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Manic Monday: Stress is Evil!


(Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels)


Hello My Happy People!


I am a little late today, as you well know. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. As you can probably guess from the title of this blog, my weekend was stressful for me, P.R., and Shaggy. If you follow me, you probably know I have been frantically trying to find a regular sitter for Shaggy since our landlords can no longer watch him for us. This weekend the three of us were supposed to go meet a potential sitter I was really hopeful about, but things didn't work out as planned.


First, P.R. got stuck working so I had to take Shaggy on my own. If you know about Shaggy, you know he is a former street dog and has a lot of fear when out in public. He's not nearly as bad as he used to be, but still has some issues. So I was stressed before even leaving the house. Part of that was because I had no idea how much English the sitter could speak. I had been using a translator to write to her in German and P.R. had spoken with her on the phone also in German. Thankfully her English was WAY better than my German and we communicated easily.


However, by the time Shaggy and I found the meeting place (two trains and about an hour of travel) Shaggy was very stressed and had managed to slip out of his harness twice on the way there, which stressed me the h*ll out. The sitter turned out to be a lovely lady and I hope she can be a backup sitter for Shaggy, but after we sat chatting for a while she asked me again for the dates we needed Shaggy to be watched in October. Keep in mind, I had sent the dates to her twice in email before we even set up this face-to-face meeting. It was at this point, she told me she is not available for the days we need.


Now, if you know me, you know I do not tend to always do a good job holding my tongue when I'm not happy about something. However, I did actually like this woman and she and her dog were getting along well with Shaggy. It was only because of this I managed to keep my mouth shut about how annoyed I was that she had us come all the way out there, putting Shaggy (and me) through all that stress, when she is not even be available to watch Shaggy for the dates we need.


At that point we just said our goodbyes and headed home. Shaggy slipped his harness one more time on the way home. I have no idea how the little Houdini does it. I tightened the harness a few times while we were out and he still slipped it. By the time we got home we both needed a nap. Mine came after a large whiskey sour. I do not normally drink, especially if I'm upset, but it felt like a moral imperative yesterday.


Today came with a bit of hope. I remembered a woman who had been recommended to me a while back. We had started chatting on Messenger months ago, but for some reason we stopped talking. I searched my messages and we got back in touch. She watches dogs and can take Shaggy for the days we need pending a trial sleepover night. I am hopeful that she will work out. It would be so great for Shaggy. She has two cats and a dog so he would have plenty of playmates. Shaggy loves other dogs and cats, but cats don't always love how much he wants to play with them. Just being hopeful about her has made my stress level drop a bit. It will drop a lot more once she confirms we are good to go for the dates.


Another thing that is making my stress drop at this moment is Shaggy is peacefully sleeping at my feet and I am watching a live feed from Sarah Penney on TikTok (click red text to check her out). Her live chat is giving me the feeling of having some "girl dishing" time I haven't had in a long while. I do miss that! If you need a happy lift in your day, check her out! And yes, she does look a lot like Adele, but she is way more relatable.



Sometimes it can be hard living so far away from all my family and friends, no matter how much I love my life here. I would not give up my life here for anything, but it does come with stress. I think writing this crime novel is actually going to be a great stress release too. I was shocked how much better I felt after letting my dark side run amuck writing the killer. He is actually relieving some of my stress though I'm not sure if I should be worried about that or not. P.R. might want to worry about that more.


I am happy with how the book is coming along. I want to create a video to reveal The Touch cover very soon. I just haven't had time to work on it yet with the pet sitter search going on. I hope that will be settled here soon and then I can relax and just write, but how often have I hoped for that? Finger crossed, people!


Tomorrow I am joining my writers group online and I will be working on the next scene with them. I might do a sneak peek of it on my podcast this week since I will not have another guest interview until the 15th. Just a heads up. I will be taking a short vacation from everything in October. I really need it! So for at least two weeks, maybe three, I will not be doing blogs or the podcast unless I can get things done ahead of time and schedule them to post while we are on vacation. We will see.


Okay, that is enough rambling, people. Have a great night and I hope this week brings many good things for you!


Now, go forth and be happy!

Dianne



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