Have We Hit Normal Yet? Nope!

Hello World! Hello Blog! My poor ignored abandoned blog that got thrown to the wolves and replaced with a puppy. It's okay blog, don't cry. I am back! At least for a minute!

I do not in any way mean this as a slam to those with children, because I know that raising kids is hard work. But raising a puppy is a lot like raising a kid on a really sped-up time table. They need love and attention and play and training and grooming and feeding and entertaining the way a child would. So I've been a little distracted. If you have been over to her blog you know that we've been BUSY and I'm trying to post at least every other day so that when she's a 60 lb adolescent in May I can look back and remember how sweet and TINY she used to be. Because she is growing right before my eyes. Three weeks ago when I got her she was 10 lbs. Now she's 18. And so much fun! But this is my blog, not her blog, so I'm going to go easy on the puppy babble.

Eventually some things will be back to normal. One day I will read a book that isn't about dog training. One day I will watch a tv show without simultaneously throwing a toy 100 times. One day I won't have to get up at 4:30 to take my puppy out. (Or, like this morning, toss and turn from 4:30 until 6:30 because she didn't wake up to go out and I was worried that something was horribly wrong with her. But I wasn't going to go downstairs and wake her up if she's starting to sleep through the night. Paranoid much?)

Other things will have a new normal. Saturdays and Sundays will be training classes and serious (LONG) play time outside. I won't leave the house again without making sure that Stella has been out and fed. When I wake up in the mornings I will have cuddle time with my puppy, and when I come home in the evening she'll be there wagging her tail and thrilled to see me. We will work on training and socializing and all that other stuff that a big dog needs to have to get along in the world.

Having a dog ROCKS.

One thing I have managed to do is watch all 4 episodes of Downton Abbey on pbs.org. LOVE. The sets and the costumes are great, the story is sort of Jane Austen meets Mean Girls, and the acting is wonderful. I realized by the end of the first season that there really isn't a totally likable character, they're all very complex. I highly recommend it.