I’ve spent the weekend mostly on the couch watching TV since my knee hurts. I feel rather stuck right now.

I watched a series called “Rewind the 90s” which was fun to remember everything they talked about. I grew up in the 90s and I think it was a fun and interesting decade. Seeing how the technology developed during the 90s led to everything we have today was amazing. Do you remember having a Nokia phone? My dad gave me my first cell phone when I started driving and it looked like a big gray brick. I didn’t get a Nokia until college. Do you remember your first cell phone?

This series made me feel a little nostalgic about my childhood, but the decade had its downside, too. Something that sticks out to me about the 90s was homophobia. I don’t know if it’s because I was raised in Middle America, but the way kids talked then is not the way kids talk now. It’s quite incredible the things that came out of our mouths that were considered acceptable, maybe even encouraged. Fast forward ten years and I learned that I had many scared friends and family hiding in the closet in the 90s. I can’t even imagine how horrible that must have felt. I know we still have a long way to go but it’s good to look back and see that progress has been made. 

Argue with me all you want; I still think the 90s was the best decade for music. 

Then after that series, I watched “1989: The Year That Made Us”. I thought this documentary was interesting because the first big news story I remember as a kid was the Berlin Wall coming down. Of course, I was a little kid and didn’t know what it all meant, but I remember watching it on TV. What big news stories do you remember from your childhood? Could you make sense of it?

I like to binge-watch documentaries when I’m not feeling well, especially history and true crime. My husband thinks they’re depressing but sometimes I like it when shows make me emotional. One show that makes me emotional is Intervention. I’ve seen every episode – some of them multiple times. I cry every time but I continue to watch it. Do you ever feel that way? What show gives you the feels?

What are you guys watching this weekend? 

My family went grocery shopping tonight, and as we entered the store, a man approached me and said, “This is for you.” He handed me a forty-dollar gift card for groceries. I just stood there with my mouth open for a second before finally exclaiming, “Thank you!” I had no idea who this guy was. He just smiled and left. My husband and I looked at each other in disbelief. I really wonder what this guy’s story was and why he did it. There’s no way he could have known how much my family has been struggling and how much a gift card for groceries meant to us. It really made our day.

One day, if I ever have enough money, I think I will also pass out gift cards for groceries to random strangers. We all need to eat, so if you want to help people out, that’s a great way to do it.

Have you ever had something like that happen to you? Did it motivate you to want to do the same? Let’s hear some feel-good stories!

I’ve been spending a lot of time at home lately, mainly due to health issues. I haven’t been writing as much as I would like but I have been drawing. Here are a couple more weird flowers.

Tonight we visited my husband’s aunt. We hung out on her back deck because for some reason on December 26th in Northern Ohio it’s sixty degrees. It’s really strange.

Anyway, she has an adorable dog named Lucy. Lucy is a mutt; she’s small but not a little yappy thing either. She was bouncing around everywhere and playing with my daughter. For the few moments she would sit still I would pet her, but there was this one moment when she jumped on my lap and we locked eyes for a few seconds. She tilted her head a bit and I felt like we connected. 

I’m an animal lover and if we ever get a dog, I would want one like Lucy. The other night, I even had a dream that we got a dog, but it was just a dream. Our 950-square-foot house is already packed with five cats, three humans, and two guinea pigs. I have no idea where a dog would go.

I feel a connection when my guinea pigs and kitties look at me, too. I just wish I knew what they were thinking. I’ve posted about this before, but I am just so curious; do you think animals know more about us than we think they do? 

It seems like all my guinea pigs do is eat. Every time I step into the kitchen I hear “wheek, wheek, wheek!” from their cage. Their favorite snack is organic carrots with the greens still on them. I pick some up every time we go to the store. My husband, of course, makes fun of me when I tell him that I’m wondering what they’re thinking. He claims all they say is “Feed me, feed me, feed me!” I talk to them a lot; I wonder what they’re hearing.

I just hope all my pets are happy and that I’m giving them a good life. I wish there were more ways to communicate with them or to know what they are thinking. 

Maybe this is too much to ask of any living thing. It’s not like you can know what other humans are thinking either. I can communicate with other humans, but humans lie and steal and cheat; I just feel like animals would be more honest. 

Are an animal’s needs basic? Maybe they’re more complicated than we think they are. How would we ever know?

Am I giving them a good life? Do they know that they are giving me a better life? I’ve always had animals around me — for as long as I can remember. I couldn’t imagine living without them.

Do you ever wonder about this? Do you have a deep connection with your pets? Do you wonder what your pets think? Are they happy? Do they think they have a good life? Do they know more about us than we think they do?

 

Also, if you want to see something really cute, search “guinea pigs popcorning” on YouTube. It’s their little happy dance. My piggies do this when I put them in their playpen in the living room.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Do you remember when I was working on my memoir? I decided to take another look at it after setting it aside for over a year. I’m pretty excited about it. That’s where my focus has been for the past week.

After my book, “Free to Roam: Poems from a Heathen Mommy” was released in 2021, Freethought House started working on publishing my memoir. However, Freethought House is no longer in business so the project fell through.

It is my goal now to clean up the manuscript and find another publisher. I had already done quite a bit of developmental edits with Freethought House which I think will be very helpful.

Wish me luck!

What projects are you guys working on? Inspire me! 🙂

We are an animal-loving family. Five cats: Stachey, Sasha, Emmy, Jax, and Nina, and two guinea pigs: Nibbles and Nugget. I love taking care of our pets. I seem to be the one in charge of the guinea pigs. They chirp and chitter when I walk past their cage and give an insistent “wheek! wheek! wheek!” every time they hear me open the door to the fridge. I just think it’s the sweetest thing. I even like cleaning their cage and filling their hay feeder. I just love caring for them. So technically they’re my daughter’s guinea pigs but I still feel like I’m their person.

Our kitties get the run of the house and are truly a part of the family. They get dry food during the day and every night they gather in the kitchen and my husband gives each one a special plate of wet food and treats. My husband is definitely their favorite.

Pets are completely dependent on their humans and I really enjoy that responsibility. In this certain way, I really like being depended upon.

Another way I like being depended upon is that our house is filled with plants. One of my favorite things is to buy sad-looking plants at the grocery store or Costco and nurse them back to health. I’ve even bought half-dead plants at garage sales before. It’s really exciting to me to watch them grow.

You might think this is a weird post because I am a mother. I have the ultimate dependent – a child. I was filled with anxiety when I became a mother thinking I was not nurturing enough for the job. Being a parent is such a heavy responsibility and in the back of my mind, I always think I’m going to fuck it up. Can I trust myself to do it right? So much anxiety…

I love my daughter and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I don’t always like the thought of having a whole other person depending on me. I think a lot of parents actually like that feeling – to know that they are absolutely needed – but for me, it’s kind of scary.

My husband is the most dependable person I know. Not only are we raising our daughter together, but he became more of a caregiver during my health struggles. In this house, we all depend on him. I’ve never actually asked him if he enjoys that role, but maybe I should. He’s always so loving, calm, and patient. 

I hope he can depend on me as well.

How do you feel when you know people/pets/things depend on you? Does it make you anxious? Do you enjoy the responsibility? Do you take pride in it? Is there ever a time when you would rather not be depended upon?