I'm a little late on my post about our local Veteran's Day parade in Albany, Oregon on November 11, 2008. This parade is touted as the largest west of the Mississippi and I believe it! My sister Kristy, my niece McKenna and my granddaughter Emma and I braved the rain and wind to support our Veteran's and their families too. I appreciate the many sacrifice's that have been made by all of our military men and women.

DAISY

This is Daisy. She is my 19 year old son Daniel's dog. We rescued her from the county dog control about a year and a half ago. This is a pound that puts animals to sleep after a certain number of days. I can't call it a "shelter" because they euthanize animals there. I guess I'm using the old fashioned term for what we now call shelters. And that's why we chose to look there first. Daniel had wanted a black lab and there were several there all excitedly vying for our attention. I don't think Daniel saw any that called to him. In the last dog run we noticed a very familiar looking dog that was jumping on the chain link gate and barking. We saw the then nameless "Daisy" and she looked exactly like our old dog Red that had died about a year earlier. Daniel asked if we could get Daisy instead of a black lab. I told him it was up to him. I didn't mind because I never had a preference about the breed he would choose. We went inside and told the officer that we were interested in her and they gave us some more information . Daisy had been a stray that was found wandering the streets in a nearby town. She appeared to be well fed and we found out after we got her home that she was house trained too. Yay! Her age was estimated to be 1 year old. When we "met" her outside of her cage I wasn't so sure it was a good idea because she was such a "hyper" dog. She jumped all over us, scratched up our arms and just about knocked us down. We adopted her anyway...hoping that she would eventually calm down. She ran away within a few minutes of getting home (into a field across the street) and thankfully a nice UPS driver helped us catch her. It took a few weeks but Daisy did calm down and now rivals all the love and affection we had for Red. We love and still miss Red to this day but Daisy's been a great dog. Daniel loves her so much and treats her as if she was his baby. She's a very loving dog who likes nothing better than to crawl into your lap. She's a playful and fun dog and she's very gentle with the grandkids too. She likes to steal a kiss or two when she can!

Nepotism

I'm so proud of my daughter Kristina and her etsy shop DreamState that she just opened on September 11, 2008. She loves to sew and create. She is also a great photographer. She has made some amazing reversible aprons and bags. She sold 3 in the first few days of adding them to her shop. All she wants for Christmas is a commercial/industrial sewing machine so she can make more of her special creations! Please check out her shop!

Soon To Be Added To My Etsy Shop

Here are a few of the pieces of vintage jewelry that I'll be adding to my shop this week. I have so much more to list! Please visit my shop and see what treasures I have!

Ezra's FIRST Halloween

Here is Ezra on Oct 30. He is so adorable! He has the cutest smile........

I Love Autumn

I've been busy with family lately and spending more time with them. I put my etsy shop on the back burner for the past few weeks even though I've still had a few sales a week. I just felt a little bit overwhelmed with home ,family and business obligations. I spent some time helping my sister move, babysitting my nephew one day and the grandkids a few times a week. We all got together for a family birthday at a restaurant the other day and had a good time. I've just been taking it easy. Today, I went outside to take some photos of jewelry for my etsy shop and noticed how pretty the fall colors were so I took a few photos....