Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Yes I'm Back At Work

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I complained to Hubby yesterday after Sampson, Delilah and I got back from our walk.

Maybe it was because I walk in long pants, with a long-sleeved shirt, socks, sneakers and a ball cap and it’s hot as freakin’ hell.  Really, within five minutes (or just as soon as I’ve reached the top of the hill) I’m sweating like a 500 pound man in a 500 degree oven.

Maybe it was because I can’t walk in the summer without  the bugs…well bugging me.  I swear to God a big sucker flew past my ear and was so stinkin loud the other day that the hair on my body stood on end.

Maybe it was because the bugs keep bugging Delilah and I’m constantly asking my dog to stop or wait while I swat at her.

Maybe it was because the dogs get hot and tired too and stop in the middle of the path and block my progress.

Maybe it was because those stupid spiders build their stupid webs across the trail and I’m constantly flailing and screaming like a little girl, and basically look like a lunatic swatting at nothing.

Or maybe, just maybe it was because it was my last day of vacation and I knew how much 1) I didn’t accomplish while I was home, 2) I’ll miss walking the dogs first thing in the morning and 3)  I’d hate going back to work.

Maybe it was all of the above.

Do you have a hard time adjusting after vacation?

Bang A Drum

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I’m a dreamer. I have big expectations.

I get these thoughts in my head and think I can do something.  And then I don’t.

Jon Bon Jovi summed it up neatly for me in a song called Bang A Drum, that was written and performed for the Young Guns II soundtrack.

I called upon my brother
Just the other day
He said, “John I’m gonna
Die if I don’t start to live again”

I work each day and night like clockwork
Just tryin’ to make ends meet
I could kick this bad world’s ass
If I could just get on my feet

Yup, that’s me in a nutshell.

I could kick this bad world’s ass if I could just get on my feet.

I have lots of  ideas and no idea how to make them come to fruition.

This is where you come in.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my year and a half of blogging, it’s that my blogging family will help.  All you have to do is ask.

In my Be The Dog post, I indicated I wanted to take this blog to the next level.  Well that level is coming up and pretty darn fast too.

I’m planning on moving away from the free wordpress and going self-hosted.

I know, it’s scary.

Here’s the dilemma.  www.jodistone.com is taken.

I was shocked too.

Go figure.  Some chick named Jodi Stone wrote a children’s book about a ….lady bug.

No, it certainly was not me!  How could you even think that?  Me write a book about bugs!

I admit, when I was a child I loved lady bugs, until I saw a house that thousands of them on the ceiling and did you know they bite?  Yeah, I didn’t either.

No, I’m not including the link to her site, but I won’t be mad at you if you go and look.  Just come back here, ok?  I still have a problem.

So this blog is www.jodistone.wordpress.com, but what happens when I go to self-hosting?   Isn’t the blog name supposed to just add a .com to it?

In order to take the next step I need to know what’s going to happen to my blog name.  Do any of you know?  Should I just call the hosting company and run it by them?  Should I change the blog name?

Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.

The Post Where I Whine And Cry And Basically Feel Sorry For Myself

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This is a post where I whine and cry and  basically feel sorry for myself.  I am apologizing in advance for those of you who care to read it and am perfectly fine about those of you who don’t.

A while back I went to a volunteer orientation for an animal rescue.  I was super excited to be joining the group because they are in the process of doing really amazing things.  I was so impressed with all of the programs they had in place and so many ways they were helping animals and helping people keep their animals.

We were asked to check off areas of interest to us and turn the papers in, we also went around the room introducing ourselves and giving a brief synopsis of who/what we were.

Somewhere in my introduction I mentioned I write a blog about my dogs.  The person in charge said she was interested in me because they were redesigning their website and the new website had a blog and they had no idea how to write a blog.

If I say I was excited for the opportunity to get my name out there a bit more and blog in a professional fashion, that would be an understatement.  I was literally over the moon.

The CEO of the organization occasionally sends out e-mails and a couple of months ago during one of our correspondences I mentioned how excited I was for the new website to be completed so I could help them with their blog.  The response was, “I am too.”

Imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from the Office Manager on Tuesday saying “I’d like to suggest that everyone have a look at our Sanctuary construction news blog on the website: you won’t believe it.”

This is an uncomfortable situation for me.  I’m not very big on confrontation but there are so many times when I feel hurt and upset and I don’t say anything.  It is hard (for me) to be assertive about a situation without coming across as bitchy.

Naturally I was shocked and unsure what to do,  I sent an e-mail to the CEO congratulating them on the progress and then I asked, “I did have a question, I notice that you have a blog on the new website and I kind of thought I was going to be helping with that, did you change your mind?”

I knew I was uncomfortable so I was pretty sure she was as well, and I thought I bet I never get a response.  But I got one this morning.

I have no problem posting the entire e-mail but it is quite long.  Basically she said that there are two blogs on the website one is for adoptions and the other is for the sanctuary.  It is easier for the woman directly involved in the adoptions to handle the adoptions blog because it involves less work than forwarding everything to me.

The same goes for the sanctuary blog as there is a woman right in the same town who is taking video etc.  Once the project is complete she’s not sure if it won’t still be easier for the people who are on site to just continue to maintain their blogs.

She ended with “Would it be okay to wait and see how it all turns out? This is all new for us and  I apologize if we dropped the ball with you. We’ve got so much activity going on that if blogging doesn’t seem to work out there are LOTS of other ways for you to get involved.”

Then she thanked me for following up.

I haven’t stopped crying since I got the e-mail.

I know it’s petty and stupid, I know there are people who have far worse problems than this, I know everything happens for a reason.

It doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I only live about 20 minutes from the project, I was expecting I would be up there every weekend checking on the progress and blogging about it; adding their website to my blog and helping promote their cause as well as raising money to help them save more animals.

I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face.

I know many of you have your own blogs and have your own reasons for blogging.  Some of you do it for fun, just to have the experience of meeting other people through words.

Some of you do it for education, to have a place for people to learn and share the incredible experience and joy one gets from loving a fur baby.

Some of you are like me and want something more for your blog.

On days like today, I want nothing more than to shut the computer off and never write another word again.

Maybe I’m just not a writer.

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