I think I'm a pretty good listener, I really like to hear how someone's day was and talk about mine, but I have a hard time finding someone to listen and chat with me 😖
I'm behind. Terribly, as usual. But I'm determined to stick with this blog prompt thing even if it means I write 4 or 5 in one day.
As far as I can remember, my dreams have always been strange. Like.. as a kid I dreamt of the next day,and it strangely was very accurate even when I didn't do what I had done in my dream, the result would be the same.
At least, at 8 and 9 it was just dreams and I mostly just brushed them off, rare occasions I would write about them in my diary. Looking back now, it's unsettling.
My teenage years began the really weird reoccurring dreams that wouldn't go away. Every single strange and surreal thing that happened in the dream happened the same way for most of my teenage life ..until about 17, when my dreams morphed into a monochromatic third person view. I couldn't see faces in the dreams I had then. And generally speaking, the dreams always had some old time movie feel ... Like the black and white parts of wizard of Oz...except with a splash of color. Sometimes only the people were black and white while the surrounding area was Technicolor.
In my 20s and 30s dreams became a luxury. I rarely remember dreaming during that time, and the dreams I did have were enough that I would often write them down. I have a thing about dreams, and I'm always trying to find the meaning behind why my brain behaves the way it does. I wish I remembered more of my dreams.
After my overdose last year, sleep has been a strange activity for me. Like, some days I feel like I can go days and days without sleep. Others, I can't sleep enough. For almost 6months after, I ran on 36 hour days. Never sleeping at the same time of day, never really dreaming, let alone moving during my sleep.it was like I straight disconnected from life.
Now, if I have the option of remembering a dream, the for some reason I am supposed to get something from it... But, most of the time the rare ones I do recall are completely ridiculous.
I need to have done something at least once before I have anything other than anxiety about it. If I have to do something important I’ll practice it once (preferably in private with no observers who might criticize :).
25. Pet photos and stories. Childhood pets. Favorite pet. Current pet. All the animals. (Photos!)
I've always had pets. My family has always had pets. We had dogs, cats, horses, and at some point even chickens.
Currently I have three dogs and three cats (one is technically mine, the other two are my daughter's). My dogs are two geriatric old farts who just sleep, potty and eat, and occasionally come around for a pat and some affection, and one female puppy, who is 10 months old and a challenge all the way.
Let me tell you about them all.
Gizmo -- he is my daughter's cat, primarily, though I love and adore this cat to pieces. He is a good cat. He's big, cuddly and intimidating
to the point of comedy. He tries to be intimidating. He's a sweetheart for real and very terrified of Thunderstorms.
He got his name because as a kitten he looked like a Mogwai.
Miss Kitty- She's a year older than Giz, and they ended up mating as I was too slow to get her spayed and didn't think a kitten under 10 months old
could or would nail her. Gizmo proved me wrong. Miss Kitty is temperamental at best. She will look at me and knock my crystal stems
off the shelf and casually lick her paw like "Was that a problem for you?" She tends not to be very friendly to strangers, but she is very affectionate with my grandkids, my daughter and myself. She actually has to kiss my cheek goodnight every night before she goes to bed at my side. She is also quirky in that she loves baths and will get in the tub with any unsuspecting person who allows her in the bathroom during a bath. She got her name because we couldn't decide on a name and kept calling her Kitty.. then it became Miss Kitty.
She also has a thing for sitting on tops of open doors...
Boo- (technically Boo Bear) She's a very tiny calico, the offspring of Miss Kitty and Gizmo. Boo is SUPER affectionate, but only to her person (my daughter)
which is apparently typical for Calicos. She can be skittish with strangers though and she is pretty finicky towards other cats.
She avoids children at all costs and generally avoids most people other than my daughter, though she tends to sleep on my bed.
She has been bullied by the other cats which has changed her personality some, and she’s become less friendly and more skittish. I can’t seem to get the others to quit bullying her. She too loves water, like her momma. This photo does not do her justice but she’s hard to get pics of.
Brutus -- He is my old man. Born 14 years ago, I've had him since Pre-Katrina New Orleans. He is now nearly blind, mostly deaf and walks with a limp from a past injury when he fell down some stairs he wasn't supposed to be climbing in the first place and broke his leg.
He's the 'alpha' of our pack.. setting the other two straight as needed. He does on occasion surprise us and do a run through the yard and play like a puppy, but then immediately crashes hard. He mostly sleeps these days.
He’s extremely loyal, loves my grandkids and kids. He will be missed when he crosses the Rainbow Bridge.
Recently he made our local news in the police report by running off... blind deaf dog at large. :)
Carlos- He's my little chihuahua. Nickname is Chachi. He was a rescue from some people who lived down the street. They would allow their
children to beat on him, kick him, their other dogs to attack him. He has scars on his face, is missing teeth, and when my ex wife implored them to let her have him, they gave him up without a care. When I first tried to introduce myself to him, he bit me.
It took some time to make up to him, but once he did, he became my dog. When she moved out, she took him with her, but he kept running
away to my house so she finally just gave him to me. He is generally shy, and takes a long time to make up to someone, but once he makes up to someone he loves them forever. He is also our little mediator. When the cats fight he gets in between them and breaks them up.
I think he’s confused. Sometimes he thinks he’s a cat, and I’ve caught him using the litter box. He’s full of character for sure.
And last but certainly not least is Jules. Jules is 10 months old now. She's a lab/ boxer/ mastiff mix. Her mother was a golden lab,
her father was a mix of Boxer and Mastiff. She has the colouring of her father, but no brindle like he had. She had a wide face and stocky stance.
She is hyper like a boxer, bouncing off furniture, walls, etc,... doing a wild ass run from one end of the house to the next without warning.
She's always smiling.
She's got the lab nose.. and is often nose to the ground sniffing out something. She also got the lab jumping.. can't keep her in a fence. She jumps over it.
And the mastiff in her comes out when she's being protective. She gets this stance... squares up, and head up, ears up and her neck bristles. She has
a menacing deep throaty bark, and when she's warning you she huffs.
She's affectionate and all wiggles though and I've never seen her get agressive except over food. She's the pup, the young one, and the one that one day will accompany me on road trips across the country.
It’s the moments that are the most difficult where faith is present. It’s the moments where you’re feeling doubt is where faith thrives.
I’ve come to learn that faith is a lens. It’s a moment where your mind is attached to fear, but you choose to see the light. It’s a choice to focus on the end result instead of attaching to the “what if” or “will it” moments.
With faith, you’ll always get a response. You get your answer. It just takes some time to get.
