Sweet Caroline

I know, I know, I just posted a new foster dog! But try as we might, we couldn't make it out of the shelter with just one. As we were leaving last week with Margery in came this little raggamuffin. Someone had found her running along the highway. According to the shelter she is six years old, but I think she's younger than that. She was just as stoic as she could be when I picked her up today, but by the time we were almost home she was giving me kisses. And then, well you can see in the video, a couple of hours later and a good bath and she was right at home. Right this minute she is curled up in the middle of a dog bed that would hold dog 10 times her size! I imagine it's more comfortable than the concrete floor she slept on last night.

If you ever want to foster I can tell you, it is a very rewarding experience. Sure it can be sad when they get adopted - but it's a small price to pay for the joy you get that first night you bring them home from the shelter. Check out Blue Dog Rescue if you live in the Austin area. If not, do a google search of rescue groups in your area. You won't be sorry.

Margery - our newest foster dog.

Awwww, who could resist this face?!?!? This is Margery. We picked her up from the shelter yesterday. Her time was up. Can you imagine? And the worst part was she was far from the only one whose time was up. But lucky for this little girl we just fell in love. She's about 15 pounds and is three years old. We took her out of her kennel to interact with her, took her into a larger, fenced in area. There was a chicken in there (yes, they have chickens at the shelter) and she didn't even care. She quickly began looking for a place to go to the bathroom so Yay! she seems to be house trained! And then she was all wiggles and kisses and rolling over for belly rubs. Just what we want to see when "interviewing" for a new foster! Right now she is curled up on a nice soft dog bed in front of the fire - I can't help but smile and think how much better life is today than it was yesterday.

Silly happy.

It is the stangest thing. I have had the tv on a lot over the past few days watching the inauguration and post inauguration stuff. Since Tuesday everytime I see Obama on tv I feel like I need to pinch myself. I almost feel like I live in a new country - like we have somehow transformed or- OH, I know, like on LOST when the Island vanishes! It's like we've popped up as some kind of new and improved country. I know that makes no sense, but like I said, I have just been silly.

And I know this has been said a million times, but it's so great that people feel this way - but I am so proud to be an American right now! And when I heard that with two million people in DC watching the inauguration and there was not one single arrest - it just made me, well, silly - I welled up with tears. I think this man embodies hope. He just IS hope.

I'm so happy.

Beautiful, beautiful day.

Words cannot describe the enormity of this day.

Sometimes I am very creative.

What was it that they used to say on the A-Team? "I love it when an idea comes together."? I think it was "plan", not "idea", but for the sake of this post I am going to go with "idea". So anyway, I've had all of my necklaces hanging on this hook thing in the bathroom. It was fine. It wasn't all that asthetically pleasing and any thing longer than 16-18 inches hung behind this cabinet thing-a-ma-bob. So I wanted another solution. And I also wanted a way to be able to appreciate my necklaces even when I wasn't wearing them. I have collected some cool stuff over the years, meeting other artists, trips, etc. So I found this new hook thing where the hooks move along the bar that is afixed to the wall. Then I took a frame that i already had and painted it pink (my bedroom and bathroom is kinda pink and brown). And Voila! I've framed my necklaces. They are on constant display, perfect art for my bathroom.

I've got a few pieces that I've made (my favorite tooth necklace made from my dog's canine), a felted wool necklace that my mother-in-law made for me, my hand fabricated silver skull from a wonderful etsy artist, a couple of beaded necklaces that my dad sent me from Santa Fe, and a couple of Kari Stringer necklaces (love her!).

I love it. It seems like such a smart solution for a things I enjoy looking at every day.

Meet RayShee!

Well, technically it's Horatio. But he only gets called that when he's in trouble. Usually it's RayShee or RaySheePoo. He's a pure bred Chug. That's a chihuahua pug mix for those of you that are not "in-the-know"! Horatio is our number 11. We rescued him from our local animal shelter which has about a 50% kill rate. We had just adopted out our most recent foster dog and were down at the shelter "interviewing" to fill the vacancy. It was between this little guy and an older, white chihuahua mix. Horatio was one year old, cute, but a little, umm, how do you say, romantic with the ladies. He hadn't been neutered. I was leaning towards the white one but my husband liked this one. So we loaded him up in the car and took him home.
Shortly after coming home he went to the vet, was declared healthy and was neutered. He still thinks the ladies are very pretty but he's chilled out a lot. And he's cute, right? Well after a whole year of dragging him to adoption days and talking him up to potential adopters - nothing. No one wanted him. And after a whole year - we really did want him. We love him. He's so full of personality. We lucked out but somebody else out there missed out on a truly great dog. I could go on and on with cute "mom" stories about him but I'll just tell you this one: So in the evenings Tom and I have a bit of a routine. We fix dinner, maybe build a fire, and plop down in the living room to watch a little tv and hang with the dogs. When it's time for bed Horatio starts getting antsy. And once we ask: "What time is it?" He starts in with the full on wookie sounding language of his. He proceeds to "tell" all of us that it is high time to get our butts to bed. He LOVES bed time!

And once he hits the sheets, that's it! He is out. He crawls under the nearest pillow or the comforter and he's not gonna get up til the morning. But unfortunately, he is just excited about "time to get up" which he yells from the rooftops! Not nearly as endearing.

Sale Sale Sale...

...I'm having a big Sale! We took photos of nearly everything that didn't get snatched up over the holidays and posted it all to my closeout page. Plus there are a few hidden sales around my website. AND free shipping for the rest of January. AND the bottlecaps are still only $5. Here are few of the items left ...

Oopsie Daisy Earrings on sale for $40

Pinwheel Earrings with dots of yellow resin on sale for $30

MTA Necklace on sale for $50

I made this from an actual subway pass from our last trip to NYC and set it into a heavy gauge silver bezel.

Large Round Resin Necklace in red (cloves for love and protection), orange (rosemary for protecting and purifying), and fuchsia (skullcap for love and fidelity) on sale for $45

Stuff...

And the winner is...Mama Deb! Yay! You win the itty bitty square resin necklace! Send me your address and I'll get it in the mail to you asap. And thank you to everyone who posted comments about their gifts. I loved reading each and every one of them. Hopefully we will all remember to put more thought and possibly less money into the gifts we give.

Now, this picture has absolutely nothing to do with the blog contest. It's just an excuse for me to show off another one of my cutie pie pups. This is Clairee, aka Clishy Marie Shew as she is usually called. We rescued her when she was just three days old. Her mom had been over bred and died during labor. When I went to pick up Clishy and her littermates I thought the person was trying to pass off gerbils as puppies. Seriously, they were that small. I think Clishy weighed 2 ounces. They were so fragile. It was an exhausting four weeks trying to keep these babies alive and in the end we did lose one. But four survived. Clishy is a funny little chihuahua mixed with who-knows-what and her very favorite thing to do is give hugs! She's cute, huh?

Contest: What was your favorite gift this year and why?

To me the best gifts are usually not expensive or fancy. They aren't the most advertised item of the year or the one at the top of everyone elses Christmas list. The best gift is the one that when you open the box you instantly know how much thought and love went into this gift. For example: For our seventh anniversay my husband gave me a framed seven of hearts from a deck of cards. Who needs diamonds when you have a gift like that. I nearly melted. I knew he thought so long about what he could give me that would really mean something to me and mark the very special day. It was truly perfect.

This year my perfect gift came from my uncle. Well, first let me say, I received many thoughtful, perfect gifts this year, this one was just eztra special. So every year in my family, because there are so many of us, we draw names. Every year we have a different theme. This year the theme was "handmade". Of course I was thrilled! But I guess not everyone was as excited. Anyway, my uncle Rick drew my name. Apparently he was dreading it a bit, but what he came up with was perfect. Knowing how much I love my dogs and what a huge part of my life they are he decided to make me a homemade cookbook of dog treat recipes. He researched until he found a whole slew of recipes that he thought would "taste" good to my pups! Then he bought tons of the ingredients so that I could whip them up right away. And the best part, a letter from him as the first page of the cookbook. A letter about why he decided on this gift and what he did to make it. Needless to say I boohooed like a baby when I read the letter. The whole gift was so personal, so thoughtful. It was the perfect gift.

So, what was your "perfect gift" this holiday? Tell me about them and it will automatically enter you to win one of my itty bitty square necklaces! I can't wait to read your stories!!

I'll randomly pick a entry from the list on Sunday January 11th. Have fun and good luck!

I'm a show off!

I know we've all been told growing up that it's not nice to be a show off. But is there an exception to that rule? I mean, occasionally isn't it okay to toot your own horn? I think yes. We'll call it self promotion or maybe marketing. Yeh, I'm gonna call it marketing! So here goes - toot toot! The fabulous-in-many-ways Dixie Chick Natalie Maines was wearing one of MY necklaces to a recent Jimmy Kimmel Scrabble charity event. Again, toot toot! Yay me!

"I took a three hour nap"...

My husbands response to that statement was "That's not a nap - that's called sleep." Well, whatever it's called I LOVE it! I used to not be a nap kinda girl. I would just lay there and think of everything I should be up doing. But I have since discovered the beauty of the nap. And since the Ker-AZZzZy-ness of the holidays is over I have been on RElax mode! But tomorrow it's back to work...and time to come up with those 2009 resolutions. I wasn't gonna do it this year, but it feels weird not to - like maybe the year won't actually start if I blow it off. hmmm, that's sorta tempting... No, I'm gonna do it. and, in true scarlett fashion, I'll think about it tomorrow.

This photo doesn't have a whole lot of anything to do with this post - I just love this necklace! :) Happy 2009 Everyone!