Just a quick post for now

I finally, after much trial and error, have figured out how to make my own favicon, which is the little picture to the left of the URL in the address bar of your browser. Too cool! Let me know if you don't see it, please, OK?


Talk more later.

My Bee Corner

We have a raised garden in the backyard that I've planted as a garden for a couple years or so. The first year I went a little crazy with tomatoes, both regular and cherry. We had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with. This year I've decided not to plant anything but instead to focus on building up the soil so I'm leaving most of it unplanted. Last weekend we weeded the small section we're keeping planted. Of course, there were many, many dandelions among the weeds and they were buzzing with bees. I felt bad tearing up their food (although I'm sure with all the dandelions in the lawn they would have been fine) so I saved a small corner of dandelions that I call my Bee Corner. Bees are undergoing such a bad time that I wanted to do even a little something to help. Let me present my Bee Corner.

I also want to thank Andrea for her beautiful RAK thank you card. I LOVE the Little Lady set from Paper Trey Ink. I think it was the first set I purchased from them and it's still a favorite of mine. Thank you Andrea.

Dry eye

You may remember that I had posted previously about Bear having some greenish drainage from his eyes. We'd tried the liquid and the ointment version of treatment for it with no results. Last week I noticed that he was squinting frequently and that made me call the ophthalmologist that we take Poochie to see, just to get it checked out. Well, turns out, he has dry eye caused by the colitis medication he was taking. The ophthalmologist is hopeful that now that he's off the medication his tear ducts will start working normally again. If not, he will need to be on medication for the rest of his life. I am frustrated that we took him to our vet twice with the same symptom and neither time was the possibility of this being an effect of the medication mentioned but at the same time I'm thankful that we caught it when we did. It's a good reminder of how important it is to know what your pet's normal behavior is like and to act on any changes that seem suspicious.

Jack has found a friend. We have a Cairn Terrier who lives at the end of our dead end road. When he is out, he and Jack have a great time sniffing each other, leaving pee-mail for each other and running to the extent Jack's leash allows. Now when we walk Jack down to that area he will turn and look at the door of the Cairn's house to see if he's coming out to play. He'll do it a couple of times before he gives up. But you should see the tails wagging on both ends if they happen to meet up.

Remembering what you love

I wish I could remember which blog or web page I had read this on, but somewhere I saw a post that recommended photographing what you want to remember. So many of my pics are of what I think I should be photographing, like beautiful scenery or a special event. And that is important to document, too, I think. But that piece of advice really rang true with me and so I'm trying to incorporate it into my thinking when I reach for my camera. What do I want to remember in this moment? I took this photo of Poochie's back paw because it is something I want to remember of him. Several of our dogs do this, lie with their back legs stretched straight out in back of them, looking like turkey drumsticks. Poochie is different because his legs are so short. You can hardly see leg for his body. So this is Poochie's paw- I will remember it always.

I had a creative spurt over the weekend. I've decided that I'm going to try clustering my card making, to the best of my ability, into a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. When I try to make them during the week I feel rushed for time. When I set aside time on the weekend, though, I open myself up to try more things and embellish with more relish. ;) The luxury of time fuels my creativity, I guess. Two Mother's Day cards (for my mom and MIL) and a card for a PTI RAK friend in MI. Her first name is the same as my sister's, spelled the same too which is unusual. The idea for the dragonfly card came from Nichole's post. Her work is just exquisite and is such an inspiration for me.

A title change and a RAK thank you

Well, here we are at the first day of May. Happy May Day to you all.

After I have been away from this blog for a little while and come back to it, I realize how much I enjoy being here in this space. Day to day, just sharing what's going on, if anything is. It's one of those things I need to make space and time for in my life but because it feels like I'm taking time away from doing other things (that I've determined "should be" priorities), I don't take the time to just blog. I would like to say that I will make a commitment to blog more frequently but, not trying to make excuses, there isn't always something that interests me enough to share. What I need to remember, like a muscle memory, is that it feels good to be here right now.

Some things to share. A lovely RAK thank you card from Lynn. A cool website where you can learn how to better use your digital camera. A dirty dog who was having such a fun time barking at everything meandering down the stream. A great long weekend in Burlington, VT. And new hair!

Night, everyone.

Just a beautiful day

Almost 70 out today. Beautifully sunny. Lovely. All five pups when to the vet for their annual exams on Monday and all went well. Poochie's thyroid level was down a little lower than the vet would like so we've increased his medication slightly. Other than that, we're staying the course which is great news.

I'll leave you with a sleepy-time photo of Jack. I'm feeling that tired, so I'm off to bed. Night!

Maybe Spring is on its way

The last of our snow left a week or so ago and although it's been frequently raining or misting at least the temperatures have been above freezing during the day. Yesterday afternoon we were surprised and happy to see the sun for a few hours. The crocuses that I thought I dug up last summer when we laid down the pea stone in the back yard survived. I saw their bent stems trying to work their way out from under the weed block when I was out this morning so I cut a hole for them to pop up through. Maybe in the next couple of days, I'll be able to post some pictures of them. This picture is from a past year and I'm not sure I'll have as many of them now as I did then but I'm glad at least some survived!

We've also had the beginning of the ladybug invasion in the computer room. The room gets a lot of sun so I think they start their assault in that room. I'm not sure if these are the "good" or "bad"kind, but they are pretty none the less. You can also see my beautifully dirty window in this photo, too. :)

Last spring note. I heard some mourning doves cooing the other evening. Reminds me of summers when I was little because just as it would get dusk, they would start cooing. A good memory.

We spent a good chunk of time this past week grooming all of the dogs, getting them ready for their big annual vet check-up tomorrow. The shots, the heartworm tests, all that good stuff. Poochie looks great and has become so much easier to groom than he was at first. What a great thing because I was so afraid that we'd never be able to groom him ourselves and I didn't want to subject a groomer to the likelihood of being bitten.

I received another RAK card from Daisy in GA. The patterned paper she used as a background is just beautiful. Thank you so much for brightening my day!