Counting Days To Give Us Patience

As children we learn, or attempt to learn the lessons of patience very early as we count the days to Christmas, Hanukkah, Birthdays and once in school the time of Summer Vacation.

As we seem to mature we continue the lessons of learning patience, counting the months until we can get our drivers license, legally drink something stronger then Coke-Cola or Pepsi, the days until graduation and Summer Vacation.

We enter the work world, thinking we have arrived at adulthood, what we have been so patiently waiting to achieve, so we can continue the lesson of counting the days until the weekends, holidays falling for a long weekend, and the time left until Summer Vacation.

While being schooled in the lessons of patience, we manage to accumulate stacks of calendar pages littering the roads we have chosen to travel as we learn the most important lessons of patience. Living for tomorrow on some happy and not so happy memories of yesterday.

Oblivious to today, except to be eager to have it gone, for we will be just that much closer to our objective day and perhaps even our Summer Vacations.

While still Christmas we can catch ourselves even speaking out loud,"Next Christmas (insert holiday or event) I am going to ask for, plan for, or have..." Seeming not to notice that what we had aimed for was now here. We even have been known to spend our Summer Vacations planning for our next extended period away from work, school, our so call routine life.

Somehow I have formed the image of humans, seeking patience while planning to learn, never learning a thing as we count the days until we can count the days.

Is that way the more things change, the more they stay the same? Could the lessons of patience really be about learning to be in the now... to see the world, enjoy the world, embrace the world given us today?

Learning to live Today as our Christmas, our Hanukkah, our extended holiday weekend. Taking time to live our Summer Vacation! How else will we know that, that time, day, place we long to be, has come unless we do?

As long as we are so busy counting, everything will stay the same, just beyond our reach, as we continue to count the days.

Morning Coffee

Morning Coffee

Being greeted by the soft aroma of a fresh brewed pot of coffee, while still feeling the tender embrace of Downy scented sheets can only mean it is going to be a great day!

Here's to Morning Coffee....

What Time Is It? Check the Pug Clock!

My husband and I have been toying with the idea of tossing out all our clocks. Not such a big thing to some people, but Tom seems to have collected a stash of time pieces over the nearly 4 decades we have been together.

There is at least one clock in every room of our home and possibly as many as three or four. Twice a year I have to hear his litany of the "Changing of Time," Spring Forward, Fall Back, but that is not a reason to rid ourselves of a mean of measuring the passage of the day.

For the past 20 months our lives have been blessed by AJ our Pug. He is the Pug Extraordinair, who has tried to teach his humans some form of table etiquette with a certain amount of success. He has also been laboring to teach us how to properly tell time.

In case you did not realize, as we had not, there is our time (human time) and there is Pug Time... and Pug Time is always the right time. Somewhere inside his trim, muscular physic, perhaps stuck tightly within the curls of his tail beats his "puggy clock."

With just seconds to spare, each morning he is ready to announce that our alarms will soon begin to spill early morning news and traffic reports into our sleep filled ears. With the patience of Buddha, he allows a time for us to do our personal morning things, before his puggy clock sounds the alarm that it is now his turn to greet and do his morning rounds of the neighborhood.

He also gives us the, "Do Not Disturb the Pug"look when it is puggy nap time. Allowing the proper amount of rest between activities such as dining, walking neighborhood patrol, and naps, he does manage to squeeze in "play ball time", along with "Hey, it's treat time!"

Precisely at 9 p.m. Central Time, (Daylight Saving Time as well) he begins to announce it is time to prepare to retire for the day. His Pug Clock has never been off or wrong. He knows that we will scowl and beg that "it is too early yet," but he continues his prodding none the less.

On evenings when he is somewhat more tolerant of our behavior, or sensing the baseball game has not yet ended, he has allowed us another ninety minutes of "play/snack time."

We have come to accept that without fail, this Pug Clock is far more accurate and attuned to not only his needs but ours.

Pugs seem to need a great amount of restorative time. I was even told that Pugs sleep nearly 18 hours a day. I can not prove that true, but I know if I were to follow closely my personal Pug Clock I would more likely feel far more rested and ready to meet life's challenges.

We can tell you this, we would save a ton of cash on batteries along with the frustration twice a year of setting or resetting each timepiece we have if we just would learn to rely on the self winding Pug Clock, who keeps waggin', lickin' & waggin'.

Which by the way the perfect way to begin and end each day is with ... Pug Hugs and Kisses ....

It's You Day --- Celebrate

Surprise!

Happy Birthday!

---

Today is our "baby's" birthday.

Happy Birthday dear Daughter. May this year bring you the contentment you deserve, the security you need, and more love, love, love!

We love you and are ever proud of you! (Yes, Christmas is just 6 months from today!)

Mom, Dad & AJ.... & ( your baby) Zero

Summer Sounds Remembered

I love the sounds of summer. From the quite pre-dawn calls of the woodland birds to the mid-day clamor of youngsters at play. There is just something different about Summer Sounds.

Weekends that begin with the swoosh and swash of a push lawn mower, or the zroooming of a power mower that continue with the spit -spat of the sprinkler set to encourage the next weeks growth, lend to the ear a different meaning of life.

Time seems to hang, almost suspended and surreal, as you hear the clink and clank of swings and the giggles of youngsters as they spray themselves and each other with the cold relief of a garden hose.

As evening approaches there come the tingling sound of bells, mixed with calliope music that grows ever louder and then the gleeful shrill, "The Ice Cream Man," resounding a call of attack from every yard for blocks.

There is that quite time just as the stars of Summer begin to dot a darkening sky, then the soft coo of a dove calling to her mate to return home for the night. Silence that is broken by the distant song of a far off train carrying people and produce to far away dreamed of destinations.

These are the Summer Sounds memory has held for dreams.