Bacon cookies anyone?

The girls and I decorated Christmas cookies yesterday. Trent wanted nothing to do with it. He was having too much fun playing video games.

Towards the end, we were getting a little silly. Perhaps it was all the sugar we were eating. Maybe we were bored with the sprinkles. I don't exactly remember how it started, but someone (maybe it was me) thought it would be fun to put bacon sprinkles on the cookies.

So, above you can see a few cookies with bacon sprinkled on them. The one on the left has both chocolate and bacon sprinkles.

When Erik came home, he was more than happy to have a cookie. I just didn't tell him about the bacon. He took a bite and then looked a little disappointed.

He said that it was sweet but then had a nasty bacon after taste. I tried a bite. It wasn't that bad but it may be something we just give to the dogs instead.

The girls were supposed to take theirs home and let their dad eat a bacon cookie. I can't wait to find out later how that went over.

La Encantada

We made the trek to La Encantada this morning to take Christmas pictures. It had been four years since we were there.

2012

2008

2012

2008

Big difference between the four years.

Paint, Ink and Gesso

I had a few minutes last week to mess around so I did something a little different and used mostly paint, ink and gesso. This is the result:

We have a new pup in the house. I'll post more about him later.  He's a little chihuahua mix (just like Kat always wanted.

 I have to admit that it's nice to have a dog that can't reach the counter. :)

I am a mouse

Sookie spends a lot of time trying to convince the mice that she is one of them. However, the mice are smart enough to know that no mouse has big, green eyes.

Zoe gave me a kiss

The dog has never really liked me so the kiss was a bit of a shock. Kat and I were in bed when Zoe jumped up and licked my cheek.

I didn't even ask her.

She just did it.

and then she did it three more times.

But when I said, "Thank you, Zoe!" she growled a little and jumped off the bed.

Kat took this picture

Coil and Liberty's memorial on Thanksgiving

Snowflake and Sunshine's memorial out front.

We took Zoe's cone of shame off today. She then spent a good 30 minutes scratching her ears.

I had a ferret once I had to euthanize. Her name was Siouxsie and she was the sweetest and most gentle animal. She was so tiny and had already had surgery to remove her cancerous adrenal gland. Ferrets get cancer so easily. Unfortunately, she caught a "ferret parvo" that was making it's way around. I stayed up the night before forcing her to drink water and feeding her high calorie glop. She had to be put down anyway. I remember the vet's assistant yelled at me for "letting" her get so sick. I think Siouxsie was the first ferret to have been diagnosed in town with the ferret disease. After it spread and the assistant saw first hand how quickly the disease was taking down ferrets, she apologized.

It still hurt like hell.

My animals are so important to me. Siouxsie died almost 20 years ago and I still think of her so often.

I feel like I'm the only one in the house that is still grieving over Liberty. It's seems as everyone has moved on; Erik and Trent are looking at new TVs and Kat is downloading music and no one ever mentions Liberty.

I bought several new Cricut carts last week so maybe I'll try to make something tomorrow to take my mind off things.

Thanks again for all your support, well wishes and cards. XOXO

I miss my dog

I miss her so much that it's made me sick. The lack of sleep and nightmares and stress have turned into a cold that hit my lungs so hard. When I woke up Sunday, my nebulizer treatments were no longer working. I took a really, really hot shower and let the water slam my chest but it still didn't help. I went to ER where they hooked me up with some new breathing treatments and sent me home.

I still miss her. I still feel guilty. I'm still not coping well.

Zoe is still dripping blood on the floor.

It's been 4 days.

When does it get better?

It's very quiet now without Liberty. There's no jumping on the sliding glass door, no barking at the air, no barking during feeding time and no whining when the kids go to school. It's just what it is now. Quiet and still.

I'm hosting Thanksgiving but I'm too sick to really move far without having a coughing attack so Erik had to buy the turkey Sunday so we could start to defrost it. He was supposed to buy evaporated milk for the pumpkin dessert but bought condensed milk. Doesn't that sound like a typical man move?

For whatever reason, Erik's check wasn't deposited on Friday. It didn't come in the mail on Saturday and when he went to work today he called about it. Ooops, I guess they didn't get the checks in until today so they will Fed-Ex them tomorrow. How freakin' convenient. We had to charge the Liberty's "Euthanasia Special", Zoe's surgery, my ER visit and meds and the stupid turkey so we could have it defrosted in time. What an inconvenient time to just blow off paychecks. Don't know about you, but we live paycheck to paycheck.

The snake is hungry and sometime between now and Wednesday I have to get her a Jumbo Mouse. Maybe I'll get her two since it's Thanksgiving.

Here's a layout or two because what's a post on a scrapbooking blog without a couple of pages?

I promise I won't come back and post until I'm in a better mood.

Liberty's story

We found Liberty at Petsmart when the Humane Society was there. Katrina was 3 and when she went over to pet Liberty, Liberty threw herself on the ground, stomach up for Kat to pet her. We immediately fell in love. We adopted her but not before bringing in the other two dogs to meet her on neutral territory to make sure everyone got along.

She was born on July 4th, 2006. Her original name was Molly but because we already have a Molly in the family (my parent's dog), we renamed her to Liberty.

We were told that Liberty had a slight case of Separation Anxiety. It was soon discovered that it was not a slight case.

A few of my neighbors thought that we named her Liberty because if we left her outside when we had to run errands, she would escape, ie.wanting her "liberty". We named her because she was born on the 4th of July.

So, we knew we had to keep her inside when we left because she would escape. She destroyed everything when we left the house. Leaving her in a crate caused her to cry constantly (I video taped it) and hyper salivate.

We took her to the vet for a solution and was instructed to see a specialist. I think she was $120/hr but we were willing to pay for it because we loved her so much and my feelings about dogs are "WHEN YOU ADOPT A DOG, IT'S FOR LIFE". Also, it was kind of fun to say, "Well, my dog's therapist says.....". We bombarded Liberty with sedatives so I could go to the grocery store without having my home destroyed. We bought pheromone collars, sprays, outlet dispensers and received a prescription for Prozac. We were also given instructions on how to ignore her when we leave and to ignore her until she settles down when we return.We left a tv on, a Kong toy with peanut butter to occupy her. We closed every door to every room with the exception of our master bedroom. We left that door open and opened the blinds so she could look outside and not feel so "trapped". We moved the garbage can from the kitchen to the closed bathroom so she wouldn't destroy it. Sometimes we'd forget to shut the bathroom door and we'd come home to this:

We even took her to Petsmart for obedience training. She passed!

It was shortly after this that we discovered she contracted Valley Fever. Boy, those are expensive medications! She was now taking three medications...Prozac,  Fluconazole and a dog anti-inflammatory for her swollen shoulder from the Valley Fever.

When we left for a cruise in January of 2009. We were gone about a week. When we returned we're not sure what happened, but Liberty attacked Zoe. I mean ATTACKED. Gigi started to get in the action, too.

Zoe required surgery. There was a lot of damage to the muscle deep inside where Liberty's tooth had kind of hooked around it and pulled.

There was no food or toys they were fighting over so we're not sure what triggered the attack. I had the vet do a urine test on Zoe to see if maybe she was sick and Liberty was picking up on that and trying to take over alpha status. It was discovered that Zoe had crystals in her urine. We immediately started Zoe on medication and a recommended vegetarian diet.

We decided that the stress of us leaving for so long, maybe the new anti-inflammatory drugs and Zoe not feeling good was why Liberty attacked.

We were good for about another 3 years. Liberty still had her moments of destruction but for the most part, things were good until Liberty attacked again. We were babysitting a relative's dog, which happened to be a puppy, when Liberty lost it and attacked Zoe again. This time was worse. She had tubes sewn into her to drain fluid. This was on Christmas Eve 2011.

This time, we got a dog trainer that came to our home to observe the relationships between us and the dogs. We had to wait until we got our tax refund because having a dog trainer come to our house is NOT cheap. In the meantime, we kept the dogs separated and occasionally, I would come home to something like this.

That's flour, powdered sugar, plastic bags and lots of other things I can't quite remember right now.

My friend, Amy, loaned me her dog collar zappers. Zoe got one and so did Liberty as we weren't too sure who was the instigator. The zappers worked like a charm and I never came home to the above messes again. When Angel, our at home dog trainer approved them, we kept them on 24/7.

Angel taught us new tricks, rules and strict routines for the dogs. We even got Liberty in a crate! Whenever we left the house, she went in her crate. She was good about, too. No crying or whimpering. We also started her back on the Prozac as we had stopped it sometime earlier because her anxiety seemed to be a bit better. I also bought her a Thundershirt to help keep her calmer.

I don't know what happened yesterday. The meter man from the electric company came to the back fence to read the meter. The dogs went nuts and before I knew it, Liberty was again on top of Zoe ripping her apart. 

I had just taken off the Thundershirt that morning to wash it. She had worn it for several days in a row.

When Liberty attacked, I had Blake and my kids and the two girls I babysit inside. I ran outside and pulled Liberty off of Zoe and when I looked up, Trent had Gigi. I guess Gigi was going for it, too. Zoe ran inside and the girls shut the door.

I couldn't look at Zoe's wound until the baby was picked up. It was only about 15 minutes to that time. I also called Erik to come home immediately. Once I got a chance to look at Zoe's wound, I knew we'd be going to the vet again.

I was sick with worry. SICK

I knew at this time that this was it for Liberty. We have tried EVERYTHING with her. We have spent thousands of dollars on dog trainers, therapists, medications and special gadgets for Liberty not to mention the thousands of dollars on surgeries for Zoe and the pain and agony she's been through.

It was an easy decision to make but the hardest to fulfill. I couldn't put her in a rescue because what if she attacked another dog? I couldn't find her a home with no dogs and no kids (she's never attacked humans but who wants to take the chance???) because who would put up with her separation anxiety and the very expensive Valley Fever meds? I just know that the first time Liberty destroyed something in a new owners' home, it would be a trip back to the Humane Society.

She had to be put down. And she had to be put down by us. I have NEVER put a young dog down that was physically "healthy". She had something in her brain that just clicked and made her attack and no matter what we did, we couldn't fix it. What if the next time she snapped, it was with one of the kids?

The entire family agreed. Erik had to work (as he is in a new job) so the kids and I and my mother took Liberty in to be put down.

Last night, she got every treat we had left in the house. This morning she went for a walk and I didn't yell at her for pulling on the leash. She was fed both Zoe's vegetarian food AND her food with an extra scoop and then we pretended not to look when she went for Zoe's food in the storage container. She rode to the vets' with her head hanging out of the car window and loved every second of her last few minutes of life.

I feel like I murdered my dog. She was my favorite dog. She was mine. Zoe belongs to Erik. Zoe doesn't even like me. 

The kids had the choice of leaving the room when her heart was stopped. Both of them stayed and petted her until she died. I'm proud of them. They're brave kids because I'm still crying and it's been hours.

I miss her so much. She'd sit at my feet and talk to me with little howls that sounded like, "I love you". She slept on the floor at my side of the bed.

Liberty's last picture with the kids this am. I can't even show you a pic of Zoe because it's so bad.

Thank you for reading and thank you for all the support and well wishes you've given me on Facebook.

Three layouts

Yes, you read that correctly. I have three layouts to post. I've been busy this month. ;)

The rats and the mice are keeping me company in my scraproom. Right now, we have 12 mice and 2 rats. The kids are on fall break this week so we're watching one of Trent's teacher's mice.

Well, as promised, here are a few things I've been working on:

Old Scenic Route kraft background, some BasicGrey, Prima, Bo Bunny, American Crafts, etc. etc. Too many older products to list.

 Mostly Echo Park with some old Foofala, Sass and Graphic 45.

Let's see, an old Bazzil policy envelope, mist, and I think some Crate. Those green bubbles on the left, those are old, old, old KI Memories.

I have so much stuff that I'm trying to use up. I love to mix it up with the new.

So there you have it.

Follow your bliss

Check it out! Another layout and another blog post. I feel like I'm on a roll here. I better slow down so I don't hurt myself.

I don't think there is a new piece on here. Oh, maybe the washi tape but the rest of it is old, old, old.

Have a great day. Maybe I'll post again tomorrow.

so here it is

I have decided that the layout passed the "overnight test". I don't like the way the stamping turned out, but if I ripped apart every layout over one little thing, I'd never get anything done.

This picture of Blake is from March. Wow!

This is mostly made from Crate and Lily Bee.

Thanks for looking.

Dried up

One of my therapists suggested I try to get back into scrapbooking.

He also suggested I get some exercise in to help handle my stress. I've been running for over four months. It's helped some. Some days are better than others. Some days I just walk.

So, I have this whole room of paper, adhesive, stamps, ink and my latest addition of rolls and rolls washi tape. I can't say I've done a lot of scrapbooking but I'm back sitting in my room instead of watching TV in the bedroom.

I dug out some supplies. Unfortunately, most of my ink pads have dried up. My glue is gone, too. I did manage to put together a couple of pages.

I was getting lazy here and didn't even bother to scan this one properly. I just stuck it up under my Ottlite and snapped a picture.

Tonight I made a page about Blake. I have to look at it for 24 hours before I decide I like it. Maybe tomorrow I'll post it.

out for now

This snake and mouse stuff is just not working out

You saw the previous pictures, right? We kept the mouse, named her Snowflake and then four days later Snowflake gives birth to 7 babies.

She's a good mama. She didn't eat one baby. Kat is of course, THRILLED beyond words. I have claimed them as my new grandbabies.

Here they are from yesterday. They have their fur and their ears are up. They still haven't opened their eyes yet:

Sometimes they're like this when I come in to feed Snowflake. As soon as she hears food hit the bowl, she gets up and walks towards the bowl. The babies hang on trying to nurse as she drags them across the cage before they give up and fall off one by one. It's the funniest looking thing.

So, as my title suggests, this snake and mouse thing is just not working out.

Meet Mr. Chubbers:

Casey got this mouse on Friday and brought it over for the snake. Both of us were saying how hard it would be because he is soooo cute!! He's white with brown spots and black eyes. He is certainly much more handsome then the white mice with pink eyes.

Before we left to Trent's school carnival, I dropped the mouse (Mr. Chubbers) into the snake tank. I didn't want to watch, I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted it over with. We were purposely getting male mice because we didn't want to deal with mouse babies again.

I was so relieved when we came home from the carnival (several hours later) and there was no mouse to be found. Whew! The snake ate it and I could go on with my weekend.

We were home all weekend long.

This morning I hear Kat say, "MOM! I see the mouse!!" I thought she meant Snowflake so I got up out of bed and ran out to the kitchen. However, she was standing next to the snake tank. I don't know how to explain the look on Kat's face as she pointed at the tank. It was a mix of being stunned, shock and horror.  I looked under the log and there was Mr. Chubbers. He was covered in the ground up coconut shells we use for the snake's floor. He was desperately trying to clean himself off.

Somehow, he managed to live 2.5 days with a snake. Not one of us saw him all weekend long. I took him out and gave him some food and water. He looked like Mr. Skinny now.

Casey said she would keep him and make him a pet.

I'm so glad I've had this trial run with the snake. I love snakes and thought I wanted one for a pet. The problem is I get too attached to the mice. If they survive in the tank with the snake I somehow feel that they deserve to live. They're little fighters. 

Special Snowflake

All of have that Special Snowflake in our lives, don't we?

From this:

to this in less than 24 hours:

We have a snake.
The snake doesn't eat the mouse.
Someone (see picture above) names the mouse.
Now we have a pet mouse.

The luckiest mouse in the world. Kat loves Special Snowflake. She tells me every 60 seconds what the mouse is now doing...

Mom, Snowflake built a tunnel under her wheel...
Mom, Snowflake is eating a sunflower seed....
Mom, Snowflake is in her wheel, no now she's out...
Mom, Snowflake is eating her bedding...

The luckiest mouse in the world.

I can make anything out of paper

but I cannot frost and decorate a cake. I don't know what my dealio is. Here is the cake I made for my mom:

It shouldn't have to be that hard, right?

Do you remember the cake fiasco I had from a couple years ago? Click here

I don't want to keep practicing because someone has to eat the cake and of course it will end up being me. Usually in the middle of the night when everyone is sleeping.

So, while you're thinking about that, here's a layout I completed. I have had the hardest time functioning like a normal person since I no longer get to see my grandson. I haven't completed a layout in almost two months just because I don't feel like it. I don't feel like doing much of anything.

I have taken up running and that has helped. I'm hoping that when the kids start school again (which is next week) that I'll get into some sort of regular schedule and will set aside time to create pages again. We'll see...

The background paper is from Michael's. I think it's actually American Crafts under their Recollections brand name. The background piece is leftover tag packaging from Daisy D's.

Thanks for looking and thanks for your nice comments.

Blake pages

I actually got a little scrapping done this weekend. I have two layouts but one of them is a month old or so. I just got around to scanning it.

  I love Lily Bee .Love it!! This is all from Double Dutch. There are also a few pieces of older Sassafras chipboard pieces.

This one is BasicGrey PB and J plus a few older embellishments from Daisy D's. I added an old sewing pattern to the background with some gesso.

Thanks for looking and thanks for your comments. :D

The kids and I are heading to the cheap movies this afternoon. While I love the low cost of the movies, I can't stand how dirty the theater is. I feel like I should bring a beach towel to spread out on the chair before I sit down. It's important to get there early while the lights are still on to make sure your seat doesn't have gum on it.

Have a great day!

Stripes

Several weeks ago I signed the kids up for Karate. Kat was really into it and had been asking for months to take lessons. Trent wasn't really interested because he "didn't want to kick his friends".

Ok.

Kat was afraid of robbers and thought for sure that taking Karate lessons would help relieve her anxiety. She had started doing yoga a few weeks before to help prepare herself for lessons. I'm not sure where she made the yoga/karate connection but I wasn't going to say anything.

When I went to the class to inquire about lessons, I was told they would get a little introductory type lesson and we'd go from there. So we went and Trent decided he loved it. We signed them both up and started lessons.

4 times a week.


They were both warned to be careful at home and not hurt each other. As you can imagine, this warning lasted until we got out of the car and into the garage. They were all over each other. I can't tell you how many times one of them has come crying to me saying, "Mom!! Kat/Trent kicked me!!" and when I ask the other what happened, I always hear "I was practicing Karate and I didn't mean to really kick him/her." After 4 weeks, I don't even bother asking what happened because I know what the answer is. It's really boring here during the day and Karate lessons are in the evening, so in other words, they get a lot of "practice" time in.  Last week Kat had a bruise on her forehead. I didn't ask about it because I knew where it probably came from -  practicing "moves" on each other.


2 weeks or so in, they start earning stripes. First they both got a white one and then the next week Trent got both a red and blue and Kat only got a red.

She was devastated and she cried when we got home.

It didn't help that her brother, who wasn't really into Karate to begin with and still doesn't know how to tie his belt, kinda rubbed it in after we got home.

But, since we go 4 times a week (*sigh*) it was just the next lesson when Katrina got her blue stripe. I wish I had a picture of her smile. It was bigger than the day we told her she didn't have to take swimming lessons anymore.

When we got home, both asked me to take their picture. They even said that I could put it on Facebook which is amazing because I have to pinky swear a LOT not to put certain pictures on Facebook.

So, here they are after Kat earned her blue stripe and they are both "even". Don't let their smiles deceive you.  Go ahead and wrap your arms around one of them. They practice all day on each other.

They will kill you.

Sunshine

I bought a new printer and boy that sucker is HUGE! It's a Canon wide format printer and I swear it's the size of two normal printers side by side.

I printed off my first picture and so excited to see that it print exactly the same way it looked on the screen.

I had no choice but to scrapbook it.

I wanted to use my new Simple Storiescollection. I love their papers! They're so easy to use but it looks like you spent an hour putting it together.

First Day Last Day 2012

Ok, I do this every year. Which is the first day of school and which is the last day of school?

Paint

I've really missed adding paint to my pages. A year ago or so, I had to throw out my Making Memories paints. All of them were dried out and unusable.

Recently, I picked up a few Martha Stewart paints from Michael's. I think I like them even more than the Making Memories paints! They're thick and smooth and easy to apply. I've also been experimenting with other mediums. The first layout below has "glass beads". You can mix it with the paint and it gives a really cool texture.

The last couple of layouts I've made have some paint on them:

 Papers are  Lily Bee (one of my absolutely favorite companies). I think the title card is Fancy Pants. I keep a stash of "loose" items underneath my desk. It forces me to use something I normally wouldn't.

Papers are Studio Calico. There is also some Crate, BasicGrey and 7Gypsies.

Thanks for looking and thanks so much for your comments. Have a great day.

Oldies but Goodies

I was going through my stash looking for scraps to throw out (because I need the room!!). After they were all spread out on the desk, I decided I couldn't part with them quite yet so I made a layout using them.

I also added some newer stuff like the Fancy Pants and the Prima stamp. I love mixing up old with new.

Thanks for looking. :D

The baby is sleeping

It's so nice. I can just put him in his pack and play and he falls asleep. I love it. Of course, he has to have his special blanket. It used to be his pacifier and blanket but he doesn't use the pacifier anymore.

Here are a couple layouts that were in Ready, Set, Create. I recently had to step down from the designer position as I still could not get enough time in from watching Blake all day. Now that I can just lay him down, I'm starting to get a bit of time back. Whew!

Both of these use Echo Park.

Thanks for looking and thanks for your comments.