Lilly and I apologize for the sudden, unexplained absence from blogging these last two weeks. Due to a new and difficult stage in our eldercare responsibilities, we cannot promise it won’t happen again, but we’ll do our best to keep afloat and provide some entertainment.
If you’ve not yet LIKE’d our Champion of My Heart Facebook Fan Page, where we sometimes report on such life events, we’ll catch you up on the backstory behind our absence:
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Starting in spring 2009, life around here got increasingly complicated with medical / health worries and looming grief on several fronts. The changes to my daily reality often feel beyond grim. I wade through life with a conscious bubble of gratitude around me. Yet, while tossing and turning the other night, I compiled a list of things I miss.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Back Story, Dog Life, Dog Musings | Posted on 30-09-2011
Just a week. That’s all I had to survive between learning Lilly’s lump needed to come out and finding out it was nothing scary. I tried not to worry too much, but clearly I did. My body, in revolt, said, “Oh, @#$@ no!”
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings, Hot News | Posted on 07-09-2011
Thanks to fans and friends for the private notes of concern. Everyone here at Chez Champion of My Heart is fine (and completely NOT at the same time). Those two elders for whom we worry and sit vigil remain essentially the same. Stable, for now. Yet … what comes next isn’t pretty. It’s real life, but it sucks all the same.
Today is my first full day of “work” in nearly a month. Whether it’s a whole day or a gopher-hole day, I hold onto hope that I’ll have time to resume blogging. And, then each night I’ve run out the clock — both actual time and functional brainpower. So far, the long list of planned blog posts remains unwritten.
My goal is to get back on that horse in the next day or two and write next week’s posts. So, stay tuned as we try to return to scheduled programming … already in progress.
After all, we’re not just here blogging to blog. We’re here because blogging about dogs (Lilly, in particular) is a HUGE part of our bigger goals. And, as always, we appreciate your help.
Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings, Dog Whine | Posted on 23-08-2011
People cope with stress in different ways. I like to think my various coping strategies remain healthier than some of the alternatives. Yes, I turn to comfort food. If I can fit it in before the day’s stuckage (a term we coined yesterday) takes hold, then exercise is good. BUT, 12 or more hours of stuckage drive me right to bed. Sleep ranks high.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings, Dog Whine | Posted on 22-08-2011
Even as we cross the threshold into year three of non-stop, multi-front, family medical dramas, we face the longest stretch of my real absence from Lilly’s daily life. That leaves me little blog content, except to whine. So, this week, I’ll share just a few reports of Lilly’s response to her life without me as #1 form of entertainment and comfort.
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One of the things I love best about Lilly, our canine heroine, is just how earnest she is about life. She takes most things in her day seriously. No matter what she does, you get the sense she truly means it. When she plays, she is all about playing. When she snuggles, she is all about snuggling. When she learns something new, she focuses like a laser on the task. A personal discipline is indeed one of my strong suits, but I could still learn a thing or two from my brilliant, genuine dog.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings | Posted on 14-04-2011
Pressures of modern life — be they related to work, families, political climate, or global catastrophes — make a girl wish she could simply float away for a while and get a break from the grind. Yet, whether you face short, intense challenges or the death-by-a-million-cuts reality of lingering problems, the trick (as far as I can tell) is to stay put.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings, Dog Whine | Posted on 22-03-2011
We’ve long established that Lilly, our canine heroine, responds to every shift around her. That’s true at home. It’s true when we’re out in public. It’s true in the various dog training classes we take. Yet, Lilly responds to different emotions in different ways. She finds sadness much less “scary” than frustration or anger or generalized grumpiness.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings, Dog Photo | Posted on 24-12-2010
The girls of Champion of My Heart want to wish everyone a happy holiday. Despite the most ridiculous last 16 months anyone could imagine, we remain steeped in gratitude for the blessings — big and small — in our lives.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings, Dog Whine | Posted on 11-11-2010
Lately, I wish I had one of those charging mats. You know, those things that you just lay your electronics upon and like magic they get charged back up. Maybe I could retool a scat mat. Well, that is, if I had the skill.
I am tired.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Life, Dog Musings | Posted on 21-10-2010
One of our Twitter friends (@IntuitiveBridge) recently lost some followers for essentially saying that we shouldn’t make our dogs emotionally responsible for us. The backlash stemmed from this post about separation anxiety, where Bridget said …
“Okay, I bring this up because there are people in the world who treat their dogs like their soul mates, like their bestest friends, like the loves of their lives, like their therapists. There are dogs who can handle this and dogs who can’t. If your dog exhibits signs of separation anxiety, you need to lighten their emotional load. This does not mean putting on a fake happy face. Dogs are not stupid. This means getting the emotional help and connection somewhere away from your pet.”
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Entirely Off Topic | Posted on 01-04-2010
Of yarn, that is. Yep, because I have so much free time, I’ve taken up knitting. The truth is that knitting is an amazing, natural stress/anxiety buster. It’s also been proven to ward of the mental decay of aging.
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Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Dog Musings, Entirely Off Topic | Posted on 25-02-2010
One of the best ways to get readers’ (and, therefore, editors’) attention is to use superlatives. If something you write about is the biggest or smallest, best or worst, or better yet ONLY or FIRST, then chances are you’ve got a winner of an idea. However, the problem with such thinking is that it can warp you.
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