Kitty & Kalee

Little kitty has found his way to a home a few houses away. We don't know where he originated from but someone is now happy to call him "theirs". I wish he would be an indoor only cat, but it seems that he has been out too long and likes it, so he will be indoor/outdoor cat. It is a very loving home so that is all I can ask for.

Kalee comes today to celebrate New Years Eve with us. She is a 7 month old boxer and coming from the same shelter that Rex did, so I expect her to probably be just as scared and dirty. She has another foster home starting tomorrow, but needs to get out of the shelter today. Isn't this the sweetest face?

Stray Cats Welcome Here....

I don't know why every lost/stray cat finds its way to my door, but it just happens. My NH parents even bought me a sign that I hung in the garage that says " Stray Cats Welcome Here", and it seems to have worked.
After returning Friday night from dinner, I exit the car to hear a cat crying and crying and crying. I assume that the cat is hurt and sprint off to the neighbors yard to find it in the dark. I am searching through the neighbors bushes hoping that he doesn't come out and find me in his yard (he is the neighborhood crank). When I realize the meow is now coming from above my head. I look up and lo and behold the cat is on the roof! I think he jumped from a tree, but there is no way to jump back. I run home and beg my husband to go to the Crank's door and get the cat down. He does (he knows better :-), and the Crank actually helps by holding the ladder. We let the cat go and assume that is it safe and will go home.
Then, Sat. night I exit the car again and hear the same crying, this time he is sitting in another neighbors driveway just sounding so sad and alone. I make kissie noises and he runs right up to me for some loving. All the while my husband is saying "don't do it, don't, don't! Oh no, please don't feed it!!" Well of course I couldn't resist and the kittie gobbled it right up. I left the garage door open a few inches in case he needed to come in overnight (thunderstorms were approaching). This morning he is sitting in my yard looking for breakfast, and of course I feed his sweet face again.
I am in the process of hanging some found kitty signs, hoping that he was someone's Christmas Present that got a little lost on his first venture out at his new home.
Wish me luck, sweet as he is, I don't really need a 6th cat!

It's the day after Christmas....whew!

Christmas has come and gone already and I don't understand how I can be so beat from doing absoutely nothing. Being the first year we are home for Christmas, it didn't have much of a Christmasy feel. We had family come in and we gave it our best shot; lots of present opening early in the morning, a big Christmas breakfast, then Christmas dinner with all the fixin's on Christmas dishes, on a Christmas tablecloth on Christmas day. But, it is hard without all the family, snow or at least below freezing temperatures.
KK just left for 3 or 4 days in the Smokey Mountains with a friend. This is the longest that my 12 year old and I will have ever been apart and I am sad. Will she miss me like I miss her? and what will I do without her pre-teen temperment around the house? My 16 year old is not much into hanging out with me, so I guess that leaves me and the furbabies. Aww, sounds good and peaceful doesn't it?? I will let you know.

I Would like to thank the Academy......

No, really I can't believe it, but we have just been given our first award! I don't even write that well or often, but we'll take it with humble appreciation! And, with that we would like to thank A Dog and 2 Cats for our first award.
In keeping with tradition, we need to pass this on to 3 of our favorite blogs. Let us think about it and we will update this post.

This must be our lucky week. After Mona was adopted out on Sat. morning, we were called that afternoon to pick up a 6 month old border collie mix named Rex as our next foster. He was dirty, scared & very smelly! My first thought "hmmmm, this one is going to take some work." We rode home in the 30 degree weather with the windows slightly down and our noses sticking out just so we could breathe. We came home dropped him in a warm bath and let me tell you, what a difference! 10 minutes after being towel dried, he was a completely different dog, friendly, sweet and yummy smelling clean. We received a call for him on Sunday, and made a plan for his possible forever family to come to our house to meet him, so they could see how he is in his home environment. They fell in love and after reference checks took him home for Christmas.
I have had the luckiest week; 2 foster dogs adopted out in 4 days; that is unheard of. But, we are so happy as they are so deserving of a Christmas in a forever home. And to top that off, we won our first blog awards. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO US!

My new favorite T-shirt!

I ordered this T-shirt the other day from Humane Association of the United States. "Rescue, Opt to Adopt".

And, let me just say that when it arrived today, I absolutely loved it. It is pink with brown lettering (my favorite fashion colors of the moment), and it is a womens cut which I also love. I usually wear a small, but I ordered a medium just in case it ran small and I am glad I did because it runs VERY small. If the medium shrinks much, I will be passing this on to my 80 lb. daughter and ordering a large for myself.

If you would also like to support HSUS and order yourself one of these "most fashionable shirts" to help spread the word, the link is: http://hsus.petfulfillment.com/productdetail.php?productid=1554

Mona Update

Mona was adopted this morning. She is a sweet love who is so deserving of a loving home after a very rocky start in life. Merry Christmas Mona!

Ahh... Christmas Vacation

Yeah! We are officially on winter break. For the first time in 14 years we will not be heading up north to Massachusetts for Christmas. Our girls will actually have Christmas on Christmas for the first time ever. We will miss our family and friends a great deal over this holiday, but it was just too hard to do this year, financially & with all the other logistics that need to be planned. We will relax and enjoy the time off. Grammy & Papa are coming to visit from FLA for a couple of days and bringing sweet Marty with them. He is now a whopping 8 lbs and probably won't get much bigger, if any at all.

We have another foster that I picked up today. Her name is Mona and what a gentle soul she is! Personally, I would love to change her name, but she is going to meet prospective owners tomorrow so our relationship may be very short-lived. She was found stray about 8 weeks ago and has blossomed into a wonderful house dog due to some diligent work from her former foster mother.

Wordless Wednesday

Fostering sure is hard on the heart..

Well it seems like its been a while since my last post when we were just picking up Sunny. It's only been 8 days since I picked him up at the local animal shelter and let me say that there is no better ambassador dog for the motto "ADOPT DON'T SHOP"! He is the most energetic happy dog I have ever met in my life. He oozes happiness and it is contagious to all who encounter him. He gets along with everyone; human and animal. He is well behaved in the house, on the leash,etc. What a wonderful, wonderful dog!

Sadly though, today was our last day together as he went to his new home. I left him with tears in my eyes hoping he knew how much we came to love him in such a short time.

Is that a long tongue or what??

Foster update

We said goodbye to Wiggles this morning as he makes his way to Rhode Island for his new and forever home. Somebody is getting a very, very good dog, and we will miss him a bunch.

On Monday we will pick up our next temporary foster pup Sunny. Sunny has another foster home with lots of rambunctious dogs to go to, but he is being neutered on Monday and needs a quiet place to rest for 4 or 5 days. Sunny is lab/pit bull mix and really looks like you took Wonder (our lab) and Lexi (our pit bull) and mixed them together. How cute is he???

Wordless Wednesday

Mr. WIggles update

It sure is a good thing that Mr. Wiggles already has a forever home to go to on Friday. He is an absolute gift! He is super snuggly with lots of kisses for all, he loves to play and hasn't had any accidents in this short time we have had him. I know we are going to miss him a bunch!
This weekend I was attempting to take some pictures of all my furry & non-furry children separately to collage together and put on Christmas cards. Easier said than done when working with 2 dogs, 5 cats & 2 humans! I only got 1 suitable picture out of the bunch. I guess I will just have to use pictures I already have.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today we are thankful for all of our wonderful family and friends (furry & nonfurry)! It doesn't really feel like Thanksgiving as I don't believe we have ever celebrated alone before. We have always had company or gone visiting, but not this year. This year we hung out, just the four of us, 5 cats & 3 dogs. And you know what? it was ok; not as much pressure to make sure everything is cooked to perfection. And, since cooking is my least favorite thing to do, I was alright with that.

We picked up Wiggles yesterday and he is an angel. He has very good house manners and has hooked right up with Wonder and Lexi, playing and sleeping on the couch. We are getting attached already, so luckily he has already been adopted out.

Mr. Wiggles is coming to visit

We finally received word about which foster pup we would be babysitting over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I present to you: MR. WIGGLES!!

Mr. Wiggles is a 6 month old,25 lb border collie mix. He has been adopted and is being transported to his new home with a vet student on December 4. More to come, when he gets here and we get to know his sweet precious personality.

Busy, busy, busy

Haven't had much time lately, been running like a crazy woman all week. KK & I are off to Memphis tonight for a soccer tournament. The rest of our crew is staying home to take care of each other. We will be back on Sunday, so hopefully everything is intact when I return.

We have volunteered to foster a foster puppy for CCR over the Thanksgiving holiday. There are plenty of foster families who are going away and need someone to watch over their furbabies for 4 or 5 days while they are gone. Nobody wants to waste money on kenneling them, so temporary fosters are the answer! And really, can/does anybody really love on them at the kennel?
I don't know who or what yet, but we will find out on Monday and we are excited!!

It's Sunday, so let it all hang out.

Lexi modeling her new T

Lexi has no fat and very thin short fur, and I know she must get a chill when she is out and about. So, we decided she needed a jacket. She & Wonder often rock our house like the WWF Wrestlemania and we were not sure how long a jacket would last before Wonder ripped it off her in some full nelson kind of move.

We were at Petsmart and found this cute little Black & Pink T-shirt on clearance for $5, so we thought we would start with that. If it lasts more than a day, we will get her a warmer jacket for when the really cold weather hits. Isn't she the cutest? The best part is, I really think she enjoys wearing it!

Wordless Wednesday......

Woo-hoo! Have you seen the price of gas??

I never thought that I would be excited about the price of gasoline. That's just me, I don't really care who has the penny cheaper gas or even the dime for that matter. When filling my tank with 20 gallons that only saves me either .20 cents or $2.00; definitely not worth my time. Of course, I did my fair share of complaining when it was $4.59 a gallon not long ago. But today, I was excited (the real w00-hoo kind of excited), and I couldn't believe my eyes: REGULAR UNLEADED GAS $1.95 p/g, which for me then became $1.85 p/g using my Kroger plus card. The grand total of filling the nearly empty gas tank on my Chev. Tahoe today...........$36.50!! Less than 1/2 of the cost 5-6 weeks ago.

An extra $36.50 in my pocket, hmmm, what will I do with it??? Hearguard? Frontline? Nylabones? New Corrugated cardboard scratchers? Equine de-wormer? 1/2 of a new pair of Nike Shox (and what good is one?) for the unfurry child? So many choices!!

Yearbook Yourself (Lexi-lu)

Keep reading after Lexi's shots to see some felines in their finest yearbook moments.

1952


1960

1990

1976

Chelsea thinks this ^ looks like Grammy, do you agree?

1962

Yearbook yourself (or your cat?)

I couldn't help but do this to my furbabies! Thanks for the tip Shandi!
These first 3 are shots of Sweet Thing with her various hairdo's through the years. I am not sure she would appreciate seeing these! Let me know which is your favorite do?

#1

#2

#3

And, here is Francesco looking quite studly!
#1

#2

Nike in another sweet front paw pose

Nike also likes to lay with her legs stretched out, paws crossed. She is quite a lady!

Look, I'm double jointed

Nike is the cutest when she lays; legs tucked back and feet out.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Sunshine

Back in the Saddle again...

We have been on Fall Break now for 3 days, and with absolutely nowhere to be or go for 4 days, we have made going to the barn a daily ritual.

KK has been riding Parker and if I don't say so myself, looking quite good for someone who has been riding 3 times in the last year! He has been very consistent and looking very good. He is the cutest!

As for my sweet Bonnie, she is doing as well as one could expect. Bonnie is now 31 years old, blind and almost completely deaf. She is in a paddock with 2 other mares, Riley & London, and I witnessed them taking the best care of her that one could imagine. They lead her around to the field, food, water & shade giving her gentle nudges or just staying slow with her in tow.

I had taken Bonnie out to graze while I watched KK & Parker in the ring. She would take a few nibbles and then whinny and get very nervous pacing around. It was at this point that I knew she wanted to be back with her herd where she felt safest. Without thinking I led her through the gate and released her. Riley was nowhere in sight and London was at the far end of the paddock. Bonnie instantly started trotting around and whinnying in panic mode looking for them. London remained still and whinnied back but I don't think Bonnie heard her as she continued to trot in large circles and even into trees. This completely broke my heart! Soon she found London and together they walked slowly to the back field to meet up with Riley. As we were leaving to head home, I saw Bonnie standing still in the field with Riley resting her head on Bonnie's back; another tearjerker. But of course when I whipped out the camera the batteries were dead, so you will have to compose your own sweet picture.

Stretch your left paw out....and hold it....1, 2, 3......

I caught Francesco doing his evening stretches.

Hmmmmm...........

Why does Sandie think his 14 pound body will fit comfortably in a women's size 6 shoebox? He was looking like such a handsome man cat taking his nap, I had to snap a pix!

Favorite Foto Friday

Tom & Sara's wedding

Last week, we made a quick trip to Massachusetts for my brother Tom's wedding. And when I say quick trip, I mean quick! We arrived at 8:30 on Wednesday night and were back in Tennessee by 5:30 pm on Saturday.


We were lucky enough to be able to stay with Uncle Joe, Aunti Amy & my super smart, super sweet, super beautiful niece Grace. Grace set us up a nice air mattress right next to her bed in case we needed her during the night. Luckily, we were all OK with a little help from Tiny, Roly Poly, & Fluffy.

The wedding ceremony was at beautiful Independence Harbor in Assonet, Massachusetts. It was a glorious (big word) fall day, with the sun shining and the cool & crisp autumn air. My idea of the perfect weather.

Both Chelsea & KK were junior bridesmaids, and looked absolutely stunning in their truffle colored gowns! I will have more pictures to follow as soon as I can get ahold of Chelsea's camera.

Favorite Foto Friday

Double Championship Weekend

We have had a lot of exciting soccer over the past week and I have truly enjoyed every minute of it. But, I am beat! I feel like I played in 9 soccer games and all I did was sit and be the best cheerleader mom that I could be! Games were scattered all over, we would leave one game and drive 30 minutes to the next game, etc. etc. All this in a gas crunch! I was lucky enough to fill up on Friday, so I wasn't one of those who were running out on the side of the road because all the gas stations were out of fuel, but at $4.39 a gallon I wasn't enjoying using it up so quickly!

Chelsea had 5 games between Tues & Saturday. The week started off with an 0-5 loss, but they continued on in their high school tournament with a winning attitude and never looked back and never lost again. The went all the way defeating one of their district rivals 2-1 in the championship game. This win brought IHS their first ever Girls Soccer trophy!!

This pix is a little dark but it was after 7:00 p.m. when the game finished.

KK also had a tournament this weekend. They were in the top division with 3 of the other top teams in the state and we knew it was going to be a battle. We started off with a 2-1 win, a 4-1 win and a 0-0 tie to put them in the championship game against the team they tied. The last two times we played this team they beat us, and we tied, but today was different; our players had the look. You know the look, the we are going to win this no matter what look? and they played better than ever to win the championship 2-0!

KK & Keith Urban

I had previously told you all about KK's trip to the Keith Urban/Kenny Chesney concert at LP Field. Well, the woman sitting next to them took pictures and a video of when Keith Urban came down into the crowd and emailed them to KK' friends dad.
Now, if watch this video and pause it quick at the 40-42 second area and look to the right of the screen, you will see a pink cell phone and KK!! That pink cell phone belongs to KK! She is that close and trying to snap some pix on her phone!



Did you pause it? Did you see her? It is really really her and she is really really proud! She is also really proud of the screams you hear near the end, because they also belong to her!

Wordless Wednesday (ok, this may take a word or two)

Aw, Shandi!!

Weird Optical Illusions

Have you seen this???
Which way is this spinning woman moving; clockwise or counter-clockwise?

When I first look at it, she moves counter clockwise, but if I blink she will rotate clockwise. And if I am reading below the picture, and I can see her out of the top of my eyes, she keeps switching without every completing a rotation.
I am completely amazed! It doesn't take much does it?

Jersey Saga..

You remember the dog torn-up soccer jersey story? Well, I work with some of the craftiest people you could imagine and brought it in to work thinking surely it can't be that hard to fix. For me yes, but for most of them, an easy project indeed. I knew it probably wouldn't look pretty, but as long as it was held together it would work. I hung it on the wall with a sign begging for help. All of my crafty friends laughed and thought it was unfixable.

And then out of nowhere, just when I thought it was an item for the trashcan, one of my sweet students sweet Mommas brought it to me and told me she was a "pretty good seamstress" and thought she could fix it.

She called me and let me know it was ready today, and I just picked it up. Let me tell you, that woman is not "pretty good", she is a MIRACLE WORKER!! She was a little nervous wondering if it was good enough. It is a million times better than I ever thought that poor jersey could look

again! I cannot thank her enough!

Here is the before:

An up close shot of the stitching.....

The completed surgery!

Where to start?

I know it's been a while since my last post, but we have been so busy! That said, you would think that I would have lots to blog about, but my mind is blank, so here are a few tidbits:

We were in Atlanta, GA over the Labor Day weekend for KK's soccer tournament, we were in a 3 way tie for first but lost on the third tiebreaker. We were assigned a hotel right near the airport by the soccer tournament. An area of town where you don't go out after dark!! The hotel wasn't dirty, but it was old, and the shower heads were about 5'6" high, I had to bend over to wet my hair! With over 700 teams from around the country at the tournament I guess they have to use every hotel available. Our games were actually 30 minutes south of Atlanta in a town called Peach Tree City. Peach Tree City, it is a beautiful place that they call a golf cart community. There are trails all around town that take you anywhere you want to go in your golf cart, and everyone (I think) owns one. Children have to be 14 to drive them, but they even drive them to school where there is parking! There were Golf Cart Spaces at Walmart & Outback Steakhouse! It was so cool, I want to live there so I can drive a golf cart around! TOO FUN!

Chelsea's soccer team has been doing really well and she has been scoring in every game. It's nice to have one daughter play forward and the other center defender; I get to enjoy all aspects.

KK's volleyball team? Don't Ask!

I went back to work on Tuesday and I have 21 wonderful children this year; 10 in the Tues/Thurs class and 11 in the Mon/Wed class. I was worried and nervous as always when we start the school year but they are all great and already falling into the routine. Wish me luck!

My dogs are not happy with me back at work. My perfect dogs have never chewed on anything in the house except for their own toys. But this week, my perfect Wonder Dog has chewed a shinguard (dirty & smelly), a soccer sock (also dirty and smelly) and today, Chelsea's High school soccer jersey! She pulled it out of the backpack and got sweet Lexi to play tug with her. Of course none of this would happen if my human children could put their things away, but still....... try explaining this one to the coach?? I don't know if you can tell, but it is supposed to be a 20, and the 0 is completely torn up and there are tooth marks all over the place