Lesson from a hound dog…

Diva Challenge 55 in my Tangle A Day calendar

“It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge a elephant, but we can’t dodge a fly.” ~Josh Billings

Today has been a bit trying. I’ve been uneasy all day, worrying over this and that. Maybe the terrible weather is part of the problem or maybe not. Maybe it’s just the contrast after a couple of intensely focused and productive workdays to find my thoughts bouncing around like rubber balls. Trying to get my thoughts to settle, I decided to tackle the latest Diva Challenge. Maybe I could tangle myself back on track.

Laura Harms challenged us to use the Moebius strip in our tangling for this week. I have always loved the Moebius strip and have a bracelet with the word for “mother” engraved in 32 different languages. It is also the symbol, along with the color purple, for Moebius Syndrome. Laura’s little boy has Moebius Syndrome, so it is a cause very close to her heart. I don’t use color all that often, but since the color purple represents the syndrome my Prismacolor pencils were calling. Not to mention as a LSU alumni – I love purple, live gold 🙂 I got a little carried away with those pencils, visible manifestation of my inability to focus today.

So, where did the quote for today’s post come from? My inability to focus yet again, but it made me smile. I couldn’t settle on anything to use, much less write about when I saw this quote. Immediately my thoughts turned to my husband’s basset hound, Bandit. He passed away the day before Father’s Day last June. He was a sweetheart of a hound dog but a bit of a character. He was terrified of two things – cameras and flies. He just ran from the camera – much like dodging an elephant. But flies, oh my. His wrinkles would deepen and that frown would come out. Bandit would park himself in a corner and track that fly’s every movement with life or death intensity – an expression on his face that was the very epitome of worry. He was smart enough to know you can’t dodge a fly. I think there’s a lesson to be learned from that old hound dog.