January 3, 2012

Greetings...

Happy New Year again! I'd like to send out a big "thank you" for the warm welcome back I received and am still receiving since Friday's column was delivered. It made me realize not only how much I have been missed, but also how much I have missed all of you!

I hope everyone had a nice New Year's Eve and like so many people, I, for one am glad to see 2011 in my rear view mirror! Let's hope this year is gentler and kinder to everyone who suffered some kind of hardship in 2011...

The "funny" thing about hardships are that they come in different forms for different people. While the immediate thought regarding hardships usually go towards financial, there are many other types that can alter lives, create stress and anguish, and cause health problems...

One person's hardships are no less important to that person than someone else's that may not pertain to that individual. For some reason, it has been customary to "one up" others when it comes to personal experiences. There are those that no matter what you tell them, will automatically insert themselves into the topic and actually take over the topic to make it all about them. Eventually, you realize it's best to keep your mouth shut because quite frankly, when you are going through tough times, as sympathetic as we want to be to others, it's often hard to listen to someone else blabber on and on about themselves when you're going through tough times...

Since Flyboy was gone New Year's Eve, Moosie, Ginger and I spent the night ringing in the new year together and based on the few hours preceeding the ringing in of the new year, I have to say 2012 looks promising because I entered the new year the way I wanted except for the fact that my hubby wasn't able to be with us, and that is with laughter...

I didn't watch any of the shows that ring in the new year, I don't care for them. Instead, I tuned into the cable channels that run all of the old TV shows from my youth. Whether it was Dick Van Dyke, Lucy, The Honeymooners, etc., each show was just as funny as the million times
I had already seen them. I didn't have to listen to language being bleeped, acrobatic sex acts that even in my youth I couldn't have mastered, or episodes of TV that show us that being rich and famous is about checking your brains at the door...

Moosie and Ginger helped the laugh-a-thon by being themselves. After taking their 14 hour naps, they were ready to party. They think, (because they have us well trained), that every time they go outside for anything,
they just HAVE to get a treat when they come back in. The treats are on top of the fridge and they politely run in, go to the fridge, look up and patiently wait for one of us to give them each a treat. Did I say "patiently"?
Patiently as far as 15 seconds before the roo-roo-roo starts to get us to jump to serve the two Princesses. The longer you take, the louder they get and I would love to tell you that I am in control of their temper tantrums, but alas, I am putty in their paws. They pulled this stunt no less than 4 times before I finally had a little "chat" with them and that's when you know they are smarter than you. They literally look at each other with the look that says..."busted" and gallop away!

I made the mistake of sitting on the couch while they were in their "moods" because that usually brings out the jealousy with each one trying to muscle each other off mama's lap. Yep, Danes love to sit on your lap. They back up and "park it" right there without the benefit of back-up beeping like trucks as a warning. I gave them each their own quality lap time until I lost feeling in my extremities...

I rang in the new year talking to Flyboy and listening to the fireworks (and guns) being shot outside. It seems like there were much more fireworks than usual and I wonder if everyone wasn't celebrating both the beginning of a new year as well as the "good riddance" of 2011...

I end this, my first column of 2012 with this pertaining to hardships. We all have them and suffer through them, but we also something in common no matter who we are and where we are in life, and that is...blessings in some way no matter how big or small. The funny thing about blessings are that they can keep you focused on the positive when it is so easy to wallow in the negative and if there is one New Year's resolution I'm going to try to keep, that is the one...

Remember how blessed I am...

So far so good, day one...Hahaha

:-)

Jamie

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