1.  [...]]]> In case you haven’t seen my Twitter or Facebook postings, I picked up my 7-week old chocolate lab puppy named Rudy (after my grandfather Rudolph Jaks, and also my father’s middle name – Wilburn Rudolph Randow) from a former co-worker last weekend.  This has been an interesting experience due to the fact that this is:

1.  My first indoor dog.  Well, let me rephrase that.  He stays inside with me at night.  He’s outside while I am at work.  And that is probably how it will stay.  I eventually would like him to sleep on the foot of my bed, but I am a LONG way from that right now.

2.  Caregiving.  The thoughts of almost everyone who knows me has been that I need a puppy to keep from dwelling on the past.  This ALMOST worked..  I’m not dwelling as much, but when I do, it goes very deep.

We’ll see how things progress.  I love the puppy.  I wish he would stop using my finger as it’s own personal chewing toy, but I’m starting to break him of that habit.  I took him out walking in the neighborhood in front of my house tonight (I walk with him nightly, but have been varying the route to let him see more) and he got a lot of socializing.  I think that we had about 10 children of various ages come to pet him, three parents, and two other families.  I was getting a bit concerned about finding children for his socialization, but when he is at the “cute puppy” age, I guess that isn’t an insurmountable problem.

In other matters this past week:

1.  I went to church with Stephen today.  I go to church every weekend, but this is the first time I actually went with somebody.  Actually, I picked his church today since the Comal Community Band, of which I am a member, had a “thank you” concert for the church for using their facilities for our weekly practice this past month.  Nice service.  Methodist churches are not too bad, but they take a while to get used to.  Also, the fact that we were singing patriotic hymns was also a pleasant experience.

2.  After church, I attended the band wrap-up party for this season.  We do have one more rehersals and two more performances on Friday (July 4), but it made sense to do the wrap party on a non-holiday weekend.  In the past, I wouldn’t have attended.  However, in an effort to make myself do more, I am forcing myself to leave my comfort zone and do things.  I still need to do more and my to-do list for the summer and fall is still very very long.

3.  Work sucks.  I’m sorry to be so blunt with that statement, but it’s the unfortunate truth.  We (me and Stephen) have so much work piled on us between now and August 8 and it will be a daunting task for us to actually finish it all.  So as you can surmise, the stress level has gone up considerably, which is exactly what I do not need at this time.  Oh well…  I’m starting to run a countdown clock to August 8 and then want to take a trip after that time.  Plus, I have so much unfinished business that I need to take care of, like probate and other legal matters.

4.  Friends rock.  Another short but profound statement.  I’m afraid to think of what type of shape I would be in at this point without the bedrock of support from others.  I feel so small, though, in that I haven’t been the person that I could have been in the past.  I consistently concentrated on issues around me (and my family) and generally ignored everything else externally.  That needs to stop as of now.

In closing I want to add a reminder that you can also keep track of me via Twitter, Friendfeed, or Facebook.  On Twitter and Friendfeed, my alias is JeffreyCentex and you can find me by my name on Facebook. 

Thank you for reading and may God bless you and your family!