Adding my “Cowboy hat to to the previous blog post”

I have decided to add my cowboy hat to the boot and belt so I can complete my wardrobe lol! I post about this because of the passion I have had over the last few years on learning how to dance and compete in this sport.  I try to look at this and figure out why I am so taken with it?  I do have fun and get tremendous enjoyment out of it and having the chance to playing a “role” so to speak on the day of competition.

I will be 49 years old next week and have come to realize as I get older I wonder like others “is this all there is”? I mean this in the sense of working for a corporation, trying to climb a ladder, acquiring things and then realizing this does not mean anything and you do not get any self-worth out of this in the long run.

Learning how to dance and compete has given me a new chapter in my life and something positive to focus on instead of the same old drudgery day in and day out.  For the most part no one tells you this in your 20’s or if they did I didn’t listen!! I have decided I am not going to sit here and ride out the rest of my life doing the same job everyday and not learning anything new so I will take charge and learn new things on my own. I have recently attended a personal trainer workshop and testing with my next focus on group fitness training.

I know one thing, the people who I have met dancing are some of the most positive people I have met and lots of them are over 70 and very active which I really admire.  The decision I have made at this point in my life is to hang out with “positive people” and my hat, boot, belt reminds me of this and I encourage anyone not to remain stagnant but do something totally out of character that what you are used to.  I know I did, by dressing like a Cowboy!! My momma and her friends think I look like George Strait lol, I don’t know about that but it sure is fun.

Cowboy Hat, Boots, Belt

Dance boots and belt complimenting the “Cowboy Hat”

Well, I finally did it!! I completed by outfit that I need to wear for the dance competition I compete in!.  I have posted previously about wearing a cowboy hat (which I never had before) and swore I would not wear cowboy boots, let alone some kind of “western belt” LOL. I have posted photo below only of the boots and belt with a previous post showing my hat!

Anyway, I only share to show we can’t take ourselves to seriously and to have fun and laugh while we are able to because we do not know what life circumstances will develop to change that.  There are a lot of things that I thought I would never do that I am doing now and have the time of my life and I encourage anyone thinking about trying something different to make the decision and do because “you can’t be afraid of being afraid”!!

My complete dance comp wardrobe

Follow up post about my dog Molly

Thank you all for the kind comments about my dog Molly that I had to put down several weeks ago.  I still catch myself looking for her running up the driveway to greet me when I would get home. I wanted to share the photo of Molly’s grave site and how we have made a small flower bed out of it in her honor.

Follow up post about my dog Molly

Thank you all for the kind comments about my dog Molly that I had to put down several weeks ago.  I still catch myself looking for her running up the driveway to greet me when I would get home. I wanted to share the photo of Molly’s grave site and how we have made a small flower bed out of it in her honor.

I know that my dog is in heaven!

As I make this post it has been 1 week today that I had to put my dog Molly down and I wanted to make one last post about her. Molly was a lab mix and 13 years old and last weekend she wasn’t doing very well, laid around vomiting and by last Monday she couldn’t keep water down so at 4:00 o’clock I called the vet took her in and the Dr. felt like she had a tumor in her stomach and it didn’t look good and offered to run tests, but it probably didn’t matter. I agreed Molly was suffering and it was time to end it.

I called my wife who was just leaving work and I was trying to hold back my tears telling her what was going on and said she was on her way to the vets office and would be there in about 50 minutes. The Dr. asked if she could give Molly a sedative while we waited and I agreed. I sat in the floor beside Molly for about an hour petting on her telling he how much I loved her and that I would miss her and what a good dog she had been, of course crying the whole time.

My wife got there and the Dr. came in and administered the shot and she was gone in about 10 seconds.  The Dr. had asked how we wanted to dispose of her and I said I have to take her home and bury her where she belonged, because Molly loved our big yard where she would chase the rabbits, bark at the buzzards that flew overhead and pull the corn stalks from my garden, pick off the ear of corn, shuck it and eat it with her front teeth like a person.. I never saw anything like it. I could hit golf balls and Molly would get them and bring back to me.  She did everything I asked and I will miss her terribly!

As I sat there with Molly I told her when I get to heaven we will do the things that she liked to do while she was with us and I can’t wait to see her again.  I don’t what the belief is of anyone who reads this but I believe we go an after this life and I believe that something special like a pet cane be there with us in heaven once we get there. I know our pets can’t talk, but if you are like me and look into their eyes there is something more going on there than we realize and that is why I believe the way I do,

I have attached a picture of Molly and a poem my sister-in-law emailed to me that night that comforted me that I wanted to share. I hope this post may help someone get through what I have experienced in the last week..

Once in our lifetimes we all have a pet

that not for one moment will we forget.

While here on earth we treat them like gold

but despite our best efforts they start to grow old.

Their time here seems short,  one year to our seven

but I believe in my heart that all dogs go to heaven.

Although it is painful,  the sadness it brings

when they trade in old paws for a new set of wings,

cherish the time that you had with your friend

and know that you were there for them until the very end.

Wearing my Cowboy Hat next week for Dance Competition

I have blogged periodically about wearing a cowboy hat that I never thought I would do, but it has grown on me since competing in country western dance events.  Next week will be the first comp of the year and 6 months since the last one I competed in. I blog about this not to “brag” about it , but how this gives me something positive to focus on in life and how much fun I have doing and preparing for these competitions!

I have figured out that as you move through life you need to change course, do things differently,or think differently in order to keep from being in a “rut” or the same mundane things day after day! Putting on the Cowboy hat for the weekend lets me focus on something fun and being somebody different for a few hours!  I can see why as we get older that depression can set it because our kids get older and have their own lives, our relatives or friends die and we can quickly find ourselves alone doing the same old thing we have always done day after day and then “situational depression” can set in!

From the competitive stand point I want to do well and try to win, but if not I still have something that helps me to have a well-rounded life and not to mention meeting interesting people who help to enrich my life!  Oh yeah.. I have posted a picture of “the cowboy hat below” lol.

How my Biff was returned to me for Christmas!

First let me clarify what “my Biff” is so this post will make sense and I will post a picture below as well.  Biff is a talking stuffed animal that was made by Mattel in 1965 and he was mine when I was just a “little crum cruncher” at the age of 4 (and by the way I am 48 now!).  I had lost track of him in my twenties with my wife’s aunt taking him saying she would fix him up as his clothes and body needed to be sewn up.  I did not concern my self with it as I had my own family I was raising, working and just dealing with more important things in my life.  I would ask about Biff periodically and my wife said she would check on it and we would move onto something else.

Flash forward to just a few years ago when I found out that Biff had made his way to my brother-in-law who now had possession of him.  Again the same thing, I would bring it up about checking on getting Biff back but it was not that important.  However, in the last year getting Biff back became more important and I will share that later.  Anyway, I was opening presents for Christmas and when I opened the box there was “Biff”!! I couldn’t believe it!! My older son had gotten him, gave him to my sister-in-law to sew up and repair and gave it to me for Christmas!! I was so excited to finally have Biff back in my possession! He doesn’t talk anymore because the voice box is broken, but that doesn’t matter as I have a fond childhood memory back in my possession.

As I reflect on why this is important to me it becomes obvious to me that age may play some part of this.  I find that as I get older I reflect on things that made me happy and that meant something to me and Biff was on of them.  This is not to say that I am not content with Life now, I am.  It just reminds me that having possessions and acquiring things really don’t have any meaning for me and I find myself wanting to spend my time being around my family and friends and remembering what is important and by having Biff back (even though he is an inanimate object) helps me to realize this. Biff helps me to think about the positive things in my childhood and not the negative and what is important to me today.  Biff is now proudly displayed on my bookshelf!

 

Biff

Fish can’t climb trees and my dog can’t fly

The reason for the title to my post is the quote below from Albert Einstein:

Everybody is a genius.  But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.

— Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

I read this and it started me to think about a few things about life that I wanted to share and how sometimes we might make a big deal out of something or pound our heads against the wall in futility for something that may not be achievable.  Think about what it would really look like if a fish was truly trying to climb a tree! The most likely response would be “Look at that stupid fish”, doesn’t even know how to climb a tree.  This assumption would be made because you may have the ability to climb the tree and the fish doesn’t.

I find my self thinking that way about my dog! My dog will chase and bark at  Buzzards that are flying in the air above our house and I will think “Stupid dog, you can’t fly and catch that Buzzard!”  My dog like most dogs are very smart and if I judge my dog based on the fact she can’t fly and catch the buzzard then she may believe she is stupid which would be an incorrect assumption.

I find this quote to be particularly relevant in the workplace where someone may label you as stupid because you are unable or have the skill level to do what they do when in fact you may actually be smarter person.   This could apply to hobbies as well as in my situation where I enjoy taking dance lessons. I have been in group lessons and hear comments about someone being a “terrible dancer” of they “must be dumb”.

So when I sit back and think about this quote I truly believe we “are all geniuses” and just because someone is not cut out to do a particular thing does not make them stupid and to the people who hear that from someone; don’t believe it!  You may not have the ability to “climb a tree” or “fly like the bird”, but you are good at something and while you try don’t let those around you judge and call you “stupid” because we all are a genius at something, we just have to find out what it is.

The annual theft by the Government of my bonus check!

One again I have received my annual bonus and as usual the government takes their standard 42% in taxes that include; Federal, State, Local, Medicare, and Social Security.  I don’t even look forward to it because I know this will be stolen from me and it is quite disheartening to bust your tail all year and hope this extra money will help me catch up on a few things then I look at the deposit and get angry about it!

I am not one to sit around and complain as I try to take action to express my frustration and in this case I have done so by writing my Congressman and Senator. As can be expected I received less than an adequate response to the unfairness of taking this percentage of my bonus.  In a nutshell I was told I could claim this on my taxes and get in back in a refund. Well guess what.. I can’t!!, This is counted as regular income on my W-2 so I can’t enter this on my income tax in a way to get any type of deduction. As a matter of fact I received a two page letter that gave me the “runaround” on why “my money” was stolen from me!

Let me say, I understand there have to be taxes to run the country but when this government is wasting all this money and we give money to countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq that hate us, want us dead and all the while the people in this country are falling farther and farther behind in trying to make a living!  I have a proposal to make with the government: “Go ahead and take 42% from me but in return I want them to give me back the kind of money they are giving to these countries in the Middle East”.  If all Americans were “given” back the money this country hands to these ingrateful nations, the economy would turn around in 6 months!  As long as the government continues to confiscate money from the citizens at an unfair rate the less incentive we all have to work harder and to be better!

I intend on writing another letter to my Representatives on this issue as I will not give up!! It may never change, but it doesn’t do me any good to just sit here a stew about it and I suggest we all do the same and let Washington know we are watching!

 

How I helped save my pet dog Molly

Every once in a while I will post a blog about my dog molly and based on a recent experience I thought it was time for another.  Last year Molly became very sick with vomiting, not eating, and very lethargic so I took her to the vet and she was diagnosed with pancreatitis and kept her for 3 days for a charge if about $400.00.  The vet said because of her age (12) this is a chronic condition that could flare up anytime, by the way Molly is a lab mix.

Anyway, several weeks ago she began to develop these same symptoms again and due to her age and talking to others with old dogs this was old age and she was on the verge of death. I placed in her in the garage on the dog bed and tried to make her comfortable and she just laid there.  I was not really in a position for another large vet bill especially for an older dog with a chronic problem.  I had water for her but he hardly drank as I knew she needed to keep hydrated. I bought pedialite and she would drink this with her water which I thought was good sign, but during the first 5 days of being sick she had not eaten anything.

After 5 days she appeared to be trying to respond but didn’t have any energy and I had tried to give her some protein shake but she wouldn’t drink it.  I was trying to figure out something she would eat to get her strength back and if she would recover then I would decide if I needed to take her to the vet.  So then I thought of the “miracle cure” that brought molly back from the brink of death… “Peanut Butter sandwiches”!! I figured she needed protein to fill her up and restore her energy so I would make them and tear off in pieces so she could eat. After about 3 days of this she began to walk around and go do her business in the yard.  She was slobbering a lot and leaking feces so I decided to take her to the vet and make sure.  He ran tests and nothing came back and gave me a couple of prescriptions and by the evening she was her happy self and ready to eat everything in site like she used too!!

I wanted to share a positive story as animals become part of the family and as has done everything I asked to chasing the buzzards that fly in the sky to eating the mayflies that try to get into the house during the Spring so I decided this was worth my effort to help save Molly along with a little prayer to God!!

molly