Another Page

Look! Here are a couple of pages I managed to do all by myself using Photoshop Elements. This is the first time I've managed to do ANYTHING on this program so I am feeling pretty darned proud of myself. AND I learned how to size them so they will fit on here! What do you think??

A Page

My cousin Deb is the most amazing digital scrapbooker ever. She is always creating these beautiful pages and posting them on her blog. I just love them. I'm jealous as hell, because I can barely use my Adobe Elements program to make a page and she just dashes off these gorgeous pages with no effort. Anyway, my scrapping friends and I are terribly jealous and have been trying to show off our efforts. So far my friend Ritha is the only one to make any progress. I started a page last night, but I'm not done with it yet. I'm having fun though! Ritha shared three of her pages with me, but I can only get Blogger to let me put one of them up. I'll post mine when I finish it. In the meantime - enjoy Ritha's gorgeous page!

Carmen's Grounded

Well, we have figured out what is ailing our little blue girl. You may recall me mentioning that Carmen has been favoring her left front foot when she runs, plays ball, or chases the Frisbee. It’s been going on for a couple of weeks now, but we kept thinking it would get better on its own. We poked, prodded, bent, and otherwise manipulated that foot up one side and down the other without her so much as flinching. The outside left toe knuckle is a little bigger than the others, so I was worried that she had popped or broken it, but she never showed any signs of discomfort when I would check it out.

So Greg took her to the vet last week and he quickly diagnosed her as having a sprained shoulder. I still don’t see or feel anything, but whatever. He gave her a shot for the inflammation and an oral pain/inflammation medicine. The medication smells pretty nasty and must not taste good, but Carmen has been pretty good about taking it. The worst part is that she isn’t supposed to use the leg for THREE WEEKS. No running, no Frisbee, no ball, no walks, no dog park. She’s just to go out to potty and not play around with Sophie in the back yard. She does not understand why she has to stay home when Greg takes Sophie on his daily walk. Poor girl. She is so sulky about the whole thing. That dog pouts better than any two-year-old I’ve met!

She brings her ball to one of us every day and tries to get us to play with her. I’ve tried tossing the ball to her and just playing a little catch, but she’ll jump up to get the ball anyway, so I’ve resorted to rolling it to her down my leg or on the couch. It follows the spirit of the law and she’s not running around or jumping. Mostly. Sometimes she drops it and then dives for it, sliding on the wood floor. I’m sure that’s not good for her shoulder, but she is so persistent and annoying if you don’t play with her a little bit. She will just bounce the ball at you until you either throw it or take it away from her. She is just not a happy camper right now.

Once she is off complete restriction, she has another two weeks of only going to the dog park on leash, and gentle play in the back yard. Yeah, tell a whippet that they can only “gently” run around.

Aside from being pouty, she's doing fine.

Here is one of the very first pictures I took of her after she came home with me. Isn't she cuuute??

Raz Goes to Jail

Before I tell this story, I want you to know that it has a happy ending. You all know how I am about stories with pets...if they don't have a happy ending, I don't want to hear it. So with that said...

I was coming back to work from lunch today and got a call from my whippet & letterboxing friend Rinda. Rinda has two whippets, Raz & Rikki, who are wonderful dogs. She has been out of town for the past couple of weeks, leaving her dogs at home with a housesitter. She called me in a panic to say that a vet in Estacada where she lives had called her to say that they had Raz. Don't know the full story on this part, but I guess somehow he got out of his yard (they have a doggie door) and someone had picked him up wandering around and brought him in to the vet and they called Rinda off his tags. She's in Idaho at her mom's house and can't really do anything from so far away. She couldn't get a hold of anyone except me, I guess, and asked if I'd run out to her house and see if Rikki was out running around also. Of course, I dropped everything and headed to her house, praying the whole time that Rikki was okay if she was out wandering the streets, too. Took me for-freaking-ever to get there because of all the road construction going on, but I finally made it, found her spare key and checked on Rikki. Rikki was safe and sound in the house. Whew! Big sigh of relief.

So I checked the yard and couldn't find a single spot where Raz could have gotten out. Gates closed and locked, no loose boards, no Raz-sized holes, no digging. If he was VERY motivated there were one or two spots that might work, but there was no sign that he had dug around them or hair that had gotten caught on the fence or anything. He might have jumped the fence if something really got him wound up, but that is so unlikely as to be preposterous. All the windows were either closed or the screens were firmly in place. After a bit Ramona (Carmen & Sophie's breeder) came over and did a look around with me and didn't have any better ideas than I did on how he got out.

So it's a mystery. I'm sure we'll find out what really happened when Rinda gets home. In the meantime, Ramona sprung Raz from jail at the vet and took him and Rikki home to her house until Rinda gets back (is it just me or are there too many R's in this story??).

A happy ending anyway. The dogs are safe and sound. Whew!

I Know, I Know

I haven't posted in a while here. But I just haven't done anything worth posting about. I'm BORING, people. Haven't you figured that out yet??

I just heard the most beautiful song this morning. I had to go look up the lyrics and post them here. For you Ipod users, go get this song, you won't be sorry. The band is Heartland. This will be a wedding staple for a long, long time, I'm sure


Look at the two of you dancing that way
Lost in the moment and each others face
So much in love your alone in this place
Like there's nobody else in the world
I was enough for her not long ago
I was her number one
She told me so
And she still means the world to me
Just so you know
So be careful when you hold my girl
Time changes everything
Life must go on
And I'm not gonna stand in your way

But I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep
And I prayed that she'd find you someday
But it still hard to give her away
I loved her first

How could that beautiful women with you
Be the same freckle face kid that I knew
The one that I read all those fairy tales to
And tucked into bed all those nights
And I knew the first time I saw you with her
It was only a matter of time

But I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep
And I prayed that she'd find you someday
But its still hard to give her away
I loved her first

From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep
Someday you might know what I'm going through
When a miracle smiles up at you
I loved her first