january joy : happy birthday, YoshiBear!
So, Internet, I have decided to do a Thing this month. I am exhausted from negativity and I wanted to try and change what I see and read for this 2016 year (that I am already suspicious of because it’s an even-numbered year.) Winter is difficult. January is difficult. So for this month I am going to take note of the Joy. Little joys. Big joys. January Joy 2016. I am going to blog about things that bring me joy this month. Not daily (because: hahahahahaha. Right.) but way more often than I have been. Because we need more joy in our lives. To start the New Year, on this very first day of January, my joy is found in the birthday of our wonderful YoshiBear. The fluffiest, sweetest, and derpiest Finnish Lapphund of them all. (“Them all” being relative to those Lappies we have lived with in the past 17 years.) So this is how I thought Yoshi should sport his birthday hat for his 4th birthday today. Sigh… Yoshi had other ideas, because this is how he felt the birthday hat was best put to use. Oh, boy! NOM! NOM! NOM! Yeah, he was having none of that with the hat. Apparently I’d just given him the best toy ever. And of course the hat was a huge hit with Yoshi, not in the way I’d intended. We thought his birthday treat of a pig’s knuckle would have been more exciting, but he just looked at me, looked at…
space filler
I have had nothing to write about. Nothing that I feel is worthy about posting online, anyhow. I suppose I could post little bits and bobs of posts from my phone, but I just don’t like blogging by phone. I feel bad though, because I love having this blog, and I love (or I used to love) blogging. I am not sure what’s up with me and blogging these days, but I’m not neglecting it on purpose. I think perhaps my perspective on what to write about has changed over the years. Sometimes you have such a run of bad news, and negativity, that you step back from sharing things with the entire world (aka, Internet). Once the clouds clear away, you’re stuck in the non-sharing mode and it’s apparently difficult to get back into the swing of things. I could blog about how Yoshi turns down my sheets almost every night about bed. (I will – I just need to edit the photos so I can upload them.) I could blog about how I came home from work early last week and discovered that Shawn had made the house magical, and sparkly by putting up out-door lights. And when I walked into the house, he had also put up other Christmas decorations, and it just made my bad day seem so far away because…WHIMSY! (Again, I have to edit photos.) I could blog about how the course I am taking this semester – Intro to Book Design – is…
yoshi is pretty [a teaser of sorts]
I did something pretty amazing the last weekend of August. Yoshi did some amazing things, too – like showing up and looking handsome. I have been meaning to blog about the entire experience, but since I came home I have been suffering from a week-plus migraine, and now a lovely pain flare up. I just haven’t had the energy to edit the photos I need to edit. BUT! As you can see, my YoshiBear is a pretty Bear, and he got ribbons and wins at the dog show – both days! He took Best of Winners against the other Finnish Lapphunds.I did not show him myself, someone else did, but my boy did well! This was a Mummy-Doggy solo-trip, too! Shawn and Sophie stayed home for the weekend. I will post a longer, more detailed (with pictures!) note soon, I promise! I just wanted to let the internets know that my YoshiBear is a pretty boy. We’ve got another dog show coming up this month, where Yoshi should be able to complete his Championship. He’s a show dog, he knows what to do. He flounces very well. He is such a pretty Finnish Lapphund! 😉 Stay tuned!
the simple christmas that lasted most of december
Last December I was home on medical leave all month. It was a very rough time, but it was also nice to deal with December without having to worry about getting to work and fitting everything into small spaces of free time. This year was way more hectic and our moods weren’t much better than last year. There has been way too much sadness in 2014 and by the time Christmas season rolled around, neither of us had much energy or Christmas spirit. I did, of course, change up the blog theme and decorate at home, but this year the home decorations were minimal and I was ok with that. We got our tree on the last day of November, because it was a Sunday and I would be away for the first weekend in December. We put lights on it, but didn’t start decorating it because we wanted some of the branches to fall first. It was looking a little crooked, but without the branches full out, we couldn’t get it right. By the middle of the week, I decided I sort of liked it with just the white lights. So we left it that way. We did add the star, our clear glitter ball ornaments, and the severed head of Potter. Everything else stayed in the boxes in the basement. Shawn asked me if I was feeling ok when I said I wanted a minimalist tree. That’s very out of character for me. This year I just wasn’t…