pet connection

Working at Global Pet Expo last weekend with the Pet Connection team was a dream come true. They asked me to write my first post while at the show, and I happily wrote it in under an hour.

I had Gina and David sitting in the desks next to me in the press room. (You can see us at right, with Gina on the left, taken in the press room at GPE.)  This didn’t intimidate me, which it should have as they are seasoned journalists, but instead it gave me a comfortable feeling, like family. I also knew if I ran into writing trouble I could yell over at David and ask, “What was that term you used at breakfast to describe hip/cool/mod?”

“Edgy”

Bang, Bang. Back to typing away I went.

Back home now. Yesterday, sitting in my home office (read: The desk I have in the living room.) I felt pressure from myself. I was officially hired by Pet Connection. They announced my bio and Gina had written admiring words about me.

OMG, now I have to produce a post alone. And my mind started telling me, “Make it the best post ever. Write an amazing break-though masterpiece.” Mind you, my kids are on spring break, and we were painting Easter eggs, they had friends running in and out of the house, and we had a quick trip to Walgreens to buy more eggs.

OK, back to my masterpiece post. I started writing. And re-writing for about three hours. I stopped and went upstairs and hid under the covers around noon.

Like an ostrich.

Can Gina, Christie and David see me? No. But Roxi, my boinging Chihuahua could. As I peeked out from the covers she jumped up and down, hence boinging, clearly wondering what the heck was I doing in bed in the middle of the day.

I can do this. I wrote and rewrote, and I hated it. I had spent too much time on it and it was overwritten and I couldn’t even remember what the point was.

After re-reading it this morning, I see I had ended up writing an “article,” not a post. My writing background is newspapers and magazines. Dang, Ericka, switch gears. Write a freakin’ post.

So, here I am posting on the blog. Writing about what I know. My life. With 26 pets, a hubby and two kids. After I write this post I’m going to get out of bed and go make my animal rounds. Not outside at a farm, as most people jokingly tell me I have. But, within my house.

Roxi, laying in the bed next to me (Yes, I am typing this on my laptop in my PJs, super cool feeling) is waiting for my feet to hit the floor,  her signal for “Go, the day is starting!”

My morning rounds:

I’ll walk by the cage for the dwarf hamster cage and squeeze the water bottle to make sure it is working. Trot downstairs and hug Julia and Nico (my children) and then hubby. Yes, we are big-time huggers. Probably all those years I have spent in the South.

I’ll then check on Coco, my three-pound Chihuahua with epilepsy and blood sugar issues. Roxi, my sturdy 10-poundChihuahua, always sniffs Coco, too. I then give Coco her phenobarbitol and some food.

Meanwhile, my seven downstairs cats are milling about talking to me. (One cat, Sophia, lives upstairs in Julia’s room. Sophia has issues. I’ll blog about that later.) Georgia, the kitten, pokes her claws in my PJs and hangs on my leg.

I go check on the turtles. I have the three big ones (Brownie, Greenie and Jane) in the large tank. Sometimes the boys, vying for attention, bite Jane’s legs.  I eyeball their social status.

Next tank down are my medium red-eared sliders. I turn on their heat lamp.

Are you tired yet? People joke to me they get tired thinking about caring for so many pets. I love it.

I then walk over (to the tank abutting my desk next to the couch downstairs) to check on Dina, my alligator snapping turtle. She is doing what she always does. Nothing. All OK with her.

Near the TV is Spike’s Terrarium. I flip on his UV lamp. He’s a Bearded Dragon, so later today I will go in the garage and grab some live crickets, sprinkle calcium dust on them, and feed Spike. Not now, it is Saturday and Julia is afraid of crickets. (Is she really my daughter? Hmmmmm.)

Almost done. I go outside to greet Bella (blind) and Gigi, our SharPeis. Andrea has already let them out for the day. I rub Gigi’s soft velvety head, then get on the ground so Bella can nuzzle against me.

Looking up, I see the rabbits are running around their warren. They have plenty of hay, check. They have an automatic watering system so I don’t have to check that today.

Last round. I talk to the parakeets, who live in a big cage outside. They chirp back.I feel like Snow White~ all my critters around me and life is good.

Whoa, I’ve written a post. Yeah!  I didn’t stress over it this time. I can really do this, OMGosh.

Now Roxi is REALLY boinging crazily, so I need to get out of bed and go do all the rounds I just wrote about.

Share & Enjoy

Facebook	Twitter	Google Buzz	Digg
Technorati	StumbleUpon	Delicious	Email