Hitting the pause button at the beginning of October may have been the best decision I’ve made since starting Chapter 3. At the time, a string of destructive hurricanes followed by the horrific Las Vegas massacre had dimmed my creativity. Feeling pretty down from it all, I not only stopped blogging, I minimized the amount time I spent watching the news and keeping up with the outside world. I greatly reduced my involvement on social media. I walked more; I read more. We still had visitors and plenty of social interaction so I didn’t withdraw completely. But I certainly took a big step back.
There was one thing I did abandon entirely – planning. I literally had no goals for October. Or if I did, I never opened my planner to look at them. I simply woke up each morning and did what needed to be done. Well, to be completely honest, on most days I did only what I felt like doing of what needed to be done. Not once this past month did I make a to-do list. It was as close to living in the moment as I ever remember. Continue reading “Two Strangers Just Rescued Me from Months of Wasted Effort”
We fell in love with our adorable little fur ball the moment we met him last October. That’s the thing about puppies, they’re so damn cute they hook you before you remember the upheaval a baby of any species causes to your life. But by the time we drove the twelve hours from Erie, PA to Knoxville with the little guy, it was coming back to me. Still, I wasn’t too worried because my husband, Tim, had always taken the lead with our dogs. I did kids, he did dogs. That was the deal with the first pup, and I never saw a reason to change it.