I consider myself a glass half full gal, for the most part, but my Thinking Out Loud lately has still been on the sad side . . . it’s only been about 2 weeks since we put Chester to sleep, so he’s still in my thoughts.
A lot.
Most of the time I really am okay — maybe because I know in my heart the time was right — but at random moments I am just overcome by sadness, sometimes to the point of tears. It’s natural, I guess.
I promise, again, this post won’t be all sad!
A bird’s nest
Not my hair, although it resembles that some days, but we have birds nesting in the light fixture outside our front door.
I suppose that’s definitely a step up from the hornet’s nest we had there one year.
But I’m beginning to think I need to put food out for them . . .
When are you getting a new dog?
This is usually the first question you get from people when they heard you’ve lost your dog. Not the real animal lovers, usually; they get it. People mean well, I know. For some people the answer is never and for others it’s right away and for others it falls somewhere in between.
This is the first time we’ve only had 2 animals in 15 years — that’s half our marriage!
I absolutely do not want to take on a new dog in the middle of winter. We did Chester’s house training in the middle of winter, and that was hard enough in TX in a one floor ranch house.
So no, I don’t feel the need for a new dog right away. It occurred to me on Friday that I hadn’t asked my husband how he felt about it. So I did. He’s with me.
If Lola had really been mourning, I would have considered it. I feel a little badly for her; she seems kind of bored, in some ways, but she’s definitely not mourning.
Perhaps in the spring we’ll consider fostering. We’ll see.
Next time you know someone who’s just lost a furkid, just tell them how sorry you are and that you’re there to listen to them if they want to talk.
Our house is quieter
Chester took his job as protector very seriously. Oh, if you came in the house he’d jump all over you and lick you to death, but ring that doorbell? Bark, bark, bark. Same goes for UPS truck (often whether it stopped or not).
And he almost always greeted someone coming home with barking.
Now I come home and Lola is waiting for me, but there is no barking. There is no barking when my husband gets home from work.
Lola does bark; she’ll bark at other dogs we meet when walking, and she’ll bark at any dog walking past our yard when we’re outside, and she definitely barks at the police dog next door.
Chester never barked at dogs while we were walking.
I like a quiet house, but I do actually miss the barking. A little. It did make me feel protected. Which I know was irrational, considering it’s highly doubtful a 9 lb chihuahua was ever going to protect me.
But he would have tried.
Life is mysterious
My husband stumbled across a woman who paints animals (for free) that have passed. She has a long waiting list, and he’d put in our names, thinking we would get a painting of Simba, our cat who has been gone 4 years now.
Only guess whose number finally came up just this week? The woman’s paintings are reminiscent of Mexican art, and we chose to have her do Chester instead.
And speaking of mysterious . . .
Lola get sooo excited when it’s mealtime. In fact, she used to run laps around the living room before going into her crate (I fed the dogs in their crates, doors open).
She is still very excited at mealtime, but she runs directly into her crate. Often without my having to ask her to.
Animal behavior has always fascinated me, but this is one I can’t figure out. Yes, Chester would be patiently waiting in his crate for food, and apparently that caused her to run laps before getting into her crate . . . but why?
Anyone Italian out there?
I am not. But I do enjoy Italian food. And I enjoy making minestrone in the winter.
As I was making a big pot this week, it occurred to me that minestrone and pasta e fagioli are pretty much the same soup. At least to this non-Italian girl.
I did just a little bit of googling, including looking at this answer from Yahoo. Most of what I looked at did say they’re pretty much the same soup, but I didn’t delve too deeply into it. Feel free to enlighten me.
Minestrone, fagioli . . . a soup by any name still tastes great!
What weird things do your furkids do?
I’m linking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons for her:
My pup is so funny first off she hates being outside unless we are out there it’s like she has FOMO fear of missing out! When we let her in she runs around like a crazy dog trying to figure out what she missed lol.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lola loves being outside when it’s warm & sunny but doesn’t like the cold or rain.
She does get zoomies sometimes.
LikeLike
Peace and quiet are such a treasure. It always gives me more time to spend time with Jesus, and just doing quiet time in the morning. 🙂 ❤ I've had a lot of peace and quiet this week. So thankful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love my quiet mornings!
LikeLike
It’s been about 9 years now since we lost our last dog, and I’m not sure I’ll ever want to get another one. Especially because we have one now that’s 12, meaning we’ll have to go through it all again soon 😕 Sending you lots of peace ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hard as it is, to me being without fur kids is even harder. I think it would have been a lot worse if we didn’t have Lola.
Thank you, Amanda.
LikeLike
Oh, I am so sorry to hear about your pup! They definitely are part of the family. I never had dogs growing up, but my mom got dogs when I was about 15 and then when we got married we got our dog, Cooper. We’re trying to decided when to get another dog, because if God forbid anything happened to him (he’s only 2.5) we wouldn’t want a dog–less house, but I’m not sure that I would be ready for a new one right away.
LikeLike
Thank you, Morgan.
We had decided when we adopted Chester that we only wanted one dog. A year later I saw Lola’s photo on a rescue site and just had this overwhelming feeling she was meant to be our dog — it was really weird.
2 aren’t that much more work than 1 (unless you have a $6,000,000 puppy like Chester), once you get them integrated, but the expense goes up.
I wouldn’t want to be dog-less either; the house would just feel so empty. But it’s nice not having to do so much work for now . . . he was a huge amount of work towards the end (and I don’t know how you mommies do it, but you’re not in your 50s!).
LikeLike
Bird’s nest vs hornet’s nest…..bird nest totally wins. I was always under the impression that minestrone is vegetable soup with beans and pasta fagioli is the same except it also has pasta in it. But you know I’m not Italian.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t think I’ve seen minestrone without pasta. Hmmm.
LikeLike
Around here it doesn’t have pasta…..or I just keep getting unlucky bowls.
LikeLike
Getting another pet is all about how the pet owner feels. In the past when we’ve lost a cat, we got another one almost right away so the cat we did have would have a companion. It needs to feel right. I know people mean well but I keep things to myself sometimes so I don’t hear the ol’ “you should…”
LikeLike
Yeah another pet owner would probably not ask about another pet after a loss. We get it. That painting opportunity. I swear the universe is at work there. It’s been so cold here my dogs can’t make it around our loop without boots. I end up carrying Remy (the less hardy). I’m sure my neighbors think I’m nuts.
LikeLike
I tried boots, but I never found ones that would stay on, and we were constantly losing them.
When it’s really cold, we just don’t walk (like yesterday). It’s warmed up a bit so we’ll be heading out in a bit.
I carried Chester around a lot the last 6 months. Sometimes it was just a bit, sometimes we carried him the whole way round.
One neighbor we rarely speak to came up to us once when we were walking Lola and carrying Chester & asked after him. He said he’d seen me carrying him before so knew something was up.
And recently, when I was just walking Lola, I saw one of our neighbors who has the cutest little dog. I just knew we were going to run into each other, and he’d ask, which he did.
I think I felt worse for him, poor guy.
LikeLike
Gizmo made it very, very clear he was happy being an only cat. More lap time for him!
But he’s almost 15 & I’ve literally never been cat-less my entire life.
LikeLike
We have a painting of our dog and cherish it. I hope your turns out to be a treasure too!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not Italian but have been married to 2. I never thought of them as being the same but I’ve never made minestrone. My pasta e fagioli is not as liquidy as soup.
LikeLike
I so get it! Maybe fostering would be a good thing later, I could do that I think. I had minestrone soup just this past week and it was so good! We tried a new potatoe soup you cook in the crockpot last night it was great and will be a keeper for us! That is so very cool about the lady doing the painting for yall! I do hope you’ll post it! How long will it take her?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have no idea how long the painting will take. She’s in HI. We’ve been on her wait list for years, obviously.
I did a painting of Gizmo a long time ago that actually came out pretty good, except the perspective of his body was all wrong.
Potato soup sounds really good — it’s been cold in these parts!
How’s your knee doing?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aww, I’m so sorry for your loss. 😦 When we had to put down my dog/best friend of 19 years, I was crushed and wouldn’t talk to anyone except my then boyfriend/now husband for weeks. I went to work, came home and cried, went to bed, and started all over again the next time. Hang in there. xxoo
LikeLike
Thank you, Rachel.
I think the fact that we knew it was coming — he’d been in heart failure since the beginning of the year — and that I strongly felt it was time helped.
Life is a lot easier now, but I miss him a lot.
How wonderful that you had 19 years with your dog, though! Chester was 10. 😦
LikeLike
Last night I was catching up on blog comments and eating a bowl of cereal. I stepped away to show my son something and when I came back, the milk was all gone in my bowl. Cleo was mysteriously licking her chops…
Gotta love them…
LikeLiked by 1 person
One of my cats used to love the milk in the bottom of a cereal bowl! I almost never eat cereal any more, sadly for them.
LikeLike
I had to put my dog to sleep back in 2002 and I still don’t have another. I have considered it a few times, but as we have collected more cats it may never happen. If I ever get to stop working I will probably get another dog, but I can barely keep up right now.
Oh, Italian..I never think of soup, I just want stuffed shells and all the pasta lol It would probably do me good to like soup…
LikeLike
They are a lot of work, and luckily for Chester, I stopped working when we got him. I don’t know how I would have got through those last few months if I were still working outside the home.
Like most things in life, though, there’s never a right time. And I really wish we’d gotten a dog earlier. Just sayin’.
LikeLike