Before A and I became high school teachers, we had careers that required specialized knowledge. It is safe to say that we knew a lot about very little.
Then we became high school teachers and we started knowing more about a variety of things.
And then, came the blog and now it seems like we shifted to know a little about a lot of various things.
Who knew that having dogs and being very public about our pooches would require us to know so many various things? These are a few things that we could not imagine that we would ever have to know.
Sewing and Hand Stitching
Though never taking a home economics class or learning hand sewing, I am now able to hand stitch and repair most of
Mr. B's stuffies after they succumb to his random tantrums. Hand stitching eventually led to one of our greatest investments, a sewing machine, and now I have learned to sew on
dinosaur patches onto a dog hoodie and patch their beds after Mr. B scratched a hole preparing the bed for himself. These skills have even translated into crudely altering my own work pants (though A would never dare let me alter one of her clothes).
Baking
Though I spent most of my adult life in a laboratory developing and following a protocol, I never baked. I would never have thought that this was odd until I realized that baking is just like an experiment. Last winter
during the polar vortex, while learning to bake cookies, I learned to treat baking like an experiment and spent a week trying to perfect the baking a dog treat for our oven.
Carpentry
Since A and the pooches entered my life, I went from owning one power drill to a whole workshop with table saws, miter saws and a bunch of other "essential" tools. Though I have always wanted to know how to build stuff, it was only because of the pooches that I actually started woodworking. Now I spend most of my time in the workshop building things around the house, which is a win-win situation where A gets what she wants around the house without any intervention.
Though it is safe to say that the list of skills I have developed since living with the pooches is a lot larger, these three have been the most influential. I often write about lessons that we can learn from the pooches, but sometimes I have learned a lesson because of the pooches.
What are some lessons or skills that you have developed because of the pooches?
Also:
How we taught Mr B to be (usually!) gentle with toys
And
those gates.
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5 comments:
I've learned a little bit (although not nearly enough) about maintaining good relations between the members of a multi-dog household. I've also learned how to protect my dogs from strange dogs and obnoxious humans in public. While I've been a dog owner most of my life, none of these things were much of an issue until my husband and I adopted a couple of pit bulls and one not-very-trusting-of-strange-humans Australian Shepherd.
Yet another wonderful post! While I haven't attempted baking what Petey has taught me is less tangible but no less important...approach everyone and everything with optimism. Focus on the task at hand!
By the way, I REALLY like that gate. I need to make one of those to close off a small section of my porch and keep my pups out of the cat litter boxes.
My pups have helped me to become better at organizing! With all of their toys, clothes, leashes, meds, etc. I had to find ways to "hide" their stuff. That skill has also helped me organize other parts of my home as well, which is something I always struggled with!
With two dogs and three cats i've learned to prioritize as their needs come before mine.
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