TGIF....

Finally, tonight is the last night of sleeping alone. Craig's will be home tomorrow night after a long two weeks of traveling, actually it's been several months but he's been home on and off in between. He's done traveling until March and I will be so glad to have my hubby home.

I've had plenty to do to keep myself busy. One of my goals this week was to get some Christmas shopping done via cyber shopping. I was pretty successful. And I LOVE it! How wonderful is it to sit in my PJ's in the comfort of my own home and shop away. Why hadn't I done more of that in years past?

I made two calendars via iPhoto and uploaded them to Apple for printing. I made one for Craig's office (it's his favorite gift each year) and I made one for Craig's Mom. The only hard part of making them is trying to decide what photos to use. It's not like I take a million photos each year. LOL

Tomorrow morning I am headed to Kalamazoo Nature Center for the annual Art and Gift show. If I didn't know better I would think that the show was made especially for me. If you are a nature freak you would LOVE this show. All of the artists displaying use natural products to make beautiful works of art. There are also nature photographers that are amazing. I'm getting up early to be there when the doors open.

I woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow. I was surprised how much we actually had. I thought we might get a dusting. It was hard to go to work when I wanted so badly to stay home and feed the birds and take my camera outside. It's kind of hard to take photos when it's dark when you go to work and dark when you come home. That's one thing I really dislike about this time of year. Plus the fact that it was Friday, it was a long with with Craig gone, and I just plain wanted to stay home. So anyway.... TGIF!!!!

Work has been going well. I'm very fortunate to have a job that I love. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't have some encounter with a patient that affects me deeply, in a positive way. Some of my patients I absolutely fall in love with. I wish I could share some of my patients stories on my blog. But as you know we are under very strict confidentially policies and even if I didn't use patients names I couldn't risk someone knowing who I was talking about. Maybe someday I will figure out how to write a book because I have so many wonderful stories to tell.

Time to go.... I have Christmas gifts to wrap. Have a wonderful weekend.

Happy Birthday

Today I am celebrating Craig! Happy birthday to my amazing husband. I love you Craig.... I really do.

Day after Thanksgiving tradition

Went to the tree farm yesterday to get our Christmas tree. There is the best Christmas tree farm just a few miles from our house (Tall Timbers Tree Farm). Love this place! They have acres and acres of trees. You can go on wagon rides out into the trees and pick your fresh tree, cut it yourself or you can buy a tree off the lot.

You can see we are lazy and pick a pre cut one from the lot.

We bought a beautiful live fresh wreath too.

Even managed to drag Caleb with us. He said he enjoyed it except for the family photo I made him pose for. Can't you just see the joy on his face... lol.

Tried something totally different this year.... Our living room is soooo small and the Christmas takes up so much room that I decided to put the tree on the front porch. We put it right in front of the living room widow so we can enjoy it as well as people passing by. I'm very happy with the end result.

Thrift Store Finds

People who know me know what a thrift store junkie I am. It's a great day when I can jump in the car and head for a day of thrift store shopping. I am never disappointed and it's always so much fun to see what I will come home with for hardly any money at all. I enjoy it most when I am by myself.

Recently I've been looking at Christmas items. I got this Oneida Christmas coffee cup for $1. It's huge which is how I love my coffee cups. It will hold a good 5 cups of coffee. And I fell in love with this framed embossed snowman. Got him for a whole 50 cents!

And check out this watch I found. The photo doesn't do it justice. I picked it up for $1. It didn't work but I took my chances that all it needed was a battery. I bought a $2 battery for it and it works and keeps time perfect. I LOVE it.

And here's one of my latest purchases that I'm most proud of. We got a new desktop computer and the monitor wouldn't fit into our old computer desk. I always disliked our old computer desk. It was huge and had a tall back on it that covered the wall. With our new computer I was determined to find a flat top computer desk. Didn't take me long. I found this desk at Goodwill for $38. It was exactly what I was looking for!!! Whoo Hoo $38!! It had a little white paint on the top which I was able to remove.

I also wanted a file cabinet that would serve as a file, and have drawers for storage as well. I wanted to be able to use it as a spot for the printer too. I went to the office supply stores and I found nothing under $200 and they weren't even what I wanted. So again, I started to scour the thrift store. I was not disappointed. I found exactly what I wanted. It was heavy industrial and the top two drawers were storage drawers, the bottom was a file. The only problem was that it had no top on it. You could look right down inside the top drawer. I figured my Dad could make me a top of wood and router the top edges and then I could finish and varnish it. Which is exactly what we did. It's PERFECT. You can see from the photo that I haven't finished the top yet. And the best part...... it was $5!!! I was so proud of myself... a whole new office for 43 bucks.

Thrift store shopping has ruined me for shopping at regular stores. I simply cannot go into a store and look at clothes, or much of anything and not think to myself what a waste of money it is to buy new when I can get things I love at thrift stores for a fraction of the money. And I find great quality name brand things all the time!

The other day I was in the check out line at Target and this young college age girl was checking out in front of me. She had 5 sweaters and her bill was $70. I so bad wanted to tell her that she was wasting her money and didn't she know she could go to Goodwill and find much better nicer quality sweaters for $3 each? Of course I had to laugh at myself for feeling that way and I never would ever really tell someone such a thing but I did think it.

Oh well, that's my thing and I have a lot of fun with it. It's the trill of the hunt that I love.....

It's the simple things I love

Seeing the first Christmas lights of the season.

Listening to Pandora on my way to and from work.

Morning coffee at the office with sugar free vanilla creamer.

Hosting Thanksgiving and planning the menu.

Counting the red tail hawks along I-94 (easy with no leaves now).

Spotting my first junco of the season yesterday.

Scouring the thrift stores for new (to me) Christmas decor.

Looking through all of last years photos and reminiscing.

Deciding what homemade Christmas gifts I want to make this year.

Getting back into the fall/winter routine of feeding the birds and squirrels.

Sugar cookie scented candles permeating the house.

The anticipation of Jordan coming home for 5 days next week.

It's the season to be Thankful.... my heart is happy.

Photos from our trip to the UP in July.

What they've taught me

Seadra started it all. She is the one who taught me to love dogs. She did what no other dog had ever been able to do. I have been around dogs my whole life but no dog had ever opened my heart and taught me to love the way she has. And she is ALL mine, and what I mean by that is she only wants to belong to me and she does. That's the way she prefers it and that's the way I love it. She is most comfortable when she is in my presence. Seadra is 12 now and I don't know how many more years I will be blessed with this beautiful creature that has changed me forever but I do know that Seadra has given me one of the biggest joys in my life.... what it feels like to be loved unconditionally and also given me the joy to open my heart to other dogs.

Zoe came along from the simple fact that if I could love a dog as much as I do Seadra then two dogs would be twice the joy, right? And that's exactly what happened. Zoe teaches me that nothing in life is worth getting upset about. I have seen Zoe become so deathly ill that the vet thought she was in her final days and through it all she wagged her tail and kissed my face. Nothing and I mean NOTHING upsets her apple cart. Zoe is the most calm, relaxed, happy dog I have ever known. She loves anyone and everyone and asks for nothing in return. Dogs like Zoe are rare and we are so blessed to have her as a part of our family. Zoe teaches me to enjoy the small things in life.

Fiona is very childlike to me. At two years old I really feel like she is still very much a baby. And the mother/nurturer in me loves to have her around. Fiona won our hearts as we watched her endure her first year of life full of pain. I know that God lead us to Fiona to save her. Fiona can be the bully and the lover and everything in between. She's feisty yet very much dependent on us. Those eyes of hers will literally beg us for whatever she wants or needs, wether it's begging us to play toss the teddy bear, or begging to be curled up next to you on the couch. She is passionately loved by all of us. Fiona has taught us that when you give compassion and care to someone, or in this case a dog, you get so much more in return.

Enjoying the Rain

No it's not snowing here in Michigan yet. This was a photo of Fiona from last winter. I was going through some old photos and came across this adorable photo of F-Fi. Because Fiona is so dark (black) it's hard to get a photo of her where her eyes show up like this. I love this photo!

Work has been better the last few weeks. A little less stressful but the main difference is that I am no longer on my death bed. This one was a doozy. It's been almost 3 weeks and I am still occasionally coughing. Just in the last 2 days I have been able to walk out of the office at the end of the day and not feel like I had been totally beaten up. I hope I have paid my dues for a while.

When I let the dogs out this morning it was just starting to rain. I hardly have the luxury of being much of a weather watcher these days so I had no idea it was even suppose to rain today or for how long. On my drive into work this morning the radio said we were going to get more than 2 inches of rain.... yeah right. Well I guess they weren't kidding. It has poured all day today, a cold biting completely sideways raining. The wind is wild! And since I also do not have the luxury of staying home on this type of day curled up under blankets with a good book, I made the best of it anyway.

I have a wonderful big window in my office. Unfortunately my desk is set up so my back faces the window, which is probably a good thing or I would be day dreaming out the window all day. And also unfortunately my window overlooks a parking lot, a tattoo parlor, a Chinese restaurant, and a Christian book store (how's that for a combination!). I'm not complaining... most of the people in our office do not even have a window in their offices. Anyway... every few hours I'd turn my chair around and stare out at the rain. I'd watch people running to their cars, I watched umbrellas turn inside out, I watched the rain beating on my window. I've learned that I function much better if I take those little 5 minute breathers. My job can be so frantic that those 5 minutes are lifesavers for me. Even if my window doesn't overlook a beautiful stream with birds frolicking around (do birds frolic?) I'm making the best of it!

We've had wonderful weather this fall. For weeks we've had above average temps but now it seems fall has surely arrived. And I'm OK with that. I'm ready to move on to cooler slower days. We broke out the heating blanket for the bed this week and as we speak I have a pre-heated bed waiting for me upstairs. I love it!

Have a wonderful week.... and take 5 minutes to enjoy the rain outside your window.