My shadow is gone. . . . . .

I have been avoiding the computer for the last little while because my life has been a little topsy turvy due to illnesses with friends and family.

Two weeks ago I lost my shadow.  Our princess, Casey when over the Rainbow Bridge at the beginning of the month after battling several illnesses.

It was so hard to say goodbye to her as she has been my constant shadow since we adopted her on 1/4/09.

When we adopted her she was scared of so many things, men (except for Mr. Books), little boys, kids on bikes, had separation anxiety and would run and hide at the slightest loud noise.

But with our frequent camping trips she blossomed into a much more confident little girl.  While she never fully got over her fear of men, she did get to a place where she could approach them and would let them pet her (as long as they waited for her to be comfortable).

It is hard to go into my sewing room because she would always follow me and curl up in her bed to make sure that she knew where I was at all times.  And it will be hard to have pizza in the house because she would always sing for pieces of the pizza crust.

She was such a sweet little pup and while my heart is broken and my tears come very easily I do believe that she had the best 7 years, 7 months that we could have given her.

Good night, Pumpkin Girl.



In peace and pieces,

Sherry

 This content was originally posted on the quilt blog Books, Hooks, Sticks, etc. (www.bookshookssticksetc.blogspot.com). If you are reading this on any site other than the original or quilterblogs.com it is WITHOUT my permission and the content has been stolen.

My shadows, dark and light

I thought I would just do a quick post to show off my two shadows. . . . .

This is Mr. Bailey.  We adopted him from a rescue group in New Hampshire about a year and a half ago.  He likes me when it comes to food and his insulin shots. . . . but otherwise he is Mr. Books' dog.

Miss Casey has been with us for 5 years. . . .we adopted her shortly after "the little prince" Bogart passed away.  She is definitely my dog and will only listed to Mr. Books if I am not home!  That gets him so frustrated. . . . but it makes me laugh because I wasn't ready for another dog but he didn't like having such a quiet house --- if it wasn't for him she might not have been living with us.

I hope that you enjoyed these small pictures.

In peace and pieces,
 

Ok, I am SO done with snow!!

If you would like to know why I haven't been able to get any amount of sewing done here goes:

This picture is the back end of my car. . . I shovelled from the edge of the plow job to the back of my car yesterday. The car is outside the fence line. . . but when I was shovelling it was about 1 foot INSIDE the fence line. . .it was a LOT of snow.









This is a picture of a giant evergreen tree that is on the corner of our property...I took the picture because I thought it looked really pretty.












These next pictures are of Casey on the sidewalk. . . you can see how high the sides of the snow banks are on either side. . . .













These next two pictures show Casey along the front tire of my car (which is still snow covered at this point) and a view down the sidewalk looking from the back steps towards the driveway. . . the gate is open because there was no way for Casey to get to the road. . . because Mr. Books & I couldn't either!!! LOL















My shoulders and neck are so sore I have been sitting with the heating pad. Can't wait until the weather gets a little warmer. . . not the heat of summer, mind you, but I would really enjoy having some 60 - 70 degree days with a nice breeze.

Hopefully tonight, or tomorrow at the latest, I'll be able to get some stitching in.




In peace and pieces,

Back Home

DH & I are recuperating from a lovely trip to Denver, PA. It's amazing how tired I get after coming back from a relaxing vacation!

Casey is doing well on her meds. . . .she is pretty much back to normal which is making both of us happy.

Sorry, no new pictures. . . .but I'm almost done with the afghan for my friend so I'll be showing that soon.

Have a wonderful day,

In peace and pieces,

Update on the furbaby

As of this point our vet thinks that Casey just has lyme disease.

We started giving her the antibiotics on Thursday evening & by Friday she was wagging her tail. . .which was a great improvement however how she had been feeling. I thought everything was going fine.

Today she won't let us go anywhere near her mouth. . . even just petting her snout causes her to start whimpering like she is in pain. I'm not sure what to make of this new development.

She did not want to eat this morning. . . . but ate her supper easily and even gave me some soft "whoo whoo" sounds when I offered her the cheese that she gets her meds with.

Hopefully things will continue to improve. . .but if they don't we will just have to see what the vet thinks should be done as a next step.

Hope things are well in your households. . . . .


In peace and pieces,

My furbaby has lyme disease. . . . .

Those of you that have read my blog for a while know that I am a dog person. . . my beloved Bogart died almost 2 years ago after enriching my life for 11 years (and helping me find "Mr. Right").

Casey, our cockapoo rescue, has been with us since shortly after Bogart's passing. . . I wasn't ready, but DH was & she just kind of "picked" us. . . and those of you that have adopted a rescue dog probably understand what I am talking about. . . there wasn't ever really a conscious decision of "this is THE dog". . . everything just sort of fell into place.

Anyway, Casey has been drinking a lot of water for the past couple of weeks. . . I really didn't think too much of it because the weather has been really hot & humid. . .but in recent days it has been pretty dank & dreary but the water consumption kept up.

They she started acting really lethargic. . . and not really being interested in eating.

So today, off to the vet we went. After dealing with Bogart's diabetes I was expecting that same diagnosis. . . .

That's NOT what I got. . .well, at least not yet.

Casey tested positive for Lyme Disease and is now on mega doses of antibiotics. She may have just gotten the disease or she could have had it all along but it just "flared" again. . . there is no way to know since, as the vet put it, "once positive for Lyme, always positive for Lyme".

Now we have the waiting game to see what the rest of the blood work has to say. . .could be diabetes, could be Cushings (haven't looked that up on the internet yet but the vet said it is medically treatable). . .her kidneys could be effected. . .just have to wait & see.

Oh, and on top of all of this. . . .she needs to have her teeth cleaned (which means being knocked out); but that will have to wait until we have these other medical issues dealt with.

There's always something going on in our house.


In peace and pieces,

My First Video!!

Our dog, Casey, loves, loves, loves cheese. . . . and that is good because she is on meds for separation anxiety. I just hide the pill in a piece of cheese & she swallows it without a problem.

Her cheese habit has also allowed us to teach her to shake paw, and she is learning roll-over pretty quickly.

I hope this video plays for you. . . . she is singing for her cheese.


In peace and pieces,

What was I thinking???

Ok, back to quilt and, hopefully, less controversial topics!

Trying to get a picture of Casey's face is pretty difficult. . . .she just won't hold still long enough. This is the best I was able to get after her most recent grooming appointment.



This doily is in progress. . . .I'm pretty sure I am on the last row, but because it is thread it is hard for me to work on it for any length of time. My hands just can't handle long term thread work sessions.



I'm in Margaret's Holiday Mini Quilt swap. . . .I thought this might be something cool. It is a design I did on EQ6.

It reminds me of pine garland tied with bows. . . . what do you think? This is also the first quilt design that I have made up that is rectangular.




I'm also in the Doll Quilt Swap #7. . . .and here is the design that I am leaning toward for that swap. Again, this was designed on EQ6. . . the colors are not the colors that I plan on using, but are just ones that I "plugged" in so I could get an idea of how it would look.




One of these days I'll figure out how to put the actual EQ6 picture on here. . . .it would make it easier to show than these camera pictures of the print out. . .but for now this works.

Ok, I'm off to see my sewing machine so I can get something else completed this weekend.


In peace and pieces,

Casey Update

Our new furbaby, Casey, is settling in very well.

It has been a week since we brought her home and except for a few "piddle" accidents everything seems to be fine.

We had taken her to the vet Monday evening and she has a respiratory infection so we have been giving her antibiotics and Benedryl (sp?) for her stuffy/runny nose. It has been a bit tough because she won't eat cheese or peanut butter (which worked wonders with Bogart) or dog treats so I have been having to put the pills down her throat. . . which is not pleasant for me or for her.

However, based on a suggestion from a co-worker (thank you Carol) last night we tried liverwurst wrapped around the pills. She gobbled them right down. So now there is no more pill anxiety in the household.

After a week of being on the meds her nose is much better. . .she is breathing much better. And the antibiotics must be working because she is running around & is much more active than when she first came home.

The adjustment has been very hard for me. . . . guess I wasn't as ready as Steve was to get another dog. I still cry for Bogart everyday and find that I am very easily frustrated with Casey. . . .but I guess everything will work out in the end.

Steve absolutely loves her. . . . and I think the feeling is mutual since she barks when he leaves and waits at the gate to see if he will be coming back.

I'll post additional pictures as I get them.

In peace and pieces,

Something new has come to our house. . . .

Steve & I have been back & forth about whether we were ready to bring another dog into our home since we so recently lost Bogart.

It has been tough on me, since I was Bogart's main caretaker, not to have a furbaby to touch, play with & cuddle.

We had both decided that we would prefer to get a rescued dog from either a rescue group or a shelter rather than try to find a reputable breeder (and neither of us would go to a pet store because we vehemently detest the puppy mill industry).

One of Steve's friends from work is married to the Director of People For Animals here in NJ and we have been checking out their website (http://members.petfinder.org/~NJ17/index1.htm) to see what dogs they had available for adoption.

While neither of us had a problem with getting a male dog, I had thought that getting a female this time might be easier to adjust to. Yeah, I'm probably just nuts but for me I thought it would be better. In addition, my mother does not like male dogs so it would be hard to have her watch a new dog in her house if it was another male.

Unfortunately the dogs that they currently have were a bit larger or smaller than what we were looking for.

So we then turned to Petfinder.org to see whether we could find a small-ish dog through another group. We also registered with Cairn Rescue and Westie Rescue.

Yesterday, I was scrolling through the Petfinder site & saw that there was a group by the name of Rawhide Rescue that seemed to do alot of work with rehabilitating and re-homing puppy mill survivors.

One of the entries that I showed Steve was for 2 female dogs that had to be adopted together as they were bonded since they had lived together.

We went. . . .TO LOOK. . . .now, first we got lost. The rescue group was showing their dogs at the Petsmart in Bridgewater, NJ. I thought I had a pretty good idea where the store was located & away we went. Unfortunately, the way the store listing in displayed there are different store names on either side of the sign. . .and the side that we approached the shopping center did not have Petsmart listed on it. . . .so we ended up going past the mall, and then almost into Pennsylvania because we could not find a quick "turn around" point, only to reverse our direction & find out that where we were was where we should have been!! (Try saying that 10 times fast!) LOL

All the while we are in the car I'm telling Steve, "we aren't going to take the first dog we see", "we are just looking", "we really don't have to rush into anything", etc., etc.

Do you see where this is going???

To make a long story shorter. . . .we walked around looking at the dogs (and trying to make sense of who was there to be adopted & who was there with their owners). There was an adorable little male that I originally thought was a dachshund mix, but now see, on Rawhide Rescue's website -- http://members.petfinder.com/~NJ235/index.htm
, that JarJar is a spaniel.

He was cute & wiggly but not what I/We were looking for.

Then we saw this little dog sitting underneath a volunteer's chair. . .and she looked pretty scared.

We were introduced to Eve, New Year's Eve, who is a Cockapoo (Cocker Spaniel, Poodle mix) they think. She was very sweet & laid back, but a bit skittish around men. They didn't have much information on her except to say that she had been found in Newark, NJ as a stray. She had been picked up and taken to the Newark Humane Society where she was given a rabies and distemper shot and bordetella vaccination. They think she is around 6 years old and aren't sure if she has been spayed yet.
She was taken out of the shelter by a Rawhide Rescue volunteer and was being fostered in a private home.

The volunteer that we had spoken to said that there was alot of interest in this little girl & if we thought we might be interested we should consider filling out an application.

Well, I'll cut to the chase. . . Eve is now known as Casey and she is home with us. Here are some pictures:

This first picture is from this morning. . .she crawled into our linen closet and is laying on our dirty laundry:


In this picture Steve is trying to see if she will take a treat. . . so far she hasn't eaten any of the dog cookies, jerky treats or other things we have tried to tempt her with:


I don't know how to put this picture in the correct direction. . .Casey is sitting on our back stoop:


She obviously wasn't a stray for very long because she is in pretty good shape; although I think she has a cold or something going on because we can't get her to eat & our vet will be meeting her tomorrow to try to find out what is going on.

She seems to be settling in here well, she's a bit skittish with Steve but I'm hoping that we won't have a long-term problem with that, and with each day all of us will get better used to the routines we have.

I still desperately miss my Bogart, but it is nice to have four new paws in the house.

BTW, the dogs that we originally went to see? Never saw them, so I don't know whether they had been there earlier or came in after we left. . . I didn't notice them on the groups website today so I'm thinking that they were adopted also, which makes me happy.

In peace and pieces,