Writing for this blog is my way of sharing this journey. It would not be complete without disclosing the events of a day like yesterday. I had my first time out of the house for several hours, leaving the puppies in the care of my eighteen year old son. I got a taste of my L.B.T.A.P. (Life Before Two Aussiedoodle Puppies).

After their morning routine, getting them settled in the six-sided octagon, and leaving lengthy instructions, I dashed out the door like a free woman! I drove into the city with my car windows open, hair flying wildly and the music playing loudy (Actually it was hot, the air conditioning was on, my hair in a ponytail and had the doctor channel on Sirius radio, but I felt like the previous image).

I was heading to my fiction writing class that I take at the VMFA studio building. A year ago I began taking classes (memoir and non-fiction creative writing). The three hour class goes by very fast. We write, we listen, and we discuss. I love it! Ten people from different walks of life gather together. It can be very personal in the memoir class as writers share vivid reflections. The fiction writing class I am in now is different. We focus on the creation of characters, scenes, dialog, etc. What fascinates me most is how one prompt can elicit ten entirely different storylines. “A man sits in a cafe with an infant…” We are given thirty minutes to take that somewhere.

I wrote about a sweet scene of a brand new father tiredly but lovingly holding his young baby while his wife ate her lunch. Then they switched and he ate while she held the cooing infant. The feedback I received was that my depiction of this scene was all rosy and perfect. Was it realistic? What about some bickering resentment between the new exhausted parents, or how about the baby spitting up on the fathers clean shirt? The fact is that real life is full of good and bad. Sweet smiling babies can also have colicky screaming moments. I tend to look through a lens that focuses in on the positive details, especially when writing about my family, my children, animals, and nature.

So if good writing needs to include some “reality,” here is my reality from yesterday. I fell into a bit of “hey-my-life-has-not-changed-too-much” frame of mind after my three hour release from the house. That relaxed feeling led to me getting a little off schedule with the puppies. Thus began a sequence of our first few potty accidents inside the house. Koda squatted right in front of me on the rug, just peed right there as we were playing with chew toys. “Eh, Eh, Eh,” I called out as I whisked him out the door to finish. Then a few hours later they were happily chilling in the octagon with their peanut butter filled kongs. A glass of Sauvignon blanc in my hand, catching up wth my friends Bethany and LuAnne in New York and all of a sudden, pee yoo! They both had pooped in the octagon! It was a mad dash by my daughter and I to scoop up the pups, and clean up the putrid puppy poop piles!

Now is that real enough for everyone?

Note: My blog writing takes place during their frequent napping, in case anyone is wondering.