Tag: writing

Thursday Poetry

The Face in the Mirror

Looking in the mirror she sees a stranger
The reflection looking back is no longer beautiful
The eyes that once sparkled now hard and cold
The lips usually curved up in a smile now in a downward turn.

The anger and resentment within seeps out
Hardening the heart and soul
A tear slips down her cheek
As she ponders how she came to this end.

She misses the days past filled with hope and laughter
The excitement of each new day
Now dreading the days and what they hold
She turns away ashamed of what she’s become.

Late Summer Photos

Today started off with early morning storms and the afternoon was cloudy and humid. A perfect day to take my camera and the dogs for a walk. A few late summer wildflowers are blooming away.

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The neighbor’s car watched us go by without looking too concerned

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Another neighbor’s bumper crop of peppers, I never have this kind of luck with peppers

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Their tomatoes are doing even better, I am so jealous. They have a green thumb, I have an Orso.

Exercising With Your Dogs

You hear it all the time; get more exercise in by walking your dog. It’s supposed to be a win-win situation. The dog benefits by getting needed exercise, stays slimmer and burns off energy. You are moving more working your muscles and getting your heart rate up also staying slimmer and wears you out. Of course we all know how well my walks with dogs go in the morning. My heart rate definitely raises and I work lots of muscles, upper body and locked legs doing the “no, no, no” extensions when confronted with wildlife.

Yesterday in a further attempt to get back in shape after three surgeries in a twelve month period, I decided to start doing Yoga at home. I loaded the Yoga DVD in the DVD player, pushed the coffee table out of the way, unrolled my yoga mat and sat down for the opening breathing exercises. I was immediately face to face with Charlie who wanted to help me by sticking his nose right in my face to make sure I was breathing correctly. I pushed him away but he pushed right back and got even closer. He was determined to help me breathe. I tried to ignore him and stood up to move to the next series of moves. I dropped to plank and Charlie dropped down right next to me too. I sank into cobra pose and Charlie scooted closer. I moved into downward dog and Charlie rolled over onto his back right underneath me and whacked my face with his paw in an attempt to get me to pet him.

This was turning into more effort to avoid him than in doing the yoga moves. Cat/cow was equally a challenge because now Orso had decided that watching Charlie annoy me to distraction looked like lots of fun and jumped off the bed to come and join in helping me exercise. As I arched my back for cow and looked up I got a great big wet slobbery kiss from Orso right in the face. Yuck! That almost caused me to drop on the floor and squish Charlie who was still underneath me being a huge pain in my backside. I pushed Orso aside, tried to move into child’s pose and ended up putting my knees on Charlie’s tail. It did not make him happy. He jumped up causing me to jerk and lose my balance falling over into the coffee table, cracking my elbow on the table’s edge.

That definitely got my heart rate up.

Summer is Here Now but Just Wait

We’re having the usual August heat wave, which seems so much more miserable because this summer we have been very lucky to have had very pleasant temperatures in the eighties instead of the usual nineties. But just in case we’re feeling sorry for ourselves and wishing for some cooler temperatures I just want to remind everyone of what is coming sooner than we want.

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Charlie Always on the Hunt

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Just saying, it may be hot now but way too soon it will be cold and miserable.

Poetry Tuesday

What We Miss

When we close our eyes
A wink
A smile
A tongue sticking out

When we stop listening
A giggle
A sigh
A whisper

When we turn away
A tear sliding down a cheek
Arms reaching out
An embrace

Almost Fatal Attraction

I almost died this morning. No, not really, I’m exaggerating but it sure felt like it for a moment or at the very least I could have ended up with a really bad case of road rash, maybe even a bruise or two. And as is almost always the case, it was because of the dogs. Those miserable mongrel beasts that I feed, walk and let sleep in my house as well as my bed. Let me put it in perspective for you, I am five foot two inches tall and weigh in at a little over a hundred plus pounds, I’m not giving exact weight that’s only for the scale and me, but you can see that I am not a super big imposing person. The dogs on the other hand come in at one hundred and seventy plus pounds together, with Orso at a hundred and one and Charlie at seventy one pounds. Plus they both have way more muscle mass than two other people and me put together. Even though they are both senior dogs, Orso is eight and Charlie will be ten on Halloween, they can still get to afterburner speed when they are so inclined.

Our morning walks are always in the predawn hours when the creatures of the night are still out carousing and the morning animals are starting to stir. Most mornings I can hear owls calling out to other owls and a few of the early birds that are just waking up. It’s quite common to see raccoons, opossums and deer in the dim light. Because of that I am always on high alert making sure I see anything before the dogs hone in on it, causing them to bolt and charge after the object of their desire, thus making me a boat anchor dragging behind them. This has happened too many times to count. I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for more than one vacation for my chiropractor all from walking the dogs.

This morning started off very sedately, that’s how it always begins by the way. I get lulled into a false sense of security, a cool morning with fresh air and a slight breeze with the dogs sniffing and peeing on all of the bushes and trees strutting down the street like we are the only ones out this time of day. We had walked out to our time limit spot and had turned back to head home so I could jump in the shower and get ready for work. We had topped the hill and had headed down to round the curve in the road when Orso saw something and lunged forward to give chase with Charlie reacting a split second later. I was caught totally off guard, thinking about what I was going to wear to work, not paying attention and almost lost my balance. I came very close to actually falling down before I regained control and jerked on the leashes to yank them back. Orso turned and looked up at me with a very contrite look on his face and sat. Charlie on the other hand looked at me with a look that said, “It’s all the big dog’s fault, I was trying to save you. I would never have done that.”

It took a few minutes for my adrenaline level to get back to normal and my heart to stop pounding in my chest. I never did see what was out there in the dark that caused Orso to want to chase after, but I will definitely be watching a little closer tomorrow even though it won’t be there.

Rainy Sunday Photos

This morning started off with a few showers and cooler temperatures. As soon as the rain stopped I went out with my camera to capture a few shots. I need to find an umbrella for my camera so I can go out in the rain and get some really great shots.

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Dreams

Looking up at the night sky
Black with tiny lights filling the void
She dreams of faraway places
Free of pain and suffering.

A body racked with disease
The life force within waning
The pain taking its toll
Joints swollen too stiff to move.

She wishes for release from this tortured body
To soar amid the stars
To be light and free floating
To smile one more time.

Monday

Can I please just go back to bed and pull the covers over my head? It started yesterday when we came home around 12:30 and backed into the driveway. I pushed the transmitter button for the garage door operator and nothing happened. I pushed it again, still nothing, so I pushed the remote on my key ring thinking the battery must be dead. Nope, the door didn’t budge. Mitch got out of the car and walked up to the keypad on the garage and punched in the code, nothing. It finally dawned on me there was no power. The electricity was out, it was working just fine when I left to go get Mitch, the sky was perfectly clear no storms, so what had happened?

We walked in the house and sure enough the house had no power too, duh. That meant no air conditioning either. Super. We had friends coming over for dinner at 4pm, no power meant no stove, no lights and no dinner. We called around to make sure we weren’t alone in our misery and found out that a huge dead tree at the other end of the lake decided to fall over and take out the power lines with it. Everyone on our side of the lake from one end to the other had no power. Perfect just perfect. Power and Light crews were on the way, but I wasn’t sure if and when we would get power back on. I called our friends to ask if I could move the party and all the food to their house if the power didn’t come back soon enough. The power was restored about 2pm so we were back in business. I reset the clocks and figured we were good to go. Dinner was great and I totally forgot about the power outage.

Guess what, forgetting the power outage came back to haunt me this morning. When I walked into the kitchen to feed the dogs and check on the coffee pot I noticed that it had already filled the pot instead of just starting to brew and it dawned on me that I had forgotten to reset the clock when I went around resetting everything else, so it started brewing two hours earlier. I quickly reset the time so that won’t happen again and went about feeding the dogs. I took Mitch to work, walked the dogs and got ready for work myself. I walked into the kitchen to fill my thermos and saw the coffee maker was off. I put my hands around the carafe which was still warm but not hot. That’s when it dawned on me that when I reset the clock I forgot to reset the heating time. It has a two, three or four hour on timer and when the power is off it resets to two hours, thus making my coffee lukewarm and I hate lukewarm coffee. I had to fill the measuring cup with coffee and heat it in the microwave before filling the thermos. Microwaved coffee is not so tasty, but I can’t go without my coffee.

I thought, “Please nothing else can go wrong, pretty please.” I took the dogs outside for one last pee break before heading off to work and standing there as big as you please in the neighbor’s yard was a very large deer. The two charged off in hot pursuit, with me yelling, “No, no, no, get back here right now!” That took five minutes to get them back in the yard and in the house. I was not pleased at all. I grabbed two rawhide chews and marched into the living room to hand the chews out and get my stuff. Now I’m running behind and Orso is still pumped up about deer chasing and reaches up to snatch the chew from my hand and missed biting down on my thumb.

I am not holding out much hope for the rest of my day.

Team Work

Last weekend it was jack hammering this weekend it was woodwork. Cutting large boards with a table saw, carrying those large boards into the house and laying them just so to form a grid. Then making sure each board is level on both ends and in perfect alignment takes talent and patience. It is hard work and a long day for Mitch. At times his patience wears thin and when that happens, objects weighing less than him start flying across the room. Loud obscenities usually precede the flying debris, thus the phrase, “Mitch Fit Warning”. In light of last week’s mower debacle I decided that this weekend I would not try to accomplish any yard work and focus all of my energy on helping Mitch.

I did exactly that, I helped him by leaving first thing in the morning to go get a pedicure and do some shopping. Now before you think I was being selfish and only thinking of pampering myself while Mitch was slaving away working on the never ending home rehab, I’m here to tell you I was being totally selfless. You have no idea how hard it is to sit in a chair that vibrates and kneads your back and shoulders while a person sits at your feet massaging your legs and feet, then perfectly applying a sassy nail color to your toes. The sheer torture of having all of the tightness in your calves and feet rubbed out was almost more than I could bear. It’s a tough job but someone had to do it and it might as well had been me.

Don’t get me wrong, I was more than willing to stay home and help Mitch and offered many times but each time I asked if I could help he said no he was perfectly fine. He had everything under control. Besides he won’t let me do anything. He doesn’t trust me to run the saw, not because I might not cut the wood straight, he’s afraid I’ll cut off some appendage. He doesn’t let me carry the boards, too heavy and I might drop one on my foot or whack myself turning a corner. He won’t let me hammer, I might smash my thumb or hand or foot or whatever. Granted his fears are not baseless, I do have a history of self-mutilation, not on purpose, I would never intentionally hurt myself, I’m just a bit accident prone. It seems that body parts are always getting in the way of whatever it is I’m doing. So Mitch has become very bossy about what I get to do or not do around the house. The only reason I mow and not him is because he only mows in a straight line no matter what is in his path, it gets mowed.

Now when there is some really difficult DIY project I try to make myself as scarce as possible that way I don’t hear the obscenities and see the carnage. Mitch gets to vent and work through the problem and I get a pedicure and some new clothes. It’s a win-win situation.