~ Happy Easter ~

While many are going to church today, celebrating the rise of Christ, or having Easter Egg hunts, or gathering with family, I wanted to take some time to blog about life, or rather death and how suddenly it can change everything.

My husband got a call from his best friend back east on Thursday.  It was a shocking call.  This man's wife who was only 46, never drank, smoke, well you know the rest...was found dead at work. She was working a graveyard shift at the nursing home and was found still clutching the curtain in the room she was in, and had already been gone for hours.  They think it may have been a brain aneurysm.  She left behind her loving husband who is one of those old fashioned typical males that likes to hunt deer, fix things that need fixing, and provide for his family. She also left behind two children, a 10 year old daughter and a 15 year old boy.  It is going to be hard on all of them for I can't fathom how long.

When I hear about this sort of thing, especially when it is someone I know...it really jolts me.  We all walk around hearing "Live each day as if it is your last".  I think about those words and how hard they are to live by.  I think a better mantra should go something like.. Even though you need to go to work every day, take care of your house, and do everything else you have on your daily plate, don't get your plate to a point of overflowing. What your day does entail, do it with purpose,  happiness and confidence and tell your loved ones you love them every day. And if your spirit is not like this on a daily basis, but rather full of deadlines, stress, headaches, sleeplessness or sleepiness...then you need to slow down..so you can feel good about yourself at the end of the day.  It is easy to think there is plenty of time to relax, be with family and enjoy your life, but one never knows.  It is all about balance.

We never know when it is our "time".  I do believe in heaven and I also believe in the possibility of returning back for another life on Earth.  I only hear/read positive things about the afterlife from those who claim to have been on the other side and have come back. For me, it should be only a great thing (assuming I end up in the better place).  It is so much harder for those left behind.

Sorry to be so morbid on a day that is suppose to be happy and full of celebration, but this has been on my mind that this is what blogs are for right?

To end on a lighter note, my youngest is home for the holiday and it has been great as usual having her here. Next time she comes home it will be for the summer again. Yippee!  Happy Easter to my oldest who couldn't make it here.  To everyone, tell those close to you that you love them!

..from Shadow's view...

I know I posted about helping to walk dogs last weekend at the local animal shelter, but I thought I'd do my best to convey what it may have been like for Shadow, the cute Chihuahua/mini dobie mix puppy that was one of the dogs I played with.

A visit from a nice lady….

I was sitting in the kennel with my two brothers waiting for somebody, anybody to come around to play with me.  I saw this lady who took one of my friends two kennels down out to play in the play yard.  When she came back I tried my best to get her attention. I jumped up and down and even used one of my brothers as a step stool to get her attention first.  After all, there were three of us in this space and if I wanted to get that lady’s attention, I had to stand out!

Here she comes, she is close by. She’s looking down at all of us. She looks happy.  On no, now she is walking away from me to another kennel.

Sadly, the lady took a big black dog and went away with it.  Why would she want to walk a stupid big black dog that wasn’t even jumping up and down for attention?  Well hopefully she will come back.  I have hope.  It may be my lucky day. 

It seemed like forever, but the lady finally came back.  She spotted me and my brothers and smiled again. Then she went away. No wait, I see her at the back door of this thing.  She’s talking to another lady.  She is shaking her head.  Maybe because there are three of us, she doesn’t want to bother with me. She was gone again. Now she is back in the front of the kennel.  I’m gonna get there first!  Zoom…Plop.  I’m in front now and so is she but my brothers are not. Lucky me! Oh the back door has a wall there now. Weird, I guess my brothers are stuck back there. Good! “Lady, pick me, pick me!”, I thought.  

Then she opened the door and was in the kennel with me.  I jumped up and licked her hand and she put this heavy metal thing around my neck, but I didn’t care. I was getting attention. She opened the door and I was free!!  I hopped up and down and was too excited to go for a ‘walk’. She was pulling gently on that long thing that was attached to the metal thing around my neck.  I didn’t care where we went. All I knew was that I was out of that cage! 

She took me into a place and closed a metal gate which was sort of like the door to that kennel I’ve been living in, but since she is in there with me, it is okay. Then she took that heavy metal thing off my neck and starting jumping and hopping herself.  I joined in with her and then spotted a big thing in the yard. It was almost as big as me with many legs and so I picked it up and shook it. This made the lady laugh.  There was a big long thing that looked like I could walk up one side and down the other, but it was way too high for me and scared me.  But inside it was nice and cool, so I would run around in the sun then hide inside it.  Then I heard the lady calling so I ran out again. We were playing for a while like this. Then the lady started talking to someone that I’ve seen around, helping me and my brothers sometimes.  I was getting tired and hot, so the nice lady picked me up and I snuggled against her shoulder and closed my eyes... Ahhhh…

After a little while, the lady put that heavy metal thing over my head again, opened that gate, and we were walking again. ”Oh no…not THAT way”, I barked.  She was taking me back to my brothers.  Not that I hate my brothers, but I really don’t want to go back into that place with the hard floors. It is so boring there and makes me sad.  She opened the front gate and my brothers were not there.  They must still be stuck in the back.  She took off that heavy metal thing and I jumped up, kissing her hand, pleading with her to take me with her. She turned and walked away, closing that kennel door. Click.

Then she left. Oh no, there she is!  She was around back and now my brothers are back here with me.  I ran up toward her, while my brothers shied away.  No please, please take me home!!  She smiled and me, blew me a kiss and said something.  I don’t know what it was but it was a very soothing voice.  Then she was gone.

(the things I said was.. "Hope you find a loving home real soon!"

Long day...

Got up early today (before 7 is early for me on a Saturday)...to go do my volunteer work at the Local Animal Shelter's annual garage sale.  It was a long day, didn't get home until after 2:00 and there was a lot of work taking down tables, etc., but it was fun.  I got to meet some other very nice people (other volunteers) and was glad to help out for a good cause.  Too bad there was still a lot of stuff left at the end and there was no where to put it, so it all was trashed.  I salvaged some things I just could not see throwing out, well we all did as best we could :-).   But...anyway, it was a good day, with a fair amount of people considering the other things going on like the Red Poppy Festival which is this weekend too.

Some of the treasures I took home were some Corelle dinner plates (7) and dessert plates (7) which were in perfect shape. I really only have a few Corelle dishes and like to use them over the heavy dinner plates and was really happy to find these.  They have a cute pattern on them too (little hearts).  I also got a nice long wood planter that I cleaned up and am using on the balcony for planting more vegetables. I got some large artificial flowers (orange/red) that I used to replace the flowers in the pots on either side of the front door as they were quite faded.  I got a nice patchwork pillow for decoration in front of the fireplace, another smaller pillow with the saying Dogs are just kids with fur. That pillow is going on the glider up on the balcony.  I also got a cute small corner 3 shelved thing to hang on the wall that is pink and I thought my oldest would like that. Also got a paper shredder that works great, a few CDs for artists I don't know but they were brand new with plastic still on, so I thought I'd give them a listen. I also got 4 place mats that were the rag type. I want to see how it looks if I hand sew them next to each other, to see if it makes an okay rag rug for the balcony.  I got a few other things I can't recall right now.  But overall I was really pleased...and I didn't think I'd bring anything home.

After dinner I took one of the dogs for a walk, not real long as I was already pretty tired from working at the garage sale.  Time to just chill out and relax....not sure I'll be awake for too much Saturday Night Live  ;-)

Productive weekend.... :-)

I had a little bit of work to do this weekend, and got that done yesterday morning.  It was a beautiful weekend and yesterday after finishing work, I did some laundry and mopped the front balcony and cleaned the furniture there too. It looks so much nicer now.  I saw that I have cucumbers and zucchini coming up, in fact the zucchini is already like 8 inches tall.  Woo hoo!!  Hopefully will have a better harvest this year than last when it got so hot for so long, most of it burned up and dried/died.  The paint on the deck is peeling in some places, so added to my long wish list...getting the decks stripped/repainted next year (if I put it on next year .. there is a slightly better chance of it happening). :-) 

Still keeping up with my walking every day, I took a walk after dinner with our high energy sheltie, Molly.  I decided to walk around the neighborhood behind us a little and surprise our other dogs by coming up the back yard fence (which is a way I never go). So we ventured out on our walk, first I walked up the street like I normally do, but then when we got to our street I kept going straight and walked around to the cul-de-sac development behind us. When I got past 2 houses there was a dog that came running out and barking and startled me and Molly. I was worried it was going to attack her, but it did stop and then I thought there must be an invisible fence.  But I hesitated, until a lady came out and told me not to worry, that they had an invisible fence. I thanked her and we started walking. No sooner did I get past her house, on the other side of the street a dog came barreling out barking toward us.  I saw the lady was still outside the first house and yelled up to her "Do you know if this one has an invisible fence too?"  She said yes, and sure enough it did not go beyond its property line.  But my nerves were a bit rattled by the time I got to the path that led to the back of our house, and Molly had not stopped barking furiously since we saw the first dog.

So I got an idea, when I got to my house, I surprised the rest of our dogs and at first they thought Molly was strange dog, until they realized it was us.  I was laughing so hard at that.  I got the idea to hand Molly to my hubby over the fence so that I wouldn't be taking her back by the barking dogs again. So I did. Then I went back the way I came and sure enough the 2nd dog was waiting there at the edge of its property...it looked at me...as if to say "Where's your dog?". And the owner who was on his cell phone in his driveway gave me a look too.  I started laughing to myself.  Wonder if they thought I dumped my dog in the woods.  LOL

I was pretty tired by Saturday Night Live time and only caught the first 15 minutes or so..before falling asleep.

Today was exercise day and I did that as usual and then decided to go volunteer at the local animal shelter by walking some of the dogs, since I haven't been there in a while.  The first dog I started to walk was full of energy, and it was pretty clear when I got him out of his kennel that he was going to possibly pull me down to the ground, so after a few steps, I decided to play with him instead in the play area. He did really great at fetching a tennis ball for a while.  Then I took him back and walked a dog that was a really short Lab (Lab mixed with Basset Hound I think).  He was fine to walk and I had no problem with him.  There were several small dogs there, which there usually aren't. There was one kennel with 3 puppies in it that were mini doberman pincher/chihuahua mixes. I got another gal to help me trap 2 of them so I could get one out to walk. I knew I wouldn't be able to take all 3 at once.  This little girl was really cute, jumping up and down, playing with the leash, and interested in playing more than walking. So we went into the play yard and she had a great time. She would chase the toys then go hide in an agility ramp, then bop out again.  I started chatting with one of the employees there and picked her up and she snuggled her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes..She was so cute!   But we are not getting any more dogs, so I didn't let myself grow too attached.  Then she went back in her kennel and I walked a dachshund (hot dog I like to call them), last. I think it was a bit hot thought for that one because he wasn't too interested in walking very far. I spent over 2 hours there. 

Rest of the day was relaxing, coupon clipping and writing up the menu/grocery list for the next two weeks. Nice to feel like I got some things accomplished!!

Surprise!..

Yesterday I was getting ready to go take a long walk and when I was grabbing my pedometer I leave in the garage, I saw something move on the shelf.  Here is our most recent visitor.  I didn't see it today so I'm not sure where it is now, but probably somewhere in the garage. I zoomed in, so no it is not THAT big.  Maybe 4-5 inches long from head to tail.

Spring has Sprung!

I was going to skip buying any flowers or vegetables this year since money is tight, but when I went grocery shopping Monday, I couldn't resist the price of flowers. 64cents a pot for bedding flowers (petunas, impatients, etc). So I bought a flat since that wasn't much money and got two .99 cent bags of potting soil. Yesterday I cleared out the old dried flowers and vegetables, tilled the soil with a hand trough, and planted the flowers and the vegetable seeds I had leftover from last year and used the potting soil to mix with the soil already there. Actually I already planted Kale about a week ago and that is sprouting.  I have a picture of that too below! This year for a change we placed three of the hanging planters on our balcony so that they can get better sunlight. The pitch of the lower porch just is such that sun cannot get to flowers I try to have in planters there. Found that out a few years ago when they just all pretty much died within weeks.

<---Kale