Click images for desktop size: "Girls Of The Beach" by Unknown I wake up every day at 6:30 now. Either the alarm clock or, most likely, the dogs wake me.
I didn't used to like routines. Now I do. They give me a yardstick to measure myself against. Making sure that my body and mind are functioning in some fashion and what that fashion is.
I block out too many things. I need a yardstick to tell me just how fine I am.
I get out of bed. Let the dogs out. Make coffee and then take my meds.
Its dull but vital.
I then let the dogs in, and they watch me intently while I make their breakfast.
Its a complicated process, takes me about 10 minutes.
I have to walk back and forth and measure, opening doors and refrigerators. They watch me in the only dead silent part of their day. Its almost reverential.
First each amount of kibble has to be measured out into each bowl. Then the can of meat has to be opened and it gets measured into the mix. I pour about a tablespoon of olive oil into each bowl, for their coats, eyes and digestion.
Twice a week I split two eggs between them. I used to give them raw eggs, I'd separate them standing at the counter. I heard a podcast that said it was a better idea to scramble and cook the eggs. Now I do that. The dogs certainly like them that way.
The next step is to measure in a vegetable powder, vitamin supplement. The supplement is actually designed for people feeding their dogs raw unprocessed meat.
Then I miss in some warm water. With the canned food and the vegetable powder this makes a nice revolting looking broth that the dogs like to lap up before crunching their kibble. Somedays when their little faces move me I'll hide a little treat in each of their bowls.
Then my puppy quickly devours her food and then watches the other two finish theirs. Then all three have to amble around and inspect each others bowls,
Click images for desktop size: "Hot Rod Race" by Robert Williams just to be certain that some tidbit didn't get over looked.
I sit with my little blind dog and pray that he eats. When he does I'm happy, when he doesn't I have an excuse to worry.
If he doesn't eat I have to pick up his bowl and hide it from the others. Particularly my puppy. She's on a perpetual diet. So she's always eager to steal anything edible. She's not "bad" about it. She has rules. If its on the floor its fair game.
I then let them out again and when they come in they get their daily chew. I worry about their teeth and its such a pain brushing their teeth that . . . well, I get lazy.
And that's how my morning starts.
There are two cats here as well. I don't do anything much for them.

ecto, the tool I use for layout of these posts, is up to Beta 40!! I'm finding all these betas tedious especially when, like yesterdays beta 39, they break a feature that I find invaluable. This one may or may not have dealt with that issue. It wouldn't upload the images so I had to do them all by hand, including creating the thumbnails (which is what you see until you click on them). It also borked some of the code. I used MarsEdit to fix that. While it was nice to see the issue addressed so quickly it still felt wearisome doing everything by hand.
It was the only black spot on an excellent Good Friday.