Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

What Was I Thinking?

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I’m freaking out a little bit as well as second guessing myself.

Have you heard of National Novel Writing Month?  Those in the know, refer to it as NaNoWriMo and their motto is, “November 1st-30th Thirty days and nights of literary abandon.”

My friend Donna, from Donna and the Dogs Just Toby asked me if I’d participate with her.  And in a moment of folly, I agreed.

The challenge is to write the rough draft of a novel, (50,000 words) in a month.

The month of November. You know the month that’s currently four days away.

The same November which includes the last 30 days in my personal challenge of writing a blog post every day for two consecutive years.

Now I’m sitting here saying, what was I thinking?

  • I’m 33 days away from completing my two-year challenge.
  • I’m in the beginnings of hosting a fund-raising calendar event.
  • I just started a Co-Hosted Follow-Up Friday Blog Hop.
  • I’m helping throw a baby shower in three weeks.
  • I’m going to visit my sister for three days over Thanksgiving.
  • Delilah and I are signed up to start a tricks class on the 13th.

Just where the hell am I going to find the time to write 50,000 words?

You may remember the success I had with my previous novel.  Yeah, you know, the one that’s stalled at about 27,000 words.  27,000 words that took me MONTHS (that’s a plural right there) to write.  The same novel I haven’t touched in months.  Now I’m no mathematician but I know damn well 27,000 is way less than 50,000 and 90 days is way more than a month.

I have to tell you, I’m kind of stalled with the first novel and the second novel is rolling around in my head, in fact it’s been rolling around for months, which I think is exactly why I haven’t been working on the first one.

Donna messaged me Friday night and asked if I still wanted to do it.

I’m pretty sure I do.  I’m also pretty sure I won’t get 50,000, but I won’t know unless I try. 🙂

In order for this to work, something’s got to give.

You guys know I love comments right?  I love your comments and I love responding to your comments.  It can however be very time consuming sometimes.

It pains me to say this but, I may have to stop replying to every single comment.  I may have to lump them all into one single comment or (HORRORS) not reply at all. 🙁

That’s my plan for the moment. If it changes, I’ll let you know.

By the end of November I’ll probably look like this.

Permanent expression after NaNoWriMo? I sure hope not.

 

What is that saying?  If you want something done, give it to a busy person. 🙂

Any tips, thoughts or suggestions?  I could use the assist. 🙂

 

Blogville Dogs and Their Rescue Cause

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There was quite a positive response to a Blogville calendar.

If we’re going to pull this off, it will have to be fairly quick.

Since the idea came so late in the year the rules will be simple, the submittal and voting process will be streamlined.

Hopefully this can become an annual fund-raiser and the next year won’t be as rushed.

As you know I love to run everything by you and have you help me in the decision process.  Partly because I’m indecisive but mostly because I want this website to feel like it’s something you’re a part of.

That being said, I threw some general rules down and welcome your input.

  • The 12 photos with the most votes will go in the 2013 Blogville Dogs and Their Rescue Cause Calendar.
  • You can submit more than one photo of your dog, however only one photo per blog, per calendar. (Example, I submit a photo of Sampson, a photo of Delilah and a photo of the two of them together.  Two of the photos are in the top twelve vote getters.  The top vote getter will go in the calendar and the other photo will not be used.)  In this manner we ensure that at least 12 different dogs (blogs) are in the calendar.
  • Good quality photos only!
  • The photo with the most votes also goes on the cover.
  • The dogs in the photo do not have to be rescued dogs.
  • The charity of the dogs in the photo however DOES have to be a rescue/shelter or animal charity.
  • Photos will be submitted over the course of one week.
  • Voting will be for one week.
  • Photos for each month will be determined randomly by draw.
  • You can use your social media tools to get people to vote for you, in other words…promote, promote, promote!

One of my favorite photos of Sampson. (This is NOT a quality photo.) 🙂

 

These are not ‘hard and fast, set in stone rules.’  They are a simple guideline to try to get this process going.

I know voting isn’t always the easiest way to choose, but I don’t know of any other way.  If anyone has an idea for a different process, please either send me an e-mail at stone.jodi@ymail.com or leave it in the comments.

I’ve been googling around for a customizable calendar, right now it looks like the price will go for about $15 per calendar, which should include ALL costs.  But in order to get an accurate cost I need to know approximately how many calendars are needed.  If you’re interested in purchasing a Blogville Calendar can you please let me know in the comment section and tell me how many you’d be interested in.

Oh and by the way, those of you who offered to help, let me know what you are willing to do. “-)

Did I leave anything out?  If I did, please make a note in the comment.

Michael Vick

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Yes, Michael Vick has confirmed he has a dog.

Many of you expected this topic to be included in my WTF Wednesday post, but it turned out to be rather longer than I expected, so I gave it a post all its own.

Grab a cup of coffee, put some Bailey’s or Sambuca in it and pull up a chair.

To do this properly I have to go back to last year, when I heard that Michael Vick had teamed up with the Humane Society.  At that time I was still on the free WordPress and fully expected The Legacy of Michael Vick to be pressed.  (I don’t know, maybe it was the picture of the hanging black man that prevented it.)

If you read that first post you’ll notice that at first I was outraged that the Humane Society was working with a convicted (insert your derogatory word of choice here,) but then I started thinking about the influence athletes have on our children and I thought maybe, just maybe if someone like Michael Vick warned our children about the evils of dog fighting he could actually make a difference.

Flash forward to Michael Vick tweeting a photo that included a box of Milkbones.  As you can imagine dog and animal lovers reacted quickly and angrily.

More than one of you sent me a link to the article. I started prepping my post for WTF Wednesday, it was scheduled to look like this.

Michael Vick confirms he is again a dog owner, Philadelphia, PA

The very first thing that comes to mind is, what idiot gave this person a dog? I’m pretty damn sure it’s no rescue that I’ve heard of. I mean you know, you’ve seen those applications.  “Have you ever been convicted for abuse of an animal?”

Then I thought, maybe someone bought it for him.

My next thought was, can’t this million dollar quarterback afford a treat a little more expensive than Milkbones? Not that I’m knocking Milkbones per say, for those of you who may use them, I’m just saying my income vs his income I’d think he could afford say a box of something along the lines of Mother Hubbard or Blue Buffalo.

I set these thoughts in my WTF post and continued with my week.

In the meantime, Monday was Be The Change 4 Animals, after I’d posted my contribution I started hopping around to see what you all had written about.

You all had some wonderful, wonderful posts.  There was one however that really touched me and made me think.

Maps of Reality from Julie at The Daily Dog Blog.

I won’t post the whole thing here, but the paragraph that really resonated with me was this:

“Several years ago I listened to a speaker talk about “maps of reality”. Every single person has their own map of reality based on what they have learned from teachers, parents, friends, acquaintances and experiences. These maps of reality make up our “beliefs” about what is right and wrong and how we should act. Sometimes we fail to realize that our map of reality might be skewed and it’s quite possible that what we believe really isn’t true.”

I thought of how much MY map of reality has changed since Sampson entered my life.

This may surprise you to know, but I haven’t always been the dog mom that I am today.

Many of you come from the same era that I did and know thirty years ago, the majority of people had a different view of dogs.  Don’t get me wrong, our dogs lived in the house, but they were considered animals.

Thirty years ago I wouldn’t have left a party early because the dog needed to go out, or it was an hour past their dinner time.

Truthfully, even twenty years ago I didn’t even know dog’s toenails needed to be clipped!

Until Sampson owned me, (and this really saddens me to say this) dogs were just dogs.

When I sat down to write my WTF post for last week, I thought it might be good to include a picture of Michael’s dog so I googled.

No, I did not find a picture but what I did find was this article, “Vick has a dog? Might be just what’s needed to break the cycle of cruelty.”

Imagine my surprise as I found myself agreeing with the article.

I know, it floored me too.  This one paragraph stuck out.

“It’s going to be emotional torture for Vick, but it will be more than that. It will be healing. That dog’s going to make him a better person, and when someone as influential as Michael Vick is a better person, the effects ripple outward.”

Since my map of reality has changed I have a lot of guilt and a lot of regrets, regarding the previous dogs in my life. There’s very few things in my life that I regret, except for when it comes to the animals in my past.  If I had one and only one do over, it would be for them.

I suspect Michael Vick’s map of reality is about to change.  And the guilt and regret will eat at his heart and do far more to changing him than prison, bankruptcy and public outrage ever could.

What’s a map of reality and how have I changed yours?

 

Have you ever heard of a ‘map of reality?’  Has your map of reality changed over the years?

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