Friday, January 06, 2006

My life is in one of its insanely busy times. If you told me I was going to be this crazed when I quit working, I just wouldn't have believed it. But you sort of fill that 9 to 5 void with other important things.

I launched my eight month long Angel Dogs Calendar fundraiser for my dog rescue on the 1st. Basically, I'm raffling off portraits for a 2007 Angel Dogs calendar for the next eight months. Each portrait is themed for each month. So I had to create a web page with my meager web design skills for it. It's here.

Then PetFinder gave me a new url and hosting for a new improved PetFinder site for Rosie's Cocker Rescue Referral. I'm designing it now and hope to have it live in a few weeks. I'll have more room for the educational stuff that my rescue is really about and a page for the Farm and Jammery and other cool stuff.

Then...wonders of wonders, Bart got himself an approved forever home. Yay! I'm really happy for Ba-Ba, but very sad for myself. He's been with me for two years. If things don't work out, he'll always have a place here, but this looks like an ideal placement for him. He's been my buddy and ever-present shadow as I've fixed fences and puttered in the garden for the past two years. But he won't have to share me with five other dogs where he's going and he'll have a nice lady librarian who will love him just as madly as I have loved him. It's been an honor and a privilege to have him here. He'll be sorely missed by us all.

But there is lots of work to be done in getting him to Maryland. I have to get the transport arranged and his health certs in order and get him gussied up for the trip.

I'm also planning a revamp of the Angel-Dogs site and will get to work on that as soon as the Petfinder site is up.

I don't have many pictures to post right now. It's actually sort of gloomy here in Appalachia during the winter. I love it but it's not for everyone. Charles Keralt did this classic documentary that really shocked the nation called "Christmas in Appalachia" that painted the area with the grim strokes of poverty of the region. In a way it wasn't really fair. If he had done "Springtime in Appalachia" it would have been a completely different doc. The starkness of winter here lays bare the bones of the mountains. It lays bare the bones of the people, too.

So, that's my life right now. Chop wood. Carry water.