Over the Rainbow Bridge sweet Pixie

 Hoping for a good start to the New Year hasn't panned out so well.

This past Monday marked the 23rd passing of my dad which is always a hard day to get through and more so now that my mom is gone as well.  Worse yet was that we had to make the hard decision to say good-bye to my mom's little dog,  Pixie.

She came to live with my mom shortly after her dog Rusty died.  We got her at the Humane Society and she was approximately 2-3 years old at the time.

My mom decided to call her Pixie (instead of her first owners name of Fluffy).  Pixie fit her so much better.

She was the sweetest little dog and loved going for walks.

                   Greta and Coleen with Cricket and Pixie

Mom wasn't able to walk her so I often took her or Coleen would take her as well.  

She loved to run...

Mom would often stand in her bedroom window and watch Pixie run in the back yard.  She would open the window and say, "Run Pixie, run. Go Pixie, go!"  - The black blur is our dog, Cricket.  We had tried to introduce them when my mom was alive but she was always worried that Cricket would hurt Pixie so we gave up putting them together. - Of course after my mom passed away that all changed as Pixie came to live with us and they became pretty good buddies.

Digging was another favorite pastime so we ended up having to line all the fence line with bricks so she wouldn't dig out from underneath the fence and run off.

Here she is with her favorite toy, a little raccoon that had a squeaker in it.  She love playing with that thing.

 

When Coleen stayed with my mom she would often sneak her into the bedroom at night or during the day.  Mom wasn't one for letting pets on the furniture.  But doesn't she look comfy!

 Just prior to Christmas we noticed that she was drinking water constantly and would not eat food everyday (although that was something she did quite often almost all her life).  We took her into the Vet and they told us she was Diabetic and had some pretty bad dental disease going on as well.  They gave her an antibiotic and she seemed to do okay for a couple of days but then just stopped eating completely and barely drinking water.  She just seemed to have lost her spunky spirit and so we took her back to the Vet and she said that with a dog her age and with the problems she was having that it would be extremely hard to treat her for the Diabetes and that the humane thing would be to let her go.

 

It breaks my heart that we had to do it and it was like losing a piece of my mom all over again.

 

Fare-well sweet Pixie,  You have crossed that Rainbow bridge and are running free now.

 

 Rest in Peace - Pixie 2010-2020.  Forever in our hearts.

Willy Nilly Friday Five

Hi! - I've been absent from participating in
WILLY-NILLY FRIDAY FIVE for a few weeks and thought I'd join in again today.  WNFF is hosted by Tanya (Around Roanoke).

CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS

 

 

 Here are 5 Things and some photos that I'm thankful for today.

1.   I'm thankful that when I slipped last night trying to "herd" cats to the bedroom and fell into our dishwasher I only bruised my hand and didn't break anything.  I'm also thankful no one (especially my hubby) saw what happened.  I'm sure it was pretty comical as I had one cat in my arms and was trying to move one with my foot when I accidentally stepped on her tail, she yowled, I dropped the cat I was carrying, slipped on the floor and banged hard into the kitchen counter and dishwasher.  Cats went running every direction.  I bet it was quite the sight.

2.  Speaking of cats....I'm thankful to enjoy cuteness like this every day.

Bandit & Pepper on the Left - Bandit and Spooky-boo on the Right.

 

 

3.  I'm thankful for this sweet girl.  She's a joy (most of the time) to have around. 

 Recovering after her surgery last week.

 

4.  I'm thankful for this little dog, and a halfway decent photo of myself.  You will notice Coleen is the photographer for this photo.  This was taken during one of our nature/photo walks a few weeks ago.

 



Me & Pixie (my mom's dog)

5.  I'm thankful for time to relax, time to work, time to play, time to reflect...well you get the picture.

 

The "Tick-Tock" balloon that was at the Balloon Stampede in October.

 

 

Bonus Photo since I mentioned being thankful for colorful fall foliage yesterday.   I spotted 3 very different and yet colorful leaves in our driveway.  I picked them up and arranged them on the sidewalk for a little photo shoot so I could enjoy their color a little longer.

 

 

 

 

 

Have a beautiful weekend.





Random 5 Friday

Good Day!  -  Yippee it's Friday.  So let's cut right to the chase and head on over to Nancy's blog (A Rural Journal) where we are once again posting
Random 5 Friday thoughts (minus Mr. Linky) so be sure to check the comment section for links to other people's blogs for their R5F thoughts.



1.  I've been trying to go for walks lately.  Why do I wait till the weather isn't that great to suddenly get the urge to exercise?  Anyway Monday afternoon Greta, Coleen and I took the dogs, Cricket and Pixie for a nice long walk. - All photos today are from that walk.

L-R  Cricket - Who wouldn't turn around. Greta (my daughter), Coleen and Pixie.  - They loved walking in the leaves.

                                   Coleen enjoyed rolling down a hill.

2.  I bowled great on Tuesday (for a change)!  156-150-160  Always makes me feel great when I bowl three decent games.

3.  I went to the same dental appointment "twice" this week.  How you might be asking,  Well Wednesday I got up and after getting Coleen off to school I hurried home and headed off to my dental appointment.  Got there and said, "I'm here for my appointment."  -  The receptionist then proceeds to tell me (while trying not to laugh) that my appointment wasn't until Thursday!  -  I was positive that I had written it down for Wednesday.  Went home only to discover that I had it down for Thursday after all.

4.  Enjoy having coffee with my hubby after the 1st appointment on Wednesday that never happened due to the mix-up of when the appointment actual was.

5.  Getting ready today to work on making some Thanksgiving cards since I didn't send out Halloween this year and people were wondering what was wrong when they didn't get one!  Next will be Christmas cards,  I'd better be hustling with the card making.

Have a wonderful day and weekend everyone and thanks for stopping by.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - June 30, 2013

Summer has arrived with a bang!  We went from rainy, cool 65 degree weather on Monday to 98 degree weather today with 104 expected for this coming Monday - Talk about a sudden change in climate. 

So let's get started shall we on this week's Scavenger Hunt Sunday.

The prompts this week were:  Tools, Motion, Sweet, Dots and Stripes. - Click to Enlarge photo's.

TOOLS:  -  Caught this shot of hubby last week working with some tools in our back yard area.  He kinda looks a bit weary here me thinks!

MOTION:  You get 2 for this prompt because I liked them both.

My mom's new dog, Pixie running towards me.  Look at her go!

Coleen started her summer swimming lessons this week.  - Look at her go!

SWEET:

Local "sweet" Bing Cherries - Yum!

DOTS:  Our cat, Dottie,  Can you figure out why we named her that?

STRIPES:  Some candy striped petunia's from my garden.  I had a little fun playing around with textures on this photo.

So that's it for me.  -  Coleen is participating this week if you'd like to check out her photo's at  http://creativecoleen.blogspot.com/2013/06/scavenger-hunt-sunday-june-30-2013.html .

Don't forget to check in at Ashley's blog to check out the other participants.

Welcome Pixie

As many of you know from this post we had to put down my mom's dog, Rusty.  It was a hard choice but one we knew was best for the dog.  -  A few days later I called the local Humane Society to find out if they took donations of left over dog food and they said yes.  So I packed up all the left over food and treats and Coleen and I took them down to the Humane Society on Friday 14th.  While we were there we decided to visit the adoption center and look at the cats and dogs that were available.    Can you tell where this is leading?


We spotted this adorable little dog in one of the cages and she seemed so excited about us being there.  I took a snap shot of her with my phone (not the best phone for picture taking) and then drove back home to show it to my mom.  She thought the dog was cute and so I talked her into going down and seeing it in person.  They told us there that we could take the dog home for a 3 day trial to see how she did and if we wanted to adopt her after the trial we could or we could bring her back with no questions asked.  So off we went with a new little dog.  By Monday we'd decided that she was just so adorable and so sweet that we had to keep her.  So without further ado....let me introduce you to,

Pixie: (Her original name was Fluffy but since the neighbor's cat is named Fluffy and my mom really didn't like that name she picked out the name, Pixie because of her sweet little pixie like face.)  She's a long-haired Chihuahua (mix).  She's very friendly and loves to be held, petted and have her belly rubbed.  Just the right size dog for my mom to handle.  Although you probably won't see many pictures of my mom holding her because my mom hates her picture taken.

We introduced Pixie to Cricket and while Pixie isn't thrilled to be around another dog she does tolerate Cricket and they both get exercise chasing each other around the yard as my mom said we could let them play together in her back yard. For those who don't know my mom lives next door to us so it's easy for the dogs to play together.

Coleen adores Pixie and loves to spend time playing with her and holding her.

We think she makes a wonderful edition to the family.