Friday, October 31, 2014

Know A Little About A Lot

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:

Unknown said...

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.

OG said...

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!

Unknown said...

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.

Kelly_g said...

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!

Unknown said...

With two dogs and three cats i've learned to prioritize as their needs come before mine.

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