By Sign & Design: My Charmed Life

Rediscovering music

Ok, I've decided to dust off the ears and get hip! Or at least current.Hip is probably too much to hope for (Ask our 11 yr old Kate, who is most definately hip :) What's been bugging me is that I have gotten lazy where I used to ferret out every new sound I could in my youth. Where to get started?

Well, Itunes is a huge help for starters. You download it for free, and it manages the library and you create your playlists... I have been using it to play Dj as I love to do. I always wanted a central place to keep my music.

Next step : I've always had this Utopian vision of keeping my music world  all simple- my dream was for one small device that could be hooked up to car, stereo, speakers all throught the house etc. Well ipod must have been plucked right out of my brain. I am enchanted and can't wait to get one.

Ok - now for some cool new-fangled fun ways to find new music - again with itunes music store which is now available in Canada (halleluja). A 99 cent charge to a credit card and that favorite old Culture Club song you used to lip sunc to is in your possession.

In Real Simple magazine, I read about a frighteningly cool program that is similar to Itunes, called Musicmatch Jukebox but has a patent pending intelligent service that matches your tastes to offer music you will like. Musicmatch Jukebox. How cool is that? I am trying it out, looking forward to seeing how it works. Another cool feature... with a line in to your computer you can create MP3s of old cassettes, vinyl, etc!!! For the true pack rat.

And finally, nothing helps revive the musical spirit than getting out to see live music. this month we seem to be making up for a 4 year dry spell (aside from Sarah in May). Thursday is Avril Lavigne (very excited to be taking Kate :) Saturday is Rolling Stones (and others- I am actually looking forward to Maroon 5 the most). And THEN in two weeks, Pete and I will be seeing JET at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas!!!!! Weeeeee - can't wait.

I guess once I started looking, music was all around waiting for my attention. It's very comforting to know some things never change. :) Rock on!

My "Blended" Family

We have a whole new sort of blended family, it seems. I also like to call it The Pack, as I am sure that is how the dogs see it. We've all survived the first 48 hours with new puppy, and it was good that Kate was here for those, also. She did a great job with helping us to wrangle the boys, and was a real trooper, acting all grown up and stuff (sigh)! Pete and I take turns getting up every 4 hours through the night to take Sam out of the kennel and out to the wild yonder to pee. It caused some bleery eyes and short fuses but we managed to put those aside very quickly. I think this new addition will actually be a growth experience for all of us. to me, this weekend felt like the closest and most fun-filled family weekend we've had in a while. Dog-centric, sure, but we also played cards and chatted and visited other family, which was nice. No real distractions from the electronics we are all used to (except for me grappling with the camera).

Some of Sam's Milestones and tidbits:

• The first walk around the block with all five of us (Friday night). What a riot! Imagine, if you will,  the first time for a puppy on a leash and with a harness. He zig zags all over the place, takes off at a run, and hops around chasing mosquitoes, moths and blowing leaves. Little ADD-boy is learning, however, to keep  pace with Tommy, which will hopefully prevent him from pulling.
• He knows his name and comes when we call him 95 % of the time. This is truly cool!
• Housebreaking is coming along well, he goes very quickly outside most of the time.
• He now knows "Let's Go" (one of Tommy's favorite phrases) and will climb up the back deck stairs. It took him a little longer with going down (it looks like a scary drop-off-a-cliff to a puppy).
• He's learning "down", as in "stay off the furniture and don't jump on people".
• He's going into his kennel on his own for fun, and doesn't cry as long when we put him in.
• He follows everything Tommy does. And he follows him all around the house. It's really cute to us, but probably gets on Big Brother's nerves.

Some drawbacks:

• Tommy gets pretty stressed out when Sam is crying or barking in his kennel (or anywhere, actually). he starts in on the action which gets stressful for the rest of us. We try to get Tommy away or distract him. Luckily, Sam stops after about 10 mins. We might need to look into Stress tabs for Big Brother.

• When Sam is in Power-Frenzy mode, Tommy doesn't always have patience to deal. He growls a bit, but this is understandeable. We try to give them each some space and time alone with us, too.

• As the #1 Dog, Tommy thinks both food dishes are his. He won't let Sam near his own food, growls at him a bit. The experts say we should not interfere with this pecking order routine, it will cause more confusion if we treat them equally. So Sam is getting good at swooping in when Tommy's not looking to grab a bunch of food, and then runs off to eat it. Undforutnately it leaves some pieces on the floor, cause he can't see well up close.

Some fun links about dog training, behaviour and health:

Dr. Cookie pet vet extroardinaire
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dogs-faq/new-puppy/
PAW Home    Bringing your puppy home (REALLY good advice from the Partnership for Animal Welfare Site)

For info about Animal Emergency Rescue (rescue during emergency situations such as hurricanes, fires, etc- very interesting and NECESSARY):

Noah's Wish Rescuing and Sheltering Animals during Disasters   

Introducing Sam!

Introducing... Sam, a 12 week old American Eskimo male puppy.

He is flilling the role of little buddy to the reigning #1 Dog in the house, Tommy.

We may have lost our minds, but it's a lot of fun having the two of them around.

Click Here to go to the album and see more pictures of Sam, Tommy and their people.

Soul Excavation aka 2 week vacation

I suck at vacation. I never used to (at least I don't think I did). I remember a few dark years between 2000 and 2003 when the universe seemed to be teaching me lessons I wasn't ready to learn - how to enjoy my own company, how to be brave and keep re-inventing myself, how to fight depression during a particularly dark time. What did I do? I packed the trunk of my rustbox '88 Sunbird and I headed to Bois Joli Beach, every day.At that time, I was not paying attention to my career so much, it was the means to an end, and truthfully, it was the time for me to coast a little. I needed to address other things in my soul. I needed to find FLOW. What does that mean? It is what I call the ZING of energy during a lightning storm, creative inspiration, connections for all the little hanging strings in life. At that time, I started to feel my own power, my peace and my creative spirit - and a growing sense that everything was connected. I felt like the universe was answering questions I had not spoken out loud. Was it because there was "space to listen"? If I am speaking in abstract too much, I will explain what it was like. At my computer in the morning, I would receive newletters with headings that literally answered the questions in my head in comical ways. I meant to talk to a close friend about it, who also listened to "cues". We were having trouble meeting up for coffee and he finally received a computer-related postcard/advertisement at work that said "Take A Java with Chelsea". It was talking about a computer porgram but the message was loud and clear. I was getting messages like that all the time. I would walk into a library and an out-of-place-book would attract me. I would open to the middle of the book and read a passage that was pertinent to what I was thinking about. And the more I paid aattention, the more it happened. A was learning about Tarot at the time and drew a card each morning as a touchstone for the day. For 4 straight days, I drew the same card. As a beginner, I was not able to decipher exactly what the card meant, but I got the feeling it was more important for me to notice the pattern anyway.

Why is any of this pertinent now? Well, years have passed, and I have been fascinated with this concept of flow /synchronicity ever since. However, my life has sped up without my noticing. My personal crisis essentially ended, and I was happy again, able to take on the next challenges. These were practical in nature. Work, money, home, daily life, responsibilities. I switched gears. I became entrenched. Recently I found I have become a workaholic at a career I was never tied to to begin with.

Fast forward, and here my husband and I found ourselves at the beginning of a desperately needed vacation with no idea how to relax :) A week in and we are just getting the hang of the pace. Pete is now working on new songs, and puttering around the house happily with a screwdriver- fixing stuff as he is want to do. Lo and behold I sewpt away cobwebs from my creative room and started on a new quilt project.

I am noticing this nagging feeling that I had forgotten something...  for the past several months.. I had forgotten the purpose of creating SPACE to listen. The FLOW I still think about has been a little past my grasp, but it may be coming back. Finally. More soon.