I have an excuse for not getting back sooner: exhaustion. Up until Saturday, the week was normal. Church, co-op, a lazy day on Friday.
On Saturday, Mom and us girls headed out for a drive, just because. We headed up toward the Amish stores. On the way, we drove by a sporting goods store, and I commented that they sometimes had puppies. Mom (yes, I blame her) suggested we stop by to see if there were any puppies at the moment.
By now most of you know how the story ends. We saw yellow labs and some sort of Dachshund/chihuahua mix and something else I can't remember before we came to the truck where the lab/Aussie mixes were.
$40 for an 8-week-old, 1/4 Australian shepherd and 3/4 black lab puppy. For the last couple of months I've considered asking for a dog (even did at one point), especially now that I actually have some money. Suddenly, I was calling Dad and telling him to check out the message Mom had sent him: a picture of each of us girls with a fluffy black dog in our arms. And then he was okaying me to get one.
10 minutes later, as we drove away, me holding a puppy, I wondered, "Did I really just do that?"
Out of the four girls there, I couldn't pick one. Mom suggested I put my hand in the truck and call them over and take the first one that came. Only one came. The others kept playing and ignored me. That was easy.
Naming her was not so easy. It took a lot of time, but we eventually settled on Sasha.
It took about two days for reality to finally set in. Now that it has, I still wonder what on earth I've done. The first night, I started out with Sasha in a box in my room, but she wouldn't stop whining and it was late, so I let her sleep on my bed. She didn't stay still all night, and I got maybe two hours of sleep, between that and routes.
Sunday night she whined all night and I honestly didn't get a wink of sleep. By last night I was literally ready to cry I was so tired. We did everything we could to keep Sasha awake for the first few hours leading up to bedtime so she doesn't turn nocturnal. Then I pulled her box over to my bedside and keep a newspaper nearby. 20 minutes of getting a rap on the nose every time she made a noise made her quiet, and she went to sleep.
Ah, sleep.
(Seriously, on Sunday night we had our afterglow, and lack of sleep had put me in a very strange mood. Totally embarrassing.)
Now that I can think clearly, things are looking a little better.
Mom and Dad are convinced that by the time we get through her puppy stage, Hershey as a puppy will look like a field trip. She bites everything (even the shoes on your feet), she gets into everything, she picks on Hershey, she chases the cat.... The Aussie in her blood comes through in her intelligence. I'll be honest, how quickly she picks up on things compared to Hershey shocks me. We were living with a dog of slightly-less-than-average intelligence, and now we have one with high intelligence, as well as a saucy attitude. I'm scared.
So life hasn't really been boring, but I haven't done much else besides get a puppy. I made more laundry soap yesterday and managed to make an apple pie without Mom's help. I need to make another one today, because the last one is already gone.
Speaking of apples, I've become addicted to them lately. Mom got some a while ago from an orchard, and we've collected some here and there from paper route customers. But even with the three or four types of untreated apples from customers, I've found that only one doesn't give me any reaction at all. So I eat one or two a day now. I'd forgotten how good they were!
I can't think of anything else that's happened. Life progresses pretty normally.
As usual, I had something to share a few days ago but didn't, and now I've forgotten it. I suppose I'll try to come back in the next few days. I'll try to have pictures of my puppy ready to share by then. She hardly sits still long enough to get a decent picture.
Wait. I remember what it was! Last Tuesday Mom and I took most of the day to cook up a bunch of the apples we've collected. We finally turned on the Christmas music (normally we start in August, but not this year) and set to work. Mostly apple sauce and apple butter, but it helped me get into the holiday spirit. The perpetually gray skies and successive rainy days hasn't helped.
Now I'm suddenly remembering my week. My brain still isn't functioning at 100% capacity, if you couldn't tell.
During our drive on Saturday, after we got Sasha, Heather and I both got our first driving lessons. We start Driver's Ed in November (scary!). It wasn't too bad, though I was so nervous and tense that my shoulder got sore.
Also, last night, I saw northern lights for the second time in my life (that I can remember). Someday I might go someplace where they're bright and clear, but even here they're beautiful. There was a large patch of red and ribbons of white in a clear sky full of stars. Amazing.
So this week has been super crazy, and also a bit of a learning week for me.
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