You have to start somewhere ~ Finding Gratefuls in grief

This wasn't the Grateful post I wanted to write today.

I arrived home at 10.45pm from the Sydney Kids Business Bloggers Brunch. A round trip of 773kms or so, not including the trip into the city with the gorgeous Sara & Em.

I am very grateful for safe travels and Sara's offer to drive into Sydney.
Though she now lives interstate - she was a rally champion. I hate city drivers driving.

After the Bloggers brunch I had to return my friend's cat carrier . She is moving this weekend too .
She was working at her new property . I used my Mum's GPS for directions as I hadn't been there. It lead me down a very badly maintained country road , across a little flowing creek ( 'Roberts Creek' road should have alerted me ).

As I was furiously cursing the potholes, gravel road and hairpin bends ...I am grateful for the little Echidna I saw crossing the road. A car coming the opposite direction flashed me , though I had seen it already. It turned and looked at us both stopped, changed it's mind and ambled back to side of the road. Unaware.


Hours later I was relieved to arrive home, safe.
It still feels strange calling this place home , but it is starting to feel like HOME.

DH said nothing , then... nor the small boys who were fast asleep.
We chatted over a cuppa and went to bed.

First thing this morning I woke to one boy cuddling up to me and both boys telling me Jed, our puppy was dead ...run over by wheels (of the 'Jeep' driven by DH), and buried .
The boys told me all the details , all matter of fact'ly, DH added a few scant details, it only happened at 5.30pm last night. Just after I called him to say I was on my way home.

The boys saw it all , they were in the car , driving on the property.
Daddy drove back to find ... Jed was bleeding, his were legs in the air ? with actions.

No tears were mentioned and I didn't ask if there were, tears.
I can't even ask where they buried Jed. They just told me Daddy buried Jed.

My hub said he didn't want to upset me last night.
I had a little hot, salty spill when he went into town, then again at the clothes line.

I know it will affect him too, he just won't talk about how much. Jed was such a lovely dog. DH has a soft heart and will embrace his own grief and guilt in his own way.

Jed  ... Dashi

I'm grateful, Jed's sister Dashi (after the Octonauts)  is still here to soothe us and we her . She seems to be looking for her best buddy and is very affectionate today. She seems wanting ; to get up close and personal.

Moving on ...Kinder news topic this week is PETS. Talk about bad timing.
Different children have news each day of the week. Joel and Sam's turns are Thursday and Friday respectively. I should be grateful for that.

I will have to write and let the teacher know.
Sure as hell I will choke up and cry if I try to tell her any other way.

 

The boys adored Jed , we had him 6 weeks. Long enough to love him forever. Everyday, teaching him to play fetch, watching him chase cows or race our other puppy through the grass. Teaching him to shake hands, walk on the lead, laughing as he'd lick their faces ...He followed the boys everywhere.


I don't know if they are particularly traumatised (WTH ? is it with spam bots that RT any mention of traumatised) , though they saw it all.

However, they still tell everybody about our 13yr old dog, Patch, dying and being in heaven ... that was 2 yrs ago (He was euthanised ).
Whenever they saw a dog in Western Australia, on our trip, they told the owners about our 'Patchy.' So we would have to explain.

I am grateful the boys have a lovely teacher who will know (I hope) how best to manage news this week.

How did you help your children deal with the loss of a pet ?

♥

Grateful for Lost & Found and Inside Out innovations.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind so I've been slack with my blog; writing , reading and commenting. Life rolls on ...regardless.

The boys had week 1 of school, then we had a three day trip to Sydney for a 50th birthday and appointments for Sam.

The last 2 weeks I was also worn down by dealings with a telecommunications provider and trying to get our previous email addresses transferred to our new service. It almost broke me , I was so frustrated and couldn't access or send business emails for 8 days.

Our new phone and Internet service had admin issues in the system,  they were actually working. Except for a few occasions, including yesterday, when it was offline for over 2 hrs because a tech support guy overseas had done something . Finally after over 4hrs , three-four phone conversations {including on hold time } , with an interval in between to pick up my boys, I think most issues were sorted.

Thursday, morning, our 3 month old puppies went walkabout - It happened while I took boys to school and errands. They were down the front of property with DH who was working on the driveway with the tractor, the gates were open and the cows were out front too. They ran off , instead of hanging around like they usually do - probably chasing after the cows who strayed across the creek at the front of the property to eat the long grass...the grass was greener.

Dashi & Jed were missing for 24hrs .There is a huge open space for them to roam , 1000 acres on our property alone. The fencing is mostly for cattle only , with 8 neighbours or so in a km radius - plus a forest nearby - we were searching for needles in a haystack. Plus metre high grass everywhere to hide a naughty puppy or two...not to mention dams & a creek with a little water in it, slippery slopes....never mind it was OK in the end.

We spent about 3 hrs looking for them on Thursday. About 6pm I put up missing posters on closest neighbours , about 8, gates. Thankfully , neighbours about 1.5km away though adjoining our front boundary, a WAY  away, over the creek, through trees & scrub, hidden from street view , had found them. They kept them safe overnight and saw our note in the morning while leaving to take their son (8) to school.

They rang and we got to meet neighbours we maybe wouldn't have ; yet. It ended well. Due to ongoing phone number issues I had not put ID tags on them as yet ( Yes, I very slack - I was going too !! and I will Monday)

I digress onto brighter issues -  It is nice to be finally settling in and finding our long forgotten and lost STUFF groove.

On our trip to Sydney I enjoyed a breather from unpacking and playing box tetris to read the newest Inside-Out magazine.


Considered to be one of Australia's best interiors magazine and full of inspiration, I can flick through the pages of Inside - Out for hours. I am still finding new stories or snippets.

Yes, admittedly, some of the latest homeware trends are so far off my decorating radar and way above my budget . I still love to drool dream over what's new for the lounge room, kitchen, bathroom and garden, plus the practical decorating solutions for indoor and outdoor spaces.

I find I get a few ideas to cheat with decorating here and there . This month , I am in awe of the clever design ideas for Kid's playful spaces. By far my favourite feature.

Today , I went to Bunnings to buy chalkboard paint to re- purpose a play table into a chalk table. I will show you once we finish . The other ideas are easy fabulous too, imaginative and very affordable with minimal effort (ticks my first box) and so cute ! Teaming an old ladder and my favourite IKEA 'Ekby' shelves into a pedestal of treasures.

In the , not too distant, future we have plans for outdoor spaces, a little renovation to our cabin and then down the track maybe to build a new home here...one day. I am bookmarking pages for inspiration.

This issue saw craft queen Tamara creating two Why don't you...? projects exclusively for homelife. Re-purposing cracked plates into works of art or updating your wardrobe with a tree branch hanging rail. Just my style now and budget ! The boys will love this idea (we promise to only use fallen branches).

On my baking list is also these Chocolate meringues !

This edition's Inside Out also has a bonus Kitchen & Bathroom book giving a sneak peak into how technology is set to play a significant role in the design and function of tomorrow's kitchens and bathrooms - let your imagination roam into the realm of futuristic kitchens & interactive bathrooms that double as technological hubs with a big focus on innovation.

I can't wait for the self cleaning systems ...but I might give the social networking bathroom scales a miss !!!

So what have you been up to the last 2 weeks ...did I miss much ?

PS ~ I have a few copies to giveaway too.
♥

Wordless Wednesday ~ A boy and his dog { x 2 }

Every boy should have two things: a dog, and a mother willing to let him have one ~ anon

A boy and his dog 

Every puppy should have a boy ~ Erma Bombeck





♥

An old dog learns new tricks ... and an old dog

The last few days I have been learning a few new tricks and all about chicklets and widgets, rss and Google reader.

I discovered I do have feed burner readers (thank you to 32 people - I am honoured). I subscribed to a whole of blogs but I didn't know how to access them easily. I do now.Before it was hit and miss. I am sorry to the people I have neglected.I also re-directed my blogger rss to feed burner... at least that is what i think I did. I saw a jump in my readers on the stats yesterday too. I have along way to go to crossing the 10,000 reader milestone.

So now I am off on a mission to add more blogs to my Google reader.I have so much to learn. I am seriously thinking about changing to Wordpress ... well next year.

I have been so busy of late NaBloPoMo... and I feel my precious little guys need me more than I need to fiddle with my blog stuff. They have been into everything and while I secretly say horrid little things about them (to myself) - when they rip yet another lift the flap book or mildly important papers, steal my phone,keys, camera or wallet, bite me while nursing,climb and stand on the furniture, escape the $160 playpen, remove their nappies, throw clean washing all over the house, explore the toilet,refuse to eat & throw food at each other and on the floor, unpack the bag I just packed to go out and generally trash the house and that's just today - I still think I will keep them.

I might just keep him too ... though at the moment we clash terribly... *sigh*I am a mean mum and he is now 14 going on 40 who thinks he has all the answers. The babies adore him.

I digress , yes, we do have an old dog - Patch is now 11 yrs old. We gave him to our son D on Christmas day 11 yrs ago - D was 3yrs old and Patch was barely 5-6 wks old, with a belly full of worms (eeewww) . He was a wee scrap of a thing - 'heinz' Blue cattle/heeler dog mix. We played out the Rod Campbell story " Dear Zoo".
A boy writes to the zoo for a new pet ... and they send him a variety of animals - I wrapped small toys/plastic animals and lastly they sent him ... in basket can you guess ? and we presented the dog to him in a picnic basket.

Playing -fetch the ball is his favourite past-time but he gets puffed quicker now. I will have to find a photo tomorrow of him now. S & J love to throw the ball too ... but they only get it a metre of so.Poor Patch he gets so excited for nothing. D wanted to call him Pat (after Postman Pat... but unfortunately(yes it's true) my MIL lived in a little house/flat attached to our house and her name was *P a t xxxxx ... (almost the same as mine). LOL we knew she wouldn't appreciate it. Here 'Pat' ... yelled out !

By the way, Patch still loves her (and remembers her car - we know she is driving up the drive by the way he gets so excited in anticipation) even after 7 yrs since she/we moved.
She was his best ball thrower ever.
*The same name thing now that is a blog for another day.
Heads & Tails follows ...