biscuit's space | The blog of photographer Katherine Carver

Nov 29

Loving: Fall 2022

Below are a few things that I am loving this fall.

1. Star Ornament — I love this ornament. The quality is very nice and I love that you can list the year and the members of your family along the star.

2. Hana Andersson Leggings — We love the Hana Andersson leggings; Alex wears them through the fall, winter, and spring, and they hold up really well, even after many washings — they are a must have for us!

3. Taharka Brothers’ Ice Cream — We all love the Taharka Brothers’ ice cream — it is the best ice cream I have ever had, and we were lucky enough that one of their ice cream trucks came to our neighborhood for a few events! The honey graham is excellent!

4. Hana Andersson Tops — Similar to the leggings, above, we love the Hana Andersson tops, they also hold up really well and Alex thinks that they are very comfortable, as well!

5. The Watcher — This is a good series, based in part on a true story. This is a mystery-thriller, and if you enjoy those types of shows, you will enjoy this one!

6. The Stories We Tell by Joanna Gaines — I enjoy reading memoirs. Gaines wrote down her life story after feeling conflicted. She used writing to process experiences of her first two decades of life. “Fear, vulnerability, intentionality, perfectionism” were recurring themes. She urges readers to pay attention “to the moments you’ve kept close,” to listen to their own story, and to be open to “a way of living that grows toward change rather than against it.” I found this book as a reminder to be really present in your life, really leaning into and embracing all of those ordinary moments, which are not so ordinary.

You can view other things I love here!

Nov 22

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! My parents are visiting, and Alex is in seventh heaven! And, Victory is loving the chicken treats my parents brought for her, along with having more people in the house giving her treats! Victory can be quite persistent at the dinner table! She is a smart little fur girl! Our little family has so much to be grateful for this year.

Below are a few quotes that I love about this time of year. Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.” —Randy Pausch

“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.” —Lionel Hampton

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” —Karl Barth

“Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.” —Rumi

“Be present in all things and thankful for all.” —Maya Angelou

“The more that you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.” —Norman Vincent Peale

“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.” —Roy T. Bennett

“To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.” —Johannes A. Gaertner

“Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.” —Henry Van Dyke

“Forever on Thanksgiving the heart will find the pathway home.” —Wilber D. Nesbit

“Give thanks not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of your life. Appreciate and never take for granted all that you have.” —Catherine Pulsifer

“There are only two ways to live your live. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other as is though everything is a miracle.” —Albert Einstein

“Appreciation us a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” —Voltaire

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” —Marcel Proust

Nov 15

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Fill Your Own Bucket

I loved this excerpt from Lisa Congdon, which you might find inspiring, too!

“Think of your daily life as a bucket that is your responsibility to fill. When your bucket is full, you have a lot of energy and you feel good. We can fill our own bucket by taking care of our body, eating healthy food, getting enough rest, honoring boundaries, learning new things, engaging in creativity, spending time with people we love, doing work that we love, and living in alliance with our values. Sometimes we make the mistake of either trying to fill other people’s buckets instead of our own or filling our buckets with unhealthy things, and our own bucket becomes depleted. When this happens, there is always a chance to go back to filling our own bucket instead. Paying attention to filling your own bucket is the first step.”

Nov 9

Victory: A Birthday Celebration — 11 years

October 12, marked nine years since we adopted our sweet dear little Victory! The time is going by much too quickly! We decided to make October 12 Victory’s birthday — the day we went to Michigan and adopted our sweet fur girl.

As such, we recently celebrated Victory’s birthday marking her ninth year with us since her adoption! This also marks five years celebrating as a ‘big sister’ to Alex! This year, for Victory’s birthday, we did a personalized fall themed and pastel themed birthday! (As shown below, last year, we did a personalized theme and a pastel theme; two years ago pink theme with gold accent; three years we did a pastel rainbow theme with a silver accent; four years ago we did pastel theme with a gold and silver accent; five years ago we did a gold and champagne theme; six years ago we did a light pink and gold themed birthday; seven years ago we did a pink themed birthday; and eight years ago, we did rainbow themed birthday for Victory!) For this double-digit birthday, we had another small cake made with Victory’s likeness, with a fall twist — Victory peering out of a pumpkin! It turned out beautifully! We also purchased some fun decorations and balloons, along with a light pink sweater for Victory, a tradition, in honor of her birthday! Victory also enjoyed a Snake River Farms steak prepared by Doug, along with her very own cupcake (with no icing, of course!) Victory looked absolutely adorable and beautiful on her birthday, as always, shown below! This is the fifth birthday that Victory celebrated with her sidekick, Alex! It is wonderful to witness their relationship blossom as Alex grows older. Alex loves giving Victory treats and hugs (with supervision!) Victory had a fun birthday and she truly enjoyed being over fed and the center of attention! I sincerely believe Victory knows her birthdays are all about her!

We are truly the lucky ones to share our lives with this wonderful, loyal, and loving being. Victory has been such a source of comfort to us all. She is always by our side, and I have enjoyed working from home full time with her since COVID. Victory has also fully embraced her ‘big sister’ role! Victory is very attuned to her little sister and loves to greet Alex in the mornings and evenings! It melts our hearts! Victory continues to join us each morning and evening for play time and story time, in addition to all feedings! We also do our best to keep Victory fully integrated in our outings as well, and we had a fun fall together with many outings together! We are so very grateful and thankful for our Victory. She means the world to us and we love her very much.

For Victory’s birthday, we gave her: a Snake River Farms steak; a customized Yeti water bowl with her name on it; treats; and a new light pink sweater! Additionally, Alex also made some art for Victory!

(All birthday decorations are via Sweet Lulu.)

Here is a video of the girls celebrating our fur girl, Victory!

A look back at Victory’s birthday celebrations over the years…

Here is a look back at Victory on her birthdays!

If you are considering getting a dog, I hope that you consider adopting a rescue dog. There are so many dogs in need of a good, loving home, especially now. As shown below, Victory, a rescue, has changed so much physically and emotionally over the years since we adopted her, pictured on the left (image from Victory’s foster mom via the Michigan Sheltie Rescue). You really can save a dog’s life, while simultaneously enriching your own life/lives. We cannot imagine not having a rescue dog in our lives!

Nov 3

Happy Halloween from our Rainbows!

Happy Halloween! Halloween is one of our favorite times of the year! We love the fall season! This is Alex’s fifth Halloween! Victory is a rainbow this year for Halloween along with her little sister, Alex, shown below! Victory (along with Alex) was a peacock last year; Crayola red crayon two years ago; Victory (along with Alex) was Super Woman three years ago; a unicorn (with Alex) four years ago; Wonder Woman five years ago; a fifties girl six years ago; a lioness seven years ago; a butterfly eight years ago; and a ladybug for her first Halloween, nine years ago.

Here is Doug and Alex’s pumpkin, which they worked diligently on this year, shown below! Alex picked the butterfly to carve this year, but Doug did most all of the magical pumpkin work!

Additionally, here are links to other pumpkins carved by Doug: last year; two years ago; three years ago; four years ago; five years ago; six years ago; seven years ago; eight years ago; nine years ago; and ten years ago!

Here is a short video of the lit pumpkin that Doug carved for us this year! He did a great job, as always!

Additionally, here is a look back at Victory and Alex over the years on Halloween!

Oct 25

Preserving Your Child’s Artwork Forever

I recently made a book of all of Alex’s preschool artwork. I had saved so much of her artwork, from preschool, and I wanted to find a way to save it without holding onto every piece of her artwork, if you know what I mean. So, I bought some white foam board and used my iPhone and photographed and edited the pieces that I wanted to save, to include in this book. I made a 70 page book of all of her preschool work, approximately 138 pieces of her artwork, via OnceUpon, and I selected the matte paper option. The book turned out well, it is simple in design, and it was not too expensive as compared to other places where you can make books.

The best part is — I printed one of these books for Alex, and she loves looking at her art via this book, and it is also a way to encourage her to keep making her beautiful art, which she loves to make, regularly! The arts are really important, and we hope to keep fostering this love within Alex. I hope to make yearly books of her artwork as a way of preserving her artworks!

Oct 18

New Study: Dogs Can Smell When We Are Stressed

Have you heard this interesting news about dogs? In an experiment, dogs were surprisingly accurate in detecting sweat and breath samples from people who were stressed.

It has been widely believed that dogs can detect extreme emotions by smell. Now scientists at Queen’s University Belfast in the U.K. have proven that a dog’s nose knows.

Acute stress changes the compounds found in human sweat and breath, research has shown. For the new experiment, four dogs were presented with sweat and breath samples collected from human volunteers — before and after the people engaged in a difficult math exercise.

The canine participants were able to detect with a greater than 90 percent accuracy which samples came from before and which came from after the 36 human volunteers had spent three minutes trying to count backward, aloud, according to the report published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS One.

“This study provides further evidence of the extraordinary capabilities of ‘man’s best friend,’” said the study’s first author, animal psychologist Clara Wilson.

“While it is likely that in a real-life context dogs are picking up on our stress from a variety of context cues, we have shown using a laboratory study that there is a confirmed odor component that is likely contributing to dogs’ ability to sense when we are stressed,” Wilson said in an email.

For their study, Wilson and her colleagues first set out to train a variety of 20 pet dogs to point with their noses at samples from a person who was stressed. (By the end of the training period, 16 dogs had been withdrawn for a variety of reasons, including attention issues and boredom.)

The researchers tested the trained dogs with a machine that offered three choices: an unused piece of gauze, a sample from a stressed person and one from the same person when unstressed.

The researchers also collected before and after measurements of heart rate and blood pressure and responses to the questionnaires that asked about the volunteers’ stress levels before and after the math task.

The dogs’ accuracy at detecting the stress samples — from 90 percent to 96.88 percent — was even better than the researchers anticipated.

Knowing that chemical changes in sweat and breath can result from stress, it was expected the dogs might be able to smell the difference, Wilson said. “However we were still surprised the first time the dogs were shown the pre-and post-math task samples and confidently discriminated between them.”

One thing the research doesn’t reveal is whether dogs feel empathy when a person is stressed.

“Because the dogs were trained with positive reinforcement to find their target, they were visibly excited when they found it in the line-up, rather than showing any kind of stress themselves,” Wilson said.

She compared it to dogs who can smell cancer by picking out breath samples in a line-up. Future studies can investigate whether smell is an important part of a dog’s perception of human emotions, Wilson said.

For further information, please see this article and this article.

Photo Credit: Queens University Belfast.

Oct 12

Victory: Blessing of the Animals

It is Victory’s birthday today, and she is eleven years old! It is difficult to believe that we have had our precious Victory for nine years! October 12 is the day we adopted her from the Michigan Sheltie Rescue. This past weekend, we had a wonderful fall birthday celebration with a custom cake with a fall themed three-dimensional rendering of Victory on top of the cake, balloons, and decorations for our fur girl, Victory! (When I get a chance to edit these photos, I will share, more, soon!)

Importantly, we recently attended the Blessing of the Animals at Alex’s school. We have never attended such an event, so it was really fun to witness Victory receive a blessing. Doug also gave a reading, shown immediately below. And, we were given a certificate to take home with Victory’s blessing. Victory did well, and I am certain she knew that this event was all about her!

Reading: But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the planets of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of God has done this? In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

Here is a video our Victory getting ready for her blessing.

Here is a video our Victory receiving her blessing.

The Blessing of each animal: Victory, we give thanks for your life and companionship. May you be blessed in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that you and your family may find joy in your life together. Amen.”

Shown below are a few photos from the Blessing of the Animals.

Oct 11

Fourteen Years In

14 years of marriage. 18 years together. 4 years of parenting a little human together. 9 years of loving and taking care of our fur girl together. You are my favorite human being. You are always by my side, and supportive through everything. You are the greatest gift of my life, and each day spent with you is truly a gift. I look forward to many, many more years together, knowing that we can get through anything together. Most of all, you are an incredible Daddy to our girls! We are all so blessed. I am truly grateful for you. Happy fourteenth anniversary!

Oct 3

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Remembering Nick

It is with a heavy heart to share that my parents’ rescue papillon dog, Nick, passed away in early August, at home in my Dad’s arms with both of my parents with him, outside on their deck with the sun shinning brightly. It was very peaceful; and it was heartbreaking simultaneously. Nick was seventeen and he lived with my parents for eleven years. Nick stayed here on earth as long as his body allowed him to stay.

Nick came into my parents’ lives in 2011, the same year that Doug and I rescued Biscuit. Nick was such a good, sweet little dog, and my parents loved him so very much and they treated him like one of their human kids. Nick adored my Dad, and literally followed my Dad everywhere, whether that be watching my Dad while he used the exercise bike; going outside with my Dad while he worked in the yard; sitting by my Dad while he worked on his computer; going for car rides together; or cuddling up with my Dad while he took a nap. Also, you could always find Nick in the kitchen while my Mom cooked, hoping to find any remnant of food on the floor to eat; and Nick always went to my Mom when he wanted a treat or some chicken breast, his absolute favorite food! I remember Nick always barking and being so excited to see us when we returned home from being out somewhere! Nick always came with my parents when they came out to visit, and we are so glad that he made it to Alex’s fourth birthday party. Nick was spoiled and very well cared for, as every dog should be, and he even ate dinner at the dining room table with my parents in the evenings, as he had his own chair at the dinning room table! Nick was always friendly to everyone he met. Most of all, Nick gave my parents so much joy and comfort.

Nick knew both Biscuit and Victory, our rescue shelties, and life will never be the same without Nick. This was also Alex’s first encounter with death and the finality of it all, which is often challenging for adults to grasp. Alex asks many questions about heaven and what it means to die. We believe that Nick is free of pain, and both Nick and Biscuit are together in heaven. I believe losing a beloved animal can sometimes be more difficult than losing a human. Your furry family member(s) is literally always there for you, loves you unconditionally, and it is unbearable to imagine a life without them. Shown below is one of my favorite quotes about the great loss of a beloved animal. Nick will forever be in our hearts and he is greatly missed here on earth.

“There is a cycle of love and death that shapes the lives of those who choose to travel in the company of animals. It is a cycle unlike any other. To those who have never lived through its turnings or walked its rocky path, our willingness to give our hearts with full knowledge they will be broken seems incomprehensible. Only we know how small a price we pay for what we receive; our grief, no matter how powerful it may be, is an insufficient measure of the joy we have been given.” —Suzanne Clothier