Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mom's 65th birthday!  She may never see this post (she doesn't realize yet that I'm blogging again)...but I want you all to help me celebrate with her!

I've been blessed to have this lovely lady as my mom!  She's the reason I'm so fabulous...hahaha!  No, really.  Mom was a public elementary school teacher for 30+ years and a large part of my love of the written word, my respect for animals (fine... obsession with dogs!), the joy I find in travel and my moral compass whether I needed one or not.

Here's mom, with her older sister Janice, when she was about 9-10 months old.

And here's my mom on her recent cruise to Alaska.

Mom, I love you and I'm so proud of the strength you've shown through some very trying times in the past few years.  I hope this is your best year yet!

So, I Run A Rescue...

I'm so proud that Little Paws Dachshund Rescue has flourished since a group of my friends and I founded it almost two years ago!  It brings me such joy to see pups of all ages going to new, deserving homes & to know that we're pulling dogs out of kill shelters who may not have a second chance without us.

I get a lot of different reactions when I disclose that I run a rescue.

• Why rescue when you can buy a puppy?  (FYI...that one of my two least favorite)
• It must be fun to get to rescue puppies!
• Wait...you spend 60+ hours a week helping dogs for FREE?!
• Can you take my dog? (My other least favorite)

Running a rescue brings tears of joy and sadness almost every day.  We've found so many amazing shelters that need our help and would do anything to get dogs out of their overcrowded and under funded facilities.  It's a pleasure to help these facilities and I wish we could do more...  Then we run into other shelters that won't work with rescues and kill dogs (sorry, there's no more polite way to put it) when they hit capacity.

I don't tell you all this to depress you.  I promise.  I tell you this so you'll understand that from time to time I'm going to need to vent at you...and sometimes, you'll get hysterically funny stories about the dogs from me.  I love that these dogs are so resilient!  

Today, I share one of my favorite LPDR pups.  This is Cinni!

She came to us as an owner surrender.  Cinni's back got hurt and she dragged herself around for six months until her owners decided to have her euthanized.  Luckily, we found her first and this sweet, loving, charismatic little lady is going through rehab and we hope - might be able to walk again.  She takes a few steps at a time now and we couldn't be more proud of her!  Cinni even has her own Facebook page! 

I'm an "Indoor" Kind of Girl...

While I have a lot of tales to tell you - ranging from the hysterical, to the horrifying, to the happy - I think today I'm going to tell you all why I'm an indoor kind of girl this summer.

Most you remember that I am asthmatic.  Right?  And, thankfully, it has been largely under control except a bought with bronchitis about once a year.  Well, this lucky lady got hit with bronchitis/pneumonia twice over the winter.  Not fun!  Of course, looking back I'd happily do it again instead of what happened next.

I went to work one day in April not feeling all to well and through the day had a few people tell me to go home or go to the doctor.  Did I listen?  NO!  I waited until the end of the day and decided that it might be a good idea to go to Urgent Care.  I was there no longer than five minutes when they packed me up to the hospital.

Turns out - I had a 103 degree temperature, was septic, diminished breath sounds, a pulse rate of over 170 beats per minute and sky-high blood pressure.  They thought I was going to code and flat out told me that.  Scary, right?!

I was lucky - I got lots of nebulizer treatments, a super fun IV that I thought was going to poke back out of my hand, and antibiotics. Did I mention that I fought with them when they told me I was going to be admitted?  Yeah, not my finest moment...but I got to go home almost 24 hours after my hospital stay started.  Before I left, I had a fun chat with a pulmonologist who warned me that I am under no circumstances to be outside in heat, humidity or pollen this summer or he'd be seeing me again, and next time I might not be so lucky.

So...who has a few fun craft projects for me this summer?

Memorial Day

I hope that you all are enjoying this beautiful long weekend and that it's full of family, friends and fun!

My heart and my thanks go to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so we can live in a country that allows us the freedom to be anything we want to be & express who we really are.

And....I'm Back

Hi Gang!  Long time, no see!  I mean, unless you follow me on Instagram...in which case, it's just HAPPY FRIDAY!

I logged into Blogger for the first time in a long time (::cough, a year, cough::) about two weeks ago and instantly felt the pull to start blogging again.  That started me on a path of introspection about why I started blogging in the first place and why I'd consider doing it again.  What it comes down to is connection.  I miss the connection with everyone.  Some of you amazing, beautiful, talented ladies became my friends because of blogging.  I looked forward to reading what you had to say and seeing the pictures as your families grew, you got new jobs, you went on vacation...and you just experienced LIFE.

I became a social media manager for my day job, started a rescue and quite frankly, lost a little bit of me.  I lost the connection that I shared with many of you and the ability to share my thoughts as I took care of other peoples (and dogs) social media needs.  Yep, I'm still a social media manager and I'm still co-chair of a quickly expanding rescue....  But it's time for me to find time for me again.

So, I'm back.  I had to buy a new domain name and I hope at least a few of you all can see this post.  I'll be by to visit and comment and would love if you all could say "hi" too.

In the meantime, Paisley and Beckett wants to give you all a woof hello too!

P.S. I'm accepting all recommendations of blogs I should be following these days and technical advice on how to get my subpages to reconfigure so they don't go to my defunct domain name!