Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Author Archives: dawnkinster


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A little pond adventure

Penny here!

HEY! I know Mom said I should just lay low for awhile cause you guys have seen enough of me, but HEY! I’m right here people, and I’m pretty stinking adorable, and everyone, just everyone says they want to see more, more, MORE of me.

Right???!

Watching the neighbor and his dog Simon jog past our house.

OK, so maybe not everyone. But majority rules, so I’m going to tell you about my recent adventure anyway, cause I’m the majority and I do what I want. Mom and Daddy have begun to understand that about me.

But I digress.

My first visit to the neighbor’s pond.

Mom and Daddy are still being very protective of me, and decided I couldn’t go anywhere that had other dogs for two weeks after my last set of vaccinations. Geeze. All the other dogs get to go and I’m stuck here at home with a couple of old folks.

I swear, they can hardly get up off the floor after getting down there 5 or 6 times every morning to play with me.

Sometimes I think I should trade them in for newer models, but something tells me if I just wait a little bit longer (say, a week or so) there’s going to be all sorts of fun stuff to do!

My back yard is fun and stuff, but I want to see the WORLD, Mom!

Anyway, Mom decided that we could visit our neighbor’s pond today. It’s just across the street and no doggies go over there, so she figured it would be the perfect place for me to explore.

Mom! This place is AMAZING!

And boy was she right! We found out right away that I’m not afraid of getting my feet wet!

My very first muddy feet!

In fact I loved walking along the shore in the water even though Mom said it was really cold and wouldn’t let me explore near the deep parts.

I thought it was important to taste it too, in order to get the full effect….

Nom, nom, nom.

…but I don’t think I really like the taste. I might have to taste it again, though Mom wasn’t real keen on me drinking from the pond. She says I have nice clean ice cold filtered water at home. I said, sure Mom, but that doesn’t taste like frogs and turtles and fish and muskrats!

Moms don’t always understand stuff until it’s explained to them.

Yuck!!!

I had so much fun over there. I got water up my nose and got to shake it off, my first real doggy shake. I think this little adventure proves I’m a big girl now, and ready to take on the world, if they’ll just let me!

Nothing that a little shaking won’t fix.

And just to prove how responsible I am, when we got back to my yard I helped Mom by picking up my poop bag she’d left behind and carrying it back to the house for her. I figured it was only fair that I pick up after myself in return for having a great little mini adventure.

Mom says that pond was nothing compared to what I could see if I continue to be a good girl.

Don’t worry, Mom, I’ve got this!

I told her just watch me. They didn’t name me Unstoppable Penny for nothing.

No siree.


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Burning the oatmeal

I burned my morning oatmeal the other day, the first time I’ve ever done that. I had it bubbling away in a pot on the stovetop when I remembered I needed to find a photo for someone, and since the laptop was right there on the counter I figured I’d look the image up while I was thinking about it.

These days my memory leaves something to be desired.

But as I looked for a specific picture of my Aunt I got sucked into the file filed with images of her. She left us last October, already five months now.

I had pictures of her from many of my visits with her during that last year together, and some from before we knew cancer was growing inside her, when we took our last trip down to Alabama together.

I did a lot of fun stuff with my Aunt Becky, she was always on the go and lots of times she brought me along with her. I want to be like her when I grow up. But I hope I get to live beyond her young 87.

I miss her a lot, but sometimes it’s hard to remember she’s not here. It’s like I have to relearn the sad reality over and over. I suppose that’s normal.

But darn, I didn’t realize I’d burn my oatmeal while remembering the good times.


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Snowy baby pictures

Hey Peeps, Penny here. You don’t mind being called Peeps, do you, cause I think of you all as my people! Yep, every single one of you. Mom says you can never have too many Peeps, and since I’m just a baby still, I’m taking her word for it.

Speaking of baby, mom took a bunch of pictures of me a thousand weeks ago when we had lots of snow, and she’s hardly shared any of them! Mom says she doesn’t have time to sort pictures cause she’s running around making sure I’m happy.

Personally I think she needs to hone her time management skills, in fact, as I recall my sister Katie told me this very same thing. Mom gets tied up with too many things and stresses out. Katie and I both suggest she just focus on the puppy all the time. I think mom’s stress level would lower right away if she did that.

What do you guys think?

Any-hoo, I’ve been bugging her (my most important job as new puppy in this household) to post my baby snow pictures before the daffodils bloom. I understand once the yellow flowers start showing up I’ll have to do a lot of modeling, and it would be embarrassing to still be working through snow pictures. Bad for my modeling career, you know, to be so far behind.

So far I’m still sleeping through the night and I’m mostly house trained. I can sit when asked but I’m not going to stay. No siree, there’s no stopping this girl when I get moving, and I’m mostly moving all the time.

Mom puts me in a timeout if I get overly excited or if I’m cranky. It’s not so bad, I have a big cushy bed in there, and some of my toys and a water bowl, so I don’t really mind going into my timeout pen. My Auntie calls it my rest stop. I do mostly fall asleep in there, so it’s a good place for me.

And when I wake up mom or daddy take me outside right away. I love my yard, but there’s a lot of presents from the resident deer out there that are apparently off limits. I don’t know why, I think they smell fabulous! Sometimes mom and daddy are no fun.

So this is my life right now. No parks quite yet, no walks with friends (I don’t even know if I have any friends!), no visits to the store, no adventures unless you call a sedate walk down the driveway and back an adventure.

WAIT! I DID have an adventure!

Mom promised me one last Friday and I was sort of excited. Not a lot excited because, never having had an adventure, I wasn’t even sure what an adventure was, but kind of excited. We ended up at the VET! And they stuck me twice!! I’m gonna check with Katie, but I’m pretty sure this is not what she was talking about when she told me about all the fun she had going on adventures.

Well, Peeps, I’ll sign off for now. Time to get a little shuteye in my rest stop. If you can, please poke mom for me (I do plenty of that but a girl can’t be poking constantly, it’s not lady-like) and see if you can prod her into taking me on a real adventure soon.

I’m counting on you,

Your adventure-girl, Unstoppable Penny.


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A musical weekend

I’ve been lucky, not just because we have a new little puppy chewing our feet, but because my sister has been here for the past couple of weeks, and because we got to experience 3 different concerts over the weekend.

On Friday night my community band performed our concert, “Spring Potpourri,” directed by a guest conductor and featuring several of our members as soloists on assorted pieces.

We’ve grown a lot over the years, both in numbers and musicality, and it was fun to play together, under the lights on a stage with a pretty decent sized crowd applauding our efforts.

I’ve said it before, and it’s still true, as adults there are few opportunities to receive applause. No one claps when we make supper or do the laundry or go off to work or mow the lawn.

Most people have never had the thrill of accepting applause for anything.

Applause is one of the many rewards for playing in a community band. Friendships are another. And the joy of playing music is the best reward of all.

Saturday evening my sister, husband and I went down to hear the Ann Arbor Symphony play Debussy, Prokofiev and Dvorak. This concert was played at the historic Michigan Theater, built in 1927.

It’s a beautiful building and we had fun, prior to the concert, taking pictures of the ornate architecture. I liked the Dvorak piece, Symphony No. 7 in D minor, but my favorite was Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, with the beautiful flute in the beginning and woven throughout.

The principal flutist talked prior to the concert about what a responsibility she had playing this piece, the work is so famous and the expectations are so high. Of course she played it absolutely beautifully. My sister plays flute, so it was special to listen to this work on Saturday night.

Then on Sunday afternoon she and I drove about 45 miles to Imlay City to listen to the Belle Valley Community Band play their spring concert, which was filled with Irish and Scottish music, and featured the Alma College Pipe Band.

You don’t get to hear a pipe band every day, and since my sister also plays bagpipes this was a very special concert as well. The community band was so fun to listen to and when you add in bagpipes, well, it was spectacular!

I was thinking as I looked at the crowd almost filling the gym bleachers and seated in rows of folding chairs down on the gym floor, that it was pretty cool to see a community come out in such numbers to support their local musicians.

And I wished that every community band or orchestra, every community theater group, every group of artists putting together a show would have such support. It’s a win/win for the artists and their communities. Everyone leaves smiling, no matter the venue, no matter what type of art.

Please go google the words community band, or community orchestra or community theater in your town. Odds are you have one near by. They’ll have a website and you can probably find their spring concert or their spring production, or their spring art installation.

Mark your calendar and then show up. You’d be amazed at the talent all around you.

And they’ll be thrilled to have more people there, enjoying their work and applauding.

Don’t see how you could go wrong.


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Wordless Wednesday lost

Mom says we missed Wordless Wednesday. She says it’s Thursday now and I need to move on, but seriously, I think Wednesdays are perfect days to showcase me, especially during my cute puppy days.

Cause everybody knows that puppyhood doesn’t last forever.

Mom called my name, so I turned right around.

So I have tasked mom with making sure she posts a picture of me, her Adventure Girl, every Wednesday.

I figured I better speed it up, in case there were treats.

And, because she messed up already, I am requiring additional photos today. Sort of an advance on future Wednesdays, just in case she loses track of time again.

Just the THOUGHT of treats made me leap for joy!

I’ve only lived with mom and daddy a month and I can already tell I’m going to have to keep them in line. They mumble something about being retired but that’s not going to fly with a puppy in the house!

I’m coming, mom!

I’ve got so much to tell you, but for now, over and out,

Really mom? One piece of kibble for all that?

Your feisty chewing whirlwind Adventure Girl, signing out!

Play hard, sleep hard, that’s my motto.


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Other things…

Lest you think our days are completely filled with puppy, let me tell you about my Saturday afternoon spent learning CPR. I’ve always thought I should learn it, I’ve always meant to learn it, and this year, when I saw it offered by our local fire department I decided to just do it.

Of course I registered for the class weeks ago, long before I knew there would be a Penny in my life. It was hard to leave her but she was in good hands with my husband and sister who is visiting. So I drove off into the snow to see what there was to learn.

There were 7 students total, 4 women, three men, all of us past middle age, with assorted creaking knees and backs, though one of us (not me!) was a long time yoga instructor and she was much more nimble than me getting up off the floor, and stronger doing the compressions too.

She made me want to try yoga again.

Anyway, I was kind of nervous, hoping I would catch on, and I did, but let me tell you, it’s harder than I imagined it would be to do compressions. 30 compressions, two breaths on adults, then 30 more compressions, two breaths and continue like that until trained help arrives. You can skip the breaths if you don’t have a mask and are uncomfortable, but the patient has the best chance if you can do both. The compressions are the most important, though, so don’t stop for more than 10 seconds.

It’s not easy.

We practiced on the dummies, down on the floor and I had a hard time getting the two green lights, located in the dummy’s shoulder to stay lit. Yellow was too fast, red was too slow, no lights meant you weren’t compressing far enough into the chest. I bounced around between yellow, red and green.

I’m pretty sure my dummy would have died.

After we practiced we watched some more videos about heart attacks and cardiac arrests, and how to use the AED if one is available. Then we broke up into 2 groups and role played an actual event. I was up first and with the aid of another student counting, I was able to do 2 sets of 30 compressions, another student simulated the breaths in between, and a third student simulated putting on the pads from the AED.

It felt good to keep those green lights glowing in that dummy’s shoulder, but it was really hard work, and I don’t know how long I’d be able to keep it going while waiting for the paramedics and EMTs to arrive.

I guess, when it comes down to it I’d just do the best I could.

That was the take-away from the class, other than the factual information and practice, that doing something is better than doing nothing and waiting for help to arrive. Imperfect CPR is better than no CPR, and people have the best chance of surviving if someone steps in and begins CPR right away.

If you have a CPR certification class near you I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone and enroll. You’re going to learn a lot. You’re going to feel better about your abilities to help in an emergency, even outside a cardiac event. And you’re going to meet some of your neighbors.

Can’t see how you could go wrong.

Here’s a puppy picture just because she demands the attention. Can’t go wrong with her either.


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Learning to puppy

It’s been a long, long time since we lived with a puppy. Some thing had to be relearned immediately. Some things are lifestyle changes that we can grow into even as she grows.

When you have a new puppy you have to look in all directions before you move your feet. She could be anywhere and most of the time she’s behind your feet, between your feet, next to your feet or chewing your feet.

When you have a new puppy you must never ignore sounds no matter how faint. She’s almost always doing something and sounds are your first hint of it all going wrong.

Tearing sounds, gnawing sounds, throw up sounds, peeing sounds, the sounds of toenails racing in places she shouldn’t be, clanging sounds of food bowls being overturned, the sounds of shoes being dropped in other rooms…the possibilities are endless.

When you have a new puppy you must give up cleaning, unless it’s cleaning up poo or pee. There’s no time to do anything but follow your adorable little puppy around, ensuring there’s less poo and pee to clean.

When you have a new puppy you give up your luxurious long morning snoozes. Little puppies have little bladders and need to go OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW! It’s OK, because being an older new puppy parent you probably need to GO RIGHT NOW too. Hopefully not outside though.

And speaking of snoozes, when you have a new puppy you learn to nap when she naps. Which, if you’re perfectly honest, is quite often. And you’re probably sleepy (see early morning observations above) so take that nap!

When you have a new puppy your vocabulary is reduced to “Awwwww” and “NO!”

When you have a new puppy you must remember she’s not the dog you had before and will probably react differently to things like opening the oven door or blowing your nose or using tinfoil. Or she might react exactly the same, crazy way.

When you have a new puppy you have to learn to manage the leash with a twirling, dancing whirlwind on the other end.

When you have a new puppy you spend more time down on the floor than you have in years, playing ball, tossing chicken toys, tickling tummies, and laughing.

When you have a new puppy you need to stop wearing earrings because little squirming puppy kisses turn to chewing on hair, noses, chins and ears. And earrings are irresistible.

When you have a new puppy that has fallen into a happy, exhausted puddle of puppy nap right in the middle of the living room floor, you tiptoe around her and settle in a nearby chair to watch her sleep.

Because she’s so cute. And because everyone knows to let a sleeping dog lie.

Happy 3 month birthday, little Penny. Welcome home sweetheart.