Happy New Year!

Many folks are very good about putting out an annual greeting card to their family and friends. I am blessed to receive many of these beautiful greetings each year from my own family and friends. I love seeing their photos and learning about their adventures that took place during the previous year. Checking out the kids' photos is especially fun since it affords the opportunity to notice changes in growth and appearance: "Oh my! Look how those kids have grown! I remember when they were born!"(I've noticed though that not many of my adult friends like to put themselves in the photo cards anymore. Perhaps they do not enjoy seeing the evidence of the passage of time on their faces?)

As much as I enjoy receiving these great cards and letters though, I am not one of those people who reciprocates. And I am really OK with that. Long ago, I gave myself permission to pass on membership in that club. The thought of having to produce such a publication every December or January is just too stressful for me. I would worry about which photo to use. Or worse yet, what if there was not a single good photo of me and my family to send?! I would worry about what to write to people about the previous year's personal events. I don't want to appear to be too braggy or too kvetchy. I don't want to say anything to cause any unpleasant feelings for anyone about anything. But then that would make for a fairly boring family update wouldn't it?

So I continue to move through life trying to stay in touch with family and friends via visits, phone calls, email, Facebook, etc. Staying connected to these people is definitely important to me because I feel that these life connections are what makes life worth living. Without all these wonderful people who help me get through this life I would be so sad and lonely. I want my nearest and dearest to know that they are important to me and that I value them. But I still can't manage to send out holiday cards or nice newsletters.

So, if you are kind enough to be reading this post, please know that I appreciate you. My family and I are all happy and healthy. I hope the same is true for you and yours. Here's wishing you all lots of good health and good times in the year ahead. And please do keep in touch. Thanks!

Love,
Jane

And They Call It Puppy Love

Since two people have asked me this week if I'm still writing my blog I thought I would give it a shot.

Last year around this time we were blessed with a new arrival: a beautiful golden retriever puppy who we named Buzzy. He was the puppy I had wanted ever since our previous dog had died in 2001. All of us were excited about the addition to our family. He was so cute! He was even mostly well behaved most of the time. There were, of course, many adjustments for all of us to make but we were really happy to finally have a dog.

While spring changed into summer and our puppy changed before our eyes, we took much pride and much pleasure in seeing Buzzy grow so quickly. He was a friendly and cheerful presence in our home and we loved him very much. He got some basic training and learned some manners fairly easily and soon became our best dog ever. He also soon became our furriest dog ever. As his coat changed from soft puppy fur into coarser stuff, he looked like he had a dark stripe down his back. And, of course, he shed everywhere.

Having had a golden retriever before, we knew that our new dog would shed. But one forgets just how much fur can be shed by one dog in only one day. The fur factor was most impressive. Large clumps would fall off of him as he moved around the house or got petted by the kids leaving fluffy yellow tumbleweeds to be swept up constantly. It turns out that the clouds of fur were the harbingers of doom for us.

During the summer, I learned from a physician who specializes in asthma and allergies that the main reason I was continuing to have such constant breathing problems was that I had developed an allergy to dogs. Upon hearing this news I burst into tears and felt devastated. I was told that I could try to live with the dog but that it was unlikely that my symptoms would improve as long as the dog was in our house. How unfair! I finally got the dog I'd always wanted, the dog my kids loved, the dog who even my reluctant husband had come to adore, and now he was making me sick.

I tried to make the situation work at home. I took lots of allergy medicines. I kept the dog outside as much as I could. I made sure the kids and the husband played with Buzzy outside and took him for walks often. But my efforts were to no avail. Once winter was upon us I found that I could hardly breath when I was in the same room with Buzzy. The day came where I had to make the painful decision to let Buzzy go. It was awful. Telling the kids was even worse.

Buzzy went back to the farm where he was born in order to live with his parents and siblings and cousins. Driving him there and saying good bye to him was excruciating for our whole family. I still cry and feel horrible just thinking about it almost three months later. I know we did the right thing and I know he'll find a new home but I'm so sad that we couldn't keep him. He was a part of our family for almost a year and we loved him dearly. The loss and the grief for us are as real as when we lost my mother not so long ago. That may sound melodramatic but it is true.

So that explains why I didn't write in my blog for a year. I got a puppy. I loved the puppy. I lost my puppy. It sounds so simple but, of course, life is never simple. It is good and bad and easy and hard and happy and sad. But in the end, I'm so glad we got to have that dog. And we loved him very well.

Breathing easier

Last week I was diagnosed with "asthma-like symptoms" by my primary care provider. I knew I was already suffering with seasonal allergies because my eyes were itchy and my throat was drippy. But when I asked about tightness in my chest, I was treated to a "spirometry" test to measure how much air I could move. Apparently, I did not do particularly well on this test. I am now enjoying the benefits of an albuterol inhaler and some new allergy meds. It's amazing to me what a difference it makes!

Many years ago, while visiting a friend in Miami Beach, I learned that my eyesight was not as sharp as I thought it was. While we stood on the beach and waited for an airplane banner to pass by,  I was surprised when my friend, Chris, could read the banner long before I could--especially since she wears glasses and I didn't! My reaction was to ask her, "You can read that from here?" Her reply was, "You can't?" I was stunned to realize that I didn't even know what I had been missing.

I remember the day I got my first pair of glasses. As I drove home on a beautiful early spring day, I was amazed to find that I could actually see the details of individual leaves on the trees along the roadside. It was a truly moving experience for which I was, and still am, eternally grateful. I felt I had been given a tremendous gift that allowed me to see all that had been blurry or missing in life. How exciting!

When I realized last week that I really had not been breathing fully for quite some time, I felt a little scared and a bit sad.  While I am well aware that many people suffer far worse breathing ailments than I, it was still very disconcerting to me to think that my lungs were not working as well as they should have been. Given that I grew up in a family where every adult was an unrelenting and unrepentant smoker, it should not be a big surprise that my lungs now might be less than perfectly healthy. But since I've tried to lead a healthy life as an adult I guess that I was (wishfully) thinking that I could avoid all the health problems that plagued my elders. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

But what I do know is that I am so grateful to be able to breath so much better now! When I took my new medicine then went for my usual four-mile run, I couldn't get over how much improved my breathing was. The next day, when I went to my favorite yoga class, I couldn't believe how much more deeply I could breath. It was just as exciting as that day I got my new glasses. Once again I feel like I got a tremendous gift that allows me to appreciate life even more. How exciting!

Life is a Gift

If the old saying is true that each day is a gift, then why don't we ever get the gift receipt included in case we we want to make an exchange?

Wouldn't we all like to trade one super bad day for at least an average, if not spectacular, day? That would certainly be a nice convenience to have for those days when everything seems bleak, bad and wrong. There could be great comfort in knowing that on one of those days where it feels as though life is too hard we could just hit a reset button.

Which terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day would you choose to exchange? Which day would you switch it to if you could?

Hey Now!

For more than a year I have entertained the idea of writing a blog. Like many others I feel the need to write down my thoughts and ideas. And like so many others, for some unknown reason, I feel the need to share some of these thoughts and ideas. I think it must be a pretty basic human need to communicate and to feel understood. I know they are two of my most important needs.  So I will write. Whether anyone reads what I write is another matter entirely. But I hope that I will enjoy the writing at least half as much as I've always imagined I would.

Many times when I'm chatting with my Hubby in the evening, we will laugh together and I will say to him, "I'm Funny!" Then he'll say, "You should write it down." So maybe now I will. How fun!