Animal Open House

Mark you calendars!! If you live close enough, we'd love for everyone to come out!

Bedford County Animal Control is hosting an open house on Saturday, December 15, 2007 from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. Light refreshements will be served. Kimberly Warren is taking photographs with Santa for $3. Photos will be available on the spot. Photos can be made of your pets, you, or your children. Many various animals will be available for adoption at the event. Everyone is invited to come by and visit. For more information contact:

Bedford County Animal Control

205 Lane Parkway

Shelbyville, TN 37160

Phone: 931-685-1130

FAX: 931-685-1227

Email: michaelgregoryjr@yahoo.com This is our local county Animal Control, and is not the Shelbyville-Bedford County Humane Association that I volunteer for, although I volunteer for Animal control too!

Holiday Tour of Homes

If you're anywhere near Bedford County, consider doing Shelbyville-Bedford County Humane Association's 1st Annual Holiday Tour of Homes.

Advance tickets are available at: First Community Bank Peoples Bank Regions Bank Pinnacle Bank Merle Norman Cosmetics Puppy Palace

That Time of Year

Casey and I had a really nice, quiet Thanksgiving. We decided to cook our own dinner this year, so we could have LOTS of yummy leftovers. Boy, do we have LOTS of leftovers!! I'm not quite sure what we were thinking, when we bought a 12 lb. turkey for three people. I'll know better next year. Casey smoked the bird, and it came out beautifully. We had all of the yummy sides to go with it too: dressing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, fried corn, and cranberry sauce. Since the turkey took most all day to smoke, I made my traditional Thanksgiving breakfast (Sausage, Egg, and Cheese casserole, and Garlic Cheese Grits casserole) to hold us over. After all of that cooking and eating, we really didn't accomplish much else.

On Friday, Casey and I just decided to lounge around and rest. We both had good books we were reading, and we continued to do just that. On Friday night, we had the annual humane association volunteer chili supper. It was really nice to get together and eat some chili, after all of that rich food. The desserts were out of this world, chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, and the best strawberry cake with glaze that I have ever eaten. We practically had to roll ourselves home!

On Saturday, there was even more eating! We went up to Clarksville to have Thanksgiving dinner with all of our 501st Legion, MidSouth Garrison friends. It was a covered dish meal, and there was more food there than you can imagine. I went home Saturday night miserable again!

Sunday, Casey and I put the stop on all of the eating. We had chili and grilled cheese sandwiches. I can honestly say that for once I was sick of eating! We watched movies all afternoon. We were so rotund by that time, it was all we could manage to do!!

On Monday, I finally hauled myself up off of the sofa to clean house. It felt really good to get back up and moving again. Casey and I decided to snack for dinner again and watch yet another movie that night.

WHEW!! What a Thanksgiving break! I have to say that I really did enjoy my time at home. After this fall, I needed a few days to decompress and de-stress. I had a great time with Shingo. That's the longest break that I've had off from work, since we got him in September. He was like a different little dog, while we were home. Mostly because he stayed awake all day. When we work, he just naps all day and is crazy, when we get home. I could tell with us home correcting him, that we really did change his behavior. I'm really looking forward to what happens when we both have two weeks off at Christmas!!

That was my Thanksgiving. How was yours?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, it has begun. The yearly travel season is on us, and everyone is hustling and bustling to get dinner in the works. I can't believe it's time for Thanksgiving already. Even though I've had a difficult fall, I still have LOTS to be thankful for this year:

1. My wonderful husband

2. My wonderful mother

3. The health and happiness of the two above.

4. My pets

5. My terrific friends

6. My health

7. My home

8. A great job that I truly love

9. My freedom

10. The fact that there are those willing to fight for my freedom.

11. I'm so thankful that God has granted me so many blessings.

There are many others, and the list could go on and on.

One of the things that I'm most thankful for today is that one of my longtime, bestest friends ever, Jennifer, had her 2nd cochlear implant activated yesterday. Not only can she hear, but she is hearing things well this time! Now, I'm going to smile all day!!

I'll leave you all with the words of one of my favorite hymns:

Count Your Blessings

Verse 1

When upon life's billows You are tempest tossed,

When you are discouraged Thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings Name them one by one,

And it will surprise you What the Lord hath done.

Chorus:

Count your blessings Name them one by one.

Count your blessings See what God hath done.

Count your blessings Name them one by one.

Count your many blessings See what God hath done.

Verse 2

Are you ever burdened With a load of care,

Does the cross seem heavy You are called to bear.

Count your many blessings Every doubt will fly,

And you will be singing As the days go by.

Verse 3

When you look at others With their lands and gold,

Think that Christ has promised You His wealth untold.

Count your many blessings Money cannot buy,

Your reward in heaven Nor your home on high.

Verse 4

So amid the conflict Whether great or small,

Do not be discouraged God is over all.

Count your many blessings Angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you To your journey's end.

Goodbye

Goodbye Mr. Perkins. You were one of the sweetest cats I've ever known. You were a faithful friend. You will be missed.

More of the Same

I haven't posted much this week. Well, frankly because there has been nothing much going on worth posting. It's just been the usual work, eat, let the dogs out, sleep sort of thing. Everything has pretty much been the status quo, until yesterday. One of our furkids, our outside cat Mr. Perkins, has been feely puny lately. So, we took him into the vet. His news isn't good. Dr. K thinks that he's gotten into something toxic, and his kidneys are starting to fail. I've always known this was a possibility with outdoor cats. Mr. Perkins is one of those cats that is impossible to keep inside. He's the consumate door dasher and impossible to catch once outside. He pretty much likes to either go in or out, whenever the door opens. So after months of wrestling him, when he was young, Casey and I finally decided to let him be an indoor/outdoor cat. Now, that decision has come back to haunt us. Casey will talk more with Dr. K today to see if the situation has improved. If not, it may again be a hard weekend for us.

I HATE this fall. I'm ready for this to stop now!

Restful Weekend

I had a very restful weekend. I've felt better the last couple of days than I have in a while. Casey and I didn't get into anything big over the weekend. On Sunday, we drove over to Mufreesboro to walk around The Avenues. We really enjoyed ourselves. Afterwards, we went to have dinner at Carrabba's. So, we really just relaxed. Yesterday, I got some much needed cleaning done around the house. With the events of the last couple of weeks, I had kind of let it go. So, I had A LOT of catching up to do. Getting everything clean and organized always makes me feel better.

Now, I'm beginning to look forward to the Thanksgiving holidays. Casey and I are planning to make our own dinner this year. We decided that we would like the yummy leftovers. Casey's planning on smoking our turkey. He's become quite the smoker king lately. I want to contribute to the feast, I've just got to figure out what I want to make. I usually don't like to cook at all, but the holidays are different. I'm sure that I'll make my traditional Thanksgiving Day breakfast, but other than that I have to figure it out. Any suggestions?

Scenes from Barkaroo

Well, Barkaroo was fantastic! So many dogs and their humans. No one let the cool weather stop them. Here's just a few shots of the event. I took these with my cell phone, so please excuse the quality.

The scene at the gates.

The other side at the gates.

A lady with her well warmed and oh-SO-Cute chihuahua. Look at that hat!!

Oh yeah, I can't believe that I never shared this here. Here's what Shingo looked like after we spent the day at Nashville Dog Dayz back in October.

Shingo had a BIG day!

Heading to Barkaroo

I'm really excited about lunch today. Jennie, from Kindred Spirits Dog Training and Boarding, is stopping by and we are going to Barkaroo in Mufreesboro. I really enjoy going to events like this. Plus, it helps me do research for my own event, Celebration Pet Day. I hope to make new contacts for vendors and also for future guests. They have some pretty neat events lined up, and I hope that I get there for at least a few of them. It sounds like fun, I can't wait to get there!

Thankful for a New Week--Long!

Hello everyone! I know that I haven't been around much lately. It was just SO hard to get my head together last week. It was first one thing and then another. I've taken Bear's loss really hard. Much harder than Slate's for some reason. I guess with Slate, I knew it was coming. I consider his problems to go along with old age. Bear's was sudden and unexpected. He was still what I consider a "young dog". He was still playing and appeared health and happy. I'm better though. Hopefully it won't be long, until I'm back to my old self.

Last Wednesday I was heading out the door for lunch, when I was met by the sight of Casey by the car with the hood up. THAT can NEVER mean anything good. The car had started to make a weird noise and smoke. Rather than take a chance of doing more damage, we decided to have it towed to the shop. It turns out that we had some bad belts, because of a bad idler. The idler is usually no big deal. Notice that I said usually. The big problem was that Nissan, makes the idler into the engine casing that is usually a factory part. Our great mechanic, Bill, shopped around for us for some aftermarket parts and found one for $60.00. The factory part would have cost us $445.00! We had to leave the car overnight, so we had to figure out a way to get home. We finally decided to take the easy way and rent a car for the night. We got ourselves a nice, comfy Corolla. Now, I'm a fan of Toyotas. I've had four in my life. Every one was a fantastic car. When I traded my last Corolla in for the car we have now, it was eleven years old and had 297,000 miles on it! I had never had anything done to except regular maintenance. GREAT car! I cried when I traded that car off! I've missed having a Toyota ever since. Don't get me wrong, the Altima has been a great car, but it's just been little things the whole time. Not to mention the fact, that it SUCKS, SUCKS, SUCKS on a wet road. Doesn't matter if I'm going 20 mph or 60 mph, it wants to hydroplane. I don't need to tell you that I hate wet weather, because of this. SEVERAL times, Casey and I have done complete 360s in this car and have been lucky enough to tell about it. We're looking to trade it SOON!

Thursday night our spare dog, Trixie, didn't show up. It's not unusual for her, since she's somewhat of a neighborhood dog. We didn't think much about it. When she didn't come up on Friday morning, I started to worry. After I got to work, I started making phone calls. I had my friend, Elaine, making calls and searching too. Turns out, a Pitt Bull had gotten loose in the neighborhood and attacked Trixie, while another neighbor's three year old grandson was petting her. No one knew if she was dead or alive. After more investigation we found out that Trixie was alive, when she ran off. So we started the hunt. Casey and I suspected that she was under our house, and we were right. Casey coaxed her out. She was hurt, but not badly. We took her into the vet early Saturday morning to check her out. She had several puncture wounds and a LOT of bruising, but she was lucky. They gave her a shot of anitibiotics and pain medication and sent her home with the same in pill form. She's still limping this week, but she is doing better.

As you all can probably tell by Friday afternoon, I was ready to run screaming and throw myself off a balcony or something. I was physically and emotionally drained. The whole week had just been the worst kind of awful. That's why Casey and I decided to take a short trip on Saturday. We decided to join all of our friends in the 501st Legion, MidSouth Garrison at a March of Dimes, black-tie, fundraising event in Chattanooga. It was a chef's competition gala with a space theme. We were all dressed in costume and there for atmosphere and to participate in the sketches. One we finished our schtick, we were pleasantly suprised when we found they had reserved us two tables and served us the $500 meal. It was a really neat event, and we all enjoyed it very much. The most fun for me was watching all of the ladies come in wearing their evening gowns. It was like a red carpet fashion show. To see a few pictures taken by my friends Kell and Alex, you can check HERE and HERE. It was just nice to get out and have a great time, after a long, hard week.

Before I finish, I want to give out a big HOORAY for one of my bestest friends, Jennifer. She had her second cochlear implant this week. She had her first, on her left ear, last fall. It has been successful. Everyone stop by and visit her and wish her well on her second!