#I’m so used to being broke but I can allocate myself a lil bit of spending money to get at least the top three things

[treewithabark]

Just an unnecessarily long post about dog gear I want- scroll by if you don’t want my ramble

So in feb I’m gonna have a treat yo self month because it be my birthday, and I may have a lil extra spending money from working a bunch of overtime during Christmas (I am knackered but I needed the cash and work needed my assistance)

And seeing as no-one likes buying me dog gear as Christmas/birthday gifts I’m gonna buy myself these nice things.

I wanna get Juno a lovely leather collar, nefjas person sent me a link to a German company who make elk leather collars in a martingale style??? Absolute perfection. I’ve been a sucker for martingales for a couple of years now and am reluctant to turn back.

What a delectable collar. So chic. So stylish. Fancy collar for my non-fancy mutt to strut about the town with (no flooded field walks for that collar)

Gonna pair it with a brand new cute dog tag because Juno currently wears Hana’s old one. I think after a year she’s earned her own tag, don’t you think?

Lookit!!! So cute!! It’s not Juniper tree but it’s close enough (don’t tell my partner, the tree surgeon, I said that). Would look so good with the collar.

And since my mendota lead is looking real ropey (haha, because it’s a rope?) I’m gonna treat myself to a new one. It’s served me so well but I did not look after it. Now it smells and is fraying and the leather by the clasp is loose. It just looks a mess. Love my mendota lead, don’t love that I’ve destroyed it. I did dabble with the idea of an adjustable lead but they’re all flat and I’m sorry but round leads are superior. I’m not ready to go back to flat. Mendota so comfy, mendota so röund, medota have goldish clasp to match tag and collar ring.

But do I stop the spending there?? I’ve been gagging for a ruffwear backpack but my lord £100 for a backpack??? I know it’s quality, built to last, and most importantly designed to minimise injury but it’s a rather frivolous spend.

My reasoning is that added weight to some walks may help reduce some pulling, she’s so much better but still gets excitable. It can be useful if we wanna go on longer hikes once my partner and I have time to do some weekends away. Carrying water etc. I really want to do a camping getaway at some point and having her carry her own food is adorable and practical. But also it could be useful on days where we want or need to be a bit lazier. Dog needs exercising but we’re burned out/ill? Cool, mile and a half sniffy walk with lightly packed backpack. If I wanna tire her out because we have plans and need her nice and calm? Boom, backpack walk.

Also, backpack cute. Backpack could have patches. Backpack bring joy to look at. Backpack make chronically ill days much easier.

Backpack.

Oh there’s also an adorable martingale collar on Etsy that I want. An unnecessary purchase but I so rarely find a martingale I really really like (I’m picky okay)

But there are things that I could spend my money on that is (arguably) needed more. Waterproof longline, new treat pouch, new walking boots because mine are leaky, dog toys that serve a purpose more than “it squeaks and can be thrown”. I also need a haircut and new prescription glasses but it’s more fulfilling to spend money on the dog.

GAH! Maybe I’ll win the lottery on Friday and I can buy it all. But until then I gotta budget and make informed purchases.

Anyway I just wanted to rant to the void because I usually do all this in my head but I wanna get more active on tumblr and sometimes airing these thoughts helps make decisions. And if you suddenly see me posting Juno in 4k completely decked out in new gear in the mountains? I’ve won the lottery, quit work to travel with dog that has a whole new wardrobe, captured on a top of the line point and shoot 😂

#so many things so little money #but also my February paycheque lines up perfectly with rent #long story short the way the dates line up I don’t have to use any of my feb pay to pay rent #a rare but very welcome occurrence #I’m so used to being broke but I can allocate myself a lil bit of spending money to get at least the top three things #but the backpack would be completely frivolous #i do have an Amazon voucher from my mother for Christmas and I could use it to cover some of the cost if I order through there #she doesn’t have to know that I still used Christmas money on dog things #and at this point I’m sure she knows I do it

[neureaux]

oh oh, btw!! my reference for uni got sorted out, i managed to get it all sorted in the end so i’ve been a bit less stressed too. also, the guy that broke in got sentenced to 30 months in prison, so there have been some positive moves whilst i’ve been at the retreat! i forgot to update, but that’s when i booked the trip - or around then anyway. my therapists were saying like, maybe it’ll be good for me to get away whilst amber gets my bedroom ready for when i come home, and we try and ease back into making it feel safe again and i just thought, ‘why not?’ so i decided to tick a place off my list that i’ve dreamt about as a lil’ wine lover, since i’ll be parting w/ it. to me, it seems perfect!

there’ll be lots of work to do when i come home, but i haven’t smoked cigarettes since the beginning of the year and i plan to completely stop drinking when i come home (haven’t drank since then either but i will lightly in bordeaux) and i’ll be focused on physio, surgery, university prep and studying, training at my job and moving homes - as well as all my new referrals to help me manage things here and to help me remember to factor in catharsis. they hooked me up with 1 to 1 music therapy to re-learn the cello, light CBT that i can have regularly whilst waiting for the national trauma clinic thing to start, a chronic pain support group, grief counselling and things like yoga and pilates, and little art classes and stuff which i’ll ease myself into when i come home and start getting organised.

i think generally moving towards working through stuff slowly, and filling my schedule again especially when i first get back will help me ease off the emotional crutches i fell back into over the winter like drinking etc, and having taken some time at the retreat where i couldn’t really do that and had to focus on making arrangements for my wellbeing has been really great. i didn’t expect to make friends here either, but i did! i have a post coming up about the girls soon but essentially they have been a big part of my healing too, and we were there for eachother when kind of everyone else in our lives couldn’t quite be in the way that we needed, and we laughed and ate together, and it was just so much more raw and cathartic than i thought it would be.

the beginning is absolutely not going to be a cakewalk, and the confusing, turbulent feelings that i’m working through in terms of my relationship are still going to be here when i get back, but i think everyone here is right about reclaiming my independence as well as my emotional independence.

at the end of the day, i know that i would never have left the country when so much had happened to him if the roles were reversed(granted he didn’t know about the suicidey thing on NYE but he knew i had started to feel that way), and i’m still figuring out what to do with that information. the fact that when i raise the big concerns, they get shelved if i’m lenient instead of addressed or rectified. it’s definitely been pointed out to me a lot that maybe he just couldn’t handle it, seeing all the pain that i was in AND his own life as well and maybe they’re right on that too!! i just think that for me and my own philosophies personally, love for me would trump fear or inner-cowardice and it often has, i feel i have pushed myself a lot and sometime succeeded, sometimes failed but always tried - but i think i’ve always known him to be more fragile than me, and generally skittish and yeah, a bit cowardly maybe - but if you have looked me in the eyes and said, ‘i’m worried about you. i feel like things are just piling and piling onto you.’ and then left me to leave the country in the midst, twice, i think i have reservations - but i’m figuring out what they are. maybe the rational thing here would be to accept that i may be braver than him and move on, work through it and let it go as it’s already been done but is it possible that i deserve somebody that can actually look after my core needs, that i don’t have to bend for or chase? someone that doesn’t hold me, soothe me and kiss me but then regularly let me know how much of an inconvenience my PTSD is for them as if the irritability spouts/agitation moments don’t come from inconceivable fear for me and constant overwhelming sensitivity to my environment and senses? sometimes, tenderness may come with a price - but i do believe that people do exist that are both tender AND brave. i still have that little unhealthy instinct in my head that says that people like us are too much to really be loved properly anyway, but i think that if we’re working to break patterns and get better, maybe it’s rational to fight that and say no, maybe we deserve passion and understanding even if we have tough days, so long as we work to offer that too. maybe we deserve the wonder and magic that others can access. i’ll have to think more about it, really.

reintegration in general with society will be a journey, but i’ll have to just take it day by day. i think i just need to focus on setting small goals and taking things on piece by peice, pursuing the things that make me feel happy and fulfilled, and learning to sit with the moments of sadness and reflection and really trying to take something from them in the way of learning - and then separating from them, moving on. for now, i won’t look too far ahead. i’ll look at the things that i can solve, and allocate time to try and figure out the tougher stuff in chunks and manage my emotions when i do, because especially in terms of my relationship, they really cycle at the moment. i feel genuine love, pain, resentment, hope, and sometimes a sense of finality but i just need to figure it out. at the end of the day, he’s a flawed human being and he deserves someone to be patient for him too, but it’s hard when he doesn’t really know how to navigate returning that courtesy emotionally properly yet and i’m not really in a position to teach him. even if he had left now, towards the end of january as he had originally agreed, this may have been a different conversation and a different thought process, but the fact that my coming here was an incentive to leave early as opposed to really finding out why i needed to be here in the first place spoke to me on a volume that i find it hard to quantify with words.

well, here’s to more thinking!!

#ah life #lmao #personal