For those of you who don't know I have two beautiful dogs, Sierra and Tiger, who you can sometimes spot on my advertising.  Normally they are wonderful dogs, but today their names are mud!

I had just finished spending a boatload of money on all that back to school shopping that seems to double in cost every year and was settling down in my office to finish up some projects when my two boys rush in to announce that there were deer in our pool!

Our dogs act as our wildlife alarms, anything that wanders too near the house must be barked at and chased off the property if at all possible.  That's their job and why we keep feeding them after all!  So they were probably just doing their job chasing a doe and a fawn (insert your own Bambi and mother comment here) and they must have chased them towards the house.  This caused the deer to make a break in the direction of the pool with unfortunate results.

My kids and I tried to heard them out of the pool and I couldn't help sympathizing with the mother as she swam circles around her baby.  It was so sad and familiar, knowing she wanted out so bably but having no tools to do so with.  I called Animal Control and put the pool cover down the side for her to climb out on.  We even got a rope around her and tried to pull her out (deer are surprisingly strong swimmers).  We did manage to get the fawn close enough to pull out, leaving the mother to continue treading water.  The poor baby was scared, but waited faithfully by the poolside for momma.

All I could think was that if she only calmed down a bit, she'd be out of the pool in no time.  But she just kept scratching at the sides and not making any progress.  After what seemed like hours, but was probably only about twenty minutes, the fawn began to move away.  It kept hesitating, looking back as if to say "should I go now?  Are you going to just stay there and tread water?".  At that point, the mother finally pulled herself together enough to crawl up the side and get out (without using the convenient pool cover, of course).

Did I happen to mention that our pool is a doughboy?  With all the scratching and scrambling, we went from a "beautiful home with a lovely bakyard pool" to a "beautiful home" und under thrity minutes!

As I was watching the deer struggle in the pool, it made me think.  As my heart was heavy with worry for their safety, I found myself getting angry as well.  If only she'd calm down and look around, everything would be all right!  There are days that I feel like that.  Like I'm floundering around, just trying to stay afloat and not lose sight of my kids or my husband, knowing that if something doesn't change soon my true self will sink.  I'll fall into habits of laziness with my clients or let my regular schedule lapse or just let self doubt overwhelm me if I lose sight of my family and my goals.  I need to remind myself that, although she left us without a pool, that deer gave me a lesson in persistance and the will to survive.

In today's uncertain market, youfind yourself treading a lot of water.  To get out of a bad situation in your job or your life, you first need to calm down and keep your family close.  Next, you should look around for the folks that are putting down the pool cover for you -- they are there to help.