In Birth and in Death

I has taken me a week, but I am finally ready to share. I received this card in the mail yesterday from the vets office, and I waited all day to open it because I knew the pain it would bring. When I opened it and found what they had included inside, they gave me something that I would cherish.

Below is the front of the card.

The next image is the inside of the card.

Then this is the back.

Below is what they included with the card, which is a wonderful gift. Cami lost her daughter on the way to the vet. She held on as long as she could, but didn't survive being stuck in the birth canal. They offered to cremate the baby for free, and spread her ashes with other pets in their cemetery. In their card they had taken her paw print, and sent it to me. This is by far the sweetest thing a vets office has ever done for me.

I did take a few photos of the baby before we reached the vet. I think this one shows her best. She would have looked just like her mommy, but would have been huge like her daddy.

We did receive one small blessing. Her little brother was born first, because he was smaller. He was very tiny and a beautiful grey color.

So even though we mourn the loss of his sister, we were blessed with one beautiful healthy baby boy. He is very well taken care of by his mother, and adored by his father.

Pinterest

Pinterest. The first time I heard the word I was mostly confused. The first person who told me about it made it sound like eh. So did I get into the Pinterest craze right away? No, not really. The main reason being I had no concept of what it really was. Pinterest is a private community for the creative. Or I should say that is what it is for me. It is a gathering place for ideas and concepts. Want to learn how to knit? Start at Pinterest. I guarantee they will have suggestions for buying the cheapest supplies, how to do it, and a pattern for anything you could want. Want to share your fashion sense? Start a board for it. All ideas are gathered in the form of boards. Similar to the idea of pinning a picture to a bulletin board. Other people can come along and pin your picture to their board so they can use it later. I have a board just for a Wishlist. So if I ever had a friend who wanted to shop for me, I can always refer them to my Wishlist for helpful ideas. I also have one to keep all my wedding ideas together and one for crafts I want to make. I learned to decoupage from links I found on Pinterest! Pinterest is a exclusive community so you must be referred or approved to join first. I was very lucky to have a facebook friend who was able to refer me. Below are just a few of the neat ideas I have used off Pinterest in my home!



 Above: This is the condiments drawer in my fridge. I hated fishing around for what I wanted so I often never used them at all. I went to Target and for 88 cents each got these little plastic trays that fit right in the drawer. I sorted out what we had and now it is easy to find what we need right away!



Above: This is most of the ribbon I own. With Chris's help we built me a productive display that hangs from the ceiling so that I can pull off any amount that I want of ribbon or I can easily remove the rod and pull the roll off itself. It is also very light weight. This cost me about $6 to make.

Above: I found this idea to be brilliant. We originally had our batteries every where. Then we had narrowed them down to a drawer. Well they still rolled around every where and we never knew if we had very many of one type, etc. Well, now we put them in a small tackle type box that I paid a $1 for at a auction. Now the batteries are always sorted and I know when we are low on one size or another so I can keep it stocked!

Decoupage

My newest artistic interest is in Decoupage. In some sense, it really isn't a new hobby, but a expansion of my knowledge and ability. Decoupage is essentially is gluing or pasting paper to another object or surface, which is something I do and have done on several projects. Just now with some very helpful YouTube tutorials, I have started expanding my skills. You can basically do this craft on any surface you can glue paper to. Through a google image search of Decoupage I found the images included in this blog, and I think they show the variety of projects you can do with this craft.

I think these shoes are super cool, and I would love to do a project like this myself, but have a theme and possibly paint them as well.

This plate above shows just adhering a simple image can make a awesome piece of art. This would be great for a guys room or around Halloween time. It was done well too, because you cannot even tell it was glue on.

The box above is my inspiration for a lot of old shoe boxes I have around the house. I like to use old shoe boxes to organize my craft supplies, bathroom stuff, and other small odds and ends. Why go out and buy some what pretty boxes at WalMart for $2-8 each, or go to a craft store and get them for $10-20 each?? They are so easy to make, and also make great gift boxes.

The table here is another neat concept. The current project I am working on is similar to this because it is a fully covered project. These can be very time consuming. For a surface that is going to get used afterwards, you have to use a secondary sealant normally. They do make Outdoor Mod Podge now, which is meant to stand weather and such, but it is probably easier to use a spray can of clear gloss like I do.

If this is a concept that interests you WalMart carries all the supplies need to get you started. Also, if you are in need of guidance, don't hesitate to ask YouTube. There are so many helpful and experienced crafters out there who just enjoy sharing their knowledge and made many helpful videos!
Instead of posting links to direct videos, I just advise you search 'How to Mod Podge' on YouTube. I hope to be posting some of my projects soon!

PS: According to my spell check 'crafters' is not a word, lol. Don't take a spell check to a craft store then!

Power Outage June 2012

Well this blog officially starts
Friday June 29th, 2012.
 I came home from my part time babysitting job around 4pm. Heather, who I babysit for, gave me a ride home so her husband could repair my van. It was hot and only mildly overcast, so I went in and checked on my little doggies. I had just bought wormer for them the night before and went ahead and administered all the babies. Cami had to be wrapped in a towel like a taco so I could administer her medicine. After that I really felt tired since I didn't sleep well the night before, so I went to lay down for a nap. I cranked up my air conditioner and started to lay down to relax. I laid there for a few minutes and just had a weird feeling, and I noticed it had gone nearly pitch black and it was only 4:40pm at this point. Looking out the window in my room I saw the trees thrashing about and decided it was time for me and the puppies to go down to the basement. So I grabbed my blanket and pillow and headed down stairs. After taking a minute to get things arranged downstairs, I went back up for candles and puppies. and shut all of us down stairs. I would say we were sitting down there for five minutes and all hell broke loose. It stormed and while it sormed the fun began for me. Ian, Jeremy's puppy saw the cat food bag and decided he was hungry and started pawing the bag. Plus Toast (the cat) was staring at it like you better feed me! So I poured a big bowl, which Cami, Coco, Ian, and Toast ate like crazy. Then everyone settled down a little bit. Cami cuddled up between my legs under the blanket. Then about ten minute later she started to get up, crawled over one leg (all under the blanket)and gaged a coughed a little. I thought she was going to throw up under there but managed to hold it. Oh no, she started licking my leg a second later. Cami is the kind of dog that doesn't ever lick people. So I flip back the blanket and sure enough she puked down the length of my leg. So as I start to get off the fold up bed and pull off the blanket I hear Coco retching accross the room and throws up a nice big pile her self. Oh and at this point the power has gone completely out and I am cleaning up dog barf by candle light.

Finally, after a solid 30 minutes of horrid storm and a mild 30-45 minute of mild rain it was finally over. I ran out in the driveway and cleared the larger limbs off the driveway. I lit candles all over the place and began my count of hours without power. I met Justin and Chris in the living room with candles lit so they could see to get in.

Saturday June 30th, 2012
Well, this would have been a perfectly okay day. Except I chose this week to get lazy and put off buyinh my bipolar meds until last min. Friday morning I missed a dose, no big deal. Well, WalMart was behind so I couldn't pick up my script at noon like I planned. Then with the storm and no van I for got in the evening. So by Sat morning, I was missing dose number 3, and I woke up sick as a DOG. It was a like the flu while riding the tilt-a-whirl. I wanted to barf and cry. Luckily Walmart in Urbana who had my meds, and no power, had enough generators to be running their pharmacy. Jeremy ran into town and bought my meds and some food. I took a pill, ate and then took another. I slept off most of the sickness it ensued catching my system back up to where it needed to be.  So most of Saturday was spent sleeping. Then we went over to Heathers house to borrow her generator, because they got their power back on in the morning. After that we went to the WalMart in Marysville to stock up on some candles because rumors were we could be without power for a week or more.

Sunday July 1st, 2012
The house was finally starting to get pretty hot, so my solution was for us to do a clean and rearrange of the basement. So I gathered up all the guys and it took us nearly and hour, but we got the basement arranged in a open way with two twin beds and the couch down there so we could all relax. It is extremely cool, almost cold in my basement, and this way we could all sleep there without the heat bothering us. Jeremy, Justin and I spent most of the day chilling down there, and then Chris went to work. Shortly afterwards we left to deliver some stuff a friend of Justins bought and picked up lunch. We thought why not waste some time walked around the mall. Which turned out to be a mistake, since we weren't there 10 minutes and the storming began. It made the power blink in the mall and the shops started closing a little early. We head out to the from door and see nothing but grey and rain. Finally we made a break for the van and got soaked in the process. We got safely home, more branches down and still, no power.

Monday July 2nd, 2012
We sleep in, and around ten am Justin wakes me up and points at a light that was now magically on. Power was back!!!
I ran around the house plugging in fridges, turning on the air conditioners and closing all the windows. Today was the best ever. Then Jeremy, Chris and I went out to a junk yard to get some parts for the van. After we got back we all did out own thing until closer to dark and then as it cooled down outside we all picked up the down branches and twigs everywhere and hauled them around back to be burnt. We separated the burn barrel from the fire ring, so we burnt trash in the barrel with some leaves. Then we burnt the clean wood in the burn ring and roasted marshmellows and hotdogs. Making the end of our two and a half days of no power pretty sweet.