"I want a dog!"

I have a laundry list of faults, dithering is not one of them. I make up my mind and it stays that way, so I don't gain much thinking about whether I should have made that decision or not. This is most useful in situations involving expensive purses; I do not have buyers remorse.

On occasion, however, God reminds me of a decision I've made, prompting me to look back on my decisions to wonder why I made the decision that I did, when I did. The 'when' tends to be the more interesting than anything else, and more often that not, I learn something about myself I either didn't realize or need to be reminded of.

After three months of being a corgi mom, I suddenly found myself thinking back on the timing of the decision to get a dog. It went something like this:

What we said:

Boyfriend: I'm changing my work schedule! I'm going to work nights! I really prefer working nights, anyway! It's so much more fun to work at nights!

Me: Wow...that's...hmm. Well, I guess it comes with the job. You know I support you and the job, so, great! Hmm.

What we thought:

Boyfriend: Nights are fun, but they wreak havoc on the rest of your life. It's so much more difficult to see friends, or do things with people who have normal work weeks. It's going to be stressful. But this is also important for my career, I know I need to do this. Hmm.

Me: I know this is important to Boyfriend, and I support him, but geez, could he sound a little less excited about it? He keeps talking about how much fun nights are, but we're not going to see much of each other. Hmm.

What we did:

Boyfriend: Acted like a grouch.

Me: Rescued a dog.

Isn't it funny how the past becomes so much clearer once it stops being the present? Granted, I love dogs, grew up with dogs, and always wanted another one, I just thought I was going to wait until I had a house with a yard. Then my world got rattled a little bit, I became concerned that I'd see much less of Boyfriend and suddenly getting a dog seemed like a wonderful idea that I should explore right now, thank you very much! Once my mind was made up, off I went to petfinder.com and the rest is history.

This little trip into the psyche of Julie and company started when, after telling multiple people the story of how I got Caleb (not why I wanted a dog - the actual how he got here, and the topic of my next post), I received the exact same response: 'Wow, you got LUCKY!'

I have a fundamental problem with this, as I believe in being blessed, not lucky. Why, then, was I blessed with such a wonderful companion? I'm still mulling this over, but one thing I do know is that not only have I been blessed that the whole thing didn't go pear shaped from the get-go and actually worked out (and we're all adjusted to the shift change, so no worries there, either), but that I continue to be blessed by this little corgi in ways I never anticipated or imagined.

I'm not sure who rescued who, sometimes; but I'm sure it's part of a bigger plan. I just don't know what that plan is.