Christmas and Buddy Updates, Among Other Things

The Christmas season is upon us.  My tree is up, but there is only one gift under it. Buddy, apparently, likes to play with wrapped gifts, scoot them around the living room and chew on the paper, thus my little 2 foot tree will be nekkid of gifts this year. Shopping is close to being done, just a few more items left.  It's busy season for sure and our weekends are totally booked through New Year's.

Last night we went to our annual Christmas party hosted by our good friends Charlie & Christina.  It's always a good time and last night was no exception!  Yummy lasagna and breadsticks for dinner, lots of good snacks and the traditional White Elephant gift exchange was a hoot, as always.  I ended up with 2 dvds, a jar of homemade canned peppers (which Jason is thoroughly enjoying), a gourd, a plastic reindeer and a pocket knife that looks like a key - ha!  Jason got a good one and snagged a 4-piece set of wine glasses.  Unfortunately as I was putting one in the dishwasher this morning it became a 3-piece set. (Exactly why we don't buy expensive wine glasses.)

Portia has decided to move in with her (biological) mom and will be officially moving next weekend.  So we've been busy getting her packed up, filling out school transfer forms and tying up other loose ends.  I hope the move is a good choice for her - it sure won't be the same without her home, but I hope to get to spend some quality weekends with her in the upcoming months.

The dogs are all doing well.  Buddy has reached the 80 pound mark.  He could still use 10 or so pounds, but at this point he's healthy and happy and very smitten to be indoors and laying on our couch rather than being pinned up outside as he has been in the past.  He's over his food aggression and him and Blue are quickly becoming good buddies, which I never thought I'd hear myself say. Blue never plays with other dogs, but him and Buddy are like two peas in a pod!  This is a picture I got of Buddy one day when he was just standing by the chair and decided his big ol' head needed a rest.  Hehe!



That's about all I really have as an update.  Hopefully I'll be getting some exciting photos to share with all the festivities going on in the next several weeks.  I wish everyone happy holidays!

Photo Flashback: December 2008

Almost Christmas again already - it's amazing how time flies the older I get.  For lack of anything interesting to blog about, I bring you yet another photo flashback from this time last year.  Unless you prefer to hear about my dog's recent bout with diarrhea that seems to be contagious and hitting them one at a time....yeah, didn't think so.

My sis-in-law Amanda, my brother Jeremy and my niece Taylor.  My brother has issues keeping his eyes open and smiling at the same time. ;)


And you may remember Pip Squeak!  Pip was the baby mouse we found in our basement all alone last December.  We kept her with two domesticated female mice, Moo and Hazel, until it got warm enough to let her go outside.  We let her out in our shed in the backyard and have spotted her there in the nest she built when we go into the shed.  :)



And Miss Moo - Moo and Hazel have been adopted by my good friend Jenn's daughter, Lexi.  She loves them and I think they love her too!

Photo Flashback This Time Last Year

This time last year I was dabbling a little for the first time with portraits...and of course always photos of some of the pups!

Portia & Brittany:

Terah's Senior Portrait

Blue getting pummeled by Lois Lane:

Son of Buddy

As mentioned before, when we first took in Buddy, our Great Pyrenees/Golden Retriever, from the horrid conditions he was in, there was also a female Pyr with a litter of puppies...Buddy's puppies.  At the time they were just tiny (well as tiny as a Pyr can be) little nursing furballs, maybe a month old at the time.  This puts them at almost 5 months old now.  I've been able to keep up with some of the puppies since this site URL is sometimes given to the new owners so they can see what "dad" looks like.

The other day I had a nice comment from Lesley on The Critters page saying she had adopted one of Buddy's sons.  His name is Henry and he is just the cutest, fuzzy headed little thing!  He looks a lot like Buddy and he's a very lucky boy!  He gets to go to work with Lesley every day and everyone around town knows who Henry is.  At almost 5 months old he already weighs over 40 pounds, barely under what full grown Buddy was when he first came to us.  (Now Buddy is around the 85 pound range - I need to go get him weighed again).

Lesley was kind enough to send me photos of Henry and says she'll continue to send them so we can watch him grow up - how cool is that!

Here is sweet Henry - check out that fuzzy head!

And Henry in his Halloween getup. Look how happy he is - ha!

And as reference, a photo of Buddy, the proud Papa!

The Art of Photo Scavenger Hunting

So as you may know, I am involved in a monthly photo scavenger hunt group.  It really is great fun and keeps me shooting, even in the busiest of times.  I'm trying really hard to keep my scavenger hunt photos interesting and not just a blah photo of some inanimate object, but sometimes it's difficult!  So for this round and any upcoming I've decided that if I can't get a good, artistic, pleasing photo, I will just bypass that photo opportunity, even if it means not getting my hunt item.  For some items this is very difficult to do, but I'm trying my best.  For example, three things today that I got were 1) Colored erasers; 2) A patch or badge; 3) Something depicting a hobby.  So I searched about the house (since I'm still mostly home-bound) and came up with the following:







My favorite of this set is the erasers - the colors pop and turned out quite nicely.  Not sure about the other two, but I'm working towards a goal here and that takes time!  Stay tuned for more scavenger hunt goodness...

Happy Buggy Monday

Since the cold weather is quickly approaching, the opportunities for bug and insect photos is rapidly dwindling away.  Here are a few macro shots I got over the weekend.  Happy Monday!

Clairvoyant Findings

Last night I attended a "psychic party".  Now, I'm not saying that I believe in all this, but there is
always that little thing in the back of the mind saying "What if...".  So I went, and it was fun sitting around and talking about what the readings of each participant revealed.

It wasn't like in the movies where you go in a dark room, only lit by candles with a gypsy looking lady sitting behind a cloth and candle covered table.  It was simply a spare room in the house away from the other noise, lights on, with an ordinary looking middle aged woman sitting at a card table with her bottle of water wearing silver bangles, jeans and knit shirt, and flip-flops.

The clairvoyant used tarot cards for her readings and she had obviously been doing this for a while based on the wear and tear of the cards.  I first walked in the room, shook her hand, exchanged normal pleasantries when meeting someone new "Hello, how are you...good", then I sat down, she asked my first name, and we were off!  Below are some of the things that she "saw" during my reading.  There is more, but I will not share all to protect the innocent.  ;)

• The first thing she asked me was "could you be pregnant?"  I about laughed out loud and snorted through my nose at that one, seeing as I just had a hysterectomy three weeks ago. When I said no all she said was "I see something in the belly area" and left it at that.


• Next she saw "romance change or a redefinition of love".  And she explained that this doesn't necessarily mean my spouse, but could be any close loved one.  I know where that could possibly stem from...and won't discuss it here.


• She saw me as growing to be an old woman in good health. She sees me as a healer.


• She doesn't see me physically moving anytime real soon, but possibly around 5 years from now there will be a move. Hopefully this will be our 50 acre farm purchase.  She mentioned something about Yellow Wood Forrest, which is in Brown County, Indiana.


• She saw a lot of stacks of books around me, which indicates that I read a lot, research a lot, or attend a lot of conferences.  All of the above are true.


• She asked out of the blue if I sleep poorly.  You can see my Sleep Writing post for the answer to that one!  She said I'm a "dimension jumper" when I sleep and suggested I video tape myself sleeping (which I have considered doing) when I answered yes to her question of "When you wake do you often find things misplaced or moved".  Heh, yeah...I do that.


• I asked about mine and Jason's relationship, of course.  She sees us together until death do us part.  Awwww.


• She sees me at a rustic cabin in the near future.  We have a January trip planned to Lake Cumberland in January with friends to stay in a cabin on the lake.


• And the final kicker...she sees a dog with a red ribbon coming into my life.  Most likely a stray and one we will most likely keep.  

So, that was the bulk of it.  The only thing that really got me was the last one since I never mentioned anything about my dogs or love for animals at all.  And the cabin one got me as well since we just put down the deposit for the cabin a few weeks ago.

Again, this was all done in fun.  But it will be interesting to revisit this post and see what happens!