** Happy Birthday To Our Beloved Dog! **

A few years ago, we got our beloved dog, Tiger, at a local animal shelter. It had only been about a month since we had said good bye to our first and only dog, Rocky. He had lived to be fourteen, I missed him terribly, and said I did not want another dog for at least six months. Well, that all changed when my husband told me about a dog he'd seen at the shelter and that I should come see her, too. You've guessed the outcome: We fell in love with the puppy and took her home. We let our youngest son, Mark, name her, and he chose Tiger. His reasoning was because of the movie: Rocky and something about the name of a song in the movie was "Eye of the Tiger". (although "Tigress" would've been more appropriate!)

Since Tiger's exact age was unknown, the vet estimated her age to be six months. It was summertime and so we chose her birthday to be January 1st. Over the years, none of us have really thought about her birthday or having any kind of celebration for her. I had even lost track of her age, but knew she was getting pretty old, so I looked on one of the past vet bills.....we have plenty of them!....and saw that she was born in 1997!!....And so, Happy 13th Birthday, Tiger!!

I will continue to spoil her, enjoy her, and love her every single day, as I have for the past 12 years.

(P.S. I finally got my photo program to work correctly, and this picture is brand new and current....taken during the evening of Tiger's 13th birthday)

"Happiness is a warm puppy." -- Charles M. Schulz

** Happy New Year! **

How many of us are saying, "I can't believe it's 2010."  It seems like just a year or so ago that the song 1999 by Prince was so appropriate!  ".....so tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999". Wow...that was 10 years ago!

My husband and I "partied" last night with 4 dear friends......snacking, playing cards and listening to "the oldies". I even got up and did a crazy dance a few times.....mostly when we women won the round of cards! The one moment of the evening that wasn't funny or silly was when Rita's husband said something so profound.......that we can all be happy and celebrate that Rita is still with us! (I've mentioned Rita various times on this blog and also in my writings. She recently had open heart surgery, plus a benign tumor removed that was partly collapsing one of her lungs.) She's had an amazing recovery!!....Especially for someone her age!! Sorry, Rita!!

There's nothing better than having friends that are also our family.

"Just thinking about a friend makes you want to do a happy dance, because a friend is someone who loves you in spite of your faults." -- Charles M. Schulz