Of Puppy Enthusiasm and Crabby Dogs by Konnie Enos

I was comfortably sound asleep having pleasant dreams. I can’t now tell you what those dreams were because I was suddenly jarred awake by wet coldness on the tip of my nose.

Now if you have any interaction with four-legged friends you can understand what can cause this. Since our home is full of four-legged family members in possession of cold wet noses, I immediately flailed out at my assumed offender, my ornery Mable. After all her preferred sleeping place is between Jerry and me.

My hands did not find Mable. I now assumed I was being attacked by Reeses, Jerry’s fluff ball because he slept in our room. I reached higher as I pried my eyes open.

I finally managed to focus just enough of a peek to see just who was putting his nose on me. I hadn’t reached high enough either time. With the identity of my attacker confirmed I realized Jerry wasn’t in bed. How could he be with this large lummox sitting on Jerry’s spot in the bed?

 Since Jerry was awake, and this beast was loose in my bedroom, I could only conclude Jerry had returned from picking Tony up from work.

Therefore I yelled at Tony for help, all while grappling with the behemoth attempting to keep him from biting me or again sticking his nose in my face. To ensure I got some assistance I further added that I did not appreciate being roused from a sound sleep by a cold, wet nose.

Tony came into the room laughing and hauled the interloper off my bed, out of my room, and into the back yard where presumably he was supposed to be rather than curiously poking at my face.

Now I must explain that this behemoth, while now the second largest of our dogs, the Akita is full-grown, he is still a puppy, and a bundle of curiosity and energy combined with a strong Husky tendency for drama.

He once somehow got one paw caught in something which resulted in him yelping and squealing so loudly it woke Jerry from a sound sleep and set most of the household, including Jerry, scrambling through the house to see what the catastrophe was. The poor dear was uninjured (the resident vet nurse completely checked him out). He did not like having his paw caught. That and he is, like all Husky’s tend to be, a true drama queen.

That is not the only time he’s whined, fussed, yelped, or squealed all because he was not pleased with his present condition and wanted attention.

For my part, I’m grateful he doesn’t generally find his way into my room with his theatrics. Most of the daylight encounters involve him sniffing around and Mable loudly telling him this is her room and she’d very much rather he not be in it. Mable is far too territorial to realize he is twice her size and still growing.

To ensure peace and no injuries, deadly or otherwise, we make efforts to keep them apart while still allowing them to see each other and hopefully Mable will get used to his presence before a battle occurs.

The behemoth has already lost all curiosity about the only female four-legged inhabitant in our house so now we have to again teach Mable that every family member is allowed in my bedroom.

Though I still have the issue of startling early morning attacks.

Only a couple of weeks after the first one, I was jolted awake by pain in one toe. That and my bed being jostled. I looked up just in time to see Tony again hauling his behemoth out of my bed and into the back yard instead of running over my bed and stepping on my toe.

I’m now assuming a third attack of the over-exuberant puppy will occur eventually. I mean he is less than a year old. He is, however, now old enough to feel the need to procreate while still being young enough to not realize all the nuances of actually doing so. In other words, he is starting to try to follow that instinct without realizing he needs a female canine to get anywhere.

Do I need to restate that we only have ONE female four-legged family member? Perhaps I should point out she is not only a senior dog but less than half his size. Though the main issue is she does NOT like him. That and Mable is as ornery as he is a drama queen.

Don’t you just love the different personalities families bring into your life?

Smile. Make the day a brighter day. 

Movies VS Books by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I feel like I just waded through a horrific war. Oh wait, I just read from “The Sorcerer’s Stone” clear through to “The Deathly Hallows”!

That is what reading a good book is supposed to do.

It certainly isn’t like when Harry Potter “entered” Tom Riddle’s diary and learned of the night Riddle accused Hagrid of killing Myrtle, or rather Hagrid’s pet Arogog, though that manner was a fascinating idea, it doesn’t quite work that way.

Sometimes I wish I could do that. Since I’m such a slow reader, I wouldn’t mind being able to “watch” what happened instead. The only problem is that movies do not follow the book very closely, and the later HP movies are quite frankly horrendous in how far from the facts they deviate!

I have never actually finished watching the movies. It was bad enough when they introduced those stupid talking shrunken heads in “Prisoner of Azkaban,” and taking Dobby’s big part out “Goblet of Fire” and giving it to Neville? (Outrageous!) But the beginning of . . . you know what, I can’t remember which one it was but it started with that made up scene where Harry was chatting up that waitress in that café and Dumbledore showed up? Where did that idea come from?

All of the books at or near the beginning had Harry either arriving at or leaving number 4 Privet Drive. All the movies should have started there! And again, what’s with the stupid shrunken heads?

Yes, I do know that the books are way too detailed, especially the later ones, not every detail can fit in the movies. I can understand taking Norbert out, I can understand the all-out effort to shorten the script, what I can’t understand is adding in stuff that’s not in the book!

Okay, so maybe it was easier to let Neville have the role the fake Mad-Eye intended him to have in Harry getting through the second task just so Dobby doesn’t have to be there, but then you add in that frantic scene where Neville thinks his idea didn’t work and Harry drowned! Why?

I don’t know, maybe it could have worked that way because the fake Mad-Eye did give Neville that book with that intention in mind, but well, think about it. Harry knew Neville, they slept in the same dorm room, but that was all. The most you could say was that they were acquainted with each other.

And frankly, who confides in people they barely know? Certainly not Harry, who only asked his closest friends.

Rowling may have had the fake Mad-Eye giving Neville that book (And quite frankly I was sure the first time I read about it that there was something important about that book, after all, why would a DADA teacher give a student a herbology book?) but Harry would never have asked Neville for help!

It was far more likely for Harry to get help from Dobby then to ask Neville for it. Of course, he didn’t ask Dobby either. Dobby offered his help! After being freed by Harry, Dobby was constantly asking what he could do for him, while on the other hand, Neville would never have asked if he could help, well anyone, at that point in the saga Neville thought he was all but worthless.

Who with that low of self-esteem would have offered their help to anyone? Especially someone at the top of their class, when they are closer to the bottom?

All authors have to realistic. Rowling was being realistic. End of discussion.

Though, after seeing the very first movie (having read the first several times by the date) I know for sure if I was an English teacher and my class was reading that book, I would make sure you can only answer the test questions correctly if you read the book. Even better I'd word it just so that if you only watched the movie, you’d get the answer wrong!

And for any of you kids out there who still think they can just watch the movie, there are lots of details that are totally incorrect in the movies. I promise, and I’ve only compared a few movies to the books they are based on, not just HP. I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.

Actually, I’ve yet to watch a movie based on a book that was anywhere near as good as the book. The books were always ten times better than the movies. And frankly, I liked some of those movies.

Anyway, happy writing everyone! 

Of Babies and Signs by Konnie Enos

 

My daughter recently posted a link to a post on Love What Matters. I read it then followed links at the bottom to other posts by the same woman. One link was about her fourth pregnancy and her concern about whether or not she would have twins. At this point, she had already given birth to four girls (her three previous pregnancies, one set of twins) and had adopted a young boy.

She had an early ultrasound to assure her it was only one. The ultrasound staff gave both blue and pink hats to expectant parents. When it came time to give her these hats, they couldn’t find a pink one.

The staff member said it was a sign it’d be a boy because lacking one color had never happened before. With four girls, she didn’t think she could have a boy. She mentioned this to no one until after her baby, a boy, was born. (You can read her story here: Love WhatMatters )

This all reminded me of something that happened to us.

Just after we got married, Jerry and I started discussing names for our future children. I started making a list of names we agreed on. In no time we had five names, all for girls. I insisted we needed names for boys too.

Over the next three or four months we eventually agreed upon five boy names. By then we were already expecting baby number one so I pulled out the list and asked Jerry which names we should consider for this first baby.

The first name on our list was the first one he’d put forward, it was the name he wanted to name his daughter. I agreed, our oldest daughter would be Clarissa. (There is another story about how my father confirmed our oldest daughter would be Clarissa). I then said I wanted to name my son Royce. Jerry refused. We compromised. Our first son would be Anthony, but I insisted our second son would be Royce. From this point forward I was adamant I would have two boys.

 The next time we learned we were expecting, I pulled out the list and said we needed to pick a girl’s name for our second child, just in case this time it wasn’t a boy. Jerry picked the name he liked and I, again, had no reason to oppose him. So our second child would be either Kristina or Anthony. We had Kristina.

When I got pregnant a third time this repeated though both my third and fourth pregnancies ended in miscarriage. When I got pregnant a fifth time we waited until I was in my second trimester to again check the list. We only needed a girl's name. I had reasons to pick Melinda and Jerry did not oppose me. We had Melinda.

My sixth and seventh pregnancies ended before we could consider which name we would use if we had yet another girl.

Then we got pregnant for the eighth time. We again pulled out the list but we only had two girls’ names left and could not agree which one we would use if we had another girl. I finally felt I would wait until I saw our daughter before deciding. It was never an issue. We had Anthony.

When I shortly thereafter got pregnant yet again I didn’t even pull out the list, preferring to wait until I knew we were past the first trimester. Since it was unclear when I conceived they scheduled an ultrasound at which they established I was already in my second trimester and we were indeed expecting a boy. We never had to pull the list out because we already knew I would name our second son Royce.

I did, however, look for the list to refresh my memory on what names were on it.

Through at least six moves and about a decade, I had always been able to find it. This time I could not. I have not seen it since we discussed what we would name our fourth child if we had another girl.

  To this day I can still remember the names I would have given two more girls, but I cannot tell you the remaining three boy names. And though I did conceive one more time, I miscarried long before we would have taken the time to discuss possible names.

Somehow the missing list was the biggest message we could have. There would be no more kids in our family.

Well, until our grandkids came along. So far we have one beautiful granddaughter and another granddaughter is expected in October, just in time for my daughter’s 30th birthday.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Reading and Other Pastimes by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I think I have bitten off more than I handle.

I have plans for crafts to make for Christmas, and I even have the supplies, but when will I have the time to make them? Honestly, I’ve had the supplies for a couple of years now.

I’ve also been trying to practice my clarinet, but there is that time problem again because I also have signed up for a class online that I have to finish by the end of May and let’s not forget that I have a job and two different volunteer jobs, and a sister-in-law who needs rides periodically.

I know for most people this pandemic has meant doing less, staying home (and honestly it did for me at first) but then I needed to find a job and things started to open up again, and now I’m busier than ever! HELP!

There are not enough hours in the day especially since I’ve been doing so much reading since Christmas.

Right after Christmas, I started reading clear through all my Dick and Felix Francis novels, every last one of them, with a short break to read “Crooked Swan” (which I mentioned in an earlier post) but now I’ve finished those novels and, after reading one of my romances, have switched to my HP books.

Okay, not a good idea being as I’m such a slow reader, but clearly, I’m getting a ton of reading done this year.

If you count just before Christmas when I read the first twelve Boxcar Children books (which I also own) then all the Francis novels I own, including the one Konnie gave me for Christmas, that’s another thirty-nine books, and I’m currently on book four of the HP series, so that makes (counting The Crooked Swan and that romance) fifty-seven books in approximately sixteen weeks.

If you want to just count this calendar year, that cuts it down to about forty-three books read, so far, but I’m doing that at the expense of other pursuits.

And I’d really like to get better at playing my clarinet, make those Christmas crafts, and do some other sewing for me, all while working twenty hours a week, volunteering another seven hours a week, doing things like running my own errands and helping my sister-in-law run hers and of course my course work and learning excel.

On top of all that, one of the local stations I get shows Star Trek the original, NextGen, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise in that order from six until ten Sunday through Friday nights. I don’t stay up to watch Enterprise, sometimes I don’t even watch DS9 and Voyager because I’d rather read, but I do want to watch them.

I’m at a point when I have to choose what is more important.

That’s never an easy task for me, probably because I’m on the spectrum.

I am trying.

For starters, I need to read my scriptures more than fiction.

Second, I need to finish that course and learn excel to get a better job, something that isn’t temporary.

Third, I need to lose weight. I need to exercise, and I have been trying to work on that, promise.

And fourth, I need to write my post.

With so much time on her hands, Konnie has already written her next post and has an idea for the one after that. I can’t say the same. She had to remind me it was my turn to post this week.

Yikes!

Worse still she reminded me right when I remembered I had homework and practice still do and as well as clean the litterbox and feed both me and Patches.

And that meant missing my shows!

Plus, I’m only on the twelfth chapter of Goblet of Fire, and for anyone who knows the HP series, you know that isn’t very far into the book.

And no, I have no intention of reading every book I own before Christmas this year, for one thing, that would impossible. I have too many. Just physical books I have tons; if you add in what’s on my reader and I swear I’m pushing three hundred if not more.

Actually, it’s probably more because I’m certain I have way more books than Nativities and at this point I have well over two hundred Nativities counting tree decorations and my jewelry.

Of course, some of those books are craft, cook, and instructional books. (i.e. my clarinet books.)

And let’s not forget that I'm a writer! I do have several WIP’s. The most urgent of which is my epic sci-fi which I have been trying to work on, occasionally. I really should put more time into it.

I also have some counted cross-stitch designs I’d love to get done, including one which is a Nativity, but who has time?

Something has to give, but what?

Anyway, happy writing everyone.