The View From Drew

This is Hope, the newest member of the family.  I've been promising to post a picture of her for some time.  She's going to be three shortly.  She's a rescue shelter dog from Kentucky, where she was unfed and abused.  You can see it in her as she sometimes flinches when I raise my hands.  She's very gentle with the boys, especially Mikey.  She has a separation anxiety problem as witnessed with the destruction of a few items whenever we go out without her.  We're going to get a fence to place in the hallway to keep her while we're out.  Hope loves the snow and spends more time outdoors than indoors during snow storms.  She's outside right not rolling around in it.

I never thought I'd have a Lab.  I wanted a Jack Russell, a Beagle, or a German Shepherd.  Now, I want two more to name Faith and Love.  ;)

So, I'm spending some time with Hope this morning.  She's still being a little stand-offish.  This is going to take a while.  I'm patient though.

I have a feeling she's meant to be here.

Last night went well.  The woman from the shelter suggested we crate Hope overnight.  She was used to it anyway as the rescue people did it while they held her.  And she went in and lay down on her bed and that was that.  She was ready to go this morning when Sue took her out.  I figure if we do this a couple of nights, she might get the idea that nights are the quiet time for the family and she needs to lay low.  Now, if only we could get the cat to understand that.

She has the most expressive eyes and she stares at me a lot.  Even now as I type this, I can feel her looking at me.  It's not creepy.  She's figuring me out though.  She is very intelligent.  And this gets me thinking of Lucky.

They have a lot in common.

First, the eyes.  Lucky also had very deep, intelligent eyes.

Second, the name.  I adopted both animals and they already had their names, names I would never have given them.  And yet, in an odd way, the names fit them.

Hope has a small white patch in her chest, the way Lucky did.

She also has this habit of placing her paws on you, as though she wants to hold you as you pet her.  Lucky did the same thing.

I miss Lucky.  I think about her every day, even though it's over four years later.  

But I'm beginning to wonder if I'm getting her back here.

So, with everything going on, school, podcasts, writing, audio dramas, the new dog, the boys, the after school activities - something had to give.

That was me.

I was fine during the day yesterday.  Tired, but fine.  The evening proved to be another matter.  I started burning with a fever of 102.  I felt chills running up and down my body.  I went to bed at five and woke up at eight this morning.

I am exhausted.  There is not enough time in the day to do all the things I want to do.

At the moment.

I need to work things out.

So, I'm going to stop getting up so early in the morning.  I like my morning time to focus on the day, but I do have a first period free now, which is when I get my act together anyway.  I can sleep in a little.

I'm going to the principal tomorrow and asking him to cover my classes for one day this week.  I'm still going in, but I need the time to log in and catalog all the video footage the kids have recorded so far.  I need to also get comfortable with the video editing suite I purchased so I can teach it to the kids so they can handle all the editing chores.  I need to get into the school newspaper office and see what cameras and layout software is available to me.  I simply can't do this after school as I have the actual club meetings or have to pick up Mikey from daycare.

I can do this, but I need to set some priorities.  Like I said, I'm going to not think about the Rift for a week, except to see what, if any, reviews the first show gets on our boards.  I've set up a Google alert in case it's written about anywhere on the web.  The alert is pretty sensitive as my post yesterday was noted by Google.