Camping:: It's intense!

Get it? It's intense! IN TENTS! Camping?.... IN TENTS?!

Ok, Sorry for that. It has been raining here. A LOT. Like all the time, all day long. We did get a break yesterday and that was nice. But today here we are again.

I have had to cancel, postpone and reschedule so many sessions this Spring because of the rain. It is beyond frustrating. I absolutely HATE having to reschedule a session for any reason, even if it is out of my control. My clients are wonderful and completely understand because they don't want to shoot their session in the rain either. This week when yet another session got canceled, I let my frustration out in the form of a tent....a huge tent in the middle of our living room with every single sheet that we own!

It did the trick. It's amazing how twinkle lights and an indoor fort can be so comforting. I felt like I was 4 years old again! Buie and I stayed in our fort all day Monday and talked and watched crime detective shows which is one of our favorite things to watch.

 All of the animals slept for hours. It was like we drugged them. ha! (It was probably the essential oils we had diffusing IN the tent!) Monday night we slept in the tent with all the animals except for Spring because she's not house trained yet. She did come hang out for a few hours with us. I think the dogs thought we had built them a huge kennel for our entire pack. :) 

Yes, I realize we are crazy but hey you only live once, right?! Our tent is still up- going on Day 4. I'm going out of town this weekend so I'm thinking we have to leave it up at least til the nieces and nephews can come play sometime next week. :)

Oops, I did it again!

Oops, I did it again! I found a cute dog and decided to keep it. Yup. That's right. The Buies Zoo just added ANOTHER one. We are back up to 12. We lost a bunny a couple months ago so we were down to 11, but now we have an even 4/4/4:: four dogs, four cats and four bunnies.

 Last Sunday morning our 3 dogs started barking like crazy at something in our front yard. That usually means that the FedEx guy is delivering a package to our house or there is a nosy little doggie visitor using our lawn as a place to mark his territory. Our dogs do not approve. They think it is their sole duty to guard and protect this house, even if it means chewing through the glass kitchen door to do so. I like that they sound vicious. It makes me feel safer when I'm working from home.

In our yard last Sunday was this sweet face. She was frightened yet curious. She had a blue collar with no name, no tag of any kind and a chewed of leash hanging down from her collar. Her skin looked pretty bad. She had patches of bald spots with skin shedding and scabs all over her. When I could get close enough, she would wag her tail and I could barely get a glimpse of some sort of infection underneath her tail. I couldn't tell in her anal gland was swollen or if she was in fact a he and those were just some weird looking boy parts. (sorry for the details if you aren't a dog person) We found out later she was in fact a girl and her private parts were inflamed and irritated. Poor girl. :(

I had somewhere to go that morning and all afternoon. We didn't know what to do. After calling the local rescue shelter and learning that they were at capacity, we decided to just give her some food and water and see if she would just stay in our front yard through the night. And of course she did. The next morning, she was happy to see me but still fearful. I made a vet appointment for that afternoon and spent the next few hours just sitting out in the front yard trying to gain her trust. There were many many treats involved in this process. ;)

Getting her in the car was a traumatic experience but surprisingly the actual vet appointment was great! They are so great with her. They got her cleaned up, treated the ticks and fleas and gave her a shot for the red mange. The next few days were all about making her feel at ease and comfortable.

She has made such progress over the last week. And of course we have fallen in love with her. I think it was Thursday that we officially decided to keep her and make her a part of our crazy zoo. Oh and we named her SPRING! :) When she runs, she has this little hop and a spring to it. She is so full of hope, just like each Spring is after a long hard winter. We are excited to see her progress and if you'd like to follow along over on Instagram, you can find lots more pictures and even some videos over at my instagram page #thebuieszoo or #springbuie for more pictures of just sweet Spring.

Welcome to the Zoo, Spring.

Love it or Leave it

I thought it was about time I popped back in to say hi! It's no surprise that I've been letting this little blog of mine fall by the wayside...again. Most of the time I think "no one wants to read about my boring little life," but to be completely honest, I'm not really doing this for anyone else except me. I have never admitted to being a "writer" but I find it therapeutic. Growing up I have always kept a journal of some sort starting with my Hello Kitty diary in 3rd grade. :) It's fun to go back and read years later, just like I do with this blog. I started this blog right before Buie and I were married and this summer we will celebrate 7 years of marriage together. It's hard to believe 7 years has already gone by. In some ways it has been some of the best years but also some of the hardest years of my life. Most of the real intimate personal stuff I don't write about here on my blog, mainly because I don't want the whole world knowing about it. But the small stuff like gardening and our animals and our home, the everyday stuff...I still want to remember all of that stuff. So here I am again.

In January I wrote about simplifying and I have really been trying to do that this year. If you know me then you know I come with a lot of stuff. ha. It sounds weird to say because I don't consider myself to be materialistic. I don't have to have stuff to make me happy. However, I am one of those inherently messy people. I think it comes naturally though if that makes any difference at all. I can remember going to visit my great grandmother, Margie, who we called "NaNa" and her place being filled with stuff. She had plants everywhere, stacks of magazines from years past that she had "plans" to do something with, unfinished ceramic projects. I remember she always had to clean a place off for us to sit down. :) Isn't it funny the little things you remember. My mom always said I have a lot of NaNa in me. We are both artists. We are both messy and creative and not at all organized. We both save every little thing to remember an event by. (I don't really do this anymore but I used to in junior high and high school.) We both have hoarding tendencies and I have a garage full of stuff to prove it. When my NaNa passed away, I felt such a connection to her that I felt like I must keep her stuff. I couldn't stand for it to go to charity. Through out the years, I would eventually lose all of my grandparents and each time, I felt like I had to hoard their belongings to keep a part of them with me. There are so many pieces that are so special to me that I would never in a million years get rid of and I am so thankful that they are in our home.

this is my MeMe's couch that is in our breakfast nook. I love this couch so much and remember spending many Christmases with all of my cousins all piled up on this couch opening presents. 

this was my MeMe's hutch that was in her kitchen that now stores our cookbooks and some of my china. 

this loveseat belonged to my Grandmother on my dad's side. It was in their Master Bedroom for as long as I remember. It is now in our living room and serves as a good cat napping bench. :)

I also have several boxes of just random trinkets and nicknacks that I have no emotional attachment to, other than I know they belonged to my grandparent. It has been somewhat therapeutic, to go through those boxes and find a special place in my home for those pieces that I do want to keep and let go of the things that I am not keeping.

On top of going through my grandparents memorabilia, I have kept so much stuff from college that I have now sold or given away. It feels good to clean out closets and purge! I highly recommend it! Is my garage clean yet? Well, heck no but I'm still working on it. :) My motto has been if I don't LOVE it then LEAVE it. I either sell it or give it away to someone who I know would appreciate it or box it up and give it to charity. Also, I'm not just keeping things for no reason anymore. I'm getting to old for trinkets. ha! It has to serve a purpose in my house. :)