My prior domain host suddenly went out of business, so I have moved to a new home.   Please excuse the dust while I get settled in here.  It looks like everything is up and running, but I’m sure there may be a few glitches that need ironed out yet.

My pixel art class is over.  I had a good time taking the class, for the most part.  There were a few parts that were a bit frustrating, but after I worked through them I was glad I did.

My instructor, Sheryl, was kind enough to send me a Certificate of Completion for the course and she took the extra time to include all my lessons to help me commerate the class.   Sheryl went the extra mile during the whole class and this will be a lovely reminder.

Anna took a class on blogging a couple months ago and since then has set up blogs for not only herself, but others that she does websites for.

I was visiting one of those sites a few days ago when we were on the phone and was commenting on how cute the page was with all the little graphics and slideshows.  Anna said they were done using Photobucket and that I should sign up for it.

I finally got around to doing that tonight after seeing a cute slideshow that she set up for InVolo Papillons Blog.

All I can say at this point is that Anna has created a monster and I’m sure she is going to live to regret it because for everything I actually manage to post, she is going to have to look at 23482347987 things that I try before posting

Here is my first slideshow!   I do need to figure out how to resize my pictures better as some of them are getting cut off a bit.

These are pics of Riley and Parker (most of which I haven’t posted on the blog before).

When it rains, it pours.   We have barely started dealing with Zach crossing to the Rainbow Bridge, when today we had to let Otter cross over.

Otter turned 15 in April and came with me when I moved from South Dakota in 1997.   She was a really great cat that came into my life at a time when I didn’t want or need another cat, but she had different ideas and was a loving companion for her entire life.

She introduced John to the World of Cats when he was not terribly sure it was somewhere he wanted to tread.  It took her about 3 seconds after meeting him to decide that I had only been keeping her temporarily until she found him and it took him about the same 3 seconds to fall in love with her.

We suspect she has been sick for a while, though she had no outward symptoms until very recently.   A couple weeks ago, we noticed she had lost a bit of weight.  She was a touch overweight for the last few years so I wasn’t overly worried about a slight weight loss.

We started monitoring her food and she was eating like normal and was her normal self.   Today when John got home from work, she could not stand up so he rushed her up to the emergency vet.  They started running some tests, but when her liver values came back exceptionally bad, we knew it was time to let her go.

Zach was there to meet her when she crossed over and I know he will take good care of her and show her the ropes.

She will always be missed.

This picture was taken around her birthday in April and she looked great then.

Every year we have some bird or another build or start to build a nest on the light outside our carport door.

Many times the nest is started then abandoned, so my husband just pulls it down each year.

This year he noticed the nest while outside doing something else so finished what he was doing and then came inside for a while. When remembered the nest he decided to go pull it down.

He changed his mind and came back in for the camera when he saw this:
So it looks like we will be having house guests for an undetermined amount of time

After about a week of doing nothing but comparing digital cameras, I finally bit the bullet yesterday and got a new Fuji Finepix S700 camera.

Since my friends are now going to be subjected to a constant flurry of pictures while I learn all the settings on this new thing (it’s a lot more detailed than my old camera), I figured I would take the opportunity to get some blogging in as well.  Misery loves company as they say

So I have picked a few of my favorite pictures from my first test run to post here today.

First we have Orion (aka Smooshy).  This picture was actually taken in a room with NO lights on.  This is not postworked at all..it’s straight off the camera.  I’m quite impressed with the flash capability on the camera so far.

Next up we have Obie. Obie has actually been a permanent resident for about 3 years, but I have never gotten around to making him his own page like the rest of the dogs. Obie is one of my infamous fear biters. Obie is not terribly enthused with cameras under the best of circumstances (part of the reason he’s never been given his own webpage) and his opinion has not changed. He was less than thrilled about the new camera and being “flashy thingyed” over and over.

For the curious, Obie is a lemon (he is a true lemon..in other words he does not have black tips on his fur like a lemon sable) and you will notice that he lacks pigment. Lemon is an acceptable color in Papillons, but they are penalized if they do not have black pigment. I had never seen a true lemon in person until we got Obie.This next dog is Cajun and he is my seperation anxiety/thunderstorm phobic shadow dog.  Cajun is the only dog that, no matter what John does, loves ME best   He can pretty much always be found near me. This picture is not flipped.  He was sitting at my feet, I called his name and when he looked back at me I snapped this picture.

Finally, we have Turner (aka Mr. Turner or Turnip Head).  Turner was our introduction to Papillons and he was purchased from a pet store. When Turner was younger, I wrote an article about some of the pitfalls you can run into with buying a puppy from a pet store.While one should never buy a puppy from a pet store (check my rescue page for information, links and stories about this topic), you absolutely should love your dog no matter where it came from.

Turner is definately a “favorite” here,  Just don’t tell the others that because they all think they are the favorite

I’m sure in the following days, I will be posting more pictures as I learn the camera. Maybe this will be a good thing and actually get me blogging more regularly.

Well, as often happens with this site, I’ve made a few changes.  I decided to try out Wordpress instead of using Blogger.com for my adventures in blogging since I can install it directly on my site and not have to worry about being at the mercy of others in regards to changes I may not like.

I have moved most of my previous posts from the Blogger blog to this Wordpress one, but there are a few missing.

Cafepress has changed their affiliate program and I am not happy with those changes so have decided not to sign up for their new program (which will be run through Commission Junction) at this point.

Sadly, that means that all the Cafepress designs, by my wonderfully talented friends, are no longer being highlighted in my blog   As I learn the ins and outs of content management with Wordpress, this may change.  I would still like to show off all that great talent.

All is not lost though!  You can still find many of my friend’s wonderful art in their ImageKind galleries which are linked in the sidebar to your right (you may have to scroll down a bit to get to them).

Wordpress seems like it will work out well for me and I’m sure there will be more changes coming as I get used to this new format and what all it can do. If you came looking for something specific, everything is still here, via the links across the top.

(originally posted Jan 12, 2006)

I recently got a bit of press for my store, Critter Circus. I was featured in the New For You section of the January 2007 issue of Bird Talk Magazine.

My Stained Glass Pionus Parrot design was featured.

This design is based on my friend Anna’s Blue Headed Pionus Parrot, Indigo.

(originally posted December 21, 2006)

Wishing all my friends and readers a wonderful holiday season and a great 2007!

(originally posted November 2, 2006)

Well this probably should have been my Thursday Thirteen last week, but better late than never

Things have changed a lot since I was a kid. My parents were very strict about my watching scary movies, I must admit now with good reason. When I was in about the 6th grade one of my friends had a movie party and we went to Invasion of the Body Snatcher (remake).

That movie scared the bejeezus out of me and I didn’t sleep for about 6 weeks after seeing it. I was horribly disturbed by the fact that the pods “got” you while you slept. It’s been about 27 years since I saw that movie and I still can’t watch it without it really freaking me out. I’m frankly not very comfortable even typing about it now.

Nowdays kids seem to go to those kinds of scary movies much younger. My son saw The Ring when he was 10 and I was horrified when I found out (he lives with his dad) and spent a lot of time discussing that he was too young to see that with his father. Then I talked to a friend that has a son the same age about it and she said all the kids see them nowdays.

I do think my parents being strict as I got older did fuel my love for scary movies in the end.

These are 13 of my favorite scary movies, in no particular order.

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street

2. Halloween

3. Evil Dead

4. Arachnophobia

5. Needful Things

6. Lake Placid

7. Child’s Play

8. Pet Sematary

9. Creepshow

10. Thirteen Ghosts (remake)

11. Army of Darkness

12. House

13. Children of the Corn

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