Journaling is good for your health. Who knew?!

 

According to this article that I just read, journaling is good for your health, if you're a nurse.  According to this article that I sort of skimmed over, journaling is good for your health, if you have depression and anxiety.  And just for the sake of inclusion, I even found an article that says journaling is good for everyone.  Because on the internet, you can find articles that say just about anything you want, whether you like it or not.  

So in my last entry, you learned that I used to draw. I suppose I still can draw, I just haven't tried for a while. I made the progression from line drawings of horses all facing the same direction to line drawings of cars when I got a little older and my interests changed. Come to think of it, I probably had the tendency to draw the cars facing left, as well.  I mean, that's what you see when you're going to the driver's door, right correct?  Who cares what the passenger side looks like! I can't say for sure, though. My point being, the last time I tried drawing something was probably 5-10 years ago. I was back to horses then, and some dogs, and a few cats.  Facing all sorts of directions ;)  I like to think I got better but who knows?  It's fun, but I find I have the same issue with drawing as I do with coloring: I don't always have the patience to sit there and carefully make thousands of tiny lines that have to be just perfect.  And they DO have to be just perfect.  That's why I've only tried to draw people maybe three times in my life?  If you get one little proportion off, forget about it.  I don't want to be responsible for creating monsters.  Maybe that's why I only have one child (ha! ha! ha!).

Oddly enough, I've never been one to draw in my journals.  I've seen examples of other journals where people make them all cute and scrapbook-like and such, but that's never been my style.  My style has always been freeflow, write whatever is on my mind at that moment and be done, or sort out my thoughts kind of thing.  When I started journaling waaaaaaay back when, I never intended for anyone ever to see anything I ever wrote.  Then again, I was, like, 12 years old or something and I would have oh my gawd just like totally died if I'd have known then that one day I'd be, like, writing a journal and posting it online for, like, everyone to read, or something.

Anyway...working from home today.  I suppose, lunch break is now over and I should get back to work.  TTFN!

It's a cruel, cruel summer...

Not really, I'm just going with the first song that comes to mind, otherwise I'll just sit here wasting precious time trying to think of a title. My lunch break is only so long, you know. (BTW, that's a reference to the Bananarama song.  I didn't think I needed to point that out until I went to find an image and Googled "cruel summer" and learned that it's apparently a show or something?  Hi. I live in a cave where I don't stay on top of what's popular in entertainment.)

And today's photo cred goes to ME, thank you very much.  I purposely put the sun in the corner because when I was little, that's how I drew pictures.  The sun was always in the corner. It was generally more in the corner than this one is, but give me a break, I was literally looking directly at the sun to get this shot.  I risked blindness just to get this shot, so I could make this joke about how I used to draw pictures.  Yellow sun in the corner (usually with a smiley face, and fancy sunbeams, depending on what else was in the pictures), blue sky, and green grass.  This is the foundation of most of my childhood illustrations, in reality, right here.  Too bad there wasn't a square house with a door and a window on the first floor and two windows on the second floor, with a triangle roof and a chimney that always had smoke coming out of it, two REALLY TALL flowers next to it (one tulip and one rose -- or if I was feeling fancy, maybe a daisy too), a dog house, and maybe a car and some people.  

My illustrations improved, eventually.  Once I learned how to draw horses.  Although 99% of the horses I drew were facing left.  (Their right, my left.)  I don't really know why, but that's how it was.  That's the near side, you know.  That's probably why they all faced that way.  When I was little, I read everything I could get my hands on about horses, and since everything I read said the near side was the side horses were supposed to be lead from, I guess it only made sense that I drew them from that perspective.

Crazy. I sat down here having no idea what I was going to ramble about, and now I find myself analyzing drawing habits I developed as an, I don't know, 6-7- 8-year-old? You just never know how my mind will roam.

You know what I've never been good at, though? Coloring.  I just don't have the patience.  I remember one time in kindergarten, we had to color a circle and I had to re-do it because it was too messy.  On one hand, I was horrified because an authority figure was dissatisfied with me; but mostly I was annoyed because I didn't see the point of coloring a circle, and it took so much fricking time to sit and carefully stay inside the lines, and dammit I had better things to do. If they wanted a blue circle, why didn't they just draw it on blue paper and cut it out, instead of drawing it on white paper and coloring it?!  

As a kid, we had coloring books.  Of course we did, everyone did.  I'd find a picture I liked, and start coloring it, and then get bored real quick and go do something else.  I might go back and finish it later, I might not.  I probably didn't.  My Mom probably ended up throwing away lots of coloring books with partially finished pictures on my account.

So I was as surprised as anyone when the "adult" coloring craze hit a few years ago, and I ended up with a few books along the way.  I guess I forgot that I don't have the patience for coloring.  I guess I thought maybe it'd be something to just poke along at, bit by bit, or something to work on when I was on the night shift.  (Yeah, because I had LOTS of patience then!)  I don't know.  I've tried it a few times.  I still don't have the patience or interest to sit down and color a whole picture at once, but I can do a little bit now and then.  I'm more of a doodler.  You should see the pad of paper I keep by my phone.  I can hardly talk on the phone without scribbling on paper.  Usually it's pertinent notes, but if the conversation turns to things I don't need to write down, I'll just doodle.  

Oh, well.  Speaking of taking notes and talking on the phone, I should get back to work.  TTFN!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Why can't Christmas be in the summer?  

Let me rephrase that: why couldn't I have been born and raised where Christmas is in the summer?!  I mean, this is perfect weather for it! I think I would have a lot more so-called "Christmas spirit" if Christmas was during this time of year, when it's warmer outside, and the world around us is full of life and green plants growing outside and energy and warmth, and we can have our windows open to let in the warm summer breezes, and people are less likely to be sick, and traveling is generally a lot easier because the weather is a lot less likely to interfere with road conditions, and it's warmer and there are more things to do outside so when people come over, everyone doesn't have to be crammed inside like sardines, and it's warmer outside, and I'm just all-around happier in general.

Or maybe that's just the meds.  Either way, it's 99*F outside right now (with a "real feel" which I believe is the same as a heat index) of 105*F, and I'm sitting in the house with the curtains drawn and the lights off and the fans on and some of the windows open, sipping a diet Coke and enjoying the quiet.  I just finished tidying up the house and I'm in a pretty damn good mood.  My ever-faithful canine companion is resting on the couch on the other side of the room.  My hubby and son are out helping some good friends of ours move.  If not for the fact that my house was way overdue for some attention, I would have gone with.  But I'm not much good for lifting heavy things. Especially in the heat.

I had the house in pretty good shape, which is another good sign that my meds are kicking in again.  When I first started working from home, it was "fun" to spend my breaks cleaning the house, but now when I work from home I spend my breaks working so I can be done sooner, just like I do at work.  (Only I never seem to get done sooner. ha, ha.)  

Today, for the first time ever, I took the dog outside without his leash or collar on. It's funny because when we first moved out here, we had Portia.  Portia was an awesome dog!  She was about 6 when we moved out here, and had lived in the city all her life up until then, but we let her run around off the leash all the time and she always listened to us and never ran into the road.  (We live on a 2-lane highway where the speed limit is 55mph.)  We never worried about her running away, but we were always outside with her when she was outside.  I don't remember if we had a tie-out for her to just go out and use the bathroom or not, once we moved out here.  I know we did in the city, because she could jump fences like no one's business.  She did that twice after we got her, and ran away those two times, too. But came back on her own.  Oh, Portia...what a nut.  

Then we got Magnum. He was about 4 months old when we got him. He was, like, the most easily trainable dog we have EVER had (I blame that on the lab in him, since every other dog we've has been a Boxer and he was half Boxer, half Lab).  We kept him on a tie-out at first until we did some training with him. He did run out into the road once. I remember it clear as day.  We were out in the yard and the hubby got into his car and drove away, and goofball dummy Magnum started running after him.  Right down the driveway and onto the road.  He didn't go far before he turned around and came back like, What?!?  Numbnuts!  Thank God nothing happened (other than me losing my voice from yelling at the dumb dog, I'm sure.)  I think that was the only time.  He was such a people-pleaser.  Never worried about him running away, either.  

And then, we got Luger.  Luger is the reason we have a dog yard with a chain-link fence.  We were told Luger was obedience-trained and that Luger got along with cats.  Those were lies!  Luger had a very strong prey drive and never met a cat he didn't want to kill.  We've pretty much always had cats, too, although we haven't had any indoor cats since we got Luger.  (He killed one of them. I don't want to talk about it.)  I never did trust Luger off-leash.  The only times he was off-leash were when he broke his collar, broke the tie-out, or ran out of the door before we could stop him.  As I said, he had a VERY strong prey drive, and even when he got older and even though he was also a people-pleaser, nothing would get in his way when he saw a cat.  

I take that back -- he was off-leash once when I was on my way home from nursing school clinicals about an hour away, and the boy had come home from school and was letting the dogs out, and absent-mindedly hooked Magnum up to the tie-out instead of Luger and opened the door to let the other dog out (can't blame him...they were both brindle, mistakes happen) and Luger took off like the young, energetic pup he was while Magnum, as I was told, sat there politely and obediently looking at the boy like, "I'm a good dog, right? Right? Right?"  Poor kid.  I remember he called me, sobbing, saying he put the wrong dog on the tie-out and Luger had run away across the road and he couldn't find him.  He felt so bad! I think that was the worst part for me, was how bad the boy felt.  He was just in like 5th grade or so at the time.  Long story short, I found Luger shortly after I got home...in the corn field across the road from our house.  And he had apparently found something long dead and had rolled in it.  And so I picked him up in my beautiful pride and joy, my 2007 Chevy Monte Carlo, and brought him and his rancid-smelling self home, and all was well.  Dogs can be bathed, car interiors can be cleaned, and life goes on.

Here's the thing, though - tie-outs are nice, but they break.  And they get cold, and freeze.  And people like us start to feel bad when the dog can't ever be off the tie-out because that's just not fair. So, one fine day, my awesome hubby and the boy got some chain-link fence and made a dog yard, so all we have to do now to let the dogs out is open the patio door, and bam! They can go outside and have room to run around.

Anyway, since we had that set-up when we got Max, we just never tried him off-leash in the yard.  He doesn't have the prey drive that Luger had (honestly, I've never seen a dog with the prey drive Luger had) and he's also more obedient than Luger was, so I always kinda thought he'd be ok off-leash, but never wanted to try it when Luger was around, because that's not fair.  Yes, I'm one of THOSE dog people, ha ha.  But seriously.  I've testing Max out a few times earlier, we take him out for walks around the yard all the time and I'll drop the leash and see what he does, and he's been fine.  He's good around the cats, he acts like he's going to chase them but when he's close to them he doesn't actually do anything, he just sniffs them.  So earlier this afternoon, I was taking something to the barn, and when I had the door open, Maxwell was standing there looking at me.  And I was like -- what the heck? Let's see what happens.  It's too hot for him to want to stay out there too long, anyway.  

Wanna know what happened? Nothing!  He's such a good boy.  He followed me out to the barn.  (I was actually taking my old desk chair out there, because I got a new one a few weeks ago and there's no room for the old one in here, so I thought I'd put the old one in the barn so I have a place to sit and pet the cats when I'm out there.  It makes sense in my head.)  He sniffered things and followed me when I called him, and stayed away from the road, and then I took him out in the field behind the old barn and tried to get him to run around and play a little bit, but it's hot out so I didn't try too hard.  Then we came back to the house, and now he's zonked out on the couch.  Sound asleep.  He's had a busy morning/early afternoon trying to keep track of everyone.  

I almost think I'm ready to get another dog. Almost.  When I was tidying up earlier today, I came across a box of Luger's leftover medication, that I couldn't bear to get rid of last fall.  Even though I thought it was stupid to keep a box of medication that someone else could make use of, just because the thought of getting rid of it felt like I was ripping my heart out of my chest with my bare hands and handing it off to some random stranger, which made absolutely no sense at all.  I just couldn't do it, though.  But today, I got rid of it.  Of course, the medication is now expired so I threw it away, but it didn't really hurt to do so.  It didn't make me feel like I was ripping out a vital organ or anything.  It just made me a little sad (not even a lot sad, just a little) thinking about how I used to have to give those pills to Luger every day.  

Alright, I think that's about enough writing from me for now.  The hubby got a new pressure washer yesterday and I am dying to try it out!! (Not kidding, either!)  I also want to get some yard work done.  And I need to get some laundry done.  And it's still hot and humid out.  Ugh! IDK where to start. I'll figure something out. TTYL!