Another RAK and more

How ingenious! A round card! Love the flowers, too. Maybe spring is on its way. Thank you so much, Deanna.

As for my Wild Animal Kingdom post, here it goes. A week ago we were having dinner at my parents' house. I had gone into the kitchen to get water for the dogs and when I looked out the kitchen window, I saw a long, dark tail moving over the top of the snow, down at the edge of the backyard. I called to everyone to come look at the otter out back because that's what the tail looked like, that of an otter. Well, it turned out to be no otter but was instead a fisher cat! Most of the web citations about fishers list the males to be about 20 pounds in weight but ours was a HUGE fisher. I would estimate that it was a little more than 4 feel long including the tail. It went to the compost pile and you could hear it cracking the chicken bones that my dad had recently put there. Fascinating but scary because they can be so fierce. My mom snapped some great pictures of it including this one.

All the pups go with us when we go to dinner at my parents' house and last week was no exception. Jack was just coming off a two day stay with Oona and Oompa (as we call Grandma and Grandpa) and was excited to see the rest of his pack. He loves my mom's living room because it's carpeted and he gets such good traction when he runs around. Here he is being extra tough with one of his toys.

Two more beautiful RAKs

Anya in Pittsburg RAK'd me back with this gorgeous Easter card. I love the detail and the patterned paper. I did end up succumbing and purchasing the Beautiful Blooms set I mentioned in my last post, which are what I think she used for the flowers in this card. Thank you Anya. My DH wanted me to tell you, "Go Steelers."


The second card is from Holly in NC. Not too many of us Hollys around so it was great to make the acquaintance of another one. I love the envelope cards (I think that's what they are called) and the intricacies of this card took my breath away. Thank you very much, fellow Holly!

Cold wind but bright sun here today. I'll be back with a Wild Kingdom post. Until then, stay warm!

Beautiful RAK cards

This has been a long week and it's only Wednesday. Early mornings at work and busy nights. I apologize that I haven't been more prompt in posting the cards I've received from the Papertrey Ink RAK group I'm part of.

The first card I received was from Heather in Germany. I love the way she's folded over the punched ovals in the upper left corner. I don't own the Beautiful Blooms set but I've been eying it for a long time and I think her card has tipped the scale in favor of it being my next MUST HAVE set.

The second card is from Sheri in Arizona. It's hard to see in the photo but the base paper has a slight opalescence to it which adds a subtle sheen to the ink colors. The color she used for the pot and the sentiment stamp is so different (I always use plain ol' brown for my pot when I use my Green Thumb set) and coordinates perfectly with the purple in the flowers. Can you help but love the grasshopper, too?

Thank you both very much for making it exciting to pick up my mail!

I have more to share but I'm about asleep at my keyboard so it will have to wait. Have a good night.

What a trooper

What a trooper my little Bear is. We took him to the vet on Wednesday because he's been having some greenish drainage from his right eye. I had tried using antibiotic ointment in the eye for a couple of days but there was not improvement so I figured better to be safe and take him to the vet.

Our appointment was at 4pm but there were several emergencies, I guess, so we didn't end up seeing the vet until right around 5pm. Bear hates the vet - really he hates any place unfamiliar - and so was shaking terribly the entire time. I should have thought to take a picture of him trembling on the table while we were waiting. Any way, the good news is that the vet didn't see anything wrong with his eye like a scratch or the like, so she put him on Neo-Poly-Dex, which has an anti-inflammatory in it as well as an antibiotic. He still has the drainage but it's only been two days. I'm really hoping it does the trick.

We've signed up to participate in our first CSA and I'm really excited. If you're not familiar, a CSA is "a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce. By making a financial commitment to a farm, people become "members" (or "shareholders," or "subscribers") of the CSA. Most CSA farmers prefer that members pay for the season up-front, but some farmers will accept weekly or monthly payments. Some CSAs also require that members work a small number of hours on the farm during the growing season." www.localharvest.org/csa/ I had first heard of CSAs when I read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. If you haven't read it, I can't recommend it enough. I was fortunate to find a CSA in the next town over and as an added bonus, the farm is owned by the in-laws of one of I.'s friends from high school. I can't wait for our first box in mid-June!

I'm really falling asleep at my computer but I'm pondering staying up for the Papertrey Ink release party tonight. The stamp sets that they are releasing tonight as well as the paper and ink colors look fabulous. I've done both - stayed up and went to bed - the night of a release and either way, I was able to buy the stamps. I think I'll head off to bed and just cross my fingers that everything will still be available tomorrow morning. Have a good night!

I'm published!

I joined a RAK (random act of kindness) group over at the Papertrey Ink forum. This RAK group was formed after some of the forum members were posting about what to do with all the cards they've made. I have made cards when the need hits, like for a holiday or a birthday, but some people make cards when the mood strikes and so end up with a lot of extra cards, I guess. Anyhoo, the first RAK group challenge was to send cards to someone in your state or a neighboring state. At the time, the closest members were in Pennsylvania and Ontario. After receiving my cards, a couple of the recipients posted pictures of them on their blogs. You can see them here and here. It was a lot of fun.

We're taking Bear to the vet tomorrow because he's had some greenish drainage from his right eye for the past couple of days. I have been putting some antibiotic ointment in the eye but it hasn't seemed to make a difference so to the vet we go. He also feels really thin to me although I have not noticed a change in his appetite. He doesn't like treats like the others do and so really only eats his dog food. He's never been hefty so I'm sure I'm worrying about nothing but it will be good to have the vet take a look at him.

I'm sorry that I haven't been in more of a posting/picture taking mood lately. Not sure why - just kind of in a funk. I'm so ready for the warmer weather so I can get out at lunchtime. I've never, ever taken lunch breaks since I switched careers and don't mind at all eating at my desk while I work. However, the culture of the office where I work now is that you take a lunch break so that's what I've been doing. I'm sure that if I wanted to, I could just work straight through it with no problem but truthfully I have the time to take lunch. So I eat in the cafeteria with some of my co-workers most days. Man, do I miss my alone time. It's not that I'm not social because in previous companies I would go out to lunch with people I worked with and have a great time. It's just where I am now, there's no one I've really made a connection with. Sitting at lunch trying to think of topics of conversation is painful and I'd rather avoid it if possible. When the weather was nice I would take off to a nearby spot, park my car and read while I ate. It just made the day better. Hopefully soon.

I promise to be better at sharing what's going on. I'll give you an update on Bear probably on Thursday. Tomorrow night is Book Club night so I won't be home until later. We're reading The Glass Castle. It was a very easy, quick read but I was ambivalent about it. I thought that the author didn't tell her story with emotion so it felt flat to me. Plus she starts out the book talking about accidentally burning herself when she was three. She relates the entire episode of being in the hospital and talks about her interactions and conversations with the nurses and her family while she's there. I have a hard time believing that she has such a detailed memory from such a young age.


Night all!

Why do white animals keep showing up at our door?

Thank you for your patience with my lack of posting. Besides being sick there hasn't been too much going on. The weather has been up and down. Yesterday it poured but today it was warm(er) with beautiful sun.

I mentioned in my blog yesterday that I had a pigeon story to share.
Last Saturday morning I. and I were getting ready to go run some errands when the door bell rang. I was still in the shower so I. went to check out who was there. He came back into the bathroom and said "There is a huge white bird on our front porch." I'm thinking like sea gull or albatross or something big like that. I hurried out of the shower and joined I. in our front bedroom, which overlooks the porch. On the porch was not an albatross or an ostrich but a pigeon. Just sitting there. I. said that when he had opened the door to see who had rung the bell, the pigeon didn't move at all. Hmmm.

To check it out more closely, I got a towel for I. who went back out on the porch and picked the pigeon up with the towel. It didn't resist at all. When I. brought it inside, we took a closer look and saw that it had a band around each leg. We had ourselves a racing pigeon! We also saw that there was a large patch of bloody feathers under one leg. Not good.

I. was able to read the lettering on one of the bands and saw that it said "Fall River." I hopped on the internet and found the phone number of the guy who is like the regional contact for the American Union of Racing Pigeons. I. called the guy who was of no help, mainly because the band did not bear any identification marks other than saying "Fall River."

We knew that we couldn't keep the bird upstairs with the five crazies running around so we fixed up Poochie's old crate in the basement and put the bird in there with some water and bird seed. A few hours later we went down to check on it again and this time it looked like it was breathing more heavily than before but the bleeding appeared to have stopped. However, we did find a larger bloody spot under one of the wings. Wasn't looking too good for poor Mr. Pigeon.

It was a beautiful bird, white and tan, and so tame. We were imagining what it would be like to keep it since apparently there wasn't a way to find its owner.

We went to bed that night with the bird still hanging in there and we were hopeful that with the bleeding stopped things were stabilizing. However, when I. checked on it first thing the next morning, it was breathing with an open mouth. Never a good sign. We got ready to go out and right before we left, I. checked on it again and our pigeon had died. I. named it Homer, posthumously. As in Homer, the homing pigeon.

I wish I had taken some pictures of it but unfortunately I didn't. Truly, it was a beautiful bird. I couldn't find any pictures of anything like it on the web either. Sorry.

Well, Mr. Jack is desperate to go out for his walk. I'll leave you with a couple of pics of Pogo. I'm not sure if the bright light is from his halo or just the Sun. ;)

Nasty flu

I. and I were down for almost all of last week with a nasty flu bug. One of those bugs where even watching TV was tiring. So I apologize for my absence and hope that no one out there catches what we did.

I'll be back tomorrow (promise) with an update. Honestly, there hasn't been much going on but I do have a story to share about a pigeon.

Hope all is well. Talk tomorrow.