What a Morning

It's only 8am and it's already been quite a morning...woke up very early. Not sure why - maybe the 2 cups of coffee I had at 9pm last night? Didn't seem to affect my sleep, but I'm certainly a little extra jazzed this a.m. Found out that the dog had peed on the carpet at some point in the night - did we forget to take him out for his before bed pee? Yes, we did. Oops - mea culpa. Something has to change for my poor dog. He's not happy and I'm not happy about his current quality of life. And "staying in the garage" would most definitely not be an improvement.

After many "I'm sorry"s to A for the carpet, it's on with the day, including a raw breakfast: soaked oat groats blended with cinnamon and dates with sliced apples - yummy and preparing lots of other raw foods for the next couple of days. The raw agenda: sunflower and sun dried tomato pate, not tuna salad and ranch dressing from Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People. We got tomatoes (for stacking or for slicing onto sandwiches and in salads), romaine lettuce (for sandwich "bread" or salads) and avocado. I think that gives us several options and will be quick and easy since I pre-prepped onion, celery and lemon juice. I mostly just have to process things together this morning. I might even splurge and mix up a raw cheez if I have enough lemon juice.

This morning, I also cleaned out my email inbox, created several useful Google Documents and emailed "collaborators" to join me, found 3 new old friends on FB, added a travel map to my FB page and added every city I've ever been to, using the criteria that I had to have actually done something in that city, not just drove through or flew through. I'm getting a little OCD with my FB page.

I've also recently added "weRead" in which I can keep adding books that I've read. I should have just started where I was at that moment, but it's very tempting to just keep adding books that I've read. I've already added more than 150 books and I keep remembering more authors and books and that's all fiction! One thing that's holding me back is that my aunt, all of who's books I've read, is a historical romance writer...many of my other favorites seem to be pretty sexy books and some are even categorized as erotica ... yeah, there's really not much more I want to say about that, but I just don't want people to think I only read sexy books. I remember dog sitting for a couple weeks once and reading all the crime dramas on my hosts shelves during that time frame - I just don't remember those books.

Quite a few other tasks on the list today, but most of those have to do with mailing or faxing things before I leave this weekend, especially getting my medical claims sent in so I can be reimbursed. Another appointment with the chiropractor and maybe something social this evening as A and I haven't been out to see our friends in a couple of weeks.

Whew. Tired already. Think I might have to take a nap.

What I'm Going to Do Now That I Won $200 Million From the Lottery

1. Pay off all my debt, including financial debts to friends and family and mom's PLUS loan
2. Give notice to my second job that I will be decreasing work to 1 day per week or quit
3. Give notice to my career job that we will be okay or quit
4. Hire a financial planner/adviser
5. Hire the Dog Whisperer and a dog walker
6. Go to the Tree of Life for as long as it takes to feel rested
7. Take that trip to Italy that I've been longing for
8. Establish trusts for my family
9. Set up my raw kitchen
10. See what life is like debt free and with means

Just to Send it on Down the Line

Working a 40 hour week this week.

Yesterday worked my normal day/hours/section, today thru Friday covering for my boss that quit. New boss may come on next Monday. Schedule comes out confirmed on Wednesday, so I'll know for sure by tomorrow. This is what I hate about my retail job: the scheduling. Even though my company has a lot of protections in place, the schedule comes out on Wednesday for the following Sunday thru Saturday, so unless your schedule is set, you really can't plan that far ahead. Now, I can't complain that much because my schedule has been set for the past 8 months and was pretty well set before that, BUT...

...it still bothers me this month not to know for sure what's happening.

And when my boss started asking me, "oh yeah, and do you know how to do this?" I (not-so?)smartly replied, in front of the store manager, "you don't pay me enough to remember all these things." Her pay range is much higher than mine, but I'm expected to be able to do her job when she's on vacation or quits. I understand that's kinda how things work and that there are things she knows/tracks/does that I don't, even when I'm working for her, but it does seem like a double standard sometimes. Usually, I just take my lumps on this one and it's fine, but I'm dreading going in this morning, because there is EXTRA work for me because 1. I'm covering for her, 2. we had a really busy week last week and didn't finish everything, and 3. the person who covered for me this weekend did not do the normal work that I would have done nor the work that my x-boss had left for him to do.

Yuck.

In addition, I'm cat-baby-sitting and this cat is super needy and meows all night long. Since I also have a dog and a tiny apartment, it's not working out very well. I can see the wear on the carpet from the gate I'm using to separate them and I can see the strain on myself and my dog due to my spending time "with the cat" (which is really just "in my bedroom," but since the cat is confined there, I'm inevitably with the cat). This morning, while I took the dog outside, the cat jumped the gate and was in the livingroom when we came back in, resulting in another big bark-fest from the dog (at 6am) and now I'm worried about noise complaints!

Yuck.

Okay, I'm going to breath, eat a good healthy breakfast, do what I can at work, come home and enjoy walking the dog then go sign a lease for my new clinic.

Golden Retrievers Are ... Obnoxious

Ut oh, I said it out loud (online) and now I wait for deluge of outrage. I know the common wisdom and I believe that there are no bad dogs, just bad dog owners/parents/guardians (opgs). And terrible breeders. I think the golden retriever thing starts with bad breeding and ends with bad opgs. Think about it - these dogs are usually crazy. I know a couple great goldens that I really like but both of them are mixed breeds, so they aren't crazy and their opgs are the nicest, most sincere, honest and friendly people I know, so of course, their dogs are likewise polite and interesting.

Think about most of the golden retriever opgs you know, though. Suburban, upper-middle class, got the dog(s) for the girls, got the SUV to drive the girls and dogs around, oops did my dog jump on you, entitlement. It's no wonder the dogs are obnoxious with these people training them. Yes, bad golden retriever moment today, immediately after a life filled with similar golden retrievers. I'm going to spend some time with a couple nice goldens to help balance me out.

And I probably won't be opening that golden retriever themed healing center any time soon.

Conflict Creates Contact

Errr...bad Internet connections drive me crazy. I suppose this isn't like an email. I shouldn't just change the entire nature and content of my post just because I lost what I'd written due to a bad public Internet connection, but that is exactly what I'm going to do.

The basic gist of what I was going to write was the conflict creates/is contact and that has value, even though it's difficult for me. I hate conflict, contradiction and confrontation. And I could learn a lot from my dog. If someone sniffs his rear end a little too closely, he growls or nips them, but they can still play together within moments. Conflict doesn't have to be the end of a relationship.

That was the gist of my previous post condensed. Now I really want to say how sexy I feel in these shoes. They're really high heeled and strappy and I've noticed several people checking them out at the cafe where I'm writing. I painted my nails bright pink right today and am wearing a black knit skirt with excellent flare, so everything looks smashing. There's something extra sexy about having had the cobbler repair my shoes this week so that I can continue wearing them despite their previous flaws. I need to remember how good this feels and wear great shoes more often. And despite their height, they aren't even as uncomfortable as the flat shoes I wore to work today.

Dogma

While out walking Chibo, E and I saw a little Yorkie Terrier running around off leash. As we were approaching a fairly busy street, we were concerned and decided to enact a "rescue." This is somewhat reminiscent of the time a year or so ago when we picked up a Skipperkee running down a freeway off ramp. That time, the dog's collar referred us to a nearby vet where we dropped the dog off. After stopping four lanes of freeway traffic at rush hour, Annie (the Skipperkee) was reunited with her parents who had lost her the night before and they sent us flowers in gratitude. We felt pretty good about that and I don't resent (though I remember) the shirt I ruined carrying her in my arms.

This time we only had to wait until Alfie (the Yorkie) returned from chasing the tabby cat (name unknown), barking at Chibo (my dog) and relaxed enough to let E pet him and hold his collar. We leashed him, asked the neighbors and eventually found his dad just two doors down. He thanked us but clearly thought we were crazy. Even if the only reason he keeps a closer eye on his dog is to prevent us loonies from stealing him, at least the dog will be safer.

That's our good dog-ma for the week.