ColliesHorsesArtLove

Happy Birthday Puppies ~ One Year Old!!!

It's our puppies birthday!!! Awwwhhhhhhh.....are they all just beautiful??????????????

"How Do You Keep Your Dog From Getting Pregnant?"

Someone actually asked me this yesterday when I told them Soleil was in season. Is this really a mystery?

The tile guy overheard our conversation and later said I should have said the dogs used condoms. There is a reason some people should spay and neuter and this person is certainly one of them...

"One day I looked down and there were all these puppies!!!!!!!!???????????????????? How did THAT happen????!!!!!!!!!!"

Our Little House (On The Prairie) ~ Stucco With Faux

Our color is finally finished on the outside stucco. A base color went on first, then a faux to bring out more richness and so the color isn't just a boring flat color. We spent many weekends driving around neighborhoods picking out colors or designs we liked and kept them in our minds. T actually took our stucco guy to this one house and so he could match the exact color. 

We have to do a certain amount of concrete around the house and garage to get the final inspection passed. Eventually when things are better we'll work on more walkways.

In the sun, the color isn't as vibrant, but it's there. Our amazing concrete guy getting the forms ready!

I handed off Soleil to T so I could take pictures. He's such a good dog owner. He gave her water by cupping his hands. My dogs love him.

Awwwwhhhhhhhh............

Soleil's new "dog room". I think she's shed her coat out, but I'm not sure. I haven't owned too many collies with the coat she has. Layla has been the only other dog. Nice and harsh with lots of undercoat. She is such a fluff ball!!

My handsome Tony. Today's the 3rd anniversary of our first date together. Time flies!!! One day we had a date, the next we're moving into our new home we built together. A sweet dream.

Our Little House (On The Prairie) ~ The Cabinets!!!!

Our cabinets have been in since Friday. They still need the knobs and two doors will have glass on them. 

The craftsmanship on these cabinets are so beautiful. I love the wood ~ it's Knotty Alder with a light stain. I'm not a fan of dark wood. How could you stain these so dark you couldn't see the beautiful characteristics of this wood.

Yummy!!!!

Christen Cook of Cook Design Company at http://www.cookdesigncompany.com/ made these cabinets. He was awesome to work with. Very competitive and on time. He did exactly what he said he would do. The craftsmanship, like I said before is exquisite. 

Punkies In The Grass

Punky was sleeping yesterday on the grass and I ran to get my camera to take a picture. She's pretty deaf now, but when I opened the door, she did open her eyes......so is she really deaf???

This was earlier. She loves just looking around. I love her.

Tirzah...."Licky Licky". Notice her pet feet are hiding in the grass.

Serious Zoe. She decided to come in season with Soleil, several months early. What fun.

Notice she is not shy about her pet feet. She wants to meet Jolene.

Poor fluffy Soleil. She's banned from the boys. She does get to sleep with us in the bedroom at night in a crate. Doesn't she look pathetic?

Our yard if full of squirrels which the dogs love to chase. She's checking out one on the fence. Squirrels are funny. I love to watch them taunt the dogs, flick their tails then run off.

Our Little House (On The Prairie) ~ The Little Purchases

I just got a frantic email from Sue wondering where more pictures of the house were. We have been so busy driving to every Home Depot or Lowes in the Sacramento Valley looking for ceiling fans, light fixtures, sinks....blah blah blah. It was been sooooo much fun! But, I've gotten several items off of the internet for great prices and if the quality is judged by my vessel sink I just got, we're in good shape. It is beautiful!! And, I can't believe some of these stores were charging almost 4x's as much for ugly sinks!

This particular place, I love to sit. I will be up here alot with the dogs!

We already have the stucco color on and in the next day or so, the faux color is going on. So, these pictures are not current.....Our inside painter is wonderful. He's very detail-oriented, which I love. 

T had the stucco guys do this roll under the eaves. Really, really beautiful. This is the far side of the garage.

Here is one of our granite slabs. We were worried it would be too orange in our kitchen. I told him any granite is stunning, even if we picked pink (hmmm.....that's an idea....). Our cabinets are in and I'll post a picture hopefully tomorrow. I can't say enough about those. GORGEOUS!!! 

My Little Antelope

I saw this yesterday in LampsPlus....$16.98! I just love it! It's surprisingly well made and heavy. I got something else for Julie but she can't see it til.....Dixon (if I can't wait) or Christmas! 

Our Little House (On The Prairie) ~ Suddenly It's In Super Speed!!

Our house is getting done so quickly all of a sudden. This week it will be completely painted, garage doors, cabinets and all the door hardware. We've looked at fencing and shade for the dog yards and should be able to work on those next week. I picked out a vessel sink for the 1/2 bath and just love it! I couldn't sleep all night because I was dreaming about it!! I wanted something different in that bath, like the little foo foo bath for guests that was somewhat Spanish Style. I ordered it off of the internet and got a great price on it. It's surprising to me how much these sinks can go for. I'd rather put it into gravel for the punky yards.

Protect Our Rights to Own Purebred Dogs

http://www.cdoca.org/

Go to this site to send letters to defeat SB250 and also make a contribution.

It look me less than 2 minutes this morning. If you value your rights as an American to choose to buy a responsibly bred purebred dog (or cat) please get involved. If you think this is just about puppy mills and overloaded shelters, it's not. It's bigger than that. We still live in America. Protect your rights!!

Little Gifts from Heaven

I heard a story yesterday from one of my best friends Dina. It's actually been in many little chapters, starting several years ago when her mom died. I write this for her because she said she didn't know how to word it, and me being the blogging-writing fool, I told her I would have no trouble. She could link it on her blog. I'm sure if she'd take some time she could write it better than I could. 

I am always fascinated by how people are contacted by their passed over loved ones. What kinds of signs or gifts do they send them to let the one still here know they are still very much around. After Pierre died, to help heal the Grand Canyon in my soul, I spent a lot of time reading. I read about 8 or 9 books in a two month period, several of which my cousin Karen had sent me. One of the books I picked up later when I was feeling a little better was James Von Prague's "Hello From Heaven". This particular book breaks down different ways loved ones communicate with us from the other side. Basically it can be as simple as a song, scent, feeling, dreaming, to seeing full body appearances. Somewhere I've decided I'm not up to seeing Pierre or any other passed over loved one in full form.  "Don't be getting in touch with me THAT way!" is what I've thought many, many times. I'd pass out. Especially seeing them in the middle of the night. OMG...... But....having a dream about them I am totally good with. Or other less "scary" signs. I usually have dreams where they come and visit, some more real than others. And, I tend to have dreams that come true, which is pretty interesting. I've also had a lot of other little things happen that I attribute to my loved ones communicating with me. Anyway, enough about me. This post is about Dina.

Dina seems to be comfortable with finding things in her yard from her mom. She calls me every so often and tells me of something else she has found. They're always strange and out of place and of course, being the humans we are, we try and analyze why it's there. I don't do too much of that and just tell her "It's from your mom ~ thank her and tell her you love her". 

I remember when her mom died. I hadn't heard from Dina for over a week and called her one afternoon. I remember exactly where I was. I was driving home over the Newhall Pass and she told me her mom had had a brain aneurysm many days before and had finally died. This just seemed so awful as not only was she as close to her mom as I was to mine she had already lost her grandmother (on mom's side) and her mother-in-law all within 3 weeks of each other. (Talk about spending a lot of time in the ol' Catholic Church!!)

On the day her mother was buried there was a get-together at Dina's house. I didn't stay but I did bring over 3 pine trees for her to plant in memory of her deceased loved ones. That afternoon, Dina looked out the front and saw a group of nuns, probably about 6 of them walking down the middle of her street. In front of them was a mallard duck with a flock of newborn babies. The nuns were walking them somewhere. The strange thing about this was Dina rarely saw nuns walk in her neighborhood, much less herding baby ducks. She didn't live near a lake. She lived in the middle of Pasadena. I told her that her mom wanted her to know she and her other passed over family members were ok. It was a sign Dina could understand.

Dina, husband Shaun and son Kenneth moved from that house about a year later into a bigger home with a big beautiful front and backyard. I call it "Tara". It's her little slice of heaven in the middle of mega suburbia. After she was in the new house for a little bit, she was in the garden and dug up a stuffed yellow duck. She had already done quite a bit of landscaping and hadn't run into this yet. It was exactly like a stuffed toy she had when she was a little girl. "Gift from your mom, Dina'. I don't even have to say that though, she just knows it.

Next, a few years later was a little brown bear holding a big red heart. Of course anyone can rationalize where these came from and talk themselves out of stuff. I don't. I don't really care, because if I find out later it didn't mean anything, I'll probably be on the other side and it won't matter. But, I've seen and heard too many stories from people. Tony and I met at a John Edwards seminar (the medium) and the things that he and I experienced that day (separately, as I hadn't introduced myself to him yet), were truly amazing. People such as John (or my personal friend Bobby Marchesso ~  http://www.bobbymarchesso.com/) are healers. They teach us to be open and aware of our loved ones communicating with us. And they love us more on the other side than when they were here. That I know.

Yesterday Dina called me rather breathless. I was the first one she called (I love you Dina) and she told me this story. She was in her dog yard about 4 days ago picking up dog doo. She has been praying a lot to her mom to help her with some stuff going on in her life. Her mom always said Dina was Cinderella (from Disney) and she was her Fairy Godmother. As her mom got older, she said she was more and more like her Fairy Godmother. Dina looks down the other day and sees this 2" long Fairy Godmother toy laying in her dog yard. She figured it came from the house next door and threw it back over the fence. She threw it on the pool cover so the girl next door could see it. A few days later, it was back in Dina's yard. This time the head was a little chewed up. Dina is still praying for her mom to give her a sign, to help her sort out stuff. Sounds like a sign to me.

The last week or so, her son Kenneth, who is almost 12 years old and about 6 when his grandma died asked his mom if "Mah Mah" still was around and would she show him that she was. They were very close and he's had a hard time with her being gone, even now, many years later. Dina has been telling Kenneth to pray to Mah Mah, that if anyone would come thru for him, it would be her. Several days into this, Kenneth was getting impatient and again proclaimed as only a 12 year old could "Would she PLEASE give me a sign!".

The story backtracks to when Kenneth was a newborn. Being Catholic, Dina wanted to find him the right medallion to have him baptised with which was a Baby Angel. When she did, she called her mom, and mom told her to immediately take it to the priest to get it blessed. So, Kenneth wore his medallion around his neck every day since his baptism. When he was in kindergarten his best friend accidently grabbed Kenneth around the neck and broke the necklace off. They could never find it. Kenneth was beside himself and the school had to call home to let Dina know he lost "some necklace". His little friend was made by his parents to write a letter of apology (what good parents!) and they also offered to replace the necklace. Dina took the thanks and declined the offer of a new medallion.

Dina has a patch of grass in her yard that hasn't been getting enough water. It's a heavily traveled area and she's been very disturbed by it and is spending an inordinate amount of time worrying over this piece. She also has been continuing her praying as has Kenneth. Yesterday she was out to pick up after the dogs again and looked over at something that was blinding her in the sun. She asked herself what piece of tin foil or object had the dogs gotten into again. She walked over and in her dry piece of grass was Kenneth's medallion. The clasp on the chain was together and there were no breaks in the chain. There was some dirt on it but she said it was in perfect condition. It's been almost 6 years since Kenneth's friend broke it off of his neck......

Woozee.....

For you Dina, since you said T would understand.....his medallion is tucked away in his wallet. Almost 56 he's had it!

Thank you Dina for letting me share your story ~ Oxoxoxoxox!