweetest little girl.  The dogs could barely contain their enthusiasm, all the smells calling them, teasing them.  They were in sensory nirvana.  They all headed off down the road, sniffing and peeing on every weed, AJ immediately took a dump right in the middle of the road.  The first of many this morning.  That’s my AJ. 

Charlie ran back and forth across the path and into the underbrush and woods around us, always on the hunt searching for a promising scent.  What surprised us both was Stella was right on his heels the entire hike, following him everywhere.  Charlie acted like they had been hunting buddies forever.  For Charlie, that’s really something.  AJ and Orso stayed pretty close to the path and us, not wandering too far, but we would have call Charlie and Stella back often.  Neither one of us wanted to try out my de-skunking kit. 

We were the only ones out there.  It was wonderful.  A truly refreshing, relaxing and invigorating mental health day.  I can’t wait to go again.

The Great Bathroom Remodel

I can finally see the end of the tunnel.  The walls are all painted, two were even painted twice.  While caulking the tub, the alcohol that Mitch was using to cut the silicone, exploded from the bottle and splashed down two walls.  Guess what?  Alcohol doesn’t wash off.  So he had to re-paint those two walls.  It seems the curse continues.  We finally decided on the granite for the countertop and it’s laying on the floor in the living room to be installed after the final coat of stain dries on the base cabinet. 

We ultimately agreed on shower doors over shower curtains.  That took a long time to find The One, but we did.  That has been installed.  Of course installing a shower door with all of the parts didn’t go as easily as it would for normal people.  Mitch had to make a trip to the hardware store for longer anchors, I guess we have a fat tub.

All that’s left to do is hang the trim around the doors, install the crown molding, hang the upper cabinet, set the granite countertop and tile around the base of the walls to create a baseboard.  Oh, and install the towel bars and the shelving units in the closets.

I’ve thought about taking an inaugural shower, but decided against it because I know what would happen.  If Mitch discovered that we could actually use the bathroom before the total completion, there would never be a total completion.  We would limp along with a half finished bathroom, saying we need to get this done and never do.

I think we might just survive this remodel.  It’s been a tough one.

Mine!

Nothing like a good game of tug o war to start the day on a cool September morning.