I Gave In . . .
What a week!
I'm full swing into NaNoWriMo, currently clocked in at a little over 10k words. It's been harder this year-- not getting the words in or the writing time (I'm up at 4am every morning so I can do so) but because my confidence is shot. I still haven't finished an acceptable (to me) first draft of last year's novel, and I'm afraid this book is going to be a swampy mess too. Which is discouraging.
*deep breath* No need to be so negative, Heidi! (Just keep writing . . . .)
Anyway, remember how I posted about Peanut, our dog that died last year? After we lost Peanut, Terence was eager to get a new dog and I put my foot down, hard. I didn't want to go through that. I didn't want the extra responsibility. I didn't think Willow would adapt to a new dog. In short, Terence and I argued about it for months and months, neither of us willing to give in.
Those arguments went on hiatus for a little while because we took in a friend's dog when they moved. It was supposed to be temporary-- they weren't going to be closing on their new house for a month and couldn't keep Cooper with them while staying with relatives. Fortunately, even Terence agreed with me that three dogs was TOO MUCH, so the issue of getting another dog was tabled. Unfortunately, every time I spent any time at all with Cooper, I swore I was never getting another dog, ever. (He was not a good fit for our family, let's just leave it at that.)
One month came and went and there were issues with the house closing, and we ended up with Cooper even longer. This dragged on and on and on and I won't go into the details here, but in the end, Terence and I finally took Cooper into the local shelter and paid the surrender fee to turn him in. (It was amazing the weight that was lifted when we did that-- the shelter people said they had families that would snap him up right away so no guilt involved.) But of course, immediately after that Terence was arguing that we needed to get a dog. Not just a dog, but a puppy.
The thought made me cringe. Puppies are so much work. And I'm already stretched and trying to reduce my anxiety (got to keep that blood pressure down, you know?). So again, more heated disagreement. Terence was straight up saying that he was going to get a dog with or without my consent. I had people advising me to take the "me or the dog, buster" route.
What to do? Well, I took it all to my Heavenly Father in prayer. This was beyond me. I wasn't going to leave my husband over a dog, but I just couldn't cope with the idea of intentionally adding that to my plate either. My answer was a completely calming sense of peace. That everything was going to be OK. So I went ahead and told Terence he could choose a dog for an early Christmas present.
Here she is:
I went into this reluctantly. Really reluctantly. But oddly enough, though I never learned to more than tolerate Cooper, I love Rue already. (We had a family vote on the name, with Terence getting the final say since she is his dog. Rue got her name from the Hunger Games. Hopefully she'll have a better fate!)
We've got a long road ahead of us-- she is eight months old but has lived practically her whole life in the shelter. Open spaces terrify her. She's finally accepted that our little backyard is not too scary, and she'll venture out of her crate. Walking her has not been too successful yet; she gets frightened and lies down, refusing to budge. But she seems to have attached herself to everyone in the family (she's got a nervous truce going on with Willow-- mostly they ignore each other but whine like nuts if one of them leaves). The biggest thing that has to be taken care of is her nails. They are long and lethal, and we haven't trained her not to jump yet. Especially not on the kids. It will come. Hopefully. (That's Terence's job.)
Another adventure-- one that I had to jump into with faith. But so far I'm so happy we did.
I'm full swing into NaNoWriMo, currently clocked in at a little over 10k words. It's been harder this year-- not getting the words in or the writing time (I'm up at 4am every morning so I can do so) but because my confidence is shot. I still haven't finished an acceptable (to me) first draft of last year's novel, and I'm afraid this book is going to be a swampy mess too. Which is discouraging.
*deep breath* No need to be so negative, Heidi! (Just keep writing . . . .)
Anyway, remember how I posted about Peanut, our dog that died last year? After we lost Peanut, Terence was eager to get a new dog and I put my foot down, hard. I didn't want to go through that. I didn't want the extra responsibility. I didn't think Willow would adapt to a new dog. In short, Terence and I argued about it for months and months, neither of us willing to give in.
Those arguments went on hiatus for a little while because we took in a friend's dog when they moved. It was supposed to be temporary-- they weren't going to be closing on their new house for a month and couldn't keep Cooper with them while staying with relatives. Fortunately, even Terence agreed with me that three dogs was TOO MUCH, so the issue of getting another dog was tabled. Unfortunately, every time I spent any time at all with Cooper, I swore I was never getting another dog, ever. (He was not a good fit for our family, let's just leave it at that.)
One month came and went and there were issues with the house closing, and we ended up with Cooper even longer. This dragged on and on and on and I won't go into the details here, but in the end, Terence and I finally took Cooper into the local shelter and paid the surrender fee to turn him in. (It was amazing the weight that was lifted when we did that-- the shelter people said they had families that would snap him up right away so no guilt involved.) But of course, immediately after that Terence was arguing that we needed to get a dog. Not just a dog, but a puppy.
The thought made me cringe. Puppies are so much work. And I'm already stretched and trying to reduce my anxiety (got to keep that blood pressure down, you know?). So again, more heated disagreement. Terence was straight up saying that he was going to get a dog with or without my consent. I had people advising me to take the "me or the dog, buster" route.
What to do? Well, I took it all to my Heavenly Father in prayer. This was beyond me. I wasn't going to leave my husband over a dog, but I just couldn't cope with the idea of intentionally adding that to my plate either. My answer was a completely calming sense of peace. That everything was going to be OK. So I went ahead and told Terence he could choose a dog for an early Christmas present.
Here she is:
 |
| The night we brought her home. She was terrified! |
 |
| She's already put a little weight on. Loves the kids-- still terrified of going out the front door. |
I went into this reluctantly. Really reluctantly. But oddly enough, though I never learned to more than tolerate Cooper, I love Rue already. (We had a family vote on the name, with Terence getting the final say since she is his dog. Rue got her name from the Hunger Games. Hopefully she'll have a better fate!)
We've got a long road ahead of us-- she is eight months old but has lived practically her whole life in the shelter. Open spaces terrify her. She's finally accepted that our little backyard is not too scary, and she'll venture out of her crate. Walking her has not been too successful yet; she gets frightened and lies down, refusing to budge. But she seems to have attached herself to everyone in the family (she's got a nervous truce going on with Willow-- mostly they ignore each other but whine like nuts if one of them leaves). The biggest thing that has to be taken care of is her nails. They are long and lethal, and we haven't trained her not to jump yet. Especially not on the kids. It will come. Hopefully. (That's Terence's job.)
Another adventure-- one that I had to jump into with faith. But so far I'm so happy we did.
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