Maybe you don't know these things about me yet

I was thinking about what I post on here, and I decided to start sharing some more things about me.  So today I'm going to start by telling you some things I don't know if I've shared or not, but maybe I have.  If I repeat, sorry, but if not, maybe you'll learn a little more about me.

1. I have a bachelor's degree from The College of William and Mary as well as a Master's from another university, both in elementary education.  (Proud of my bachelor's degree, as you can see, but the Master's, to be honest, meh.  I didn't feel like I had to work for it, and so that's why I don't want to say where it's from.  I just felt like I basically paid the university for my degree.  Lousy feeling.  But my bachelor's?  Heck yeah, I earned that baby!!)

2. I got married the summer after I graduated, and got divorced three years later.  My ex wasn't a horrible person or anything, he just wasn't the one for me.  I had a lot of guilt about it after the divorce, and I also had to reconcile to myself that I might not ever find someone else, get married, or have children.  How lucky I am!

3. I love dogs, and I grew up with them as pets.  But after losing a very dearly beloved dog in college who was only 10 years old, and then having to put another dog to sleep during my first marriage, I no longer want one.  I love them too much and it's too hard to see them suffer and die.  The first one was Danny (yes, I know, that's part of my username.  See, you're learning all kinds of stuff about me) and he was the sweetest little baby ever.  He was part of our family, and losing him was a crushing blow.  He had pancreatitis, and died of chronic liver failure.  Technically we had him put to sleep, but that was because he was suffering.  I'll never forget the vet as she told us she could make him comfortable for a few more days.  Saying she had "pulled out the big guns" but it hadn't worked.  How she said dogs are brave animals and won't often let you know when they are hurting, so when you can tell, it's usually because they are in extreme pain.  Oh, how I cried losing that dog.  Aside from my family, I had never loved anyone as much as I loved that dog.  If you have never had a pet or one like that, it might sound cheesy or lame, but think of this.  We got him when I was ten.  That dog was by my side through all of middle school and high school, and hey, what are the worst years of school?  Middle school and high school.  So, even though he was "just" a dog, to go home to someone who would listen to me go on and on, try to comfort me when I cried, and loved me completely no matter what I did, that was such an important feeling.  Wow, that got to be a long story!  The other dog was named Sabian and he was a border collie.  My ex had really wanted one.  Anyway, this dog had a deformation--his lower jaw was a lot shorter than his upper jaw.  We got him in spring and by Thanksgiving he had developed what we thought was epilepsy.  He had seizures almost every single day between Christmas and the end of February.  Before he was ever even a year old, we had to put him to sleep.  The conclusion was that most likely his brain was also deformed in some way.  I lived in daily fear of him seizing to death in the back yard and coming home to a dead dog, a dog I would have known had died suffering.  I couldn't take it.  That was pretty much the end of my marriage, too, because that on top of everything else going wrong, my ex couldn't understand that I was not healthy and needed a break from pets.  He just kept telling me, "But I want one.  It'll make me happy."  No matter how much I told him I was going to go into the hospital with a nervous breakdown, how I'd lost so much weight, etc.  It always kind of came back to him.  What did he want.  And that was when I really, really knew: he didn't love me and I definitely didn't love him.  So I'm thankful for the dog, because even though he died, he had a happy short life with us and in a way he saved me. 

Well I was going to do five things, but the dog one kind of got out of control, so I'm going to stop there for now.  Later I'll have some more things and some stories to share.