My son, daughter, and husband put together a new computer desk for me in the guest bedroom downstairs, so I should be all set to go! They did this on Saturday, and I spent yesterday trying to get things organized. Sprite isn’t crazy about the set-up, since she really is a creature of habit, but I think that with time she’ll learn to enjoy her life of leisure… sprawling out on the guest bed.

Oh, and speaking of Sprite… My family corrected me >>> She’s only fourteen years old! (Barbara, I thought she was the same age as Duncan!) My mistake… I think that since I’ve been calling her fourteen since December, knowing that she would soon be that age, I got confused and added on a year on Sunday. Well, it’s no surprise, since she sometimes acts like she’s 15!

By the way, during the computer desk relocation, we weren’t aware that our server went down and the management company that we pay to make sure that the server is always working apparently didn’t catch the problem immediately… so if you sent a comment on Friday night, I lost it. I’m sorry about that. 

As I type this entry, Sprite is snoozing contentedly. I am pretty sure that she will come around to this new computer site. She may be old, but she can certainly learn new tricks!

If it seems like I am taking more days to get a blog out than usual… it’s because I am! I had to sneak upstairs to write this entry. Our dog (Sprite) weighs 35 (+/-) pounds, and as soon as she “hears” or “sees” me going upstairs, she wants to follow me… like she used to be able to do. This means I have to carry her up the stairs every time I want to use the computer, and before long, she wants to go back downstairs, only to want to come upstairs again.

I put quotation marks around the words hears and sees because we are not quite sure how much of those senses she still has. But she sure does seem to have both of them when she wants to >>> when they benefit her in some way… In other words, she is very selective at deciding what she thinks is important enough to hear or see.

Sprite will be fifteen years old on Sunday, which means that she sleeps a lot of the time. She likes to follow me from room to room… sleeping under my computer desk, sleeping right up next to me when I’m on the couch, or sleeping on our bed at night. She is my loyal companion and a great family member… She just weighs too much for me to want to continuously be dragging her up and down those pesky stairs all day.

But, we have come up with a remedy for all of this carrying around… This weekend, my son and husband are going to move my computer desk downstairs to the guest bedroom. I’ll be able to use the computer when I want, and Sprite will be able to do what she likes best: sleep… on the best bed in the house, the one that until now was reserved for visiting family and friends.

Oh my goodness! I just saw my first cardinal “couple” of the year flying from a tree to one of our red-tip bushes, and I am just so excited! Our weather down here in San Antonio is currently 72°, and we are expecting to get as high as 76° today. Winter is finally here!

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean… Today’s weather is exactly what we get during our winters, interspersed with “really cold” days. By this I mean that we range from days like today all the way down to a few days out of each year when we get below freezing temperatures. Last year we actually had an ice “storm”… which was particularly bad for some of us. (We lost power for a few days, but, the good news was that not everyone lost power… The houses across our street continued to get electricity throughout the entire time while the houses on our side of the street had to make quick trips to hardware stores in able to stock up on fire logs.)

Back to my cardinals! I think that they are probably my favorite birds. The deep red of the males is absolutely a phenomenal sight to me, and I also appreciate the very soft browns of the females. We have tall red-tip bushes all around the perimeter of our back yard, so we get quite a few different birds that nest out there. One year, just by chance, my husband and I were able to catch a glimpse of a Bluejay parent teaching three little Bluejays how to fly between the bushes… landing and taking off, back and forth, back and forth for several minutes. That was fun!

Isn’t it something when small things (like the sight of a pair of cardinals) can trigger such positive emotions in us? Isn’t nature grand!?!

It’s this time of year when a lot of us reflect on what is truly important in our lives, and try to figure out how we can bring happiness to others. When you get right down to it… I think that family and friends are “what’s important” and happiness revolves around them. This doesn’t mean that the people in our lives have to be close to us… If we don’t have family members, we can make an effort to befriend people. And, if that doesn’t work, then we can simply be kind to others… even if they are strangers.

Are we really in a society that is moving so fast that we can’t take the time to be polite and treat others with the dignity that everyone deserves? Are we in such a hurry that we don’t have the time to be kind to others, so much so that we appear to be ill-tempered and impatient with the people around us? NO!

After reflecting on my previous year’s actions I usually come up with a plan… to be kinder to others and to empathize more with the people around me. Of course, as the year rolls on, I sometimes find myself falling back into some of the patterns that I try to change… Perhaps I get a little impatient to someone who is supposed to be a knowledgeable employee somewhere, who happens to know even less than I do about his/her field of expertise. Or, perhaps I “testily” tell a telephone solicitor to take me off of his/her calling list (since I am on the federal do-not-call list!) and after saying a very fast “thanks” I hang up on him/her. Or, perhaps I get impatient with our fifteen year old very loyal dog.

Anyway, at least for the next week (or even month!) I plan to be on my best behavior and will definitely try to be a better person for (and to) the people who I encounter every day…