Hey this is another catch up post.  I didn’t get a chance to blog on Sunday too too too much going on!  So here I am with two pictures for you today!

SUNDAY:

I was feeling a bit down and thought I would spend a minute with Roxy.  For those of you who might be new readers to my blog Roxy was our first dog together.  We got her about 7 months after we had been married (pretty much as soon as we moved into a house!).  She was a yellow lab given to us by my cousin Ricky (who is getting married soon!)  This doggie was amazing and we went through a lot to keep her with us.  She started off with demodectic mange which is unlike the regular mange you are used to in the fact that it’s not contagious but it’s hereditary?  Anyways we spent lots of money getting her better.  Then TW’s brother Luke backed over her in a Volkswagon Beetle sending her to an overnight stay at the vet’s office in which I really didn’t believe she was coming back home with us.  Then my lovely husband decided to throw her on the back of a flatbed truck at about 6 months old (without tying her in) and going 60mph down the highway.  Needless to say she fell off and we (nix that, I) had to doctor her for a few weeks.  Long story short we were on vacation and excited to see her when we got home.  We took some stuff to the dump and brought her along with us.  This is really sad and it was my fault completely, but I had let her off the leash to go to the bathroom and I wasn’t paying good attention to her.  She was across the street bothering (I like to call it loving) a little girl and the mom was obviously frustrated by my dog.  I immediately called for her not thinking and she ran right across the road in front of a truck (he was only going about 25mph).  I saw everything and ran to her aid.  I really thought she was the toughest dog on the planet at this point so there was no doubt in my mind that she would make it.  I got to her barefooted and embraced her.  As I lifted her up and ran to the truck I felt her body go limp.  Despite all our efforts (speeding to the vet and trying to give her CPR) I lost Roxy in my arms that day.  She knew I was trying to help her and it comforts me to know that I was there for her. It was a very very hard few weeks.  I never knew how much I really cared for her.  I was totally bummed.  I couldn’t function it was horrible.  I realized I didn’t even want to go home because I knew she wasn’t there and it just didn’t feel like home without her.  At that point I realized I needed somewhere else to funnel my love for her.  I took a few days and then started searching for my new companion.  I had Stephanie a good friend from college who loves doggies as much if not more than I do help me in my search.  She found some chocolate labs in the paper and called me up.  She went with me to pick her out.  I’ll admit it wasn’t love at first sight when I picked Ellie.  Sure she was cute as could be, but she wasn’t trained to do all the cool stuff I wanted her to do and she didn’t even know me nor I her.  Soon enough though time passed and Ellie is now my new best friend.  Roxy will never be replaced and these two girls are very much different from each other but she’ll always be loved.

MONDAY:

Wow it’s been a super busy day over here, as if you couldn’t tell from how many blog posts I’ve made today!  I had to take a break and get outside for a minute.  Sometimes I feel like I live in cyberspace and not real life just because I can type faster than I can talk!  It was such a beautiful day today I sure hope you got a little bit of time to get outside and enjoy it for yourself!  I took a little hike behind our house with my camera looking for ideas of what to capture for the day to describe how I feel.  All day I’ve been feeling a little bit imperfect.  A little too large for a 21 week pregnant lady, a little too lazy around the house, a little too behind on all my shoots, a little messy without any makeup on, a little too distant from my family, a little too busy to spend time with Ellie, overall just not good enough.

Then Kori a local photographer (also a friend who shares the same due date!?!?!?!) posted this on her facebook page this morning trying to enlighten us all.  I’ll say it worked for the few minutes I spent reading it as well as a few minutes following but then I fell right back into that rut again.

Enjoy!

-erika

Tags: erika dotson, erika dotson photography

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 6:50 pm and is filed under 365 Self Portrait Project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.