Cleaning up the house
One of my New Year’s Resolutions proves to be not that easy. When I started in my office one morning, I came across several things that did not belong where I found them. So I had to take them somewhere else, but where? There were the calendars of two previous years with gorgeous pictures of the granddaughters. Surely, I could not throw those away! I selected three of the best pictures, put two of them in frames that I had and hung them in the gallery in the garage. The third one needed a large frame. So I got on the Mac and ordered it from Amazon Prime: it arrived the next day. The frames are simple, load-from-the-front, and they are ready to hang. So I did. But in the mean time it was the following day and I had only thrown away two calendars out of one of my drawers! Do things like this happen to you too?
Then there was the large roll of address labels I had ordered before Christmas. I put part of it in the empty container on Mike’s desk and put the rest on my office desk, where it now waits for further transport into a drawer that I first have to organize. I took care of several business phone calls this morning, but that took all morning, then I had to make lunch and before I knew it I had to go to PT for my hip, and after that walk the dog. When she did her production I found out I didn’t have a baggy in my pocket; only a Kleenex. I had the choice of going back to the spot later to pick it up, with the chance it would be raining and the certainty we would be late for happy hour, or use the Kleenex. I chose the latter and was happy to go home, throw it all into the toilet and wash my hands with warm water and soap. I grinned as my thoughts went back 74 years to the WWII camp, where Mamma wrote that even the outside latrines overflowed and she and her roommate had to clean up the filth and did not even have soap to wash their hands. (Have you read my book Rising from the Shadow of the Sun? You should!) How blessed I am to have warm water and soap!
We were on time for Happy hour at the Club, but they ran out of red wine after a half hour, so nobody even had any red wine with dinner either. At the end of the day I had not contributed to noticeable cleanup of our house at all! And so it goes. Life continues, I am happy to be alive and able to enjoy it all, with the understanding that I still have eleven months to finish my resolution. However, I realize that I need to stick to doing one thing at a time and finish it.
On another morning I cleaned up a big part of the garage with leftovers of Christmas. Not edible leftovers, but things like bags and rolls of ribbons and boxes with decorations. I finished that.
Dog tails
On Monday I made a decision: I ordered a prong collar for Lani. I can’t go on with physical therapy three times a week that gets undone immediately when I walk my pulling dog, however little she is. Twenty pound jolts will keep my hip, back and shoulder in continuing pain and I had had enough. First we had a regular leash and collar; she pulled. Then we bought her a “non-pull” harness; she still pulled. Then we put two leashes on the harness – no result. She got her “Good Citizen” diploma from the AKC and walked on a loose leash, but only inside the building where she had been trained and only for three minutes. The last thing we tried was a “Buddy Leash”, where one leash goes around my waist and another from there to her collar. The sudden jolts were even more painful, and once she almost pulled my whole body off the sidewalk. Enough. The prong collar was recommended by two friends here and Amazon delivered it in one day. I did watch two videos on how to use it, as they recommended, because the collar looked like a torture collar, and that for our sweet little Lani. I got her used to it inside yesterday, and took her for her afternoon walk today. Hooray! Success! She walked with me at my pace, the leash was long enough so she could get into the grass, and she did not pull and the prongs did not seem to hurt. On two occasions she darted out at another dog, but yelped and I did not feel a pull. Then she wanted to pick up something from the grass and dove, but the prongs stopped her. She kept looking at me, and I kept praising her.
And guess what? We could walk to the Club tonight, and my back is feeling great, and I am so happy. Hopefully we can finish PT soon, I will have more free time and we can walk again in Wimbledon and the other trails in the neighborhood. Ahh! Life is good again.
Thought for the day:
Get up with determination
Go to bed with Satisfaction
It’s a Wonderful Life!
Until next time,
Ronny