Good Thinking
I really like this quote by Maya Angelou. I think the sentiment is so true, especially with respect to our relationship with our furry family members!
Happy Wednesday!
Aug 6
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Aug 4
Victory: Photography Project — 29
“Friendship isn’t about whom you have known the longest…It’s about who came and never left your side.” ~Unknown.
Beginning in January of this year, I began a weekly photography project with my muse, Victory! I will continue to share this project on the blog! I have also been documenting Victory’s milestones so to speak each month — you can read these here! I think that it is fun to document all of Victory’s changes, while preserving fleeting moments and memories.
Last week, we had some evenings that were really nice outside. I decided to take Victory out in her Hound About! Victory loves her Hound About as much as Biscuit loved his Hound About! We walked all over the neighborhood. Victory stood up the entire time and smiled ear to ear, while poking her head out of the front opening of the Hound About! Needless to say, she slept really well that night! We are happy that the Hound About has brought so much joy!
You can see some of Victory’s faces that she made as she sat in her Hound About just prior to going on our walk together!
Happy Monday!
Aug 1
Photo of the Day!
Today is a fun post with little Victory! I recently joined Instagram, and I have been having fun coming up with new photo ideas with our precious Victory! She is so patient with me and she sits so still for me. I could not ask for a better muse! She is such a good girl and we are so lucky! Below is an image of Victory with her sheltie stuffies, Dixie and Whispy, made by Douglas! (Doug surprised me and brought Dixie and Whispy home from his travels.) Can you tell which one is Victory? You can view daily images of Victory (and Biscuit) on Instagram! Enjoy!
Happy Friday!
Jul 30
My Sister’s Bridal Shower
My sister, Kassie, is getting married in about two months! We hosted her bridal shower luncheon in Ann Arbor at Zingerman’s, one of our favorite restaurants, this past weekend! I had fun helping select the appetizers and menu! I also liked designing the invitations for the bridal shower since I love creating cards and invitations! The weather called for rain and, fortunately, the rain held out until after the shower! For favors, we got handmade chocolates (raspberry, blueberry, and chai tea flavors) from Sweet Gem’s, a local chocolate shop located in Ann Arbor. We put the fresh flower arrangements together the morning of the shower, and then we did a drawing at the end of the shower to give away the flower arrangements to guests! Kassie received many very nice gifts from all of her guests, eighteen guests in total! Everyone had a nice time and the food was delicious! A snapshot of Kassie’s bridal shower is shown below!
Victory: Photography Project — 28
“A dog is like a person — he needs a job and a family to be what he’s meant to be.” ~Andrew Vachss
Beginning in January of this year, I began a weekly photography project with my muse, Victory! I will continue to share this project on the blog! I have also been documenting Victory’s milestones so to speak each month — you can read these here! I think that it is fun to document all of Victory’s changes, while preserving fleeting moments and memories.
On a recent day, Victory was sitting in her ‘hut’ playing with her toys and chewing on them and I was able to photograph her while she remained in her ‘hut!’ This girl loves to chew — thankfully, these days, she is mostly chewing on her own toys and not other items, i.e., our belongings! She has already dismembered and pulled out the stuffing of many of her furry friends — chew toys! She is currently going to town on this cigar toy! I really love capturing our little fur girl! Enjoy some photos of Victory below showcasing her licking and chewing away on a new toy, a teddy bear!
Happy Monday!
Victory: Photography Project — 27
“Every once in a while a dog enters your life and changes everything.” ~Unknown
Beginning in January of this year, I began a weekly photography project with my muse, Victory! I will continue to share this project on the blog! I have also been documenting Victory’s milestones so to speak each month — you can read these here! I think that it is fun to document all of Victory’s changes, while preserving fleeting moments and memories.
Over the weekend, we decided to drive to Delaware for dinner! Since the weather was so nice, we could take Victory along with us and eat on the patio. She loves to ride in the car and she loves adventures. She even hopped in Doug’s lap while we were driving! Victory was a hit at the restaurant! Everyone came up to her and admired our little beauty! Victory had a great time with us! Some photos from dinner are shown below! We look forward to many more outings with our Victory!
Happy Friday!
Jul 24
Victory: Looking Beautiful!
Our beautiful Victory got a bath this weekend! She was in desperate need of one, especially with these hot and humid temperatures. It takes both Doug and I to bathe her, and we have a system down now where one of us fills up buckets with water and lines them up in the tub to expedite the bath process, while one of us washes her and keeps her from jumping out; then, we rinse her shampoo and conditioner as quickly as possible working like a little mini assembly line! We do our best to give her a speedy bath! To keep Victory looking her best, I brush her daily; use baby powder around her ears daily (she always smells so good); brush her teeth about five times a week; and we give her a bath once a month along with a monthly visit to the vet for a paw and nail trim! Thankfully, she always does really well at our vet!
I took this image below of Victory earlier this week and I noticed how much Victory has physically changed over the past nine and a half months since she came to live with us. See this image here to see a comparison of how much Victory has physically changed since bringing her home! It is quite amazing. She looks beautiful and healthy! I cannot wait for her one year anniversary in October to see how much she transformed over the course of a year!
Victory’s confidence has also improved and she has less anxiety. She will now even sit under my desk for hours at a time while I work; whereas in the beginning, she would retreat to her ‘hut‘ and she did not like to be on the floor. Biscuit always used to sit near me while I worked, so I am happy that Victory does the same and that she is feeling more secure in her home! She showers us with kisses every night and every morning — what more could you ask for! So, we are making progress and we are so grateful for our beautiful little Victory entering our lives!
Happy Thursday!
Instagram: Biscuit’s Space/Katherine Carver
We may be a little late to the Instagram party, but we’re now on Instagram! Doug and I decided that it was time to get iPhones, so we are now in the twenty-first century with our phones! I now have another method, the iPhone, to document little Victory, which will come in handy during those time I do not have my regular camera with me!
I am a visual person and I love photography. Thus, I thought that a ‘dog-centric Instagram’ would be a neat place to share images of Victory, our adventures together, along with snippets of our lives together, which I just started last week. If you wish, please follow along here. If you do not have a free Instagram account, you can follow along on the right side of the blog! I plan to post at least one photograph per day (likely more), including the weekends! So feel free to come by for a visit! (Instagram is the only social media that I use.) Victory has already made sheltie friends following her in Japan and Israel! It is amazing to see so many sheltie friends from literally all over the world!
Happy Wednesday!
Jul 22
Wedding: Getting Your Furry Family Member Ready for the Big Day!
My sister’s wedding is rapidly approaching. Unfortunately, Nick, my parents’ papillon rescue dog, and Victory, are not permitted at the wedding. We were a bit bummed! (Victory will be close by the wedding venue for Doug to check in on her periodically!) However, Victory and Nick will be at the wedding brunch the morning following the wedding. So my Dad and I decided to make our little furry family members, Nick and Victory, festive for the occasion. We searched multiple sites and arrived at the following festive collars shown below that we purchased, which should arrive to us anytime now! We wanted to find something simple, festive, and elegant for Nick and Victory! (Here is a link to Nick and Victory looking festive in their Christmas attire!)
Victory is going to wear this festive collar (left); and Nick is going to wear this festive collar (right)! They will be looking very festive and adorable! Photographs of Nick and Victory, looking festive for the wedding, will be forthcoming in October!
Happy Tuesday!
Good Read: Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro
I recently finished reading Still Writing by Dani Shapiro. This was a good read and I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to creatives. Still Writing is an intimate companion to living a creative life.
Below are some of my favorite quotes from this book.
“The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail — not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime. ‘Ever tried, ever failed,’ Samuel Beckett once wrote. ‘No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ It requires what the great editor Ted Solotoroff once called endurability.”
“We are all unsure of ourselves. Every one of us walking the planet wonders, secretly, if we are getting it wrong. We stumble along. We love and we lose. At times, we find unexpected strength, and at other times, we succumb to our fears. We are impatient. We want to know what’s around the corner, and the writing life won’t offer us this. It forces us into the here and now. There is only this moment, when we put pen to page.
[…]
The page is your mirror. What happens inside you is reflected back. You come face-to-face with your own resistance, lack of balance, self-loathing, and insatiable ego—and also with your singular vision, guts, and fortitude. No matter what you’ve achieved the day before, you begin each day at the bottom of the mountain. … Life is usually right there, though, ready to knock us over when we get too sure of ourselves. Fortunately, if we have learned the lessons that years of practice have taught us, when this happens, we endure. We fail better. We sit up, dust ourselves off, and begin again.”
“If I dismiss the ordinary — waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen — I may just miss my life.”
“If beginnings are leaps of faith, and middles are vexing, absorbing, full of trap doors and wrong turns and dead ends, sensing an ending is your reward. It’s better than selling your book. It’s better than a good review. When you’re in the home stretch, it seems the universe reaches out to support you. It meets you more than half way. Whatever you still needing order to finish your novel, you story, you memoir, appears as if by the decree of some literary deity who understands just how hard you’ve worked, just how much you’ve struggled, and now will give you a break.”
biscuit's space | The blog of photographer Katherine Carver 