Thank you so much for all the thoughtful and empathetic emails and comments.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you all reaching out.  I’m still trying to accept that she’s really gone.  On a throw rug near my desk there’s still one little paw print indentation  and I can’t bring myself to shake out that rug.   It’s as if it’s the last solid reminder that she was a living, breathing creature just a few days ago.

Over the years we’ve remained close with our breeder and she sent the most perfectly worded email yesterday.  Here’s a section of it:

You’ll never get over her, but she won’t be so, “in the moment” as she is right now and I know it doesn’t seem that way for now. I still can remember with tears each one of my dogs passing. Remembering the eyes, so full of love and admiration for you and with full confidence in you doing the right thing for them, no human deserves such devotion and yet the special dogs in our lives readily give it without reservation. That’s a heavy responsibility and one we end up accepting time and again because of the specialness of that kind of relationship.

My mom sent me a cute shot she had taken of Hannah and Jack last month when she was visiting…

And funnily enough, right after she took those pictures here in Oregon, she saw my sister’s family in North Carolina and took this photo of my nephew Tom with his dog Annabelle.  You’ve got to love a boy and his dog…

Onto happier thoughts….

So the cat is out of the bag now about the Ali kit!  I meet with her on Thursday to finalize everything with the kit.  She’s got some really fun things planned but you are going to have to wait a bit longer to find out.  I love a secret!

So what did you think of this month’s CK?  It was so fun to see so many familiar faces in the magazine.  Of course there was Ali’s column — great as always!  Mou had some beautiful layouts and Emilie Ahern, our guest designer for May, had a really cute layout across from one of Mou’s.   And… I loved seeing that Little Monkeys made it as one of the latest and greatest products!  Way to go Susan!!  My copy of Ashley Calder’s Scraptastic arrived in the mail today and I can’t wait to find a little free time to delve into it.  Along with my copies of Simple Scrapbooks and Scrapbooks Etc arriving as well, it’s been akin to scrapbook reading heaven around here for me!

Yesterday was my birthday.  I am thankful that Hannah didn’t die on my birthday but having just lost her two days earlier, I really wasn’t in a celebratory mode.  Also, I don’t think 39 makes you want to jump up and shout “hurray!” anyway….  We just stayed home and Scott picked up some Thai takeout and a deliciously decadent, dense chocolate cake.  The kids were very excited about singing happy birthday and most importantly, eating cake and licking candles!

Generally for Christmas, birthdays and other such gift giving occassions I receive incredibly romantic gifts from Scott like office chairs, bread knives, cutting boards, tool kits, and even a fanny pack once!  Occassionally he does manage to throw me a curve ball when he comes up with that just right gift.   This was one of those years…  He gave me this:

And this:

Now that I no longer need to listen to music on the boombox my parents gave me my senior year of college, I feel like I’ve finally entered the 21st century!  Thanks Scott!!!!