Happy Birthday Cupid!

My special girl turned 12 years old Christmas Day.  She's pictured above amidst the present-opening chaos.  Later, she and I went for our annual birthday/Christmas walk but her elbow was bothering her so we turned it into a nice long drive through snow-covered farmland instead.  

Christmas 1996 is especially memorable because DH (who wasn't yet my husband) and I spent it whelping puppies.  About half of the pups arrived during the wee hours of the night at home but the rest were delivered at the emergency vet clinic throughout Christmas Day.  The nine babies got the names of Santa's reindeer.  Rudolph was nicknamed Rudy and went to live in Alabama.  Blitzen was renamed Bear and, because his owners lived in Tucson, I was able to watch him grow up into a big, handsome, long-coated dog.  And Vixen lived up to her name--she was a spitfire who went to live with a park ranger who took her to work everyday.  

I feel blessed to have Cupid still in my life, and I am thankful that she is healthy and strong....the best Christmas present of all.  

Time to play Tag

 I got tagged by Jill <elinorscloset.blogspot.com> a long time ago.  I've spent way too much time fretting about it; now it's time to get the job done.  

Rules are as follows... when you get tagged you must...
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Mention the rules.
3) Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.
4) Tag two other unsuspecting online art friends...

The first thing I had to do was look up the definition of quirky.  I think I know what quirky means but just in case...

Here's what I found:

def.: Deviating from the customary: bizarre, cranky, curious, eccentric, erratic, freakish, idiosyncratic, odd, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, singular, strange, unnatural, unusual, weird. Slang kooky, screwball.
Wow...that's quite a spread. "Quaint" brings to my mind something totally different than "freakish". I'm stopping myself--which is difficult-- from looking up "quaint" right now, just in case I don't completely understand its meaning too, which brings me to my first quirky detail--
1) I'm anal and perfectionistic when it comes to writing. It takes me a long time to even write a simple email (just ask DH)
2) I have a bald spot about 1" in diameter on the right side of my head which has always been there.

3) I name and handfeed our backyard squirrels.   

4) I raised sheep for a couple of years and dream of doing it again.

5) I can cross each of my eyes individually.

6) I've recently become a pro football fan, thanks to Peyton Manning ;)

For the next victims, I pick:

Nelly <nellybeepaperprojects.blogspot.com>

Natalie <studiomeccadigital.com>

Have fun, gals!

Snowy Saturday

Well, I'm fairly sure we're going to have a white Christmas here in the Twin Cities area. It's coming down again this morning, plus there were already about 5 inches on the ground. Christmas always sneaks up on me too quickly but this year, the time between Thanksgiving and now has just flown by, hasn't it?

I've been working on a couple of different projects (it takes me forever to actually finish anything) including this combo Christmas/"thanks for the holiday party" card.  It's simple but I didn't have a lot of time to ruminate over it which, for me, is a good thing.  

Now that I'm back in blogging mode (we'll see how long that lasts...), get ready for some long-overdue tagging to occur in the next day or two!