Trixie

I know it has been awhile, but something happened to me recently that I really needed to share.

On Saturday, January 3, 2009 one of the best living creatures to ever walk the planet was taken from my life. Her name was Trixie. I first met Trixie when I was a Junior in high school. I remember walking home after I got off the bus and as I stepped onto the sidewalk that led up to my front door I see this little ball of black running towards me. I remember getting down on the ground to get a better look and seeing this beautiful little chihuahua. She was so sweet, but right away I could tell she had already had a hard life. Trixie was approximately 8 years old when we got her those 7 short years ago and she bore the scars of a dog with a very dark past. We don't know what happened to her, but clearly based on the way she reacted when we would try to pick her up, she had been abused.

I didn't think about it when she first passed, but something my parents said stuck with me. They told me that she never demanded anything of us, whether it be time or affection. She came into our live quietly and left the same way.

For me she had a calming presence. All she wanted out of life was to be fed, let out for potty, to have a comfortable place to sleep (often curled in/on a blanket/pillow on the couch) and occasionally to be let out so she could sunbathe. Trixie used to sleep with my parents, but in more recent months had been sleeping in my room as she was getting older and was having trouble seeing making it very unsafe for her to jump down off the bed in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. I will miss my own personal little heater. For a dog with hardly any fur she emitted an unusual amount of heat.

I feel truly honored to have been blessed by God to know this extraordinary little being. I will miss her. I have noticed that since she has passed I find myself looking for her more now then when she was alive. I am not sure why, but I guess it is because even though I know that eventually every living thing will die someday I never expected her to leave our lives so soon. It feels like we just got her and now she is gone.

Rest in peace Trixie , you will be missed.

Until next time remember, "Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring -- it was peace." ~ Milan Kundera.

Fear

Everyone has fears. Many people don't want to share them because they are embarrassed or are afraid of what people might think or say. I am no exception. I have fears too.

For instance, I am afraid of failing. You are probably thinking to yourself that I am the only one who can control whether or not I fail. Or your thinking that by not doing anything I have already failed and am in fact not afraid of failure, but in reality am afraid of success. You are right on both counts.

I'm not sure whether this next fear actually qualifies as a fear or if it is just a fault. I am afraid of disappointing the people I consider most dear to my heart. I have a bad habit of not learning from my mistakes until I have made the same mistake over and over again.

For instance earlier this week I was supposed to do some chores, but because I was tired that particular day, I chose not to do them and put them off until later in the week. Now I have done this before and you would think that by now I have learned my lesson that life always has something new to throw at you, but no I haven't. In putting off my chores I caused more work for someone else and now I find out that in addition to that I will lose a day to do my chores because of a major Saints day.

For those of you not in the know, I am Orthodox and in the Orthodox faith there are certain days for religious day that we are not supposed to do work. Well tomorrow is the feast day for the beheading of St. John the Baptist.

Due to the lost day and the fact that we are taking a trip on Saturday, I was going to have to finish all my chores tonight. However, I have a wonderful Father who went ahead and vacuumed the house and did a load of laundry for me today.

In order to prevent me from making this infraction again I have decided to make up a schedule of chores so that one I don't end up doing everything on one day and two I will make sure to get them done by the weekend thereby preventing one way I disappoint my loved ones.

Until next time remember, "It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible

only in one way. " ~ Aristotle

New Word Wednesday

So here's the thing...several weeks ago I set up this blog, but like the good (or bad) little procrastinator that I am I didn't write anything. So I decided after a long conversation with my Mother, who herself writes an awesome blog so go check it out, I would finally write my first post.

In honor of my first post I am going to give you two words today. The first is procrastination, a word I'm sure you all know by now, but being that it is one of the reasons I am blogging today I felt it was appropriate.

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, PROCRASTINATION means to put off intentionally or habitually. I would like to take this opportunity to announce that from now on I am going to do my best

not to procrastinate.

Again thanks to my ever so patient and understanding Mother whom I call Squibby or Booboo depending on the day, I have decided that my other word for today is going to be EMBARK. To embark is to make a start. It is my hope that by starting this blog and working hard not to procrastinate I will find the drive within

myself to start anew.

I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I do know that I want to graduate from college and as someone once told me "get my head out of my a**". I know that I want happiness for my family and friends and even though I don't show it always in the right way because as I mentioned before my head seems to be in my a** a lot, I would do anything to make them happy.

So after my endless rambling or as Squibby calls it chiballing (her word so I am not sure how it is spelled) I will finally get to the point. I have decided to set a small goal for myself. I am going to pay my library fine or as my family says "walk in the sun again" and check out a book on college algebra in order that I might study so that I can take the CLEP (College Level Examination Program) test and start to accumulate college credit hours.

For those of you still reading or those who want the abridged version of this blog here goes. I procrastinate, but I want to change. I am a lost lamb in the pasture known as life. I am starting anew with the small immediate goal of studying to take a test and a long term goal of not procrastinating and eliminating my selfishness.

Until next time remember, "The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action." ~ John Dewey