Well, She Doesn't Usually, But Then She Doesn't Usually Get Poked In The Face Either

Little kid: Is that your dog?
Me: Yes
Kid: Does it bite?
Me: No, she'll only playbite if you're wrestling with her.
Kid: *proceeds to poke Moxie in the face with a stick*
Moxie: *runs away scared*
Me: Please don't do that. She's only a baby and she's scared.
Kid: *chases, still trying to poke stick in her eyes*
Moxie: Grrrrr
Kid: *continues poking her in the face*
Me: Could you please stop that? She doesn't like it!
Kid: *pokes her in the face*
Moxie: *bites, but not hard*
Kid: YOU SAID SHE WOULDN'T BITE! *runs away crying*
Me: ...

...What?

I was just at the park with Moxie. She was running around playing, as puppies do, enjoying herself immensely, and I was sitting on the bench with a book. Now, this is primarily a dog park and is always full of dogs running around playing - so you don't go in this park and expect to not deal with any dogs coming to say hello, and therefore I always get annoyed when people complain about it.

Anyway, this woman enters the park with her (I'd guess about five year old) son. Walks past me up the path and Moxie runs over to say hello, as she does to everyone, as most dogs do in this park to everyone. Doesn't bark or growl or jump up or anything, just runs over to them, crouches down in playful puppy position, then runs off again back to me. Little kid gets scared and moves towards his mother for protection. Mother, rather than comforting her child and reassuring him that everything's alright and it's just a puppy and not going to hurt him, turns around and shouts at me, "If that things comes near me again I'm gonna boot it in the face, keep your fucking dog on a lead!"

I could only stare at her in shock. Then brought Moxie home as I was quite scared for her safety.

Smugness:

That feeling you get when you call your dog once and she comes over to you and sits patiently while you put her lead on, whilst the people who've been trying to get ahold of their dogs for 20 minutes stare at you in amazement and jealousy.

Evil Genius

Couldn't sleep last night. Too much pain. Went downstairs to get a snack but couldn't manage to make it back up the stairs. Tried curling up on the sofa with a book but Moxie wouldn't leave me alone. Took cushions, blankets, snacks and book into the hall where I could shut the door and hide from the dog. Made nest of blankets/cushions, read book until I was so exhausted I was dropping off. Managed to get back up the stairs and collapsed in bed.

Rambo woke up in bed with me, as he had been when he went to sleep. Went to work, on the way discovering a nest of cushions and blankets in the hall, with the door open and the books etc put away on a table.

He spent all day thinking Moxie was an evil genius who built herself a nest to sleep in. I was loathe to disillusion him.

Puppy Getting HEAVY

I just had a bit of a mental breakdown, and whilst I was sat there crying hysterically I realised that the monologue in my head* might actually make me feel a little better if I actually SAID it to someone, or typed it at least.

Anyway, here's what happened: (Not the answer to the whole 'oh shit what's wrong?' question, but the answer to the 'what little thing happened that made you start crying which then made you think of all the other shitty things which perpetuated the crying and turned you into a hysterical sobbing mess?' question. Which is a far better question. Why does no-one ever ask THAT question? I don't care if it's wordy; I like wordy.)

I got up to go to the loo. There was a puppy downstairs, but she's always intrigued by the noise of people moving upstairs, even if it's only down the hall, and there was an open packet of cookies on my bedside table. It wasn't within easy reach and puppy KNOWS not to EVER take things off of tables/desks/etc, but the cookies were too tempting. I should have known this because she stole one earlier when I got up to go to the loo***. I come back, see her with her head in the pack of cookies, shout at her (which hurts my throat), grab her (which dislocates a shoulder and subluxes a wrist), she squirms, I keep hold of her (subluxing the other wrist and an elbow) and throw her out of the room (not quite literally, but still getting the other elbow). Then close the door and collapse sobbing against it because both of my arms are just huge masses of PAIN and WRONGNESS and I have no idea how to go about setting them to rights when both of them are so completely dead and I'm so weak and ill and crashing and I'm already in so much pain and the stupid fucking thing about putting joints back in the right place is that you have to put yourself in MORE pain in order to FIX the pain and it's all just so ridiculous and overwhelming and I don't know how to deal with it and I HATE putting myself in pain and WHY exactly haven't people prescribed me any working painkillers yet? Then the hyperventilating hysterical sobbing hurts my throat and my ribs and I tell myself to suck it up and I fix all my joints because I know damn well that the longer I leave them the worse they'll hurt and the more likely they are to cause some sort of permanent damage so now matter HOW bad I hurt I can't just sit there crying like a baby; I have to be all grown up about it and fix it.

I fucking hate that. I want to be able to break down and CRY dammit. Except I don't, really. Want to cry, that is. Crying sucks. It's given me a headache and made my throat worse. What I want is to not feel so goddamn helpless that I feel the need to break down and cry like a baby. I HATE being so broken and I HATE being so fucking dependent on someone else to take care of me. And I was HOPING to be able to look after myself for the rest of the night until I'm able to fall asleep but I'm fairly certain my chances of that just went out the window and now I'll have to wait on someone else's fucking convenience in order to get drinks to soothe my goddamned throat.

I have no idea how I'm going to manage getting up next time I need the loo, by the way. All that sitting against the door seems to have killed my back, which doesn't help me with walking, and the crying made the lightheadedness worse, which also doesn't help with walking.

Fuuuuuck.

EDIT: Yup. Depressing moment there. First ever 'I need someone to help me go to the loo' moment. The shoulder that dislocated is none too happy about it, despite being fixed now, and I can't reach down with that arm, nor could I bend forwards without hurting my back and shoulder blade, so I couldn't actually pull my pants down myself. FML. Although, less FML than all the carer-less disabled people out there, who I'm feeling extra sorry for and depressed about at the minute. Because if it wasn't for Rambo...I don't even want to think about that. It's a horrifying and disgusting thought, to be honest. I'm going to go back to crying for a little while.






*I do that all the time. A constant attempt at explaining myself to other people from the rational part of my brain. Except it never gets said to said other people** and then I forget about it. And it's not explained and they don't understand and I don't feel any better for it.

**I'm sorry if I occasionally write confusing sentences like that. It's a poetic thing that creeps into my prose which I've always enjoyed because I have a thing for word-play, but other people like to shout at me about. Fuck off, I like it.

***My throat is on fire, so I've drunk about 10 cups of water today, and 4 or 5 cups of hot blackcurrant/lemon/throat-soothy-mediciny stuff. I have a weak bladder. I've been running back and forth from the loo all day, despite the nearly-fainting-ness that accompanies standing up when you a fever and POTS. I've not fainted. Yet****. Fingers crossed.

****Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I've fainted once since we worked out what was making me faint. I still FEEL like I'm going to all the time, but I know what causes it now and I'm so much better at recognising the signs and forcing myself to collapse on the floor if I need to in order to stop me fainting. I mean, I end up on the floor either way but the first is by far the better option.

I Hate Myself

Seriously. Mucho self-loathing. Shall I enlighten you as to why?

...

Moxie kept shouting about various things. Rambo asked her why she felt the entire world needed to know about the injustices of her not being allowed a cup of tea. I made a joke that she should be on twitter, so she could inform the world of everything she wants to shout about. Rambo agreed with me, and convinced me to make her one.

...

Seriously. Moxie has a twitter.

MoxieThePuppy

Please kill me now.

WTF

Moxie's not quite house-trained yet. This is partly due to me not always being able to jump up and take her to the newspaper/outside when she needs me to and partly due to Rambo just watching her when she wees on the floor and going 'Ohhhhh Moxiiiieee...' but not actually doing anything about it so she thinks he's condoning it. And then not cleaning it up so the whole fucking house smells like a toilet to her.

I'm doing the best I can, when I'm able to, and cleaning things up when I see them, but I can't do it alone and I need his help. But every time I tell him that he goes 'Help? HELP?! You want me to do it all myself! That's not me helping, that's me doing it and you helping!' Because apparently he's incapable of seeing that I do things.

Anyhow, she's getting there slowly. She mostly goes on the newspaper and she won't go on carpet or furniture at all - just the kitchen and living floors that are easy to clean. She just gets confused about the rest of it. She's only three months old, I've known dogs take far longer to be house-trained, but it's pissing Rambo off.

So about last night...I had a dislocated ankle, was laid up on the sofa unable to move, and the house was pretty quiet. I worry about it being quiet when she's not in sight as it usually means she's found something out of sight to chew, so I call her. She doesn't respond. Rambo refuses to move because he's busy playing computer games*. Hour and a half later I get my ankle to stay in place long enough for me to hobble upstairs to bed, Rambo comes with me. We open the bedroom door to find a poor little puppy who managed to trap herself in there, tail wagging like mad as she's so happy to be free and have her people back. Problem is, as she's been stuck in there for an hour and a half, she's pood on the carpet. Not something she'd normally do and she was stuck for God's sake, but Rambo sees that, flips out screaming 'FUCKING DOG' at her and then KICKS her. With shoes on.

She yelps and runs to her mommy for protection, I scream at him, comfort her, and start crying. He cleans it up and storms off. Me and Moxie go to bed and I lock the bedroom door because people who kick puppies don't get to sleep in the bed with me.

...I then cry for hours, thinking about things. Rambo's always had a nasty temper and it's scary enough when he's just kicking doors and punching computer monitors and walls, but to kick the PUPPY? It's noon the next day and he's still not said a word of apology or to even acknowledge that what he did was wrong. I'm...not sure I can live with that. You don't kick dogs. You especially don't kick defenceless little puppies. What the FUCK was he thinking?

This is the first time I've actually seriously considered leaving him, and it scared the fuck out of me because there is no way I could take care of myself, let alone Moxie. I did it for that one week but I struggled so fucking much and I was only able to cope because I knew he was coming back and I could just ignore most things and leave it for him to fix afterwards. I can't go live with my Dad as there's no room. I don't really want to go live with anyone else as I'm pretty sure nobody else knows just how bad I am these days and they won't know what they're getting themselves into and I don't want to be a burden.

EDIT: He apologised, and promised to never ever ever do it again. He's not so great at keeping promises though, and if he breaks this one I don't think he's going to get another chance.






*Don't get me fucking started on that. He keeps starting up instances when he's in the middle of something like cooking dinner and then getting pissed off at me when an hour later I go '...weren't you cooking dinner? Shouldn't you check on that?' and shouts at me that he's busy, so I go check on the charcoal instead, get pissed off and make my own food. Now, I don't mind making my own food, but when he's cooking I figure I don't have to, and when he's cooking he usually makes the food that I can't which means I can't really take over halfway through when he decides an instance run would be more fun.

Poor Dogs

I've always known that the vast majority of dog owners don't really know what the hell they're doing with their dogs, but it's been thrown in my face a lot more than normal since I've been out walking Moxie, and it's really starting to get to me.

Y'see, right now Moxie's in a rather rebellious stage where she's testing her limits - like a little kid that's just learned how to say 'no' to her parents - yet still, every single person she meets is amazed at how well behaved she is. Now, if I have to call her six times to get her to come back, that's not good behaviour. That's her deliberately ignoring me the first five times. She heard me, she knows what that command means, she was testing how badly behaved she could be before her Mommy got really mad.

But these comments of amazement are coming from people who have to keep their dogs on leads the entire time, because they can't trust them to be well behaved off the lead. News flash, people: Dogs do not know what is good and what is bad until you teach them the difference. You can't expect them to follow commands if you never teach them what the command means and if you only ever let them off the lead once in a blue moon of course they're going to take that chance to run amok - because in their experience the second they come back to you they go straight back on the lead and aren't allowed off for months. That's not punishing their bad behaviour, no matter what you might think. They don't connect the two. They just know that every now and then they're allowed to have some fun, so they make the most of it whilst they can. Wouldn't you do the same?

At three months old Moxie is better trained than 95% of the dogs she meets. This depresses me, especially because I know damn well that Moxie is nowhere near as well trained as she should be - as she could be if I had the spoons for it. I do the best I can with what I have, and hopefully she'll be well-trained enough by the time she's grown big that I won't have to hurt myself training her and she won't hurt me out of ignorance, but she has the potential for so much more. As do all dogs. Every dog deserves to be well-trained; it makes their lives so much better. It means no being told off for things they don't understand, no being locked in rooms or outside when visitors come over, no being stuck on a lead having to watch dogs like Moxie run around and play and not being able to join in. It's not their fault, and it breaks my heart when people tell me their dogs are naughty and can't be trusted. No dog is inherently naughty, they just don't know any better.

I know it's not really considered mean or cruel to keep your dog on a leash etc but it really does upset me. They deserve better.

(It also upsets Moxie. She's a very sociable little puppy and doesn't want to go to the park to play with balls or sticks; she wants to go to play with dogs and she's very rarely allowed to do so. Even the ones allowed off the lead are usually dragged away from her and put back on it the second they start to play because the owners seem to think that that's 'being naughty' as well.)

Yay

Rambo's home. Sort of. He was here for less than two hours before he had to go to work and now I have to wait until this evening to see him again.

It's alright though - he brought me painkillers and I am making cookies. I would prefer faster ways of ingesting painkillers but I really don't like smoking. I did just have a look at the bank account though and as most of the money in it is my DLA that just got paid, and as pain relief is a vital part of care, I just put in an order for a vaporiser pipe...and some seeds. Can't wait.

Monster-psycho-puppy has all kinds of energy right now though and is making it difficult to type this up, but it's pouring down with rain outside and she really wouldn't like going out in it - not least because there'll be no-one else out in it and the whole reason she likes the park is because of all the other interesting people and dogs there for her to play with.

Maybe the park will be more interesting now that she'll actually be able to walk around it? I've been limping to the nearest bench and then just sitting there for a half hour while she runs around greeting every person/dog who comes near us. I get the feeling she will like Rambo-walks a lot more.

Dazed and Confused

Everything fucking hurts and I'm sitting here bawling and Moxie is looking at me so confused and apologetic but it's not her fault I'm hurting - she doesn't know how fragile I am.

And I'm so confused and brain-fogged that I keep not being able to remember when I last fed her and I have the sneaking suspicion that the reason she has hiccups and is retching right now is because she's tricked me into giving her two dinners.

And I keep having odd chest problems and not being able to breathe properly and making such loud fricking noises trying to suck in breath that Moxie for some reason thinks I'm playing a game with her and starts trying to attack me - WHILST I CAN'T BREATHE.

And my POTS is still flaring and I keep nearly fainting with all of the jumping up and leaning down to grab the Moxie when she's doing something she shouldn't.

Once again, I CANNOT FUCKING DEAL WITH THIS ALONE.

EDIT: Oh, and I still haven't written my Screamprompt and I'm running severely low on time but Moxie can't leave me the fuck alone long enough for me to do anything about it. I normally hide upstairs for hours when I want to write but I don't want to leave Moxie alone for that long.

I <3 Raspberry

I got a Tesco delivery earlier. I booked it for when Rambo went away to ensure that I had LOTS of ready-meals and easy-food around to sustain me whilst he was gone. I normally only keep a few in the house as a last resort but then I'm normally alright to cook...but then I normally have other people to help out with crazy psycho energetic puppy and other housework. I am so dead on my feet now.

Anyway, I got some comfort food in as well as I figured I would need it, and the damn people decided to substitute my raspberry sorbet for lemon. Who the fuck wants lemon sorbet? It's sour and horrible and most importantly - NOT RASPBERRY. I am sulking. Waa.

Also, Rambo called me about an hour ago to check how I was doing and I wanted to scream at him that I'm so not handling this very well and tell him about the subluxed rib and the psycho puppy and all the letters that I don't know how to deal with but I didn't. There's nothing he can do about it except come home early and I really don't want him to do that; he's visiting family in Derby because his brother's coming home for a week. His brother's been travelling the world for the last couple of years, living in Australia for the last year, and is only back for a week. He needs to see him.

I don't want him to come home early, and I don't want him to worry about me any more than he has to - there's nothing he can do about it. But I feel like I'm lying to him when he's asking me if I'm alright and if I'm sure I can cope without him and if I'm really alright and not just saying that and I say yes to all of the above. :/

Oshit

So, turns out Scouser's not coming as she forgot she had other plans that she'd already put deposits on. I am now officially alone. Until Thursday at least.

I am so fucking terrified that I have been in tears since Rambo left. I can't take care of myself, let alone Moxie as well.

I'm exhausted. I've not slept and I can barely move. POTS is flaring like mad and I've been coughing and sneezing for the last couple days so I figure I've got a cold (and a fever that's flaring my POTS.)

To top it all off, I just got letters through the mail saying:

1. Housing Benefit won't give me any more money until I send them the letter stating my ESA has ended. I never got the damn letter because ESA fails at their own bureaucracy and the only way I found out it had stopped was by phoning them to ask where the fuck my money was.

2. A new council tax bill for July-March stating I owe them £710, no mention of my Council Tax Benefit.

3. A letter from the estate agents saying they're going to be doing an inspection on Wednesday. When the house will be in a right fucking state because there is no way I can clean it and look after me and the dog - and if there's ridiculous amounts of puppy-related mess they may well change their minds about me being allowed a dog.

4. Finally got my new Choose & Book letter and once again the only appointment available is THREE MONTHS from now. I've not booked it and will just keep trying every day in the hopes of a cancellation I guess.

I CANNOT DEAL WITH ALL OF THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW.

Many Different Things

Puppy -

Moxie learnt how to get down the stairs this morning, did it a total of four times today - then she fell down a bit (three steps before I caught her) and is terrified of going down again, yet still insists on going up there and getting herself trapped!

Also, my wrists are slowly dying from playing tug with her earlier. When I got her I agreed with Rambo that whenever she wanted to play tug he would take over from me, but as soon as I hand him the rope she loses all interest. It's odd, because she'll play every other game with him, just not tug.

Rheumy -

Going to see a rheumatologist on Thursday, been waiting for this for over a year now (due to various bureaucratic nonsense and my horrendously bad luck that seems to only come into play where bureaucracy is involved) and I can't believe how excited I am about seeing a doctor. It's quite worrying, really, and knowing my luck I'll get one who knows nothing about EDS. Oh well, fingers crossed still.

I wrote out a huuuuge list of all my symptoms that I could think of, along with medications and family history, so that I can't possibly forget anything whilst I'm there and have to wait months and months to be able to see him again, but am worrying that I've managed to leave things off the list anyway. Just a niggling feeling that I've forgotten something very important but can't for the life of me work out what it is.

Oddness -

I woke up this morning feeling completely disorientated. I guess that's kind of normal, if rare, and nothing to get excited about...except that it wasn't confined to just where I was. I was dreaming about some dogs, and then I woke up and thought to myself 'I have a dog, don't I? Was it any of the ones I was dreaming about?' and spent a good couple of minutes going through all of them before realising that no, it was Moxie, and I did not dream about her. I then thought about the guy that was in my dream and it took me, again, a good few minutes to work out that he wasn't my boyfriend, but I did have a boyfriend, and remember his name. I then wondered why I was in pain, and it took me another five minutes to remember who I was and what was wrong with me and why things hurt.

That's all kind of worrying, no?

Also, in the middle of the night I was scratching my ribs because my arm was itchy and I was convinced that was where my arm was as everything had gone numb (but still itchy...hard to explain) and I couldn't really feel where my arm was. Took me a while to realise why the itchiness wasn't going away.

I'm hoping this is just because I only had two hours sleep the night before (subluxed rib, ugh) and then took an Amitryptiline on top of that, which makes me sleep ridiculous amounts, and this is just my body's reaction to being so damn tired. Even so, it was kind of scary.

Game Over

Moxie ran out of levels! I can NOT keep her off the stairs. I give up.

I thought we had it last night before we went to bed but then I got woken up by a puppy crying outside my bedroom door. Took her downstairs, rebuilt barrier, woke up this morning to a puppy curled up in my laundry by the stairs. Took her downstairs, gave her breakfast, rebuilt barrier, went back to bed as I was tired. Ten minutes later she's crying at my door again. Then Rambo got up, and didn't realise I'd already given her breakfast. Cheeky puppy cried for food and got two breakfasts. No wonder she's so round!

I kind of don't want to go to bed tonight because I know she'll follow me and I don't want her sleeping up there. Partly because she has no toilet or water bowl up there and partly because if she does attempt to go down the stairs (she's still not even tried one step of that) then she may well fall and hurt herself.

Maybe I'll sleep on the sofa tonight and try to make a better barrier tomorrow.

Level Four

Moxie's getting way too adventurous! She climbed the stairs this morning - she's never been able to go past the first step before - but was too scared to try going back down them, which is good because she's too little and would fall, so I had to carry her down and try to block off the stairs. Went back upstairs to get dressed, she followed me in under a minute.

Level two barrier was set up after that but I was downstairs so she had no interest in trying to break past it, until I tried to go upstairs to the loo. Barrier level two took maybe two minutes, tops.

Level three, again, held for a couple hours as there was nothing interesting going on upstairs, but then Rambo came home from work and I talked him into giving me a bath. Level three barrier took five minutes, then she barged into the bathroom and got very confused by the noise of running water and wondered why she was getting splashed in the face. We let her stay there and she whined at me the whole time, then we gave her a bath afterwards. That'll teach her to stay out of the bathroom. ;)

Level four is as yet untested as I've been curled up downstairs with her, but it's not much sturdier than level three and I doubt it will take her too long. Maybe I need to invest in an actual barrier rather than random things lying around the house as my construction skills are apparently no match for her climbing ones.

Oh yeah, I also bought a new SD card yesterday (whilst getting some replacement headphones as she shredded the old ones!) so when the mailman brings me it you will all be inundated with Moxie-pics!

I'm Such a Crybaby

In the middle of a POTS flare, so having difficulty with being upright and difficulty with lightheadedness and brain fog and headaches and all that crap. Can't really think straight. Feeling like crap for getting a puppy when I can't look after her during flares like this. Feeling like the most horrible person in the world. Then Rambo makes me feel even worse for daring to ask him for help with things and to request a clean fork to eat my dinner with, and then my sister starts on at me about 'final utility bills' from when she was living here that the company wants her to pay before she can close her account and pass it over to us. We already gave her rent for the month those bills are from and our rent included utilities, but she's insisting we should help her with these bills. I don't have a spare £80 to give her and I can't think straight enough to deal with finances anyway.

I think I need some sleep. Maybe some ice-cream first to get my temperature down a bit, that'll help the POTS.

This crying won't help my headaches though. I should really quit being such a fucking crybaby, it's getting ridiculous. I honestly can't remember the last time I had a day where I didn't cry and it's always for such stupid idiotic reasons.

I Love Moxie and Moxie Loves Me <3

I have been terrible at the blogging lately, but I make no apologies! I been spending all my spoons on the Moxie and have no regrets about it. She's so wonderful she deserves 'em all. I could go on for hours about how awesome Moxie is but I won't - I'll just tell you that she's incredibly smart but it's very difficult to train a dog properly when other people in the house undo it all! Puppies need consistency!

Anyhow, what else has been going on? What was the last thing I told you guys? I forget. Hmmm. Well, last time I went to the doctor she took me off Tramadol with its stupid side effects and we discussed the fact that I've reached the limit of non-morphine-based painkillers and have still had no actual gain from any of them. Is difficult to move onto stronger ones due to not only politics and bureacracy but the fact that people very quickly develop tolerances to morphine-based ones so even if they did help me at first the dose would have to be upped frequently. I'm getting quite worried about this lack of painkillers thing, not so much for right now, (although it is annoying that I am basically functional enough that working painkillers right now would very possibly mean I was able to work again, for a few years at least), but more the fact that I know I'm going to get so much worse in the future and I'm terrified of not having painkillers then.

Anyway, we're trying alternate methods for now - 10mg Amitryptiline at night to help 'control' pain rather than kill it. Not entirely sure how helpful it is as it has the side effect of making me sleep for anywhere from 11-14 hours a night. I normally sleep 8-10 but even setting alarms and getting up after a 'normal' night's sleep, I can manage to stay awake a couple hours but then I end up falling asleep on the sofa for a further couple of hours. Am also sleeping a lot deeper than I normally do which means not moving so much during the night which is sort of good on my joints but bad on my muscles and I'm not entirely sure that the trade-off is worth it. My (acute) pain level might be slightly lower but I'm sleeping tons and am exhausted and drowsy and achy all day. Overall pain level pretty much the same.

Of course, looking after Moxie doesn't help with the aching and exhaustion, but she's worth it!

Sister is definitely not helping. She's been making a habit of barging into my house every day (without knocking, and using a key she stole off my Dad) just to tell me how disgustingly untidy it is and how unfair it is to have a puppy in these living conditions and that she's going to report me if I don't clean it up. Yo-yo-ing between feeling like a horribly bad person for daring to have a puppy when I can't look after her and just being pissed off with her because I know damn well that my puppy has a wonderful home. She's looked after, she's well fed, she's loved, she has toys, she has someone at home with her all day every day (unlike certain dogs I know that get left alone for 10 hours a day while owners are at work) and so what if the house is untidy? It's not unclean and none of the untidiness is anywhere that she can get to. The only things on the floor are cushions, a beanbag (her bed) and dog toys! And dog bowls. And newspaper. Which gets changed everytime she makes a mess. Moxie has an awesome home; other dogs would be jealous.

I'd get the locks changed so she can stop making me cry every day but I'd end up giving the new key to my Dad anyway, and she'd just steal that one as well. Fucking woman.

Moxie

My beautiful little puppy is called Moxie. She is ever so sweet but misses her mom and her brothers and sisters a little bit. She's ok if she's distracted, exploring and playing, but she cries a little when she's not...until I pick her up, then she falls asleep on me. Awww.




I am so fricking exhausted. And the house still isn't really ready for her, I just need to watch her and make sure she stays out of certain places until I can kick Rambo into doing stuff for me.

I have minus spoons, but I don't care. Running on excitement and Moxie-love. :)

PUPPYPUPPYPUPPYPUPPYPUPPY

Update on the Choose & Book thing - I ignored it yesterday and didn't book anything. Turns out that was a great idea, TODAY the only appointment available was September 16th, at a place I can get to via public transport.

Hooray for cancellations!

Also, I think I've found my puppy. She's the last one left in the litter, Border Collie cross (with a Labrador, I think), collie shape (and hopefully intelligence!) and all black. Only seen pictures so far but she looks beautiful and I'm going to go see her tomorrow morning. Only £20. So pleased!

If tomorrow all goes well I shall spend the weekend puppy-proofing the house, stocking on puppy food and buying dog beds and food bowls and all that and pick her up on Monday.

So excited!

She needs a name though. Preferably geeky, but subtly so. I mean, I'm not going to call her Leia or anything.

EDIT: Person selling me the puppy wants a puppy-free house by this weekend, so it looks like I'm taking her home tomorrow! Posting quickly to take a break from frantically cleaning the house. I'm going to be dead by tomorrow if I keep this up, but hopefully excitement for new puppy will keep me going!

I Can Has Puppy?

My legs are feeling better today and the stairs aren't feeling quite so mountainous. Although my upper body isn't doing so well. I took advantage of being able to use the stairs and did some laundry and tidied my living room a little bit. Now I'm having to rest again, but I feel much better about the resting when I've actually done something productive first.

I'm guessing it is the chair, and I'm just going to have to deal with needing a day to recover after being out for a day in it. Like I didn't spend enough time resting as it is.

Annoying the neighbours with loud music whilst I rest. Singing can be very therapeutic at times.

As a side note - if anyone happens to know of any puppies going free, I would love one. Been trying to find one since my sister moved out and the cheapest I've come across (that isn't, you know, in Cornwall) is £200. Even the rescue centres around here ask for a 'donation' of £100, and they don't have any puppies. I want a puppy. I want to train it from scratch and build a bond from puppy-hood, y'know? Never had a chance to do that before.

Gimme a damn puppy, people. Pet therapy and all that. Is an essential medical need! *cough* No really.

Preferably of the big, fluffy, cuddly variety.