Five years

Poor Sadie Bug. She spent the night of her 5th birthday on Friday at the emergency vet clinic. She and the husband were playing frisbee in the back yard. She jumped to get the frisbee and came down on top of the metal strip of landscape edging material and cut about a nickel-sized piece of skin off of the back of her leg right above her paw. Of course she needed a few stitches. And of course she did this exactly 15 minutes after our normal vet closed for the day.

As we drove home from the vet Friday night, more than $500 lighter (crazy, I know!!), I began to regret the decision I made as a junior in college not to go to vet school...

I hope you all had a relaxing weekend that didn't involve constantly telling the dog not to eat her bandage! :)

Mental health day #2

I took another mental health day recently. Actually, it was more of a "restoring Sadie's sanity" day than anything. Poor thing, she's been neglected by me and terrorized by Lachlan lately. Even though there is snow in the mountains (I know! Isn't it crazy?), it's still pretty warm down here in our valley.

So the other day Lachlan and I took Sadie to an awesome little area of the river about a mile from our house. She will swim and chase sticks all day long if I let her. She came home and slept quite soundly for the rest of the afternoon in my room, safely behind the door so that Lachlan couldn't crawl into bed with her.

Big river (don't keep on growin')

Every  morning I pack Sadie and Lachlan into the car and we drive a mile to a park that is situated along the Colorado river. From there we walk about 2 miles or so on a path that follows the river, but yesterday our walk was cut short.

It seems that major snow in the mountains all winter plus really warm temperatures the past few weeks has led to a mighty high Colorado river. In anticipation of the flooding, they've been moving a lot of dirt and boulders at the park for the last two weeks, trying to build up some low-lying areas along the river. But I guess they didn't move quite enough...







Fortunately, Sadie seems to understand that the river is pretty dangerous right now, and she's been avoiding all the spots where she normally jumps in for a drink and to cool off.



Besides, there are plenty of places for her to swim on the other side of the path, in what used to be dry land!



As crazy as it is to see our river like this, I can't imagine what it must be like to live in the areas so hard hit by flooding this year!

Happy birthday, Bug Bug

Happy Birthday to Sadie Bug! Well, her birthday was actually last month, but please don't tell her. She's already ignored so much now that Lachlan is here, I don't think her fragile emotional state could handle knowing I'm a little late with her present this year.

To celebrate Bug's fourth year, I bought her a new collar and some new ID tags.

The collar is from 3pooches on Etsy and I LOVE it. It's even more gorgeous in person, and even prettier than the last collar I got from them. You can get your own fancy collar like this, in a pattern called Violet, right here.



Sadie also got two new ID tags. Because she spends some time in NM when I go to visit her grammy and Grandpa Jack, I got her one tag with their phone number and one with mine. I got these tags from the Etsy seller the Copper Poppy. They are hand-stamped aluminum and so pretty in person! These two tags are the Bella and the Perla (a listing for the Perla wasn't available at the time of this post).





Now I'd better get going on that doggie birthday cake...

Sadie and Sophie

Houston, we have a problem.

Today Mr. UPS brought Sophie. She's a giraffe and a crazy popular baby toy. She's also nose bleed expensive. And on a whim I bought her for Lachlan.

He likes her, especially the part of her that squeaks.



Know who also likes things that squeak? Yep, you guessed it. Sadie Bug.



This might turn out to be the most expensive dog toy I've ever bought...

Lazy afternoons with an iPhone

Lachlan sleeps well at night, and as a result he really doesn't nap for very long during the day. When he does nap, it's usually right after eating, so I've recently taken advantage of a few lazy afternoons with him. I almost always have my iPhone with me while he's eating so that I can catch up on emails and the news, and I decided to use it to take some photos of him while he sleeps.











Even Sadie gets in on the action (or lack thereof...)!

Sixty-eight

It's 68 degrees outside now, and it's going to keep on getting warmer. Tomorrow it is supposed to be near 80. This means that it will probably freeze by the middle of next week (welcome to spring time in the Rocky Mountains!). But until then, we're all enjoying the warm weather, including the apricot tree, which is covered in lovely white blossoms.







Know who else is enjoying the warm weather? Sadie Bug. I put one of her beds on the back patio, where she likes to snooze away the afternoon.





Have a lovely weekend!

Snow day

We woke up this morning to a bit of snow. This made Sadie happy. She loves shoveling the snow with her nose.





And it's a good thing we didn't get more than an inch or two of snow, or these tiny miniature wildflower iris would have been buried!



I think Lachlan, Sadie and I will spend the rest of the day inside by the woodburning stove!

Wet willie!

Sadie is doing GREAT with Lachlan. She's curious for sure, but she really is gentle and calm when around him. Her behavior with her daddy, on the other hand, is a bit different. She takes every opportunity to let him know that she's still here. Sometimes she gets a little aggressive with his socks that she steals. But usually it's a wet willie, with her tongue as far down his ear as possible, that let's him know that she was here first.

Completely random photos

I'm still waiting for Goober to arrive. At this point I have removed every item from every kitchen cabinet and drawer and cleaned and reorganized everything. So now I'm moving on to the absolutely shocking mess of photos on my computer.

Many of the same pictures appear in one or more sizes in up to 10 different folders in various locations around my computer (and on CD)! Organizing them is a monumental task, but it's also a lot of fun and I've rediscovered lots of photos that bring back great memories. Here are just a few of them.

Sadie Bug. This dog cracks me up on a regular basis.



Simon. Oh, Simon. I still miss him like crazy.



Ah, now this one brings back some memories. I lived in Baltimore for many years, and I used to love having parties at my house (it helps that I had some of the funnest friends in the world)! I often had different contests for my parties and guests could compete for prizes. Contests included best hat, best use of leftover Halloween candy, and--for this party--best use of a fruit or vegetable. If I remember correctly, this was the winning entry, which was created by my friend Young.



I spent the majority of my time in Baltimore gutting and rebuilding a 1920 brick rowhouse. At one point, I had a brand new wall of white drywall that was just BEGGING for some art. So I had a few friends over one weekend, and, with the help of good music and freely flowing mimosas, we proceeded to create our own art using paint. Each person had their outline drawn on the wall, and then we took turns adding to each outline, moving to the next person each time a new song started. This was a total blast and actually delayed progress on the house for several weeks because I didn't have the heart to paint over them!



Of all the photos I have from Afghanistan, this one of this young man holding a stack of naan has remained one of my favorites. It was taken right outside the shop of one of my three go-to guys for carpets just off Chicken Street in Kabul.



And here's another favorite. This is me with my "bodyguard" shopping on the streets of Kabul. For a small "fee" he stayed with me while shopping, carrying my bags and helping me navigate beggars and other street urchins. No matter how much time had passed since my last visit (almost a year at one point), he always seemed to find me within just a few minutes of my arrival on the street AND he remembered my name. He spoke perfect English and had a great sense of humor. I still remember being completely dumbfounded during my visit in 2005 that he knew more about the status of Michael Jackson's child molestation trial than I did!



And now back to organizing...

Ridiculous

Ridiculous is the word of the day around here today. Why?

1. As of last night they were already forecasting a major blizzard--not a major storm, not a major winter storm, but a major BLIZZARD--for us on Wednesday. That ought to make travel for Thanksgiving ridiculously fun. Or not.

2. Sadie normally sleeps in our room, but since we've had the woodburning stove going, she's taken to sleeping in one of her two beds in the living room so that she can be more snuggly. At 2 o'clock this morning, she sat by my side of the bed and whined until I got up, thinking she needed to go potty. Instead, she walked out to the living room and plopped down on her bed by the stove. Turns out that she was just letting me know that the fire had died down and I needed to add another log...

3. And you know what else is ridiculous? It may be cold outside, but with the fire roaring this morning the house is now a toasty 73 degrees. I'm in a t-shirt, it's so warm in here. But this ridiculous little turkey can't seem to get close enough to the fire.

Gratuitous dog photos

What better way to start your day than with a few random photos of Sadie from last week...









P.S. I'm making great (but slow) progress in the nest!

Sadie's sock

Look at that face. Is that not the sweetest dog you've ever seen?

That's Sadie. Nothing but sugar and spice and everything nice. Um, except when she feels like she's not getting enough love from her daddy. She has a habit of finding his socks and carrying them around from room to room, crying sadly, when he's at work.



She's usually quite careful with them. But when she thinks that her daddy isn't giving her the amount of love she needs and deserves, she sometimes takes it out on the sock.



And the end result is never pretty.



Consider yourself warned, daddy.

Puppy love

Sadie loves three things in life: our morning walks, the moment her daddy gets home from work, and the rare moments when her daddy sits on the couch, puts up his feet, watches some TV, and rubs her ears. Well, she also loves giving daddy wet willies and a dehydrated chicken treat that she loves so much that I call it "crack," but I digress.

A while back I was sitting in the chair watching this love fest take place. Sadie sits as far back on her butt as she can so that her back is as straight as possible.



This places her head and ears as close as possible to the husband.



Sometimes he doesn't get the hint, and she has to spell it out for him.



He figures it out eventually.



And this makes her day.



Then she always gives me this look, as if to let me know that I don't quite compare.



Of course, she sings a different tune the next day when it's time for our walk...