My Day Without Cats

Normally, for an event like this I'd do a bit more. I have house guests this week. So, I'm just going to post my dogs' yearbook photos. From obedience school of course! (Ok, maybe they're just from this website... lol)

 

Masha, class of 1950

 

Jared, Class of  1968

 

Donovan, Class of  1972

 

Vali, Class of  1962

A bit of Christmas Cheer...

Sophie trimming the tree

I had to doctor Masha's picture because her fur picked up the yellow from the floor and looked all golden. She's smiling though -- really!

Vali does NOT like the tree -- this is as close as he would pose with it!

Photo Hunt: Different

For this week's theme I chose a shot of my two coneheads. I think this particular picture really illustrates just how very different the two really are... Jared (left) is very gentle, nervous, and always aims to please. Donovan (right) is cocky, hard-headed and impish. I love them both dearly, but sometimes I wish Jared would gain some of Donovan's fearlessness and Donovan would be a bit more obedient!

Photo Hunt: Free

Some of you may know already that I am a Creative Memories consultant. So, for free I chose to take a picture of some of the freebies I give away to all of my customers. These are called page completion kits and they're very cute. I like them so much that I usually wind up using a few from every box of them I get for my own books!

Photo Hunt: Heavy

This week the theme is heavy. At nearly 100 lbs, I think this guy qualifies. This is my German Shepherd Dog, Vali (pronounced like volley). He looks quite imposing, but looks can be deceiving. On the inside, he's just a big ol mamma's boy!

Jared's Tail Adventures

One of my dogs, Jared, had a rough day yesterday, then had to spend the night at the vet, and now has a bandage on his tail and stitches under that and will be on pain meds for a while, so he's a bit on the loopy side. If you want the full story, you can see it at Grumpamoose's blog, but I just thought I'd post a couple of pictures to document the whole thing.

Here he is, home, safe and mostly sound. Poor guy. He seems more nervous than he usually is (and he's usually pretty tightly-wound so that's really saying something!) but I don't know if that's an effect of the meds or just him being afraid of getting hurt again.

And here's a close-up of that tail. They've got it wrapped pretty well, but I'm still gonna have to make him wear the lampshade when we're not home and he's going to have to be separated from the other dogs too because they're just too curious about what's under there.

Photo Hunt: Old-Fashioned

For this week's Photo Hunt theme, old-fashioned, I'm showing off one of my favorite Christmas presents from this year. My Father-In-Law gave me this amazing antique tea set. I have a small collection of tea pots, cups, etc. so it was the perfect thing! Most of what I have though is just items I've picked up in my travels, but this set really piqued my interest. Grump decided to do a little searching to see if he could tell how old it was and where it came from.

Of course, the first thing you start with is the label on the bottom. Turns out this particular set is quite old. Here's what he found:

From 1843 to 1862, the company was under the management of Edward Challinor using the mark E Challinor. Likely Charles Challinor owned the company, and Charles was a coal industrialist. In 1862, Charles and Edward became partners, and moved from making Earthenware to Ironstone China, and goods were marked E& C Challinor. Partnership dissolved sometime in 1891, as company products bore the mark C Challinor for 4 years until it ceased in 1896 (source) Also, it says Fenton, rather than England so it is pre -1891

Quite fascinating if you ask me! Tune in next week for "narrow".

Photo Hunt: Important

For this week's Photo Hunt, the theme is "important." This was a bit of a hard one because it's somewhat an abstract concept. It means different things to different people. So I was trying to think of what is really important to me, and the one thing I kept coming back to was my faith.

Unquestionably, the most important thing in my life is God. But how to take a picture of God? I mean, he doesn't exactly pose for photo ops, does he? So I decided to take a picture of the Word of God: the Bible. I could have taken a shot of the cover, but that's not really the important part. That's just the wrapping. The important part is what's inside. So I decided to photograph my favorite verse (which I've then digitally highlighted). So here you go:

It's Philippians 4:13 for those not familiar. The text reads "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." This one little verse has gotten me through so much in life. Anytime I think I just can't do something, and I'm about to throw in the towel, I remember this verse and with a prayer, I press onward. It's amazing how true it is. I really can do anything, face anything, as long as I draw my strength from Him. So that's my "important."

Stay tuned next week for old-fashioned.

Photo Hunters: Delicious

This week's theme is "delicious," and since I can't afford an evening at my favorite restaurant right now, I decided instead to browse the pictures on my camera. Of course, a large number of those are from my trips to Russia.

This is one of my favorite Russian foods: Blini. Blini are basically extremely thin pancakes. We've seen them served as breakfast food, party foods, used like tortillas to make yummy lunches, or here as a part of a school cafeteria lunch. The ones in this picture are filled with apples and dusted with sugar, but they can be served with a seemingly endless list of toppings/fillings. We've been told that each Russian woman has her own style of making blini and the recipe is usually a closely guarded secret shared only with family. Too bad -- I'd love to learn to make these!

Trees in January

Last year Grump and I purchased a membership to the Arbor Day Foundation, which then gave us 10 free trees. There were several groupings to choose from, but we picked the "Autumn Classics". Well, the trees arrived about a week ago and last weekend Grump planted them. They were tiny when they got here -- looked like a bouquet of sticks, painted different colors so we could tell them apart. Still, they're guaranteed to grow, and if you can't trust the Arbor Day folks when it comes to trees, who can you trust, right? So, for now they're all in the back yard, right near the fence to provide them some protection from the elements. I've decided I'm going to document their growth, taking pictures of two of the trees at the beginning of each month, so we can see how they grow. Right now they're not much to look at, but if we've done everything right they will be eventually. So here are their "baby pictures"...

This first is the smallest of the bunch, but also the one I'm looking forward to the most. It's a White Flowering Dogwood. You can barely even see it in the picture, but it's the long stick that's sticking up in the middle of the green circle. We're eventually planning to place it out front. I can't wait 'till it blooms!

This one's a Red Maple. It should be gorgeous in the fall, once it has had a chance to mature. It's a little easier to see, but I highlighted it with its own circle too.