This weekend has evaporated in pre-Winter chores, stomach rubs, cooking, walks and just sitting – outside with Bear or inside with Auggie. Although, inside with Auggie, is not so much sitting as it is playing/running/throwing crinkled paper…

I’d love to have another weekend day.

I’d always love to have another weekend day!

But, as I sat and thought (generally outside with Bear) – not only did I love every single minute of this weekend, but I loved that I am able to work on my “to do” list as well as enjoy Bear and Auggie and cooking and everything else I chose to spend my time on.

When I was on my way to get Bear, after putting a deposit on a puppy, withdrawing, etc….someone wrote me something to the effect that “of course, I had thought things through.” This caused me to laugh because except for the mundane stuff of life, I don’t really think things through so much as go with my intuition or heart or just where the Universe seems to lead me.

Bear was not easy but DEAR LORD, he is perfect for me. There were moments when I felt like I had done Bob ill – and I thought of trying to find Bob a home where he didn’t have to worry about a dog that didn’t know about cats. And there were moments when I felt it was too hard and then…the enlightening moment was a moment of “Maybe it will be like this until one of them passes”…and suddenly, I knew I could do that. I could love them both and live with the gates and the vigilance. From that point on, it was easy. And it got easier as ultimately we all came together.

And Karl. If you’ve read this blog for long and/or are friend or family that knows me, you know that Karl was so very dear to me. But Karl and I had some rough moments at the beginning of our time. Karl was mouthy – on me – on my arms. I looked like I had a young kitten!! Karl was not Zack, the dog I lost to lymphoma before getting Karl. It took some time and an enlightening moment that Karl was Karl, not Zack – to turn MY thinking around. And ultimately, we came together and had an extraordinary time together.

One of my favorite of all time tv shows is a BBC series: “As Time Goes By”. I have 9 series on DVD and have watched them a LOT of times. One of my favorite lines is about thinking things through. The character Lionel, asks his Father and step-Mother if they’ve thought through something. Lionel’s father replies: “Oh, we can’t be thinking things through. That takes too much time!” I agree!!

And more importantly, it is impossible to know what might happen or how we might feel. There is so little we really have control over.

Water getting into Wild Thing via a crack in the windshield – that I have some control over and I spent some time thinking about making things better over this winter…blocking the leak while also situating the tarp so that I can release it from the ground should we need to go quickly.

Done.

The herbs.

Keeping them going as long as possible – especially the cilantro as I would love one last crop!

An herb cave next to the house with the grow lights to keep the temperature above freezing.

Chores, my work, the logistics of supplying my home. I can think those things through.

A new family member.

No thinking through.

Well, in a “pie in the sky” kind of way, long ago, before the worst became real – I thought that if/when Bear or Bob passed, I would not get another cat or dog until the remaining dog or cat passed…because of Bob’s age and Bear’s age + aversion to other 4 leggeds.

And then when Bob passed and I thought about another cat, I thought I should probably get an older cat. A cat with dog experience. A quiet cat.

But I didn’t do any of those things.

We are living with gates and vigilance and time-splitting and training.

For as long as it takes.

I didn’t think much through.

I am so glad I am not in the habit of thinking things through.