Today is the day to celebrate your furry friends and I’m so excited to have Guinness the Therapy Dog and Lucy the Wonder Dog in my life.
I write about them in the Guinness the Therapy Dog series, where you can read about Guinness’s adventures.
The relationship he has with Lucy in the books is the same in real life. She is his moral compass and keeps him in line, which can be hard. Sometimes, Guinness is a little too enthusiastic–about everything. Lucy lets him know, in no uncertain terms, that he needs to calm down.
It’s fun to write about their relationship and Guinness’s zest for life. He’s good to have around!
Did you know that Guinness the Therapy Dog is drawn by an artist in England?
He is.
Isn’t she talented???
I’ve always wanted to be able to draw, but the best I can do are lopsided trees and animals that look like they’re melting. It’s always the nose-and proportion-and the eyes-basically everything.
My great aunt was a talented artist and was world-renowned for her florals on super-thin porcelain and China. I don’t have any of her work, but her daughters have lots of pieces.
I plan to gather her books, which are available on eBay, to enjoy her work. I wish her talent had jumped into my genes! (Even just a drop!)
Her daughters are talented, as well. Their homes are torn from the best interior decorating magazines. I’m always jealous about how effortless their homes and decorating are. My sister has the decorating gene, too. I am NOT that way. My house is clean and comfy, but the decorating finesse has bypassed me.
Hmm. Maybe they feel the same way about my writing. I love it. Lots of people don’t. I can spend hours plotting and writing at my laptop. I love the research, too.
I hope you find that thing that sparks your inner fire. Sonja
I was on a hike yesterday with a good friend and her son and we came across this heart-shaped cactus. Isn’t it cute?
You can find love in the weirdest places.
I didn’t love spilling an entire pot of tea all over my writing desk just now. But things are dried and other things are in the washing machine, so all is good. Back to what I was talking about…
Love is everywhere, you just need to be open to it.
I’m taking an online course on mindfulness right now, and it is a good reminder to live in the present. I have so many things that try to pull me into the future-that increase my anxiety-and practicing mindfulness brings me back to the present. It isn’t healthy to sit in an anxious state and that’s what I do unless I work to live in the moment.
I want to enjoy the present, not worry about the future. And that’s what mindfulness encourages.
With all this time at home, I encourage you to take an online class in whatever sparks your particular interests.
Unless you live in a place that doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time (DST), you need to move the hands of time tonight.
DST goes into effect tomorrow morning. Since it’s Spring, you need to turn the clocks forward one hour, which moves the morning to an earlier time. Hello, caffeine!
You can thank Germany and Austria for DST. They were the first countries to use the new time in 1916 to make better use of fuel during the war. This was adopted by several other countries just weeks later, including the United Kingdom and France.
DST was rescinded at the end of WWI and was repeated for WWII. Today, more than seventy countries observe DST.
A plan to make the most of seasonal daylight was actually put forth by Benjamin Franklin. Yes, that Benjamin Franklin. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
But he meant it as a joke–for Parisians.
He was living in Paris and wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris. The essay, entitled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light”, called for the people of that city to awaken earlier in order to reduce their need for candles.
Oh, that Ben. What a kidder.
The citizens of Ancient Rome relied on water clocks that used different scales throughout the year in order to follow the solar calendar.
But B. Franklin and Caesar are not credited with the invention of DST. That honor goes to New Zealander George Vernon Hudson and British builder William Willett. Do you thank them or curse them? I think that depends on which way the clock is bouncing–a thank you for the ‘extra’ hour in the Autumn and a curse for losing an hour in the Spring.
We can all be thankful that their particular schedule didn’t go into place. Hudson suggested moving the clocks by two hours, and Willett wanted the clocks to move in twenty-minute increments over four-week periods.
Wow. And you thought one hour twice a year was hard!
I love pretty plates and tea cups. And I love tea.
Not coffee.
Sacrilege? Possibly. I come from a family of coffee drinkers. Does that help? Between the three of them, they drink enough to cover my expected daily consumption.
I love tea. Mainly loose-leaf, but I’ll have the bagged variety as well. No milk. A little Stevia if it needs sweetening. I’m a purist, I guess.
I make pots of tea and keep them warm with a teapot warmer fueled by tea lights (what else?!?!?). It makes my writing area cozy and gentle.
I am asked frequently how I became a writer. I’m asked also how I come up with my story ideas.
My response is: how do you not have stories constantly running through your head?
I’ve been making up stories for as long as I can remember. A wonderful lady used to tell how I would be going to sleep when we were all camping and they would hear my voice acting out some scene or other. That’s when I was maybe three or four years old.
Everything I see is filed away and it’s fun to take things out and examine them to see if they will fit into my current WIP (work in progress). Sometimes I’ll write a scene and a memory will pop up that I can integrate into the description.
The fun of writing the Guinness the Therapy Dog series is that I have the famous dog right here at my feet. If I want to see how he plays with a ball, I can throw it for him. It’s fun to have my subject ready to watch!
Since we went to dog school, he’s a pleasure to walk through the neighborhood. I love how interested he is in everything around him. And I love that he doesn’t lunge and pull any longer!
When we first brought Guinness into our home, as a 95-pound almost-two-year-old, he would practically dislocate my shoulder when we walked together.
During dog school, he learned to walk nicely and not to pull toward other dogs and people. We walked through the boarding area and the instructor even brought other dogs into the training area.
He is so eager to please, that he learned very quickly. It used to be that I didn’t look forward to our daily walks because it was such a struggle. Now, I take him on at least one walk a day. We have a ball!
