The Dog Diaries: Days 1 through 3. What have we gotten ourselves into?

We’ve been looking for a family dog. On Friday we headed down to the Humane Society and selected a lovely black lab/german pointer that we named Chevy. He’s a year old, but a pretty good sized pup. When we brought him home on Friday night, we put him in the back of our Honda Pilot. Unfortunately for us, he didn’t stay there on the way home. Despite our best efforts to keep him in the back, he was seated across Scott’s lap in the middle row by the time we reached Sammamish.
Knowing that we were going to need Chevy to be a good car dog (given all our trips across the mountains), we went out a bought a barrier system for the back of the Pilot. It’s a barrier system designed for large dogs. We thought we’d be fine.
So Sunday morning, Scott headed off to work and I put the kids and the dog in the car and headed off to church. Chevy started whimpering pretty quickly and by the time we were half way to church the kids were informing me that he was chewing threw the rear seatbelts. Seatbelt 1 was severed. What do you do when the dog is chewing the seatbelt? I could stop the car, but that would leave me on the side of a road with 3 kids, a dog and a severed seatbelt. So I kept going. I probably should have turned the car around, but I didn’t. I drove to church and took the dog out for a quick walk. I made sure he had his warm blanket in the back of the car and plenty of fresh air, and put him back into the car.
When I came back after 45 minutes, Chevy had eaten through both rear seatbelts, moved the barrier system so he could squeeze by it, and helped himself to whatever he wanted in the front of the car …including my coffee and the other three middle row seatbelts. I then tried securing him with his leash, but that didn’t take long for him to chew through that as well.
Sigh. I love this dog, but those seatbelts are going to be expensive to replace, not to mention the annoyance of not being able to use my car to cart my children around. Sweetness (I’ve really got to fine a new moniker for her during these tween years) cried all the way home from church; she was just certain that her mommy would never keep a dog that destroyed her car AND drank her coffee. I don’t want to get rid of the dog. I already adore him. I just need him to not be so…naughty!
 So I find myself wondering, is it the confinement of being stuck in the back of the car, or is it the abandonment that we left him behind when we went inside? I’m leaning toward the confinement issue because he was chewing the seatbelts while we were still in the car with him. Still, I NEED to be able to leave this dog alone and I can’t trust him to leave him wandering around my house…so I need to be able to crate him and that’s confinement. But that’s non-negotiable, right? I’d better go look into some training classes.

Who knew it meant so much?

Wow, it has been a loooong time since I wrote last. It took the death of my beloved Grandma to bring me back to the writing table. Grandma (my mom's mother, Dorothy McCleskey) passed away on Tuesday night and I spent the next day or two feeling unsettled, angry and sad. Then I cried my eyes out at my weekly prayer group and felt better.
Dorothy McCleskey somehwere around 2007

Yesterday I went to her memorial service, which was held at her home in Hoodsport. It is a long drive to Hoodsport. Usually around 2 hours and 20 minutes. It is often not a drive I appreciate, as it is a long time for the kids to "be nice" in the car. This time, I felt almost happy going...grateful for the chance to go be in Grandma's house again.

I was surpised when I got there how much I just walked around and tried to memorize the feel of her house. Every wall, every picture, every gilded knick-knack. Every lighthouse, every clock, every angel, every silk plant. Around and around I went, walking the hallways that I've walked for 25 years. My grandma didn't travel much, she liked to be at her house. Most of my memories of my Grandma are right there inside that house.

I realized last night that I felt connected to my extended family through that house. Not only are my pictures all over the walls, but my parents' pictures and my cousins' pictures and my aunts' pictures and my uncles' pictures and all our kids' pictures are in every nook and crany. When my relatives came to town, they always stayed with Grandma and we met them there, we ate there, we played there, we commisserated there...everything inside that house.

No items that I might take home from that house can give me what that house holds. That house holds my life with my Grandma with all it's tree branches that connect us. That house means family. Now Grandma is gone, waiting for me in heaven, and that house will soon be gone and we need to find new rituals and new routines to connect us. Losing her house is like facing a 2nd family death, yet the house couldn't live on without her.

So I find myself as reluctant to end this blog post as I was to leave Grandma's house last night. Afraid that once I move on, it will be gone forever. But move on we must, for life for me and my family moves ever onward. Goodbye Grandma and goodbye Grandma's house...thanks for the legacy of love that's left behind.

This blog post will likely be hard to write. Who knows if it will ever see the light of day (light of the internet?). I have a feeling I want to explain, but I'm not sure I fully understand it.

I feel like an adult.

I sit here waiting for my MLS number to arrive from my agent (hurry, hurry, hurry). We are putting our house on the market. If we can get a good price for it, we plan to sell our home and buy land in the nearby area to build a new home.

It is a choice. My husband and I look across the table at each other (or across the bath tub) and discuss our choices. Do we want to sell? Do we want to rent a house or an apartment while we look for the next piece of land? Do we want to take our family in this direction or that one? I think those discussions are responsible for my new-found awareness of my adulthood. The choice to move my family to a new locale, a new environment.

Sure, we had choices before now. We selected jobs. We selected our first condo, then moved to our current house. But all those choices seemed more scripted, like stairs up to our current place in life. This choice feels more like stepping off the path that goes straight ahead and choosing a path that still goes forward, but in an optional direction.


In the past, most of those choices we made were just hubby and I deciding what we wanted to do for the two of us...Did we want kids? Did we want to live in town or more rural? Now we are weighing the pros and cons of each place (including the one we still have) for our kids too. Where will they ride their bikes? What environment are we placing them into? Does it measure up to living next door to their grandparents (could anything?)?

And what a blessing, really, to have choice? To live in a place and time where we aren't just struggling to survive, but can consider what we want for our family. And we know that however it turns out, whether we sell or stay where we are, that our family's direction is still set.
James 4:14&15 "you don't even know what tomorrow will bring -- what your life with be! For you are like smoke that appears for a while and then vanishes. Instead, you should say, If the Lord wills..."

So, whatever the Lord wills...

A jewel in a mountain of paperwork

Sometimes, buried in a mountain of end-of-the-school-year paperwork, you find a jewel that makes your whole day.



I don't know if her teacher assigned her to write poetry about her mom. I don't even think I care. It is just so sweet. =) Here is the poem complete with artistic rendintion:

Strawberries...or the lack thereof

I won a blog raffle a week or two ago. The raffle was for $25 worth of free strawberries. At least that's what I thought the raffle was for. Admittedly, I didn't read any fine print. So when a gift certificate showed up in the mail for $25 at Academy.com sporting store I was confused. But not so confused that I didn't immediately go out and spend the gift card.

I bought a swimsuit. online. Crazy, I know. Swimsuit shopping is the worst and I can try on 15 swimsuits and hate them all. So what luck do I think I'll have online? But it arrived today and I love it.

It has all the things that I need in a swimsuit.
1) the perfect straps! I hate halter neck suits and I hate strapless suits. One is a pain in the neck and the other requires me to keep one hand on the front of my suit at all times so it doesn't fall off. This one has cute wide band straps that are comfy!
2) the torso is long enough. I'm not that tall (5'7) but most swimsuits just don't have enough length built into them. I end up with my underwire trying to worm its way into my belly button. Okay, that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
3) it is a one-piece. Most tankini sets fail to cover the squish around my middle. What good is a swimsuit that doesn't cover the squish?
4) it is black, so it is both slimming and guaranteed to never become last season's hot color.
5) its got a retro-vibe, which I think is fun. The blog contest that I won was from Heather who blogs at UnitedStatesofMotherhood
. She has a great collection of old retro poster pictures that she will occasionally post and it looks like my swimsuit could have been from that era. Of course, the models in those posters are always more generously shaped than I am, but still the coincidence makes me smile.

So now I'm doubly glad that I won the blog contest. First, because it is just fun to win things. And second, because I don't have to go swimsuit shopping this year. Thanks Heather!

The theme continues...

Playing in the sunshine is lots of fun
Even if I don't get many runs
The pop of fly balls, the thrill of game
Without it Friday nights wouldn't be the same

Last week I learned that "its all good"
that stressin' isn't necessary when hangin' with the Herd
this week I learned to stand in my spot
even if that required the guys to talk a lot

then they gave me the team ball!
my contribution might be small
but they don't seem to care
maybe its all my flair?

So come find us next week
Tibbets field #5 is what you seek
'til the mercy bell rings
we'll be doing our thing



(yes, I'm planning to keep my day job)

Stress, Patheticism, and Softball

Who knew that I was such a stress-case? I laugh because I suspect everyone knows. Yesterday was my first softball game. My first game of my first team. And I stressed a bit about it. I was terrified that I would instantly pull a muscle when running for the ball (like I did in practice) and patheticism would set in. I suspect "patheticism" isn't a word, but "the act of being pathetic" surely sums up my fears.

My kids must have thought I was nuts. "quiet in the car on the way to the game; mommy is stressed". "Um, mom? Isn't softball supposed to be fun?" "Shhhh"

The first inning of the game found me hanging out in right field. The sunshine was lovely, the field green, my terror palatable, my children screaming.

Yes, my children screaming because the Big Guy fell on the sidewalk and scraped up both his knees. I can see my oldest daughter Sweetness holding him and trying to carrying him back to me, and I'm STRESSED because I know I can't leave my spot and Hubby can't leave his spot and what are we supposed to do? But, all things work out and someone comforted the Big Guy and the screaming stopped and my stress level dropped a bit. And then we came in from the field and it was my turn to bat and the stress level jumped right back up...until I struck out and mortification replaced stressification (another new word or two!).


Then I got to play catcher for awhile. That was fun. The ref (ump?) was quite helpful. He would say things like "you might want to move in front of home plate when the ball is in play so the runner doesn't clobber you trying to come home" and "if you stand back, the ball will bounce right to you". And more often than not, the ball found its way into my glove.


Right field is nice because the ball doesn't come to you very often, so it isn't very stressful. Catcher is nice because you get to be involved constantly, but then "the play" comes to home plate and you know everyone wishes you were more of a baller and could handle a 95 mph ball being thrown at you.

Anyway, my truly great moment was when I came up to bat and I popped the ball up. I thought it was coming down on my head so I ducked a little and the catcher 'bout knocked me over trying to get to the ball. She (the catcher) knocked the visor off my head, so I tried to right it...then I realized that the rest of my team was yelling "run, Lisa, you have to run". Apparently the time for righting your visor is after you've reached first base. Who knew? I swear I thought that ball was foul. Classic Lisa.

We played a double header and I think it was part way through the second game when I finally started to relax. Clearly the likihood of my making a mistake is pretty high, but a lot of mistakes get made in a game and life goes on. You are still hanging out with a great group of people enjoying the sunshine and the sport. Can't wait till next week!