I’ve been exhausted lately and I’ve been thinking about some of the things I don’t do very well. I don’t usually make “New Year’s resolutions” but lately I’ve been compiling a list of things I’d like to change about myself in the new year.
Welcome to the Wednesday Coffee Hour here at Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can talk about what’s going on in our worlds.
After months of enduring several health issues, my little poodle, Jake, passed away on Monday morning. As is usually the case, I always end up feeling as though I should have been able to do more to extend his life. In the end, he had a tumor in his brain that would have required surgery and he was too old for it.
The last few weeks of his life revolved almost entirely around him; feeding him, giving him fluids, trying to gauge his discomfort levels. When I wasn’t worrying about him, I was feeling guilty for neglecting my other animals. There was a couple of times that I missed giving Louise her daily glucosamine because I was so preoccupied with Jake’s medication schedule.
I had no idea how tired I had been until yesterday morning when I woke up and realized I’d slept through the whole night for the first time in weeks. For the past few weeks, I had worried Jake might wake up and need me in the middle of the night and I was afraid I’d sleep right through it. Thus, I hadn’t been sleeping very well.
Since Monday, a couple of friends have asked if I will be getting another dog to keep Louise company. I think I’ve surprised them when I said no. Louise is 15 years old and was endlessly patient the whole time Jake was ill. She deserves to have attention lavished on her for a while. I know she misses Jake but the cats are still around and she gets along especially well with Pearl. I think Louise will be fine as an only dog for a while.
That brings me to the first thing I need to change beginning next year. I need to know my limits when it comes to taking care of animals. Although I love being surrounded by them, it takes a lot of time and responsibility to adequately care for multiple animals. I think 4 might be my limit. So, unless some really dire case comes into the shelter where I work on the weekends, I am going to limit myself to 4 animals.
Because of the unpredictability of life – pets getting suddenly ill, work assignments that pop up out of the blue (especially ones that involve travel), and priorities that are constantly being reordered, I need to do a better job of completing projects that I start around the house. Nothing bums me out more than having unfinished work to look at. I’m really bad about starting a project (like painting the garage) and then having it get interrupted (by rain or some other unforeseen reason) and then getting impatient to get back to it but not being able to so then I start another project and once that one gets going it takes me forever to go back to finish painting the garage. So then the garage sits for weeks half painted and it probably drives my neighbors as crazy as it drives me every time I look at it. So, the second thing on my list is to not start any new DIY projects until I have finished the current one.
I am also bad about making plans for things I want to do in the future and not carrying them out even though it’s usually something I could easily get done if I’d just stick to it. For the past 2 years or so, I have wanted to organize my basement so that I can have a sewing room to work in. I cleaned the basement out really well and painted the walls but I haven’t gotten back to doing what I need to do to carry out my sewing room plan. I need to build a table that I can use to cut fabric on. I have all the materials I need but they’re just lying on the basement floor for now. Every time I need to sew something, I end up hauling the sewing machine upstairs and setting it up on the dining table to use it. It’s really inconvenient and it creates a lot of work because I then have to be careful about leaving spools of thread, pins, or other stuff where the cats can get to it. So, I’m constantly putting things away and then bringing them back out. It annoys me that I can’t stick to my plan of setting up my sewing room and being done with it.
The last thing on my list (for now) is that I need to slow down and enjoy what’s going on now instead of staying too busy to really think much about it. I really look forward to traveling and when I’m on a trip somewhere I always thoroughly enjoy every minute of it. But I wish I did a better job of consciously enjoying my time here at home. I have noticed lately that my friends and I are sort of in a rut of doing the same thing week after week, going to the same restaurants, talking about the same things and I think our lives would be a lot more enjoyable and interesting if we switched things up a bit.
I have a lot to accomplish in the new year and I am hoping that by writing this down it will force me to get it done.
Anyway, now to our usual Street Prophets questions – what have you been up to lately and what’s for supper tonight?
According to BlueJessamine, it's Booby Wednesday and time to remind you that self-exams save lives.