Today’s is a Video Journal and I’ll transcribe it here, but please do watch for a whole lot of fun pictures and even a little puppy video at the end. 

You can watch it on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube. Thanks!

I just thought that since I was dressed in something other than pjs or plaid – I got dressed up for a video and audio interview with Jann Arden to which I’ll link at the end (you’re going to want to listen; we talk about EVERYTHING) – and I was all made up, why not shoot a video journal?

There’s been a little change in our family and I wanted to tell you about it, without going into too many details. But let me just say I know a whole lot more about how puppies are made than I ever have in my 61 years! And it’s not how you think – oh, no! It’s not the “dirty dancing” in the street, it’s a 20-minute ordeal in which he does it THREE TIMES, each visit!

Dottie went away for her “dirty weekend” last week and I’ll take you back a bit. Our little Havanese (who’s 1-1/2 years old) is part of a breeding program – I think, a Swedish model – which is what she looked like, and oh, so did he.

He’s a #1 Havanese in Canada and his name is Radar and he’s gorgeous.

Dottie went into season, or heat, about two weeks ago. So we called Bev, our breeder at mistytrails.ca, and had her blood tested and she was ready! So up we went to Cobble Hill, about a 45-minute drive from our place. As we drove, we explained to her the facts of life, and sang “Girl, you’ll be a woman soon…” (thanks Neil Diamond). So the metaphorical candles were lit, the lingerie laid out and, well, we left her there with Bev and Radar’s mom Trudi for three days.

There was no encouragement needed; she was all in (and so was he, if you catch my drift). Friday we went back and picked her up and she was so thrilled to see us that she was jumping up and down so hard we were worried about her undoing all of that passionate play of the previous days!

So, did it take? Well, Bev is 95% sure the visit was effective. In about two months (just around Christmas time) Dottie will be expected to have puppies. Here’s the strange part: we won’t know if she’s pregnant for another month or so – or halfway through her gestation period, if you can believe it – as her body hardly changes. There are ultrasounds and blood tests available, but that’ll be up to us.

She might have five or six puppies and we’ll get a little bit of money from each one, and it means we’ll be without Dottie for about eight weeks in the new year, which is fine because that means no dog walks for much of our rainy season. She’ll be a wonderful and caring mom because she’s just so chill, this light and love of our lives. So now, we hopefully go through pregnant Dottie-hood.

You may be wondering if we’ll take one of Dottie’s puppies and I think we get first pick, but as much as I’ll whine like Dot did leaving her boyfriend, I’m sure, we’re pretty adamant that we are not going to mess with the domestic perfection of our situation with one dog at home.

Speaking of home, my bestie Lisa Brandt is back from her three weeks in Italy and we’re sitting down this week to do our first fully-new podcast in a month. I cannot wait for her to share her stories as we launch into Gracefully and Frankly episode 43. Jann was so generous to talk about G&F and also about Drift with Erin Davis, my sleep stories podcast that is reaching a worldwide community now with close to a quarter MILLION downloads! Both podcasts are free, thanks to Kim & Kathy at enVypillow.com. Click the links, subscribe and you’ll never miss an episode of either.

Thanks for coming by and it’s good to have done a video journal again – hope you watched it. And to listen to quite an amazing chat with Jann Arden, here’s the link.