Crazy is as crazy does

Molly is the newest canine addition to our Unfarm family. Our reasoning for getting her was as follows: Scout needed a playmate closer to his own age. Axel likes the companionship of other dogs, but has - we quickly learned - absolutely no interest in playing with an overactive upstart of a puppy. Enter Molly, stage right.  She is a small, ten pound cocker spaniel and chihuahua mix with soft, short, caramel brown fur and brown eyes. She is cute, certainly, and sweet, definitely, but she is also - unfortunately - a tad bit crazy.

The shy, five month old puppy we thought we were adopting turned out to be closer to eighteen months old and "shy" is an understatement. She is scared. Terrified, actually. Petrified, even. At least fifty percent of the time. And what here on the Unfarm could be so scary? Oh, lots of stuff including, but not limited to: bike racks, floor vents, doorways, sewer drain covers, metal plates in the sidewalk, storm drains, changes in the color of the sidewalk, people (outside the family), other dogs, pet stores, slippery floors, dog bowl platforms, and dog bowls themselves (but only certain ones.)

And how did we end up with such a "special" little thing? We adopted her from a local rescue who got her from a shelter in southern California where she was picked up as a stray which means we have no history on her: no clue how her formative months were spent, or how long she was on the streets, or how she ended up there in the first place. We have nothing to go on and are left to try and undo months of deep seated issues.

She is nothing if not neurotic, which is probably why she fits in so well here. Half of us are crazy (Scout is a puppy, and by definition that makes him crazy) or special needs (we've got a duck with a limp and a chicken with a permanent broken toe - rest assured, neither issue causes the birds any pain) so the addition of Molly just adds more character to the Unfarm.

It's not all bad, though. She loves Scout and plays with him daily and worships the ground Axel walks on and will spend half of her walks jumping up to give Axel kisses (which he mostly rejects.) She also loves beds and sleeps all night with Mom and Dad on theirs with them, then spends Dad's working weeks sleeping all day with him. She is, to quote Dad, "a good little sleeper" and has taken over Maia's duties of keeping Dad company while he sleeps. Molly also, inexplicably, loves the beach. I thought for sure she would be terrified of the sand or the water or the noise or the people or everything combined but by some miracle she wasn't. She happily followed Scout, Axel and I into the water and splashed about in the waves, getting soaked in the process.

So how to increase the good times and decrease the stress and anxiety for Molly? We're going to try getting her on the friends and family plan at the local pharmacy. I think that enough of us are on mood stabilizing drugs that we qualify for getting another prescription for free. Whether or not it will help any remains to be seen but I will keep you posted.

Got daily art?

Umm... nope. At least, not right now. I have decided, for the time being anyway, that I'm going to put the daily art on hold for an as-yet-undetermined length of time. Partly because I'm sick of my giant printer/scanner taking up space on my desk, and partly because I need to get some serious art done soon and having the daily art hanging over me every single day is making me avoid the art I need to do.

My main concern now, after announcing the hold on the daily art, is that this exposes me as not a real artist. I feel like a real artist would be happy to do art every day. Would be excited to do art every day. Would not run out of ideas of something to draw after only a few weeks and have to resort to drawing every fruit I can lay hands on in the kitchen.

On top of everything, I feel a vague sort of anxiety starting to settle in, which I hate. It comes out of nowhere and settles in like it knows that it will be here a while so it might as well get comfortable. I hate battling off a funk. Especially when I don't know exactly what brought it on. (Not knowing where your enemy is coming from greatly reduces how well you can plan your battle, I find.) So I guess I'll stick to the old standby of reading organization books and watching TV in an effort to forget my anxiety until it - hopefully - goes away on its own. (Probably not the method most mental health professionals would recommend, but I'd rather do that than sit around analyzing my anxiety. I prefer to ignore it, whenever possible.)