A motley crew.

 

It is so true. When you have a dog, there is always someone happy to see you.  My cats are happy to see me as well - especially if I'm putting something in their not-empty food bowl. 

Especially in my retirement years, it is so nice to have my pups to cuddle. Sometimes, when I'm missing my mom and dad, it's just nice to be surrounded by my pets. My dogs are noisy, my cats are not and when you have spent that last many years with a full house and then all of a sudden it is empty, that noise is appreciated. Maybe not in the middle of the night though...... 

I had forgotten how lively - and how much energy - a puppy can be! My old chihuahua is not impressed although I do think he likes the company. My teenaged chihuahua is in her glory and has absolutely no qualms in putting her foot (paw) down when the pup has carried things a little too far.

I've also forgotten how quickly a puppy can re-energize. He usually naps all morning and then is raring to go in the afternoon. Things really become crazy at night after I've tried to go to sleep. For 2 hours, things are wild and crazy. Zoomies for 2 hours straight with a few moments of what I call freeze frames interspersed with the bouts of frenzy. Finally when the lights are all off, things calm down until I get up in the middle of the night. Sometimes they sleep straight through, other times they take it as a sign to wind up again. 

I know that the puppy stage won't last forever so I'm trying to enjoy it while I can.

All the books.

 The bad thing about not being consistent in my writing is that unless I look back at my previous posts, I can't remember if I've written about something already.  

One of the benefits of retirement for me has been the ability to volunteer my time for things I love. At this moment, I'm working at our community library. Ten years ago, this was a real library with funding from the county and it was considered to be part of the county library system. For reasons unknown to me, it was decided to defund this library and distribute the support to the remaining few libraries in the area. Ten years ago, I didn't realize that there even was a library in this area - it is quite rural and there is a larger library in a nearby town as well as a huge library and several University libraries a mere 20 miles away - Since I was able to walk to the library at lunch, I used the ones closest to my work. 

When this library was 'closed', some of the local patrons decided to create a library and operate it on a volunteer basis. It was clearly needed as many of the patrons were Amish and to travel so far away to go to one of the remaining libraries wasn't practical. The location of the library moved about 3 miles away from where it was originally into an old school. The old school houses several other offices such as the historical society and the municipal office. It's fairly easy to get to by foot, car, or horse and buggy with plenty of parking. We have a number of regular volunteers who manage to keep the library open with books from the original collection as well as hundreds and hundreds of books donated to us by the public. In fact, we are donated so many books that a great deal of our funding comes from a semi-annual book sale.  

I love this little library that really isn't so little anymore.  I can remember when I was young - before I hit my rebellious teen years - the only other thing I wanted to be more than a cowboy was a librarian. How I wish I had followed that path! But yet here I am, fulfilling that dream in a different fashion.