My Office Mate is a Dog

He’s self-absorbed, immature and stirs up trouble if you aren’t paying enough attention to him. I can’t count how many times I’m interrupted while trying to get work done. It’s absolutely infuriating! Just trying to write this post, I’ve had to stop four times.

I work from home, and Oscar, our beagle-Lab-mix year-old puppy, may be the primary reason I’m going broke/losing my mind/not getting stuff done/stressed out/pissed off. It’s damn lucky for him that he’s cute and the girls love him.

I am definitely a cat person. There’s no doubt about it. My two cats don’t give a damn about me or whether I want to interact with them or not. To them, I’m a source of food, water, shelter and the occasional scratch behind the ears, and little else. I’m good with that.

Having a dog is like having another child… like trying to work from home with an active toddler running around. It seems it can’t be done without a lot of frustration, distraction and yelling. It’s just not practical to pack up and get all of my work done from the coffee shop, so I have to make working from home work somehow.

So, I ask… How do you dog people do it? I mean, really?

I Am a Wayward Child

Or so I was told via my grandmother, who’s on the other side now. It’s time I pulled my share of the maternal line and get on with being the kind of mother my daughters must have…NOW.

I’ve worked so long and so hard to be “successful” in the world, i.e. earning a decent salary, working a great job, volunteering through leadership positions and so on. That’s all well and good and had its purpose.

The Universe pushed me to change my reality, so no more Big Job, Big Money, Big Ego.

The focus of my new reality is my daughters and rearing them to be “that kind of woman”. You know the type: compassionate, kind and connected but also opinionated, strong and determined. To get them there will require a lot of energy, patience and butt-kicking from me. You see, they have mouths and attitudes, and they know how to use them…and they tend to use them for less-than-good purposes, like sassing back to me or wallowing in selfishness.

Yes, it’s part of their natural process of testing boundaries, identifying where I end and they begin, and creating their own identities. But it’s my job as their mom to be firm with those boundaries and rein the girls in when necessary.

I’ve been a wayward child for too long. I need to do my best to keep my girls from become wayward as well. So here I plunge headlong into motherhood with renewed purpose. May God and Goddess help me.

Hello, Tuesday. Why do you look like Monday?

My Tuesday has shown up disguised as a Monday. That bites. A water main broke this morning, so the utility shut off the water. It’s not expected back on until noon. So, I had to reschedule a meeting with a potential client since I’m not fit for public exposure just yet. You can’t meet someone you’re hoping to get to work with if your hair is beyond ponytail redemption.

Add to that a mean case of heartburn that came between me and my coffee. I know you know how miserable a morning can be without caffeine.

To top it off, the dog tore up a window screen and threw up on the carpet…twice.

So in the midst of this, I’m trying to focus on my goal of living an authentic life. The day has brought authentic routine chaos. Guess I should be a bit more specific in what kind of authenticity I’m going for.