I Decided To Give The Unconventional New Year A Try

I didn't get much sleep this morning. I got up over an hour earlier than usual. After finishing my second cup of coffee, I took Lobo's 1st Day of School photo. He's the only willing participant. Coco and Sophie just gave me THE LOOK...as if to say, "Don't even think about it." When that was done, I uploaded the photo, edited, added a caption, and posted to several social media sites including Our Bodacious Dog Mom Life Facebook page.

At that moment, I didn't immediately dive into work stuff. I sat on the love seat in the home office, leaned my head back, and spent about 30 minutes in deep thought.

Today is the 1st day of school in my neck of the woods. It's also the last day of August. In a few short days, it's Labor Day weekend. 

One of the things I thought about were the articles published by Mommy (of human kids) bloggers who dedicate the first day of school as The New Year. For them, The New Year doesn't start on January 1st. It's always the first day of school. Their reasons vary, but they make sense.

These Moms of human kids are onto something...

I'm fairly certain these articles popped into my head because this summer has been much different than the past few summers. For starters, we had no events booked. Last summer we had events booked every weekend and on one weekend, we double booked.

In July, we made some much needed changes during our Bodacious Biscuit Love Evolution. You can read about that here, here and here.

I also determined that I am going through my mid-life-crisis.

Lisa's week-long vacation didn't turn out exactly as planned, but it ended up being a productive week.

Last week, I made a couple of difficult decisions regarding a local business I was helping out.

I corresponded with a family member I hadn't heard from in a long time. My last reply went unanswered. I wasn't surprised.

In the past few days, I've been distracted by an altercation that occurred on Sunday and a stupid phone call Lisa received Monday evening.

I sat there and thought about everything. I honed in on the most recent. I took my mental fluorescent yellow marker and highlighted the stream of events over the past week or so.

I chose a word. Epiphany.

The past week has been saturated with happenings. I can easily compare these moments with the proverbial hand that whups me upside the head screaming, "Wake up, Lisa!"

Shake! Shake! Shake! Whup!

I've spiraled in and out of lengthy periods of simply just thinking. The overnights have been no exception. I've been distracted. A lot. Although it has drained me, I'm grateful for this wake up call. All of it.

At that moment, I sat forward. Lobo was in his doggy bed. He looked at me.

"Lobo, I need to get my shit together. I can't have another month like August. I need to focus and stay focused. There are homemade dog biscuit recipes to be made and DIY Dog Mom projects to create."

He ran up to my feet. Tail wagging. Making one of his many noises. I picked him up.

I have goals. We have goals. There's a lot of work to be done before those goals are met. Those goals will never be reached if I continue to bend over backwards, to the point of snapping, for others, extend my services, waste our time with one-way relationships, etc.

That shit needs to stop. Now.

I decided to give the unconventional New Year a try. Today. First day of school. Screw January 1st.

Today starts the new year.

If that means embracing the fall season a wee bit early, so be it.