Becoming a pack leader

This weekend while I was in Chicago, I discovered the Dog Whisperer.
I have always "heard" of this man and his amazing ability to calm the wildest of wild dog(s). This weekend, I was introduced. And I watched and watched his show. After watching it, I realized some things about how I was treating Poppy and how Poppy was treating me. I am carrying this over to my personal and professional life. The DW philosophy in how you work with canines in being the pack leader is thee following: A pack leader does not project emotional or nervous energy and neither should you. This is what the DW calls calm-assertive energy.

This makes totally sense to me in working with my dog and in my own life because people just like dogs like it when someone is in control. In terms of people, you don't want to "control" someone but be in control; have a say, make a decision, make a point, disagree if need be, but be in control of you. In a calm and quiet way. When you have control in a calm and quiet way everything falls into place and you gain respect. Respect in a positive, leadership, trustworthy and a nice kind of way.

I've already noticed a difference within myself in how I work my coworkers, my boss and my clients. I definitely noticed it tonight with Poppy. She and I had an amazing experience during our walk to the dog park and when I took her off the leash at the park.

I guess there is a reason they call the DW the Dr Phil of dogs. I just never paid that much attention to Dr Phil.

just breathe....

Sometimes it takes some time away to realize how great it is to come back home to familiar surroundings to make your thoughts come back to perspective. Thanks again to all the warm comments--it truly means so much.
Taking a step back, I'll share what was going on last time I posted.
The week of my last post, we found out E got the job with American Eagle as a first officer pilot. YAY!

I'll be honest my first reaction was not so positive. On the outside for him, I was extremely excited. On the inside--scared, sad--weepy to be exact, and well, just plain scared. Scared of more change. Scared of what this means for us financially for the next 5 or so years while he is just getting started at a regional airline, scared of what it could possibly mean for me and our marriage knowing he will be gone so much until he gets to a point with a major airline and has established seniority.Scared about what this means for us and my desire to start adding to our family of two. So with all this emotion, I became REALLY WEEPY. Weepy to the point that it was difficult for me to admit what I was thinking and feeling.

I am very fortunate to have such a great support system here, that I started to share my feelings and began to seek advice from others who have been or are in my similar situation. I also gained the confidence to share my thoughts and feelings with E--while we were downing a bottle of celebratory champagne. Gotta love bubbly courage.

Nonetheless, I received positive support from everyone! This enabled me to get back on my feet and realize that it will all be okay and life in general will have a way of working itself out--family, finances and all.

So, I am in the midst of trying to get caught up with everyone..I have missed you all so.

note to self--don't take things personally

Throughout the day today I've been rehashing a conversation that took place last night. I can't help but feel extremely pissed off, annoyed and personally attacked by this individual. I recognized that this person was giving my husband "pilot career advice" and validating some of the thoughts Eli has about certain airlines or a pilot path he should or should not take. However,when you tell the wife that it sucks that she is in a good job or not mobile..meaning able to pick up and move for her husband's job as a pilot, you piss the living hell out of her and she is not going to be nice in future conversations you have with her for the rest of the evening.
Let's go back in time....
Eli and I head over to a family friend's home for a great Christmas dinner. Upon arriving, Eli meets a friend who is a pilot for a commercial airline. These two immediately start talking for a very long time. I am chatting up everyone else, catching up with my MIL, etc. Next thing I know, we are in a conversation of why we decided to buy instead of rent, questions on whether or not I am mobile or if my job allows me to be mobile and then I hear that I suck because my job is good and that Eli can't move around for his pilot training and that he should be sleeping on couches etc. When this comes out, I become extremely defensive and say that I have been there done that--paid my dues for my job and that we are lucky that I have a decent paying job so that Eli can pursue his dream. I understand what it takes for him to get to where he needs to be--being away ALOT of the time. I get that, I am not happy about it, but I get that. Eli comes in on my behalf and explains to this guy how supportive I am, etc. Finally this guy gets it and is all about how great I am. Sweet.
I know Eli knows that I am fully on board with his dream and I am beginning to understand that being married to a pilot is not going to be easy. Right now we are getting by on my salary which is great but I know how much he hates that I am pulling the weight around here. I think what pissed me off about this guy is how one sided he was. I know you don't know what you don't know and it is very obvious that he has no idea what being married means or even how your choices in life affect others. I guess it just made me so mad that here I am giving up things--willingly so that my husband can have the career of his dreams--so don't tell me that I suck. Because honestly I don't.
I don't know if this guy meant it or not or that it was the wine talking but he seriously made me upset. This of course lead to me being very sarcastic--I daresay bitchy towards him at dinner. Eli then got pissed at me for being a bitch--ummm didn't this guy tell me that I suck????!!!!

note to self--get over it and don't take things personally because it is not worth the extra energy it takes to get upset over it.

Bonita Mama!

Bonita Mama.. this was shouted at me at 9am on Friday morning as I was half awake watering my plants on my balcony. Now this normally would not bother me and I might on a good day take it as a compliment. However, knowing the lurkers, aka the construction men that are literally a stones throw across the street.. I mean fire lane away from my apartment saying this, iritates the crap out of me.

The reason this iritates me so much is that I accidently gave these men a peep show one morning. I am so embrassed even writing about this. E and I like to sleep with our patio door open. Now that we are living in California and so close to the ocean, we are spoiled by how cool it gets in the evening thus we like to open the doors to get a cool breeze instead of turning on the AC. Well, of course the one morning that i FORGET that we had the door and thus the blinds open. I trot out of the shower, with very little clothing and proceed to put lotion on. I start to feel like I am being watched and of course, I turn around and see a construction dude just lurking at my window. Mortified, I crouched down and scramble for some decent cover up so I can crawl my way to the bathroom to put on any sort of clothing I can find.

Needless to say I did manage to recover and cover myself and close the blinds so I could finish my morning routine without the lurkers. Everytime I step outside to my balcony I am a little grossed out. Let's just say I am so happy we are moving out of this joint and i have learned my lesson to be fully robed or clothed when I walk out of the bathroom.

Falling Behind

I am definitely lacking in my posting these days. The main reason is most of the stuff that is going on, I just can't quite talk about yet. Hopefully soon though. I appreciat everyone's thoughts from my last post. Many of you hit it on the head on the cause of my feelings regarding my brother's wedding. Truth of it is, I am not sure what to expect this weekend but I know no matter what I am there to support my brother and his soon wife and welcome them with open arms into our family. Many family members i have not seen since our wedding so it will be great fun to hang out rather then feeling like I need to circle room like we did for ours. My dress is hella sassy and my heels make me at least 5'6 so I am REALLY excited. hee hee.

The one annoying thing we are dealing with is we got scammed or so it seems on a car we recently purchased. We wanted to get rid of our jeep so we no longer have the heavy car payment to get something used with no car payment that would last for a year or two until we can get back on our feet. Once Eli does quit his southwest job and flies for Regional carrier his take home pay will decrease and his loan payments will kick next year--so instead of trying to stay ahead of the game--we got screwed! Bottom line the schmuck that sold us this car--did not give us all the paper work. We have the title but not the bill of sale from the dealership that sold the car to him. In order to register the car we need that. The guy is MIA and not returning any of our phone calls. We tried to call the dealership--no luck--private seller who sells cars wholesale to Mexico. WE got HOOOOSED. The sad thing is I love this little car--1994 black BMW that is in almost perfect condition. We would need to do some work on the transmission but we were more then willing to put forth the $$$ in this car. Blah. Thank goodness we did not sell the jeep. We are just now the proud owners of 3 freaking cars! 1984 volvo, 1994 BMW and a 2004 jeep cheroke. Yes, go ahead and laugh. We are nuts.