valentine's day love

yes, okay, i'm starting to love skype

striking perhaps

Remember this outfit:

Just imagine how great it looked today when accompanied by these darlings:

mark this day

Sometimes, change happens. Wait--always, change happens. Sometimes it's big change, sometimes it's little change, but constant is what change is.

Recently realized changes have left me feeling elated and sad. Can't really elaborate right now, but I did want to remember that today is the first time in a long time (ever?) that I was talking to my mom on the phone about recent changes and instead of telling me not to worry because I couldn't do anything about the changes or telling me how to handle all of the changes my mom listened to me and then said, "Are you sad?" And through my now-falling tears, I said, "Yes, yes, I'm sad."

She recognized my feelings and let me have them.

Sometimes, change happens.

the ferret strikes again

You could probably see how much I adore little Gus in one of my photos yesterday, right?

And then today I come home to find he has pulled out a closed box of boots, my brown boots, opened the box, and has chewed through one of the straps that wraps around the boot.

Cannot glue it back in place because he ate a pea-sized bit of the strap.

I'm tellin' ya, that dog is trouble. No wonder he ended up behind bars.

little dog and another outfit

He wants so bad to jump in my arms.

If this one had sound, you'd hear me crying out in pain from the freshly dug claw marks in my neck. He wins. This time.

stunning

Yes, this is me, posing in front of the bathtub in the mirror and maybe you can't really get the full effect of the heels and accessories and perfectly fitted brown tweed skirt and cashmere sweater, but I think this outfit is just.plain.stunning.

like a weasel or a ferret

It's hard to get a good picture of Gus. He's always trying to get away from JoJo and her ball-squeaking moves. Life is intense for him and he's always looking over his shoulder for her or keeping an eye out for a cat to chase.

Or, maybe it's just that his body is a weird combination of breeds. His head always looks tiny on his terribly long body.

He's got these tiny little legs and sadly for him, he doesn't weigh much, so he's always getting pushed around. But that tail--who couldn't love that tail?

And there's always JoJo chasing after him...

He doesn't ever--EVER!--relax. It's like his body is always on alert, ready to spring like a weasel or a ferret.

I know about ferrets because one day at our old house, I heard our three dogs barking madly out back. It wasn't their usual, "Mom, somebody's on the skywalk" bark or their "There's a dog on a leash out front" bark. It was more frantic and demanded immediate attention. As I went out back, I saw Scout, our chow, totally focused on something that was darting about in the grass. The two collies, Ginger and Dollie were leaping up and over and around Scout, barking, yipping, moaning, and all of the while, Scout was doing his best to stay on task, which task was attempting to catch a ferret that had wandered into our back yard. The ferret was making this clicking noise, which I interpreted as scared ferret noise, and I was certain Scout was going to get that ferret or else. The collies, sweet girls that they were, didn't understand that as a team they could have easily caught the ferret. They thought the game was "let's trip up Scout" or maybe "hey Scoutie, whatcha doin?" Thanks to the collies, the ferret made it safely under the fence to freedom.

Gus reminds me of that ferret, darting about, making odd sounds, wandering into situations that have the high potential for a bad ending.

Unlike ferrets though, Gus is cute. Especially when he stands on his hind legs doing his very best prairie dog impression. Not that I can catch that on film.

It's a good thing for Gus that he's so adorable.

Shoulda made sure the box lids were on tight. Had I worn these shoes yet? Yes, for about five minutes at the store. They fit beautifully. And those are the red boots I wore three times.

You may all agree with me now that the shoe/boot destruction thing truly stinks.