Sadly....

Last night I posted about Charlie... a baby parakeet born to my friend Tricia's birds. I was very excited about Charlie and I got updates on the baby every day.

Sadly, I woke up this morning to an update that Charlie passed in the middle of the night. I'm very sad.... and very sad for my friend.

I know some people say "It's just a bird" but this bird was part of my friends family, which made her part of my family. When you love something and lose it... it hurts, no matter what it is.

Rest in peace baby Charlie... You stole my heart.

My Adorable New Furphew Levi!!

I have a new furphew (Dog Nephew)!! Like me and many of us, my Sister is an animal lover. She’s had dogs for eons now. She tends to favor pugs, but she loves all dogs. She currently has a fawn Pug named Dafney.  Dafney is going to be 12 very soon and she was recently diagnosed with Diabetes. My sister gives her the shots she needs twice a day and bought stuff to help with the diabetic itch etc. That’s what you do for your babies right?  She also has a large Mixed Breed named Dellmar. I wrote about him and posted pictures of him in my post about how I got my dog Zoey. Anyway… last year my Sister lost her other Pug Phinnaeus to a neurological illness. It was a tough loss… he was such a sweetheart! After awhile, she decided she wanted to get a dog for Dellmar to be able to play with. Dafney is too old to play and she is too cranky to be bothered. LOL. So she would look at the Pet Finder websites and the local humane shelter. She eyed a few adoptees online and I would try and talk her out of it. The real reason I did was because she has always been saying she wants to get more pugs… and the dogs she wanted were not pugs. It was her being spontaneous and I just thought she should really think about it. Fate has a way of giving you what you need.

Yesterday (9/18/2015) she woke up early and out of the blue decided to head to the local humane shelter. She looked at all the dogs and nothing really hit her. They were mostly big dogs and she didn’t want to get anything too big. There in the very last cage was a pug! A 7 year old male fawn pug and he just grabbed her heart.  Our local humane shelter is excellent!! They take amazing care of the animals and they made my sister fill out an extensive application. They had 5 applications in already for that one little pug boy.

The difference between my sisters application and the others, was that she filled out every speck on the application and when they saw that she already owned a pug, and a diabetic one at that they knew she would give the dog a good home. They called my sisters vet to ensure that she maintained her animals and took care of their health, which of course she does.  Trust me folks… her dogs are loved beyond and spoiled. 

This boy was in tough shape… a little too skinny and had a very bad (tho taken care of by the shelter) flea problem. He has patches of fur missing from the fleas, but they have him under control and medicated.  So my sister was beyond thrilled that she was approved to take him home the next morning.

I went to my sisters house so I can help with the process of introducing a new baby into the family. Dellmar was not pleased at all. Dafney was fine… she didn’t care at all. LOL… but Dellmar was growling and upset. This set both of us into worry.  If Dellmar didn’t chill out… what then?

Google research led me to an ASPCA website with tips on how to introduce a new pet into the home. The KEY was to keep both animals on a leash with 2 separate people and have them sniff eachother out in NEUTRAL territory.  Well my sister tried it outside in the driveway, but it didn’t work. Dellmar was not having it. So we went to the local park. I took the new boy and she took Dellmar. SUCCESS!!! They sniffed each other, they got close with no incident… more sniffing and that was that. We headed back to the house, took them both off their leashes and no further incidents. 

So I have an adorable new nephew and he has a great new home. I want to make sure I mention that Levi was clearly very loved and spoiled in his previous home. You can just tell by how loving and affectionate he is. It appears that his medical bills were just too much for his previous family to handle. Huge respect to them for surrendering him in hopes he would find a new loving family, and he has. I give them so much credit for their sacrifice, it couldn’t have been easy.

Levi
A Very Happy, Auntie Jaided

Introducing Charlie!

I have some really fun and exciting news I want to share.  I am an Auntie to a brand new baby Parakeet.  I am truly very excited. So I wanted to write a post about it.
I have to start with Charlie!!  Sweet little Charlie! One of my Best Friends is a bird lover. She has had Parakeets in her life now for quite a few years. She is amazing with them. Like I love my dog, she loves her birds. Her current birds are Romeo and Juliette. She has a male and a female in hopes that one day she would have Parakeet babies.  Over the last year it has been an emotional roller coaster for her. Juliette would lay eggs, but then kick them out of the cage. They weren’t fertilized so they would never come to be. So the highs and lows of hoping this would be it… and then finding it isn’t.  Now this went on for a really long time and so Tricia finally let hope go and figured one of the birds was infertile and a baby would never come to be. Or would it…..?? So…. three new eggs were laid. This time was different though. Juliette stayed with the eggs all the time. She was more attentive and hope was alive again. She took pictures of the eggs and held them up to the light. She has a cousin that is a vet and she emailed the pictures and her cousin said she didn’t think it had a baby inside. But you really can’t tell from a picture. So Tricia read about candling and putting an egg gently in water and I don’t know it all, but after reading and doing these tricks… she was devastated to find that these eggs would not bring babies. She figured she would leave the eggs for another day and then remove them.

SURPRISE!!!!!
	It's sooooo exciting!! I get to be this little ones God Mother and I also got the honor of naming him/her. I chose Charlie because it's gender neutral. We won't know what sex the baby is until all of her/his feathers come in. I just love this baby!
I am so proud of my friend Tricia. I am not kidding when I tell you she has watched countless YouTube videos about baby parakeets as well as countless webpage searches.  She is an amazing Bird Mom and Charlie is so very lucky to have her. Once the nest was fixed to accommodate the baby, Mama was no longer tending to him, so now Tricia feeds her/him with an eye dropper making sure she/he will sustain. Incredible! Charlie is doing very well.
I’ll post about Charlie again as the baby grows. Such a blessed little birdie to have such a great B-Nana (Bird Nana). I’m so excited!! Jaided

Home.....

I'm a city girl born and raised. No wait... I was a city girl born and raised. Now, I am a country girl and I couldn't be happier! It took me a long time to adjust, but now that I have, I can't imagine being anywhere else. This is home. One of my favorite things to do in the Spring, Summer and Fall is just drive around my town and the the surrounding towns and just look at the beautiful scenery. The sunsets are breathtaking. I've lived here now for 12 years and it doesn't get old at all.  Tonight the weather was perfect for a summer ride with Zoey (My Beagle). The temp was perfect the breeze was cool. I had great music playing from a CD I made and the sunset was lovely. My neighbor has a beautiful garden with tons of veggies that he grows and shares every year. His Pumpkins came in great this year, so I decided to go have a look. Zoey loves being at his garden.  So here are just a couple of shots from our adventure tonight. Click on the images to see them larger if you'd like. Thanks for reading!

Don't Be a Quitter.....?

Greetings and Salutations!

So yeah... I just wanted to post something quick about how I am not consistent with any of my blogs. My Craft Blog for instance.... I posted about quilling the letter K... well I have done a little more to it since my last post, but I haven't touched it in a few weeks. I can't seem to finish  my projects. I get bored, move onto something else and maybe come back to it months later. So... I just wanted to say if you are checking my blogs... they will get updated, but randomly.

Well... this blog is a bit easier to update since it's just stories and things happening in my life. See that kind of stuff is just on the fly so no real effort goes into it. Well sometimes it does... you know what? I have no idea what I am talking about. So....... That being said, don't count on regular updates to any of my blogs at all. LOL  I am a weirdo!

J

Loss......

	On August 6, 2015 my family lost our Patriarch. This was a huge loss to my family.  My Uncle was a very strong burly man. Throughout his life he survived a few heart attacks, prostrate cancer, bladder cancer and it was lung cancer that finally took him. Though to be fair, he beat the lung cancer, but just before he passed it was discovered that it had returned. He lived a very long full life. He was 87 years old. In his mid-teens he joined the Merchant Marines and when he became of age to do so, he joined the US Army where he proudly served his country during World War II.
In the early 70’s he served as Commander of the local VFW where he did many good deeds for the city. We grew up as a very close knit family. There were 7 houses on our street and my maternal side of the family all lived there at one point or another. In 1970 my Grandfather passed away and it was my uncle who became the one we all looked to when we needed him. He was always there. He was a hearty man as well. He enjoyed throwing parties and family gatherings. He would dress up as Santa Claus when we were kids every year.  You knew if he was there it was going to be a good time. He worked nearly his entire life to support his family and give them everything he could. I live 8 hours away from where he lived. I hadn’t seen him in 5 years. This year, I was able to pull enough money together with the help of friends to be able to drive down and visit him. I knew it would be the last time I would ever see him, as he was already ill at that time.  It wasn’t easy…. In fact it was harder than I expected it to be. I was just glad to see him smile and laugh. Shortly after I headed home he was getting sicker and sicker and faded away. It came on pretty fast. I kept in close contact with my cousins to see how he was doing. I was able to Facetime him 2 days before he passed and I was in shock at how much he withered away… it was heartbreaking. I wasn’t able to go to the wake or funeral. I stayed behind here at home to watch my Sisters dogs so that she could travel down and represent the family. He was buried with full Military Honors. I loved my Uncle very much. His loss hit me very hard. Losing him was the end of an era in my family and he will forever be missed. Rest in Peace Uncle Artie… Until we meet again! Love, Jaided
Me with my Uncle 5/2015

My Favorite Kind of Night!

Finally!!! The weather was decent enough to gather together around the fire pit. This is one of my favorite things to do in the summer and with the weather we've been having they've been few and far between. So this was great!  The best part is that my friend Ian was here. I haven't seen him in two years so that was a great bonus. He and Georgine are heading back to Georgia early Friday morning. 

Zoey was such a good girl! She tends to whine a lot when she isn't getting a lot of attention but tonight she didn't whine and she had fun for herself. 

Just a great time!!! :)