Author Archives: caverns of my mind

Hope Lies in Creating Ripples

Posted on June 28, 2012 by caverns of my mind

Several months ago I finished reading one of the most eye-opening books with which I’ve ever come into contact.  The Hole in our Gospel, written by Richard Stearns, the CEO of World Vision reveals statistics of poverty and struggle and displays them in a new light.  He shares research, but also personal encounters he has had in his position and through his world travels.  Much of the book is heart-breaking, not because these problems are so big that they cannot be fixed, but because they actually could be fixed…if everyone was willing to help even just a little.  This is the overall premise of the book:  the Bible teaches that we should love and help others in need, but we often just don’t, usually because we feel our little contribution is too small to make any difference (more on that in a future post).  It is in the gospel, but as a whole, we don’t follow it.  If we did as God has instructed, the world would be a changed place.

Going right along with my passion of protecting and restoring the lives of those held captive in various aspects from human trafficking, is that the major reasons women get trapped into this world are because of poverty and the greed of others.  One side of this is that the pimps and “johns” need to be more severely punished, but women also need to have a way to care for themselves and their families. Stearns addresses this in his book. “..women own less that 1 percent of the world’s property. They also work two-thirds of all the world’s labor hours, but earn just 10 percent of the world’s wages.”  This is because in many countries, especially the developing countries, women are denied an education (I wish girls here in the US really knew how fortunate they are for having free education), and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate are women.  Education truly is power.

Stearns also says that in his opinion, “the single most significant thing that can be done to cure extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and women and provide them with equal rights and opportunities- educationally, economically, and socially.”  I can agree with that.  He also adds a popular saying from many parts of Africa: “‘If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.'”   The idea is that a woman will use what she learns to provide for her family and to ensure an education for her daughters.  If this begins to take place more and more, eventually many of the horrors associated with poverty would begin to dissipate.

This is a beautiful yet simple idea.

I recently heard of a small business dedicated to doing something along these lines.  A company called Trades of Hope sells the goods women are creating in countries around the world, using what is available to them, and sells them here in the U.S. through the model of the “home party,” which is so common with make-up, candles and the like.  These women are earning an income for their families by handcrafting amazing products to sell.  They are empowered and have a skill to offer.  I’m so intrigued by this company that I am even considering joining their team and selling these goods, even though my Mary Kay sales days were not so lucrative, and appropriately short-lived.  I could get behind this because the products are unique and the cause is amazing, giving these women true hope.

If we could all commit to taking small steps, we could begin to change the world.

“I alone cannot change the world.  But I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”  -Mother Teresa

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Between the Rock and a rock

Posted on June 27, 2012 by caverns of my mind

My last post had more than double the views on any post I’ve written before, which was awesome, but also intimidating.  How do I follow that up?  It’s a lot easier for an introvert to pour out her heart when she doesn’t think anyone is going to read it anyway, and hopes that the ones who do are strangers so it won’t matter if they find out my intimate secrets and feelings.  Of course, there’s also the part of me that kept checking my stats and smiling.  When I was on the programming team at my church, our pastor always told us, “They don’t have to all be home-runs.”  All right.  I’m ok with that.  Maybe we’ll just get to first base today.  Maybe I’ll just bunt the ball.  Maybe I’ll foul out.  That’s about all I know for baseball metaphors, so I’m just going to move on now.  I apologize to any of you who actually know about baseball.  I’m sure I screwed something up there.

As I mentioned in my last post (if you are reading this and did not read that one, go back and read it- it’s better), I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life than working to fight against human trafficking and helping the survivors to rebuild their lives.  That being said, I come to the part I don’t want many people to read, because I’m either really brave for putting this out there, or stupid.  Probably stupid.  There may be people reading this that I shouldn’t be revealing this to yet.

How am I going to commit my life’s work to being a full-time abolitionist and keep my day job?

My day job consumes every ounce of energy I have, and fills almost every second of my day except when I’m sleeping, though I dream about it often as well.  I get two months out of the year to remember who I am and to have other interests. I’m a teacher.  And a perfectionist.  This means I put everything into what I do.  Colossians 3:23 basically says we are to do everything we do with all our hearts as if we’re working for God and not people, so I do.  This makes me good at what I do, though I still always feel like so much more is expected, especially with all the stupid recent developments in education in Florida.

One of the reasons we never adopted a child (still a possibility) is because I cannot imagine raising a human being and being a teacher.  I know people do it all the time, but I don’t know how I would ever make that work.  I would be good at one and fail at the other.  So I feel like my career holds me back from a lot.  I know I touch lives, and I love my students (most of them).  I would never say being a teacher was a waste or a bad decision, but I told my husband when I started it that if I ever felt like I was heading towards burn out and feared becoming one of those ineffective and jaded teachers, it would be time to move on.  At that point I didn’t have anything else in mind.  The calling towards abolition has been recent.  I thought once I had more teaching experience I would have more time for other interests, but last year was the most overwhelming so far, and next year looms scarily similar on the horizon.

Sure, I can use my job to spread the word.  I had the opportunity to explain to my students why I was missing school for three days last year to run from Miami to Key West, and I’ve had a few interesting discussions with students interested in making a difference.  Most of the kids I teach, being for the most part the more advanced and globally aware students, are perfect to motivate for my cause, but that isn’t enough for me.  I want to do that full time.

But we have a mortgage, which means we own a house requiring maintenance, cars to upkeep and fuel, utilities to pay, food to purchase (yep, gotta eat), etc.  My husband was unemployed for almost two years, so we know a bit about going without, but I can’t just quit my job.

So here is the time in my life where I have to consider my options.  My husband Robert and I do not yet have a clear picture of what we will be doing to help end human trafficking and helping to rebuild lives, so we need to settle that first, and then figure out how to do it.  I will continue to work my current job to the best of my ability (because that’s what God wants and because my students need me to), just as Robert will continue on with his.  Once our vision becomes more clear, more planning will be needed, and I’ll have to take a step back and away from the comfort and security of a job I know, and I’ll have to operate on faith.  But one thing I’ve learned from reading Quitter by Jon Acuff is that we’ll need a bit more developed towards our goal before I can “quit my day job.”

The only way this is truly going to work is to put God first in all of this and trust that He will provide the correct vision, and set us on the path heading the right direction.

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Human Beings are NOT Commodities

Posted on June 25, 2012 by caverns of my mind

Wrecked.  Anguished.  Destroyed.  Devastated.  Shattered.  Crushed.  Broken.

Normally, putting words together is something I can do fairly easily, but I cannot find words powerful enough to truly express and show my feelings after I watched last night an amazing documentary called Nefarious:Merchant of Souls.  Yes, it is as ominous as it sounds, as this documentary exposes the world of human trafficking for what it really is, and it is aptly named.  No other film ever made me cry as much as this, except maybe The Passion of the Christ.

I wasn’t completely unprepared.  I have been researching this atrocity for a while now.  I knew it would be difficult to watch and know the truth, but I wanted to press on anyway.  At one point in the film, I had to ask my husband to pause it because at that moment, I could not go further emotionally.  They were just finishing up with their journey into Cambodia, and it involved a pair of blood stained pajamas for a girl the age of seven.  SEVEN!  They had been found after a raid, I believe.

Once you know something like this exists, you cannot ignore it, which is why so many people choose to remain ignorant on the matter.  Yes, I said ignorant.  That doesn’t mean people are stupid.  It means they are uneducated in that area, and in this case, by choice.  But this cannot be ignored any longer.  Approximately 27 million people are enslaved around the world today.  About 80% of them are trafficked for sexual exploitation, and an alarming number of them are minors.  In fact, in the US, the average age of children trafficked for sexual exploitation is 13-14.  I’d like to give credit to the source where I got these numbers, but I’ve seen them time and again in the process of my research, from varied sources.

I remember learning about the abolitionist movement which existed before and throughout the Civil War, and I just figured that was history.  After all, it ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, right?  But slavery is more rampant today than it was even during the African slave trade.

Many people don’t want to acknowledge that all the prostitution in the world, both “legalized” and not, is a result of trafficking.  Sure, there are some women who seem to go into the “industry” willingly, but about 95% of them also come from a background of sexual abuse and little to no self worth, which means their vulnerabilities/weaknesses/past injuries were exploited.  Most women are tricked, coerced, or even kidnapped and forced into prostitution because no little girl ever says, “I want to sell my body when I grow up,” and demand from sexual perverts is high.  Human trafficking is the second most lucrative trade in the world.  After all, pimps can sell the same merchandise time and again.

Except they aren’t selling the same merchandise.  No.  Every time that girl, or young woman (or even boy or young man- it is not as common, but does happen) is sold, she loses another part of herself, of her soul.  So she is not ever the same, losing her identity and her value sometimes up to 30 times a day.

Trafficking is like an onion.  It has intricate layers, and it stinks!  Whether it’s legalized or not, if it exists in a country, you can be sure there are payoffs happening to government officials somewhere up the chain.

The first glimpse into this idea I think I ever knew of was in a fictionalized tale I read for my Women in Literature class back in college.  Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller is a fictionalized story of a Korean woman who had been sold by her own sister to be a “Comfort Woman” to Japanese soldiers during WWII.  The conditions were terrible and I was shocked by what I read.  I knew the story was fiction, but it had to be based off some truth, right?  Sometimes I would randomly think back on that.

Then I watched this video by Love 146 in church one Sunday, and it reminded me of that novel, only this was definitely real.

http://love146.org/love-story

Since then I slowly began to research this modern day slavery.  I even was part of a 200 mile running relay race where my team decided to use the race to raise awareness and funding for Love 146.  My husband and I began to feel compelled by God towards doing more, but we haven’t really known what or how to do anything.  The mission trip I am about to embark on to Costa Rica will be a chance for me to work with the Rahab Foundation, an organization helping survivors from the sex trade to recover and rebuild their lives.

Like I said, I’ve felt for a while now that there is a future for me in this fight somewhere, alongside my husband.  But when I watched that documentary last night, all the little questions and doubts I had been having about whether it was a real calling or not completely left me, to the point where I could almost physically feel it (yeah, I know that’s weird).  I know that I cannot imagine myself doing anything else with the rest of my life but helping to put an end to this worldwide crime and to do what I can to work with these girls and women and to give them hope…

to give them God…

to share with them my favorite scripture… Jeremiah 29:11  For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (NIV)

One of the women in the film who had been prostituted, but was rebuilding her life mentioned something about being a princess because her father is God, the King of kings.  The only way most of these women can ever get out of the mindset they have been put into is to have hope, and for most of them the only place they can find hope that deep is through Jesus.  Maybe you think that’s just a bunch of crazy religious fanatical stuff, but why is it people always have the instinct, whether they think they believe in God or not, to cry out to Him in their times of need?

If you want to learn more about this topic, there are countless organizations out there dedicated to this cause, including the ones I linked to already.  Please find one close to you and see if you can help.  Also, if this inspires you at all, please share it.  We need to raise up an army of abolitionists who will fight for those who currently have no voice.  Each of these “victims” or “survivors” has a story.  Each is a living, breathing, feeling person who should have hopes and dreams.  What gives any one person the right to put any other human being through something so inhumane?

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#5 Those Crazy Aussie Dog People

Posted on June 22, 2012 by caverns of my mind

I’ve spent a week attempting to entertain with stories about my two delightfully loving, yet headstrong Australian shepherds.  Yet, I’ve only scratched the surface.  I’m sure more dog blog posts will come, but I recommend you go out and get an Aussie or two of your own so you can experience the joy for yourself and you will not need to live vicariously through me…because that’s a scary thought.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the day we brought Dylan home forever changed my world.  It wasn’t instantaneous, but crept over me slowly, like my little ninja MJ tends to do while we’re watching TV or trying to sleep.  These dogs opened my eyes to an unconditional love not often seen in people, unfortunately.  They have inspired me.

The world is a complicated place, unless you’re a dog.  People commit cruel acts towards one another all the time, but not dogs.  People judge one another, even when they don’t know each other.  Dogs tend to be accepting.  We can learn from dogs.

Dylan’s sire is a therapy dog with Delta certification.  He visits the elderly in nursing homes, and helps kids who have difficulty doing so to read.  Their intelligence and their loving and accepting demeanor often make Aussies a good breed for such  endeavors.

We see it in our dogs too. During a trip to Petsmart, a boy with special needs saw our dogs and came, practically running, towards them and plopped himself down on the floor in front of them.  Now if Robert or I sit on the floor by the dogs, they tackle us.  If we run, period, Dylan will attempt to bring us down.  They tend to get excited beyond control.

An attack might look like this…

…or this. (again, ignore the dates from our confused camera)

Not this time.  Both dogs remained calm and let that boy pet them and put his face close to theirs without them licking him or pushing him down.  They knew.  The boy’s father told us his son loves dogs and thanked us for letting him spend some time with them.  It was our pleasure, and the dogs’ pleasure too.  We could tell they were loving it.  They understood their boundaries, but they still got some lovin’ out of the deal.

We were able to bring the dogs with us to Christmas at my sister’s the year of my grand nephew’s first Christmas. He was at the age where he was using anything and everything to pull himself up, including Dylan’s long fur, which apparently was easy to grip onto.   As far as we knew, Dylan had never been around a small child like this before, and it was clear he was taken aback by the assault, but he somehow knew this child meant him no harm and he was not to retaliate in any way.  He suffered silently and bravely.

A few months ago I had a horrible day at work.  Honestly, I do not remember the details, but it was one of those emotionally draining days when one thing after another piles on (I’d probably been cussed out by a parent who was mad I gave her kid a zero for work she didn’t turn in or something equally unjustified in her eyes).  This was a day when I left as soon as my time was up for the day (I tend to stick around for at least an hour or so) and I fought back the tears during the drive home.

My homecoming routine is to set down all the work I have to bring home, let the dogs out of their crates, and take the dogs out back to potty.  Their routine is to attack me with love and music (they both sing), which means they jump up and rub on me. On this day, I let them out but denied them each their “welcome home, we love you Mommy” time.  I’d been holding those tears in and wanted to let them out quickly so I wouldn’t have a breakdown in the backyard.  Once back inside, I collapsed in a chair, placed my face into my hands and sobbed- we’re talking audible, body-shaking sobs- like I hadn’t in years.

At first the dogs stood back, tilting their heads as they watched.  MJ even seemed a bit scared at first.  Slowly each dog came to my side and nuzzled me until I looked up at them.  In that moment, MJ did her snarl which means she wants to make sure it’s ok to approach you, and both dogs placed their upper bodies in my lap, all at once.  It was a lot of dog to have in my lap.  They were sneezing their laughter sneezes and nuzzling me, and all the while their eyes expressed concern.  They weren’t sure what was wrong, but they wanted to fix it and let me know they loved me.  They do these actions often anyway, but there was something different about their approach and delicacy in the matter.

I recently read about an organization called the Heartland Alliance which uses therapy dogs to comfort victims in court when they need to testify.  For example, a young girl had to testify against her father who had sexually abused her.  A golden retriever had spent time with her getting her comfortable with what would come and was even able to be in the courtroom as she gave her testimony, apparently nuzzling the little girl when she paused for too long, to give her support.  With that dog’s help, the girl got through it and her father was locked away.  What an amazing story!

My husband and I have felt a pull to DO SOMETHING to help fight human trafficking, or to help the survivors.  One idea that keeps knocking around in my mind is the idea of therapy dogs.  We would love to have land, dogs, and a sort of “retreat” for survivors to come as part of their recovery.  I have no idea how to make that happen, but we’re believing that God does. Also, neither of us are counselors, but we believe if it’s meant to happen, everything and everyone we need will come together.

None of this would even seem an option today had we not adopted Dylan back in March of 2007.  His love, and MJ’s love inspire me.  They have all the qualities these survivors would need.  Acceptance, unconditional love, and hope.  These dogs display hope every moment of the day.

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Those Crazy Aussie Dog People: Quatro

Posted on June 21, 2012 by caverns of my mind

I guess dogs will be dogs.  When they are bad, are they really bad, or just operating on their instincts?  Sometimes it’s hard to be upset when they seem to think they’ve done something perhaps beyond acceptable, and possibly even treat-worthy.  Also, my Aussies are so cute I can never stay mad at them.  I cannot resist the wiggle.  I believe I’m what you can simply call a sucker, push-over, or puppy-whipped.

First, there is theft.  Am I saying it’s natural for dogs to want to steal?  Of course not- at least not in that sense- but they may get hungry from time to time, and well… let me go back to the beginning of this story.

The little girl next door was having a back yard birthday party and we had been invited, along with Dylan (this was the summer before we adopted MJ).  Dylan just loves children.  After all, children love pretty, fluffy doggies, so not only are they active targets, but they also are prone to fawn all over Dylan.  He was almost more the center of attention than the birthday girl at this party.  “Where’s Dylan? Come here Dylan. I want to play with Dylan. Can Dylan play on a swing?” could be heard in little voices all over the yard, and even on their back enclosed patio (I have no idea how he got in there).  Maybe he was caught up in the excitement, or maybe all the activity had simply left him famished, but as I was sitting in a lawn chair (having a surprisingly pleasant conversation with a couple who had discovered I was the teacher in whom’s class their son had just scraped by with a D), the half a hot dog I had been holding in my hand was gone, and a reddish furry flurry had just made a pass-by.  Yes, I had fallen victim to a run-by hotdog snatch by my own lousy dog!  I wanted to be angry, but another part of me just wanted a slow motion instant replay because I was impressed that he had managed to steal the wiener without actually touching me at all.  Mad skills, right?

Second, we have assault and battery.

A few months later, the little girl next door had a girl scout sleepover.  Most of these girls had been at the birthday party and remembered Dylan.  Now, what I write next is the story as told by my husband because I regret not being a witness to this one.

It was early on a Sunday morning, not even light for long yet.  Kids never sleep at sleepovers and the scouts were already awake and playing outside next door.  Dylan, being a dog of routine and having a tiny bladder, needed to go outside.  Once the handsome dog’s presence was discovered, little girls were begging, “Oh, please let Dylan come play with us!”  In that moment, Robert was torn, knowing it was innocent enough, but not sure of the outcome.  He prefaced the play time with a warning: “Remember that you can’t run.  Dylan WILL chase you, so just stay calm.”

“We promise!” declared those little liars.  As soon as Dylan was free from the leash, he harmlessly jogged, perhaps a bit quickly and excitedly for a jog, over for play time, and every one of those little girls ran in different directions, screaming as they went.  I mentioned in the past Dylan’s breed’s skill set and instincts are to herd, right?  Imagine being a herding dog- it’s in your blood- and all the little “livestock” is running free in chaos.  Yep, Dylan ran literal circles around them to bring them in together, knocking some down and using the nipping technique as he went.  Robert described it as pandemonium, and as he retold the story, I could see his mind wandering back to the fateful scene, as if he now suffered from PTSD.  “One little girl fell down and cried out, ‘I’ve just been bitten by a dog.'”

No worries.  Everyone was fine.  No blood had been spilled, and we learned that Dylan enjoys herding girl scouts, even if they do not have any cookies for him (he loves cookies!).

The third issue is conspiracy.

MJ tends to be shy in social settings, so we weren’t sure how she would take to the dog park.  At first she stuck as close to her big brother as possible (she literally wants to be touching him when at all possible), just observing the other dogs.  Then she strayed from her brother’s protection and headed straight towards some largish mutts, challenging them.  This was all calculated as I could clearly see her making sure she knew exactly where her brother was first.  Once the other dogs began to chase her, she ran past her brother, whose attention was now piqued, and under a picnic bench she was still small enough to fit under, but the mutts were not. Obviously that slowed them down, and gave Dylan enough time to come to MJ’s defense.  She is smart and manipulative.  Since almost every other dog Dylan comes into contact with recognizes him as the alpha, the mutts backed off and MJ came out from hiding, and repeated a similar process a few more times.

The fourth crime is accessory to murder.

Ok, so not really murder, but a good crime of passion anyway, or maybe a bit more a case of domestic violence.  I’ve mentioned a few times how much Dylan loves his plush green squeaky spider we named Green.  Seriously, this dog has separation anxiety if he cannot find Green.  When the vacuum runs, Dylan needs Green; when the blender liquifies our smoothies, Dylan needs Green; when it’s bedtime, Dylan needs Green; for any uncertain situation, Green is there, in Dylan’s mouth, or laying close by.  Dylan and MJ play tug with Green sometimes, and now Green is missing a few appendages. Sometimes Daddy and Dylan play tug with Green, and he’s required a few surgeries.  Dylan’s love of Green makes what I witnessed one day seem impossible.  Every time I see Dylan with Green, the song, “Happy Together” plays in my head, so why would I find Dylan holding Green down between his paws as he ripped stuffing out of Green’s neck by use of his teeth?  It was horrible, and I was almost too late to stop it.  At the last possible second, as I called out to Dylan from across the room, and ran in what seemed like bad slow motion in a B movie, he stopped, looked up at me and whimpered.  “Mommy!  I’m so sorry.  I don’t know what came over me, but can you save my friend?”  No, I didn’t actually hear him say that aloud (I’m not really crazy), but it was clear in his eyes.

With a needle and thread that sort of matched the correct shade of Green, I went to work on saving Green, forcing as much stuffing as I could back into the oozing wound.  Dylan paced like an expecting father in the waiting room in those old shows and movies when men weren’t allowed in the room during childbirth.  He whimpered and cried out.  He even came and tried to pry Green from my hands a few times.  Finally, Green was repaired and the two old friends were reunited.

I’d like to tell you that Green and Dylan have lived happily ever after, and they sort of have, except we are now on the fourth Green.

Still, I don’t always understand why my dogs do what they do, but I know by their happy faces that their intentions are never to do harm.  They may just get carried away in the moment.  You cannot look an Aussie is the face and see anything but joy and love, unless it’s guilt brought on by some misunderstanding.

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Those Crazy Aussie Dog People the 3rd

Posted on June 20, 2012 by caverns of my mind

Yesterday was Dylan’s day.  Today is for our little one-Baby Girl as I often call her- MJ, which stands for Mara Jade.  In the trilogy of Star Wars books telling the tale of life immediately following Ewoks, Luke Skywalker is hunted by, and eventually falls in love with and marries a sassy redhead named Mara Jade.  Being the nerds we are, Robert and I named our little red-tri puppy after her.

The happiness we had with Dylan for our first year led us to thinking we might want to add to our family unit, and it just so happened that Dylan’s birth mother had recently given birth to another litter of puppies.  In fact, there had been another bitch (it’s ok to say it in this case because that’s what the word was intended for anyway, so calm down) who had a litter around the same time and there were many puppies to unload.  Three of them were still available much past the usual time, so they were again “discount dogs.”  We took Dylan back with us and he picked one of the two little girls because she didn’t annoy him as much as the other.  She immediately attached herself to her big brother (remember that they really do have the same mom), but he wasn’t so sure.  The lack of personal space sort of freaked him out for a while.

Dylan had a toy Green and a Blue

Eventually he learned to more than just accept her, and to actually love her.  We knew this had happened when he actually brought her his favorite toy and best friend, Green.  Green is to Dylan what that blue blanket is to Linus, so at that moment we knew he loved his baby sister.

MJ using Green for a sleep buddy, with Dylan’s permission

Even now, the two are inseparable, and Dylan puts up with quite a bit of abuse from MJ.

MJ can be a pain in the neck

You could say MJ  had a troubled youth.  I’m not sure if it’s because she knew she was a “discount dog,” or what, but when I took her out on the town for people socialization, she was always mostly interested in discarded cigarette butts.  At home, she was always trying to drink Mommy and Daddy’s beer or wine.  She tended to sprawl out on the floor in the most unladylike positions.  She even resorted once to chewing a plugged in electrical extension cord (also two remote controls, a Blackberry, and a pair of glasses, though those did not electrocute her and cause her Mommy to panic).

It was clear she needed reform, so we enrolled her into Puppy Kindergarten, and she became the star pupil.  With her troubles behind her, she has taken on new interests and hobbies, like chasing and catching the “flippy,” leaning against everything, and warning us when anything moves in our front or back yards.  She has learned her left from her right, and has even attempted to take up singing, though she is not nearly as controlled and on key as her brother (though he does get “stuck” and stutter sometimes).  She has also mastered the head tilt of curiosity and waking us up in the morning.

I think she fears she is still missing out on something…like having a tail, but she’s found a way around that, also making parts that fall off Dylan’s Green useful. She really likes “Green leg” because it has a squeaker at the end.

MJ is nothing if not resourceful

Yes, our little girl is all grown up now into a beautiful lady, but just as I as the youngest will always be my mom’s “baby,” MJ will always be my little puppy.

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Those Crazy Aussie Dog People: Part II

Posted on June 19, 2012 by caverns of my mind

The star of today’s show is Sir Dylan.  You may remember his rump from yesterday’s post (that’s usually the part dogs meet first, right?). Today, here is his handsome mug for your viewing pleasure:

Dylan enjoys peanut butter, long walks anywhere on a leash, cuddling, barking at squirrels, Mommy and Daddy time, and his best friend Green.

Ignore the date- the camera lies.

The day we bought Dylan changed the course of the rest of my life.  Due to health issues in his original people family, Dylan had been “returned” to a breeder (Heavensent Aussies) in connection with the Buckingham Ranch, where he was born.  By this time he was alomst 1 1/2 and was a discount dog because of all this.  We arranged to look at a litter of puppies, but had been informed he would be there too.  I don’t remember even looking at those puppies once we arrived.  We met Dylan, took care of the financials and paperwork, and were on our way with our new dog.

It all happened so fast.  As we walked our new dog to the car, I remember freaking out a bit.  After all, with dog ownership comes great responsibility.  I could only guess this was the feeling new parents get when taking home their baby for the first time. Now I know you are shaking your head at this if you are a parent- probably laughing too- but it’s the closest thing I know.

I wanted Robert to have a dog and I was going along with it.  I knew little about taking care of a dog and was terrified.  I had been a cat person because they were easy.  Food. Litter box. Clean litter box. Done.  A dog would demand my time and attention, which I had little of as a first year teacher.  As I watched Dylan leap excitedly and unquestioningly into the back seat of the car, I was panicked.  He seemed ok with the whole thing, but I wasn’t sure I was…and I had to sit in the back seat with him in order to keep him from climbing up on us in the front seat.

We had purchased a crate, which Dylan was to sleep in at night and stay in when we went to work.  The crate was in the living room and our bedroom was far down at the end of the hallway, around a corner even.  Still, we could hear him crying all night long. Determined for Dylan to get used to sleeping in that crate, Robert even spent the first night sleeping next to him on the floor.  After that we tried earplugs at night because Robert couldn’t sleep on the tile floor every night.  A month or so of this must have gone by before I realized it made more sense for Dylan to be free to roam at night since Robert tended to be gone at least a few nights each week.  After all, dogs are protectors, but he couldn’t protect me while locked in a crate.  That was phase one for Dylan getting his way.

Phase two came one day when I wasn’t feeling well.  I had a mind-numbing, vomit-inducing headache, so I went to bed to nap in the darkness.  After a while, Robert realized Dylan was not with him. As he approached the bedroom, there was Dylan, curled up right next to me…on the bed!  After that, the rules about not getting on the furniture no longer existed.  He won us over with love and devotion.  Once we also had MJ we had to upgrade from a double to a king.  Heck, there were cold nights when even the cat slept on the bed with all of us, and she hates the dogs.

Dylan’s protective and loving nature helped us form a quick bond, and learning how to care for him became easy.  Love has a way of working itself out.  Even as I type this, Dylan’s head is resting on my foot while he sleeps, ears twitching and all.  It’s hard to remember that time over five years ago when I couldn’t imagine bonding with this guy, because now I cannot imagine NOT having this love.

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Those Crazy Aussie Dog People: My Dog Days of Summer

Posted on June 18, 2012 by caverns of my mind

How many of you know some of those crazy dog people?

What you cannot see right now is that I am raising my hand and pointing frantically at myself because I AM one of those crazy dog people.  Yep- we have no kids, so our dogs have taken over that part of our lives.  We send the traditional family photo Christmas card, with our dogs in the pic in place of kids.  I even considered getting those tacky little family stick figure window stickers for my car, using a man, a woman, and two dogs (maybe we’d even stick the cat on there, but she prefers to be left out of everything).  We pretend we know what the dogs would say if they could speak and speak for them, and we call each other Mommy and Daddy when the dogs refer to us.  “Aw, MJ just loves her daddy!”

I didn’t start out as a crazy dog person.  In fact, I grew up as a cat lover and was a bit scared of dogs over 30 lbs, but my husband wanted to be able to get a dog once we had a house, and I was ready to give it a try.  We researched breeds and kept coming back to Australian shepherds, which are not Australian, by the way.  This is an active breed, an intelligent breed, and a fluffy breed (our Dyson has been a great investment).  They were primarily bred in America for the purpose of herding cattle, instincts that apparently carry over to girl scouts (it’s ok- nobody was hurt). Because tails could get in the way, causing injury or infection, the breed standard is also to have their tails docked when they are puppies, for which my belongings and I are ever grateful.

This seems to have led to various degrees of “the wiggle.”  The wiggle encompasses everything from a slight movement of the “nub,” to a full on body-bent-in-half-at-the-waist wiggle, to “the Shakira” in which MJ’s hips move so quickly you can feel a breeze if you’re standing close.  With the last two types there are also often happy snarls and sneezes (we read somewhere that these sneezes are a sort of dog laughter).

In Dylan’s case, the docked tail has also lead to what we call the “Donald Rump.” I’m sure you can see why.

If it’s true that pets can add years to one’s life, I am certain Robert and I will live at least till 100, and so to return the favor, I am dedicating a blog post each day this week to my Awesome Aussies, Sir Dylan (we never call him Sir, as we’re afraid it will go to his head- he’s already quite the alpha dog) and Mara Jade (she’s named after Luke Skywalker’s redheaded wife).

If you stay tuned, you’ll get the girl scout story.

For today, I’ll leave you with this thought:

“My goal in life is to be as good of a person as my dog already thinks I am.” ~Author Unknown

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Posted on June 14, 2012 by caverns of my mind

I’m going to spend the day with my husband, so no time for new material. My cheat is reposting the beginning of my yet-unpublished-because-I’m-terrified book.

Also, since this is now an excerpt from a published book, check out the source here.

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Memoirs of an Ordinary Girl: The Middle-ish Ages

By Terree Klaes

      Prologue (or Disclaimer)
If you don’t expect too much, you won’t be disappointed. This isn’t a “self-help” book to boost your friend and/or money making abilities. I’m not a famous star revealing shocking secrets about other celebrities.  In fact, I don’t think I have ever known anybody famous.  I wish I could say that you should read this book because it will turn your world upside down, but it probably won’t.  All I can tell you honestly is that I hope to entertain you.

Wait!  Don’t put the book down yet.  Admittedly, I am just an ordinary girl, with an extraordinarily ordinary life.  I could be the girl next door.  It’s just that I decided to put it all on paper. The people I have known are what have made my life interesting. These and the everyday, or…

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GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!

Posted on June 12, 2012 by caverns of my mind

I have been reading a book called Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job by Jon Acuff.  (Ok, so I was reading it, but then I had to quit for a while because my day job was taking up all my dream job time, and I just picked it back up.)

I know you’re asking yourself why in the world a high school English teacher would want to give up all the amazing perks of her job (sometimes sarcasm is hard to read, so I’m letting you know it’s here); the answer is simple: I am becoming exhausted, and I do not want to burn out or become one of those ineffective, jaded teachers who just go through the motions of the job.  For now, I’ve still got this, but the day is coming when I know I just won’t be able to do it with a passion anymore. It’s better to prepare for that now than to wait for the breakdown to happen.

Aside from teaching, there are only a few career paths I ever considered following: writer, singer, M&M quality tester.  I’m too shy to sing in front of anyone and am probably best in the car…alone; I’m not sure where the nearest Mars candy factory is; but writing has always been a passion of mine.  I also have recently discovered a new passion: doing something in the way of creating awareness of or helping survivors of human trafficking.

So in this book I started reading again about an hour ago, Acuff talks about the “plan myth” (all references to this book in this post come from “Chapter 5: Wait on the Main Stage”).  We all think we need a detailed plan in order to become successful, but in reality, we first need passion and practice, and then a plan will sort of develop itself.  I’m a planner, so I think before I read this I was overwhelmed by the fact that I don’t even know how to develop a plan of success for these two passions of mine.  Apparently that’s ok, which is good, because I was trying to develop a plan just to develop a plan (which I would probably then color code…).

Examples: Acuff gave an analogy of a soccer player scoring a goal. He could never predict the exact conditions of the moment of the goal.  Sometimes everything just lines up.  The soccer player had the passion and practice, and the rest worked itself out.  Another analogy was of an extreme skier.  He knew he could only plan about four moves at a time because as he got closer to obstacles/choices, exact predictions would be impossible. To quote Jon Acuff, “The conditions of your dream will change as quickly as that mountain face [reference to the skier analogy]. New opportunities will come into view. Unexpected obstacles will arise.  And while your passion will remain the same, your plan has to be flexible enough to accommodate them.”

I’ve always been a believer in writing down my goals.  I heard or read somewhere that when we write things down, we are more likely to accomplish or achieve whatever it is. So, I guess writing down the final goal and waiting to fill in the details of the journey when we can makes the most sense. Depending on where we write these goals, we may also increase accountability.

This blog is part of my practice for my writing passion.  Not only am I practicing my writing, but I’m also declaring that I will work on getting my adolescent novel published in some form as soon as possible.  I am going on a mission trip to Costa Rica this summer to try to get some practice for my other passion of working with survivors of human trafficking.  My true and ultimate goal is that one day my passions can collide.

One other idea from Acuff’s “Chapter 5: Wait on the Main Stage” is that it’s good to start out invisible while we practice our passions.  It gives us a chance to mess up without pressure.  Now I can continue to practice in this blog and not worry about my small following, which does not even include my own mother, because this is my Nebraska phase (read the book if you want to know what that means).

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