Knowledge

Knowledge. What is it and where do you get it? Is it inherited? Or maybe absorbed by parents, teachers and peers?
First of all, is it something real special, academic or just plain old common sense?


Personally I think it's all of the above. Knowledge is a complex thing. You can't see, taste, touch, smell, see or hear it. And yet you can recognise it when it's there and you can recognise it when it is not there.


I have a thirst for knowledge. I admire people who are knowledgeable. This does not mean that they are highly educated, although education will not rule them out. I know some people who are highly educated and yet one would never call them knowledgeable or wise.
Now there is another word...wise. Maybe that is more the word I am looking for. Wisdom and knowledge seem to be good bed fellows.


I once tried to make a friend of a woman my age. We both loved art shows. So we made a date and spent the afternoon together. Up until this time we had only greeted each other and had not spent any time together. As we walked around looking at the art works, we found we both liked the same pieces and for the same reasons. Then over lunch we discovered that we had both married men who had similar occupations; had both married in the same year and had both given birth to our first son in the same year. We had lived oceans apart and yet we were very similar.
It felt as if I had spent the afternoon with myself. How boring. Nice but boring. We never pursued our friendship.


As I take a closer look at my friendships now, I realise I like friends who are very different to me. People I can learn from and hopefully I have something to offer them as well. Most of my friends are not academics. I am not an academic. But my friends are intelligent and interesting.
Ah! There is another word intelligent. What have intelligence, wisdom, and knowledge have in common? Have they anything in common. Now I have opened up an area I can research and blog about another day.


There is so much to learn in this universe. No one mind can absorb all the knowledge there is in one lifetime. I often say I do not have enough time to make all the mistakes one can make in this life, that is why I learn by others mistakes. Also there is so much to learn, that is why I learn from others.
The best way I know how to do that is to read. I am always sad when I meet people who don't read. I cannot imagine living my life without reading.


I thank all the teachers who taught me to read and to love books. My favourite shops are of course book shops, stationary shops and plant nurseries. I love to garden too. Sadly I don't do much of that anymore. I'm too busy reading and writing.
 

Show. Don't tell

How many times have I heard these words from writers? Show, don't tell.
But what did it mean? It made me so frustrated just trying to get my head around those words. I asked my peers. I asked other writers. Nobody could give me an answer. Not an adequate answer that I could understand and implement.


Then I found a book called 'Show, don't tell'. I downloaded it straightaway and voila, it all became a lot clearer. For example instead of saying, ' Sally stepped outside into the cold dark night', it sounds better to say, Although Sally was terrified of the dark, she grabbed her coat and scarf and stepped outside.'


This morning on our walk, we met a friend. We had Sabina, our six year old Labrador cross and our trainee Seeing Eye dog, Thomas with us. We stopped to chat. She asked us how our new little Seeing Eye dog Jesse was doing. Jesse is only nine weeks old and stays in his crate while we do our morning walk. Howard started to show her with his hands how small Jesse is and animatedly began to tell her how cute he is.


I pulled out my new smart phone and said, "I can show you."  And there he was cute, tiny, playful, adorable all in one picture.


So I continue to write and rewrite, trying to show and not just tell. It's harder than you think.
In fact, writing is harder than you think. I'm trying not to overthink things when I write but there has to be a balance between just writing, and thinking and trying to choose the right words for what I want to say.
I hope I manage to find the right course to help me be a better writer this year.

A time for every season

We are often asked, "how can you give a puppy back after caring for it for one year, sometimes more. We always jokingly say, "Oh we just get another one, and anyway we know that we are helping some vision impaired person to gain independence.
While this is true it is never easy to return a puppy for formal training after loving, playing, training, and caring for it, even though we know from the start that this is only temporary.

Thinking about this situation made me think that everything is really only temporary. The young become the old as the cycle of life takes it's course. I was reminded about the passing of time last Sunday, when I saw a little girl I used to teach in Sunday school. She is now a young teenager. I was shocked. Had I changed as much as she had changed in the intervening years? I think we don't notice it in ourselves.

The other day I heard about this old man who had Dementia. His wife of sixty years was caring for him. They were sitting watching television, when she said, "Come dear, it's time to go to bed."
"Who are you?" he said.
"I'm Jane, your wife.." she said.
"Impossible. My wife has long blond hair and is very pretty."

I think of my own children, now in their early forties and I can hardly believe so much time has elapsed. But oh, the memories of raising them. How blessed were we? Now I have the joy of watching my Grandchildren grow and mature.

I often ask myself, and sometimes others, "Is it more difficult to raise children nowadays than it was in our time?" What do you think?
I get so many different responses. 'Of course it is more difficult with all the exposure to adult themes through television and technology.' 'Of course it is with drugs so freely available.'
I actually don't agree. Yes I do agree that television, technology, even drugs are huge influences and temptations, but in my day when we was raising our children there were influences and temptations as well.
It all comes down to basic obedience, morality and integrity. If these things are present in our lives it does not matter what temptations come our way.

Times and seasons come and go. That it why it is so important to live in the moment. It's good to reflect on past memories. Some will be sad, some will be wonderful. All the way along there were lessons to be learned if only we were concentrating.

I am grateful to be growing old with the love of my life. Many people do not have that privilege.
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Lost Excuse

Today I looked everywhere for an excuse not to exercise. But I could not find it. First I looked outside to see if it was too hot. No, it was in fact a lot cooler than yesterday. It was overcast and a cool sea breeze was making it very pleasant. I looked up to see if the overcast clouds meant that it would rain any minute. No rain on the horizon. Still my excuse hid from me.

Then I looked inside. My shoes were waiting at the door. My dog was bouncing around wagging his tail and looking at his lead. I still could not find my excuse.

I finally gave up looking for it, put on my shoes and connected the lead. I stepped out the door and started walking. I was glad I could not find my excuse to not exercise today. I met others along the path who had also mislaid their excuses. We smiled as we acknowledged each other and the beautiful cool change.
Tomorrow I will be back looking for my excuse. Hopefully I will not find it again.

All this looking made me wonder why I do this to myself. I love walking. I love going to my exercise class. I love playing the piano and cello. I love being my ideal weight and feeling healthy. I love reading my Bible but WHY do all these things need so much discipline to do on a regular basis. I know it is only by doing these things on a regular basis that there will be any noticeable affect. Sporadic exercise, sporadic piano and cello practice, even sporadic Bible reading only brings minimal results and sometimes none at all.

My New Years resolution is to loose every excuse I can ever think of for not doing what I know I should do. If not now, WHEN?

Jesse's First day out

We took Jesse to the Vet today. All we did was introduce her and make an appointment for her next shot. Then we put him in the top section of the supermarket trolley and walked him through the supermarket. We took Thomas as well. He was working hard at not eating food off the floor.

We had everyone ooing and aaing and wanting to cuddle Jesse. As it was his first experience, we wanted it to be a very positive experience for him.  Then we went to the local coffee shop. There everyone was fussing over him and we allowed two young girls to cuddle both Jesse and Thomas. They were so calm, we thought it would do them no harm at all. But Bev, our supervisor, was not happy when I told her they were patted today. "Please don't do that again," she said.

It's so hard to stop people from touching our service dogs. More and more people are being educated about not distracting the dog from it's work. Also the dog may start to expect attention from strangers and think it's play time not work time. So we will have to be more diligent and make sure we do not repeat todays misdemeanour.

It is a scorching hot Summers day today. The air con is on and so is the tennis. All three dogs are napping. We walked early, then I kept an appointment with my dentist. Thomas was given a kong with some treats and peanut butter and tethered in the craft room while I practiced the piano. Getting Thomas to lie quietly while I practice is part of his new routine. I plan to take him with me to Cello class, exercise class, Church and movies. So he needs to learn to settle and wait for me to do my thing.
So Thomas and I are learning self discipline.

Jesse's First Day - Take 2

We waited anxiously at the Airport wondering if we had made the right decision. Finally two little blonde babies looked at us through the bars of their cage. Jesse and Ginny had arrived. Howard could not wait to cuddle his new little charge. He is a nine week old blond Labrador and his future is full of learning curves for him. He is a potential Guide dog.

"Start as you plan to go on". These were the parting words of our Supervisor. So we encourage him to 'Do your jobs' and praise him when he complies. 'No' we say when he chews our furniture or cables. He runs and plays and follows us everywhere. As he sits, we say "sit" and so his training begins.
Tomorrow we plan to take him to meet the Vet. Just to say Hello and then we are taking him to the supermarket and placing him in a trolley on a blanket.

Now the one learning the hardest lesson is Thomas our nine month old Labrador who is also training to be a Guide dog. All poor Thomas wants to do is play with Jesse or Sabina and we are keeping play time to a minimum. We need peace in our home, not romping dogs. Play time will be for outside and it will be supervised.

Thomas is doing so well. We are working very hard to get him to the place where he is ready for formal training. We do our best and in the end it is up to the dog. There is no guilt in puppy raising especially if we do our best. The most important lesson Thomas is learning at the moment is self control.

Self control is something we are always learning as well.

Jesse's First day

Jesse's First Day.

We waited at the Airport, knowing that our lives were about to change. Was this a wise decision or would we live to regret it. We now have three dogs in our home. Sabina who is six years old, Thomas who is eight months old and Jesse who is nine weeks old.

Sabina was our first service puppy. After Melody died we decided we would never have a dog of our own again. She was a black and white classic Border Collie. She was the most beautiful dog ever and we cried the day we took her to the Vet and stayed with her while she departed from this life. We mourned for three months.

Then we retired and after much discussion we decided to apply to become puppy raisers for Guide Dogs. Sabina came into our lives. What a learning curve that was for us. She turned out to be an excellent dog and the powers that be decided to breed with her. We were asked if we wanted to keep her and become Brood keepers. It took us ten days to make the final decision. We gave her up.

Jane became her carer and we booked one of her pups. The pup's name was Sizzle She was a blond Labrador and she turned out to be very unpredictable. One day she was able to do the work that was required and the next day she would be very skittish. She became a pet.

We booked another Sabina pup. This time a black male named Lenny. He was also a Labrador. What a lovely dog. Sadly he was sensitive to metal strips and would leap over them. He too became a pet and what a lovely pet he would make. I loved that dog so much.

Then Sabina was retired. This time when were offered her we jumped at the opportunity. Jane could no longer take care of her and she cried so much when she said goodbye. We cried with her as we handed a box of tissues, chocolates and a bottle of wine.

She is now our pet and we love her to pieces. The trouble is so do the pups that come into our home and Sabina is not impressed.