Flora & Fauna / Pup & Plants
Irresistible Otonabee river sunset
After about a million cold snaps & false starts, spring came to Peterborough.
These grew from dirt in a few days.
Nothin’ matters but this grin.
Blooms & blooms &
Blossoms
Bossy dog.
Blue sky.
Best bud.
Me and Geraldine here have just been goin’ for walks, watching things bloom, playin’ fetch.
Single Lady Good Things
You know how sometimes you can’t talk about things as they are going on & instead you just have to live through them?
I know it’s been quiet around here. A lot has been happening, & I haven’t officially said anything, so here we go:
Nick & I broke up in October.
It’s been about a week and a half since I moved out. All I am willing to say, for posterity in public on the internet, is that I think he is a really tremendous person & I’m proud of the time we spent together. This week I have been thinking back on the good times in the old apartment with Nick & Geraldine & my summertime roommate, Sam, and appreciating the shit out of those moments. There’s a lot that I look forward to, but also a lot I’ll miss.
First self-portrait in my new room. Bought that virgo mug as a housewarming gift & another for a virgo friend.
It’s time to get back to the good things lists.
It’s important to me to take some time to be mindful & appreciative of the things that are happening in my life right now, especially since some of them are so new.
- Most significantly, I am awestruck by the strength & power & generosity of my circle of family and friends. Y’all have been so forthcoming with yr patience, advice, your moving muscles, yr time & your listening ears, yr couches, yr text messages, yr bravery. The amazing people I am lucky to know are my biggest source of happiness and inspiration. All of my admiration & love. xoxox
- Beautiful morning light. Have been waking up earlier in the morning to a BRIGHT bedroom & feeling full of energy. In this very darkest part of the year & with my Seasonal Affective Disorder, this is such a big big gift. This lets me get stuff done nearly effortlessly & that is a wintertime miracle.
- Eating nearly an entire crate of clementines. Yessss.
- Apartment decorating time. I have so many ideas & a long way to go yet but pulling my things out of boxes & seeing how they work all together felt so good. Doing this for myself, rather than as a couple, is so much more personal… looking at my stuff is a bit like looking in a mirror.
- Thrift store magic. I normally strike out hard when I thrift in Ptbo but when I went this week I feel like some mysterious friend who is my exact size with my personal style dropped off all the things I have had in the back of my mind for so long. I wish I could meet that person & buy her a beer & listen to her stories.
- Organizing my closet by colour: white, grey, black, navy, & “other”. Greyscale lifestyle.
Zoo visit with Julia – discovered that sea otters love to play fetch with snowballs.
- The last two weeks included visits from both of my long distance best femme friends, & it was amazing, but now I want many more visits for much much longer. I have been trying to find the silver linings of the pet-free lifestyle & being able to drop everything and get outta town is one that I plan to try out.
- My boss just let me know that he bought a coffee maker for the shop: can you hear the angels singing? So pumped.
- Just got the pattern in the mail for those knit curtains! Yesss.
- Ginger tea.
- Cheese carbs date with my best knitter friends last night. All the cheeses, all the netflix, all the knitting, it was awesome.
- My last counselling session involved learning some visualizations to generate calm & focus. It has totally been working, & I feel lucky every single day when I think about being able to access professional help in managing this wintertime depression.
- I bought a tiny pine plant (too small to be a tree) & hung a few vintage ornaments on it & it feels cozy and nice, actually. Tiny xmas tree! Experimenting with my plant-buying hypothesis, discovering that just walking into to the flower shop with its greenery & humidity is a super mood booster.
- Learning lots & lots of new things! I worked my first knitted cables this week AND I have been studying like mad for an accounting midterm that I am taking this weekend. Accounting! Who woulda thunk. Feels good to change things up though.
Obsessive spooner.
Puppy cuddle party.
Lately this animal and I have been spending a whole lot of cuddle time together. I think the cooler weather has her seeking out cozier sleeping spots & warm bodies and that suits me just fine. We slept in way too late yesterday morning & she let me spoon her with an arm thrown over her shoulders. I’ve been doing a lot of tv-watching and knitting & Geraldine has been curling up at my feet with her head resting on my hip, watching me work.
As I write this post I am still in my pajamas, (and am still sporting some quality bedhead.) I spent the morning tidying the house, making some soup, working on a craft project. This little attention-getter would much rather that we got to hang out, though.
If you haven’t yet, you definitely need to check out “What it’s Like to Snuggle a Baby Walrus” - I kind of think I might be living with a dog with a walrus-sized soul, myself.
Happy Day Geraldine: Dog to 5k
Geraldine in her very own pink swimming pool.
Today, Geraldine is three years old.
When Nick told me he wanted to get a puppy & my brain thought “Cute!” and I said yes right away.
I had no clue what having a dog entailed, but oh, did I learn. Those first six months when she woke up every hour all night to go outside (downstairs, on-leash, in the middle of winter) I was pretty convinced that life as I knew it could never be good again. Memories of those months of sleep deprivation have been the world’s best birth control.
I used to meet owners of sweet, grown-up dogs at the park and I was filled with envy. ”How old is your dog,” I’d ask. “Three,” they’d reply. Those years seemed an eternity away & I could never get myself to believe that my adorable & terrible dog would ever calm down.
Bossy Dog says, “Whatever.”
But here we are. This summer, Geraldine started to get tired of playing fetch all on her own. Instead of coaxing & dragging her inside, she just looks at me, makes this goofy smiling face, turns around, and trots back to the yard where she lays in the grass & dozes off. Incredible.
She is my best gal & I love her (but I will never, ever get another puppy again.)
This dog is a serious football fan. Air Babe.
She doesn’t know it yet, but Geraldine and I have grand exercise plans.
When I posted about wanting to find ways to get more exercise, lots of you recommended finding ways to fit more movement into existing routines. Lots of you have long bike commutes & jump-rope parties with friends & you are all very cool people who I want to hang out with.
One of my biggest reasons for wanting to get more exercise is to see if it will help combat my seasonal depression. I have always found that doing some quality dog-bonding is a surefire antidote to a hopeless mood. Geraldine has the world’s most excited grin when she is out and about on walks, and the most exuberant bounce in her step when she runs around in the yard. I know that kicking our walks together up a few notches is going to make her SO HAPPY, and making Geraldine happy makes me SO HAPPY too.
Biggest grin! Best smile.
I am going to try doing a Couch to 5k with Geraldine.
Actually – don’t mock me here – it’s called “Pooch to 5k.”
There was a time when increasing my walking speed even a bit would cause G-dubs to bust out her fastest sprint – fast enough to pull me off my feet, roll me down a hill, smack my head on a frozen sidewalk. I had assumed that a bunch of (overdue) leash training would be required before we could try any running, but tonight I spontaneously jogged a few blocks of our evening walk, and she did super great. And I was surprised to discover that *I* did great, too, even in my street clothes & some flimsy flat shoes.
We’ll see how that goes – it’s a 12 week program so that we’ll be running outside through the beginning of December. I suppose I’ll be a jogging expert before then, though! Fingers crossed for a mild winter.
Today though I think I’ll take my new three year old pooch out for a special treat – I’m thinking a slice of pizza with a peanut-butter stuffed crust. Ha!
Okay fine & because I can never resist, here is some vintage gal & dog photos from way back in ’09.
This gal used to be tiny enough to fall asleep with her head on my shoulder.
During the day, she slept.
Our early attempts at sports were not always successful, but they were cute.
Wish us luck! We should be elite athletes by Christmas.
August.
Airport knitting.
A whole month went by & I barely said a word.
I took some photos though and they look like this:
Backlit vinyl at the Gotta Groove record factory.
No Fun Quebec, Quebec.
Best friends & The Feelings.
Baby Eagle at Sappyfest
Marine Dreamboat Ian Kehoe
Constant Love.
To tell you the truth, as much as travel & adventures & friends & vacations are nice, I am tired.
Have been working six day, sixty hour weeks to pay for all the good times, and I’m ready for a stint of no fun myself. Or maybe just the kind of fun that happens when I sit on my porch with a book. The kind of fun where I take a nap with a good dog.
Backlit golden retriever.
