legs and licks...

 Ivy is the silly character in the household. always something happening.  she can get herself in trouble pretty quick, but she is so lovable.  try to snuggle with her and you will get an enthusiastic puppy for sure...but mostly you will end up with legs flying all over and constant attempts at licks.  here she is above on top of an ice berg at low tide.  she is brave when she is with her crew.

 at the dunes here and below is out at powerline pass.

 Tusker is my mellow guy.  he will curl up quietly with you and crash.  he's also the one who is lazy with the commands.  he knows them, he's smart, but he is easily distracted and into his own stuff.  Ivy is so willing to please.  she just can't contain her excitement.

 she's been better or I've been better this week.  less folks have been jumped on.  i call her back and hold her until the temptation is passed.  i think I've just been better this week at doing that part.

 mama bear is out again on Campbell Airstrip.  i look in before walks and after. today we did Rovers Run.  kind of nice to see her happily chilling in her tree. i prefer bears that way than out on the trails with me.  I've heard she does have some baby cubs but i haven't seen them yet.

 we have had some beautiful days out there.  the snow is melting fast.  means i am out nearly daily picking up some yard poop.  eventually the lawn will return...i hope so anyway.  looks a mess right now.

 work...can't complain this week.  the first night i worked ER, then they were pretty slow so they had me just give breaks to techs who were doing sitter work...chilling in rooms with confused patients.  soon after 2 am they just let me come home.

 next night i was put on call and never called in.  with weather like we've had tough to say no to an on call night.  my last night...i was needed...

 kitty got some lovings these past few days.

 these top ones are iphone photo's.

 started my shift last night in ICU.  it was looking to be a busy night, but thankfully, I'm always a pretty organized nurse and charter.  at about 9 pm the charge came to me and said i was going to be needed in the peds ICU.  so a bit of switching around and i gave report and headed up there to get 2 admits. wasn't bad. night went pretty fast with 2 admits. so not needed at all Friday night and needed all over Saturday night.  that is how it goes sometimes.

 look at this sweet mug!!  his beard has really filled out and lightened up.  wonder how much lighter his coat will get his summer.

 today was Easter or for me...Sunday.  nothing unique for me i guess about today.  did get to select baskets full of toys for my charges in PICU...and i had seen a tiny ham on sale.  food and holidays seem to go together.

 this gal was on the side of the road on my way to the trails.  these are through the window as we were super close and Ivy was pretty amp'd up.  if i opened the window for the shot i fear she would have dove right out it.  these are iphone shots still.

 i think my camera/lens on the big camera is pretty dirty...seemed to be acting up yesterday. i  changed to my old 300 zoom and it seemed to be working better...so lens i guess. i am horrible on my camera's. i take them all over and they get a lot of exposure that I'm sure other more cautious photographers would never put their camera's through.  add that to the to do list i guess.  take camera/lens in and see if they can be salvaged/cleaned out.

 Skelly in his Easter finest.  will be time to change him over.  i figure April showers garb, followed by May flowers.  after Easter there will be no real designated candy holidays until Halloween again.  it's summer.

 I'm around death and when you work in a hospital, there is no way to avoid it.  some hit you harder than others.  some more sad i guess.  sometimes everyone and everything kind of falls in  to place.  death is something most of us would like to avoid i guess.  it is inevitable.  we are born and we die.  i wish we had as much respect for the process of leaving this earth as we have for the entering.

 of course some make a choice to leave.  suicide.  i have often been annoyed with that scripture reference about God not giving people more than they can handle...i always think, but suicide...clearly those poor folks were given more than they could handle right?

 some folks literally die of a broken heart.  it's been shown that some will develop heart failure after an especially difficult loss or trauma.  clearly, it was too much.  it's all random though.  some people take all the world puts on them and they find a way to rise above it and thrive even, not just survive.  i have no idea what makes one person fall apart in a situation and another rise above it and survive and thrive.

 you will have siblings come from the same background, terrible or abusive situations and some will fall apart while others go on to lead productive and fulfilled lives

 depression is a tough nut though.  it's like a constant voice in your head telling you terrible things about yourself.  i have a mild form of depression I'm sure.  at this point in life i find i will have days that i just call it melancholy or maybe a few days.  generally my melancholy lasts less than a week or so.  walks and bloggin/writing photography...all ways i guess i cope with that.  still, there are voices in my head that try hard to prove to me that i am unloved and unlovable.

 your brain can create a narrative that is very believable.  if that goes on for too long it gets harder and harder to convince yourself otherwise and that narrative becomes your baseline.

 I'd guess my roughest years were when i was 10-12 or so.  i did not know what depression was at the time nor did i really have any understanding of what suicide was I'm sure.  i did write some pretty depressing diary entries in those years.  i cried a lot and at that age you really just have no idea how to cope with the narrative coming from inside your head.  i know that in my head i wasn't loved and that the world would be just fine without me. i was sure my family would not miss me at all if i wasn't there...at the time, thankfully, i had no way to translate that into action. being naive probably saved me.

 my poor mom...i literally cried myself to sleep every night believing these things to be true.  often i would write her notes and leave them on her bed saying i knew she didn't love me.  she would come in and tell me that of course she loved me.  i doubt she had any understanding of why i was believing the seemingly unbelievable.  she didn't do anything that made me actually feel unloved.  she was kind and loving...my brain just didn't see it that way.

 when you have that narrative of negativity running through your head, you don't believe it.  still, i have a hard time believing people when they compliment me.  that narrative that runs through my head convinces me most of the time that they are just being nice or worse, that they are really just trying to compensate for not saying what they really think.  now I'm not looking for a bunch of compliments...i can at least appreciate at this point in life that when i get a compliment it is just that, a compliment.  still, i have to put it through my brain and push back the negative narrative, to believe.

 is there something wrong with me?  hate to put blame on anyone, but truth is my Dad was never good with a compliment.  if he did give me one at all growing up it came with a "but...".  in high school i cooked the family meal many nights.  believe me...not one meal I cooked in all those years did i get a straight compliment there was a "but..." every night.  I'd suggest to anyone out there...leave out the but when you give a compliment...scream it in your head, don't say it out loud.  that was how every compliment i got from my Dad came to me...with a "but...".  funny, on a rare occasion someone would tell me that my father had said this or that nice compliment about me...but i never heard it.

 as the years have gone by i have come to an understanding with myself about my Dad.  he did the best he knew and he was a great Father.  we had a safe environment to grow up in.  we had all the basics that we needed. my Dad was faithful to my Mom, he worked very hard to keep us provided with shelter,food and all the basics. he didn't drink or do drugs or gamble.  my Dad struggled with being a Daddy, i can forgive that in him. really it's the icing.   none of us are perfect and we all deserve to be forgiven for qualities that we were not aware of or are unable to totally break ourselves of.

 I'm sure it inflicted some damage long term...but i also don't have kids and I'm sure i would have inflicted some damage on them myself.  we all have to recover from some elements of our childhoods.  it helps us to become better selves.

 i can see why holidays can be difficult for people.  they are difficult for me sometimes.  sometimes they are just another day and no big deal.  that can be random for me as well.

 social skills are not my strongest gift and i suspect that has probably gotten worse not better over the years.  when you are single, you do tend to get forgotten in society.

 thankful for pets.  i can't imagine my life without pets.

 tomorrow will be final Monday walk of this winter.  on to summer adventures.  these longer days are awesome!!

 towards the end of summer i will welcome the shorter days again and changing weather. summer, oddly, can be stressful.

 with so much daylight you feel obligated to go and go and go.  i feel the same if we have sunny days for too many in a row. i find myself yearning for rain or clouds so i can take a break from doing and going.

 can't beat these sunsets though.  the pups had a blast running around...these are at Point Woronzof.

 always a great place to watch the sunset.

 still some ice out there.  the lakes are getting soft.  still lots of ice to break up. this time of year i try to avoid lakes and rivers for fear the dogs will break through.  it just gets more dangerous this time of year.

 downtown seen from the beach there.

 Ivy has been busy these last few nights chewing up sticks.  dog door...it allows things to be moved in and out of the house.  Ivy is a canine wood chipper.  for all your wood chipping needs.

 i discovered that months ago when she'd gotten some treats off the dresser in my room and thus had disturbed some carved ivory i had there...she had actually gotten one of them.  i hadn't noticed until i was outside and there it was frozen in. sadly, with the ice it had cracked in half.  i think I'll be able to glue it together.  that day I'd shifted the ivory to another safer location.  who knew she'd get up on that dresser though.

 they went up and down off the beach ice.liked the action below.

 ivy with the city in the background.

 just watched, "MacFarland, USA". based on a true story.  a football coach ends up failing and at this super poor migrant based community. he and his family end up falling in love with the community, he discovers these kids in the high school he's been hired at can run and he starts a cross country team that ends up quite successful.  amazing what people can accomplish when they are supported and encouraged.

 also a great story of life....what we think we need or want is not always what turns out to be the most rewarding life we are given.  i love the line in that country song, "sometimes i thank God for unanswered prayers".  it's easy to get in your head when you are young how life will look like for you later.  you have to be flexible though and enjoy the ride.  life doesn't always follow some direct path.  it often takes you on a more wild ride and if you hang on and are open to it, you will find a truer and deeper happiness than you could have ever dreamt of.

 i have my battles with my melancholy but the life i have is pretty sweet.  it's simple but i am healthy and i have more than the majority of folks on this earth.  it's not what you have that matters though it's how you live and what you experience.

 sleeping lady at sunset

 it's after midnight. want to look at a few photos and head to bed.

 off tomorrow then back to work again.

grateful for: A. health and the ability to go out walking  B.  the life i live, it's far from perfect and not what i expected but in the big picture i can't complain too much...a few lonely days here and there i guess but i can move past that C.  ice cream. i still love a good bowl of vanilla with Hershey's syrup mixed in.