A New Chapter | Raise Your Paw Blog

I very much enjoyed writing in this space, and then found over time that my enthusiasm waned. It turned out that what I really wanted to write about was too private to share here, and I had pretty much said what I wanted to say with Now This Life.

After about a year's break from blogging, our family started volunteering at the Sacramento County Animal Shelter and, not surprisingly, decided to write about our experiences. It is wonderful to be back to blogging, especially with all three of us taking turns writing, and with the added bonus of being able to help out some amazing dogs with our words.

I hope that you will join us at our new blog, RaiseYourPaw.

Thank you for reading and sharing this space with me. It's been a true pleasure.

xo

Chandra

Me and shelter dog (now adopted!) Sydney

Lessons From "Get Real on the Internet" Week

Last week I stumbled across a fun project on Pinterest, "Get Real on the Internet Week," the idea being that for a week you post only real life stuff...no instagram filters, no staged photos. Each day brought a theme to follow: food, kids & pets, clutter, procrastination, imperfect moments. I went into the week with a sense of fun and lightness, looking forward to something different to do and a way to peel back the veneer that we all paste on to showcase our best selves on social media.

People posted their photos and linked up, a couple of friends joined in, and I definitely laughed a little seeing the things everyone shared: microwave oven disasters and cupcakes for breakfast; crying toddlers and lots of dog destroyed items; messy desks, piles of laundry and sinks filled with dirty dishes; iphone games and television shows; Christmas card photo mishaps and food covered kids. All the things we all deal with every day.

The first day was simple....food. A quick snapshot of the Annie's box of mac & cheese for Chloe's dinner and I was done.

The apple makes it all okay, right?

The second day, kids and pets, had me setting out on my walk with Teddy with my mind focused on finding something "real" to take a picture of. Well, there were plenty of real things...lots of dog poop in the vacant fields where we walk, brown grass from the lack of rain, some trash floating in the creek including a lonely soda can bobbing in the middle of the water. I spied fishing line coiled around a rock next to a Pringles can and an abandoned furry boot hanging out in the weeds. I took a photo of the soda can and then one of the same view cropped just so that the can was out of frame. I took another of the fields looking back on our houses across the creek, the beautiful view, and then one where I turned around and captured the backs of the big box stores instead. I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of the dog poop! I had it in my mind that I'd post the photos from different perspectives, showing how we edit our lives to make them look beautiful.

Still walking, I looked up and saw a great egret sitting in a eucalyptus tree, looking like it was posing for me. The sun shone on its feathers and everything about it radiated peace and beauty...so lovely it seemed set up. Normally I would have reached for my camera but instead I just stood quietly and watched as my heart flooded. I didn't have time for a photo anyway because he flew away a few seconds later, right past me to join his brethren on the lake. But, ah, that moment.

There are always those moments on my walks...a little something that stands out, that makes me stand up and pay attention, that marks the day. But no, I thought, that doesn't count as "real."

I ended up posting an old video of Teddy lapping up iced tea that he had knocked over.

Day three, clutter, led to a photo of my garage and my grown large goodwill pile. A little embarrassing to post that one and the next night I had a burst of energy and completely reorganized the shelves, finding a home for things that had just been haphazardly piled. I can now find my hangers for laundry and my bags for shopping, and all of the goodwill stuff is donated. I would have much preferred posting an after picture!

All better now, I promise.

Day four, procrastination....easy this one. A quick Instagram picture of Teddy looking super cute in a "watch me" as a break from payroll taxes. I could have just as easily taken a screen shot of Suri's Burn Book because that's a nice guilty don't-want-to-do-what-I-should-be-doing distraction too. But that wasn't really "real" either because it was just a momentary distraction, a way to clear my mind for a few minutes so I could focus on my next task. So which is real, getting the work done or the three minutes on Instagram? Both?

Teddy rocks his "watch me"

By the last day, imperfect moments, I didn't want to play anymore. I was tired of looking for the "real" and ready to go back to searching for the pretty, the heart stopping, the things that make me laugh. I was ready to focus on the good again.

So much of our lives are the dog poop and the fishing line and the laundry. We see bad news wherever we look, coming at us from all directions. Facebook even slams it at us with photos of horribly abused animals, with political rants and people writing comments they would never say to someone in person.

It's all real, the good and the bad, and I'm happy to see your good. Please, give me the picture of your beautifully manicured toes in the sand in Cabo with the palm trees in the background, show me your boy playing his new song proudly on the piano, share your puppy snuggling with your toddler. Show me all the little moments of your life that make you smile, that make it all worth it. Now I better understand what they are, and why we all do it...why it feels good to Instagram the kale and Facebook the straight A report card. We're all just searching for the joy and wanting to share it. And if you need some reassurance that other people have non-stop tantrum throwing toddlers and days when they want to tear their hair out in sheer frustration, please post that too. I'll commiserate.

I went into the week expecting to learn a lesson, and I definitely did. It just wasn't the one that I expected.

How I wish I had a photo of that egret to show you.

Let's Do it! "Get Real on The Internet" Week

Having a little down time browsing all the pretty pictures on Pinterest when a cute little black lab on a laminate floor grabs my eye...mostly because, although he is adorable, it's not the normal professional gorgeous photo that Real Simple typically posts.

Turns out it's a link to a rallying cry, a shout out for us all to "Get Real on The Internet."

Anyone in?

The idea is, for just one week, to post the real, unvarnished truth on social media. Now, I'm a big fan of looking on the bright side, and God knows I love a pretty picture, but I also have fallen prey to feeling badly when I see glimpses of "friends" lives that look far too perfect and that make mine seem sadly diminished by comparison. And I do remind myself that it's always a curated vision, just a snapshot, and that we all post the best of what we have.

But, today, let's not. This week, let's try something different.

So, in the spirit of getting real, here's what's happening at my house.

Hot dogs for dinner. And canned baked beans. I convinced myself that the blueberries and oranges evened it out.

Ron, Chloe and I on the sofa, each on our separate electronic devices. I'm writing this, but hey, previously, yeah, Pinterest. Chloe is playing Alpaca World and Ron is perusing his Twitter feed. Teddy is asleep on his dog bed and he's kinda stinky, frankly. There's laundry to put away, and a kitchen to clean up, and a big long list of things I could be productive at.

We're all in our sweats and jammies, and it's not even seven o'clock.

Actual Unretouched No-Filter Photo

And how is your world?

Come on, it will be fun! Tell me you're in...

This post inspired by 

Happy New Year! Welcome 2014.

Hello 2014.

I know that none of us can quite believe the New Year is here, but I give it welcome, regardless. It's been lovely being on vacation, especially with the gorgeous sunny weather, and I'm still swimming in delicious denial that today's my last day off. I had all kinds of tasks set to accomplish this past week, but instead the days rushed by without much getting checked off the list. The closets didn't get cleaned out; I didn't make the many trips to donate all of our extra stuff that I was hoping to get to; the Christmas decorations are still up, including the half-of-them-are-not-working outside lights.

Instead, I spent time with my girl and Ron and Teddy. I took naps and slept in. We watched the ball drop last night on TV on the East Coast feed, cuddled up on the sofa together while Teddy had a blast shredding a cardboard New Years hat. We took a little two day to trip to San Francisco, ate lots of good food and got Chloe a new lunch box. Teddy romped with friends at the river, Chloe made movies on her new phone, and I picked the last of my Meyer lemons and made salad dressing and a big pot of vegetable soup, rich with yams and kale and garlic, and even managed to eat it all. I pruned some of the roses, visited with friends and family and downed far too many of Cindy's homemade lemon squares, read a couple of terrific books and watched some Hawaii Life on tv.

Plus, I only yelled at Chloe once and got in one fight with Ron. Which were both totally my fault and on the same day. So I'm giving myself a gold star for that category.

All in all, such a nice break. So wonderful to have a chance to just slow down and be. I figure the closets will be there when I get to them.

2014, bring it on, I'm rested and ready for you.

Chloe, Market Street, San Francisco.

Lunch at Max's, one of our San Francisco traditions.

My favorite Christmas present...

I'm sensing a theme here.

My Mom and Cal. Christmas is for hugs.

Love these two.

To wrap this up, a little New Year's Day happiness, courtesy of my vlogging daughter and her Christmas phone. Filmed at Garcia Bend Park and The Sacramento River, edited in the backseat on the ride home. How I do love imovie, and my kid. Enjoy.

This post inspired by 

A Davis Walk and Designer Birdhouses

Took a trip to Davis today to enjoy this sunny New Year's Eve gift of a day...burgers and sweet potato fries at Bistro 33 followed by a walk around the UC Davis Arboretum just because it's pretty. A lovely surprise of these design student birdhouses greeted us, all different and charming perched on their poles. Also, a sculpted head, redwoods, ducks, bridges and lots of people walking cute dogs. It felt a little like my old friend Central Park, in a Davis kind of way.

New Years Resolutions anyone? How about this one...

Just breathe.

Get Out of The Way, It's Coming.

Thanksgiving is barely over and already here it is...Christmas everywhere. A little too soon for me, but since I have no say in the timing, go there I must.

Each year we bundle up with friends and watch the Elk Grove Christmas Parade and each year I am so happy at how old school and small-townish it is...girl scouts dressed as Christmas presents and angels, vintage cars festooned with snowflake stickers and sparkly lights, a float celebrating folks who raise seeing eye dogs, firetrucks, a high school marching band followed by concentrating-hard baton twirlers. It's our own miniature Disney Light Parade. We bring our folding chairs and a thermos of coffee and cheer each group as they pass by. Chloe and her friends sit on blankets chattering in between forays to scurry into the street after tossed candy; I take pictures and watch quietly, thinking of the memories being created, childhood unfolding.

Plus, there are dogs wearing lights running in a circle. How much better could it be?

Fancy!

House Fantasies

Yesterday, Ron and I rode a rollercoaster ride of house fantasy...living close to Chloe's school, a short commute, a smaller, easier, less expensive house with hardwood floors and a front porch and a garden in the yard. We toured model homes in El Dorado Hills (which has absolutely nothing to do with what we would be looking for but was where we were waiting to pick up Chloe from a sleepover) and talked about what it would be like to drive less and garden more, to be so close to everything, to not pay all the maintenance and upkeep that our big suburban house requires. We perused smart phone apps searching for available houses and then came home and computer blitzed the same. We found some nice prospects, with some open houses to visit today, and we managed to freak out our poor daughter with even the idea of moving. We facebook messaged for an hour after we both went to bed and it was so fun to have a little adventure together. To not feel so settled; to see possibilities still open to us when at this stage of life it's so easy to feel a bit like the doors are all locked and the directions chosen.

I seem to do this every year when the days get short...I start imagining a different life, a complete upheaval, a fresh start. And then, right on cue, I wake up.

Just to let you in on my fantasy, here's some houses I picture. None of these, mind you, would be in our price range in the neighborhoods we would like to be in...of course.

photo | David Sawyer

photo | David Sawyer

photo | David Sawyer

photo | David Sawyer

Predictably, after I finally closed up my lap top and turned off the lights, the reality started setting in and I couldn't sleep. How to leave behind Chloe's wonderful friends next door where she skates back and forth so easily, squealing with happiness in both of our back yards, and out front, in the park, cartwheeling and climbing trees. Leaving Therese and our walks and talk therapy. Goodbye to our park and lake and field just across the street for Teddy and I each morning, my favorite moments of the day. No egrets or goslings or baby turtles or muskrats and beavers swimming. No white goose, no glimpses of skinny hipped coyotes moving away from us in the field. No neighbors to wave to that we've known for seventeen years, and farewell to all the neighborhood dogs I know by name. No bonus room for Chloe and friends to escape to with their noise and their tween secrets, or for Ron's Jets games. No office for me; where would my piano go, and how about my much loved just-remodeled-four-years-ago kitchen? My mom miles away instead of just down the street, her trampoline and support much harder to visit. No pool filled with laughter and rising voices in the summer.  How about the squirrels in the back yard and the birds that we feed? How about my collection of green and blue vases or all of my seasonal wreaths and stakes for the front yard? No staircase where I kneeled in labor with Chloe, no backyard where Ron and I said our vows in front of our family and friends and we danced with KD the magic dog and Kayla the puppy. How about those same pets buried under the roses?

How could we possibly leave all of this?

For a shorter commute and some money saved?

Maybe someday there will be some place that could pull us away, that we all will walk into and say, yes, this is it, this somehow calls us. There would have to be some powerful magic there to make me say goodbye to this place where my family, and my heart, live.

Today, we'll enjoy the open houses and most likely come home happily grateful for all that we have here. Bruised and battered by dogs and humans that our house is, located in Elk Grove where maybe the property values aren't going in the best direction long term, it is home. It truly is beautiful in the spring when all of my roses put on their very best show. This picture was taken a few years ago when the paint was fresher, the slate path newer, the landscape a little less overgrown. Still, today, it is lovely.

Deliciously, that doorway of beckoning possibility, of the unknown, is open. And that, in itself, is a gift.

Elk Grove Farmer's Market | Fall Edition

Such a perfect fall day...sunshine, a bit of chill in the air in the morning and evening but warm during the height of the day, blue sky, time to spend as we wished. So nice.

First stop, Elk Grove's Saturday morning Farmer's Market...every Saturday, rain or shine, all year. I haven't been in a while and it was fun to see how much the selection had changed with the season. Fall in full force...squash of every variety, bok choy, so-fresh-the-leaves-squeak lettuces and kales, plump little carrots, beets and radishes, walnuts, huge ruby red grapefruits, persimmons, deep red sliced open to show the seeds pomegranates, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro. And, sunflowers.

Plus, a new booth of organic, humane certified, cheese from Spring Hill Jersey Cheese. With samples. The State Fair Gold Ribbon Winning Sage Cheddar? The Firehouse Jack with its fabulous bite? Yes, please.

Such a nice start to the weekend.

On Stillness and That Small Voice

The weather has turned...dark at five o'clock, today the first rain arrived. Not that cold, but definitely time for boots and cardigans and a scarf looped around my neck. With the dark comes a change in my mood, always. A reflective change, a going inwards, sometimes to places that feel dark themselves.

This year though, I am trying to find the light inside through whatever means I can. Yoga is helping...Therese and I go on Sundays now to a much loved class, which is a mixture of Yoga and meditation. Last week we did twenty eight sun salutations and I felt so amazing when I made it through all of them, with a vibrancy and a fullness in my heart and body. It was challenging, yes, but also wonderful. Then stretching and that lovely final reward of Savasana, my legs propped up on a bolster, a woven blanket over me, my mind finally quiet.

Also, of course, books. Ed Bacon has written a book, The Eight Habits of Love, and I am reading it slowly, trying to take it in instead of just buzzing through it like I tend to do. He writes of finding the stillness, in whatever way you need to get there, of its rejuvenating power, its necessity. And I do find it in yoga, in my walks, in my writing. This is the first time I've sat down to write in ages, a gift I am giving myself. An iced tea, a grilled cheese sandwich with spinach at Old Soul at the Weatherstone, sitting on the well worn leather sofa with my macbook in my lap. My feet are up on the bottom rung of the coffee table and my soul is at peace. Surrounded by music and people, still. It is truly lovely. Chloe is in acting class and instead of going back to work, or to Bernado or Tower, I came here, to somewhere that truly feeds me.

I've not written on my blog in so long...scared away by GOMI and fear of revealing too much. Busy with Teddy and all that he has brought into our lives, tired at night. But it's feeling like the window is opening again in a small way. I am feeling a little touch of sunlight sneaking through here, beckoning me. I know it's not about writing for other people or growing an audience of readers. Somehow it's about this, right here, finding my center and maybe sharing that.

Also, gratitude. I've been needing to go there so badly, to focus on what is working, on being kind to people, to myself. Teddy is really doing so much better, and there are moments on our morning walks around the big field when I feel transcendent when I look into his eyes in a watch me. When I see him frolicking in such apparent and overwhelming joy and I am allowed to witness, to share in it with him. Or when he curls up next to my body at night, pressed tight against me. When sometimes he puts his big head on my shoulder or on the pillow next to me and I can feel his breath. Happiness.

I am wanting more soul time in my life. This morning I heard a radio show, just a snippet of it, where Cheryl Richardson suggested writing out questions...what do you want, which of those are things you think you should want, what does your soul want? I need to spend some time pondering those things and finding a way to fit more of what I truly want into my life and filtering out some of the other. I spend so much time shopping and picking up our house, commuting and being worn out at the end of the day that it isn't conducive to how I really would choose to spend my time. I think it's just a click here and there that will make it better, not a whole life overhaul, although heaven knows my mind likes to go there. To that fantasy of my little house downtown and growing my organic vegetables and fruit trees and volunteering with dogs, of living with much less. And maybe there is some of that I can incorporate, while still valuing the things that I do have, the people who I have chosen to love. I just need to spend some time thinking on it, give myself some space to go there.

This, tonight, is a start. There can be more of this. More time to write and reflect. A choice is all it is. A choice to take care of myself, to value that small voice inside of me, to let it out.

It feels wonderful.

Feel LIke a New Place for Lunch? Baguettes.

Hungry? Kinda wanting somewhere different to go for lunch?

I've got a great new find for you.

Most Saturdays, I do my weekly shopping...Elk Grove Farmer's Market, Target, Trader Joe's...with a break for lunch in the middle. Usually my Mom and I go to Chevy's and split chicken fajitas, to the point where the waiter expects us each week! This Saturday, she was busy so I decided to try something different and ended up at a little sandwich place that Therese has raved about, Baguette's.

Originally opened by the folks who own the excellent Boulevard Bistro in Old Elk Grove, and then sold not too long ago to new owners, it retained the fresh and surprising menu filled with gourmet sandwiches. There's also a tempting bakery case, daily freshly made baguettes and ciabatta, breakfasts, and big glass dispensers of iced tea and lemonade so you can make your own Arnold Palmers. Add in a few chairs and tables outside, a cart full of magazines to browse, and a smattering of customers smacking their lips while trading bites of sandwiches and you have a definite find. Especially in Elk Grove, land of the chain restaurants, it's refreshing to have this option. There's not a ton of curb appeal, but it's worth getting past the strip-mall location and unassuming facade.

Too many mouth watering choices on the menu so I just went with the special, a shrimp salad sandwich with lemon aoili, avocado, arugula and sliced red cherry peppers, with a side of homemade brown rice salad. Had my Kindle loaded with new library books, my iced tea/lemonade combo, some shade and a comfy chair...happy Saturday. Even sitting on the side of a parking lot!

Photo | Baguettes

Photo | Baguettes

Baguettes • 9380 Elk Grove Florin Road, Elk Grove • Open every day 9 am - 3 pm.

See you there!

(Not a sponsored post. Just want to spread the love.)