music mondays {the belle brigade}

remember last week when i asked you what you were listening to? well, i got some awesome suggestions, among them one suggestion from my friend nicole, whose band the cold and lovely i also featured last week...

take a listen to los angeles based the belle brigade...great music, awesome name, a brother & sister duo, and the brother is a red head, to boot! love them...such good summer in los angeles tunes...makes me want to open the windows, turn up the volume and dance around with beatrice...

oh, and the video made me cry...

happy friday...

so i was off to such a good start posting every day, then i had to go away and it all went down the tubes. it's been quite a week, i went home to a funeral, celebrated my aunt's birthday, visited with family, showed off bea to my parents' friends {at their urging, of course}, mourned a lost dog, celebrated the safe return of said dog, found out another favorite dog has heart disease, talked to the vet after one of our long-time client dogs got out of surgery, and did more work on a project that will hopefully allow me to spend more time at home with the baby...phew...

the passing of my friend's brother at the much too early age of 36 really put things in perspective. the funeral was a wonderful celebration of his short & full life...the church was full of friends and family, it was quite a showing. since this was a friend from childhood, there were many faces from the past at the funeral that i hadn't seen in ages. of course it was great to see them, but too bad such unfortunate circumstances brought us together. i brought baby bea and when i hugged my friend at the service, she said, "i'm so glad you brought her, it reminds me of the cycle of life and that life continues on..."

i'm so grateful for all the friends, family, dogs and love in my life.

have a wonderful weekend! i'm going to put together posts for next week, do lots of laundry, go to the farmer's market, spend time with friends, family & dogs, and of course nurse the baby...

{photo credit: snappy bex on flickr}

patty's love letter to fannie

happy friday

by popular demand. twitter pics coming soon, i swear. we'll see how long it takes me to figure it out. i guess i'm old school. and you know about this, right?

enjoy your 4th of july weekend. we'll probably lay low with the dogs. they don't really like fireworks.

fanny steamboat waddles

introducing the newest member of our dog family: fanny steamboat waddles. she's 12 years old and weighs 28 pounds. she is going on a diet right now. we adopted her from gary her dog walker. gary has been walking her for the past three years, then on monday he went to pick her up and found her 85-year old mom had passed away. when gary asked her adult children if they would like the dog {then named annie}, they said: "we don't want IT. take IT to the pound."

gary brought her home and we adopted her the next day. she's very, very sweet and has a hard time walking due to her size. {we changed her name from annie to fanny because a really good friend of ours is named annie and it was too weird calling her annie!} she's a combination of oona and another favorite dog named winnie. yes, she's a senior and probably won't be with us too long, but she's a graceful lady who does NOT deserve to go to the pound.

she's going to live out her golden years in style and comfort with us.

{photo by patty}

away working...

sorry i've been absent again lately...i've been working. a lot. and in my line of work, it's hard to sit down in front of the computer. or if i do get to sit down, i don't want to look at the computer.

i do have some great weddings to show you...and news about our long-overdue honeymoon and news about another dog member of the family {yes, seriously}...so i'll be back soon...

{photo credit here.}

djuna seems to be adjusting well...

...to her new life with us.  more photos from our weekend at the pool with the pups here.

new family member: {djuna belle}

we had a really great weekend...we welcomed a new family member:  djuna belle.  we named her djuna after my favorite writer, djuna barnes.  we actually rescued her last weekend, but this past weekend we were really able to get to know her and see her personality emerge.  she was very shy and withdrawn the first few days.  i don't blame the poor girl:  she was rescued from the kill list at the downey shelter by a rescue group called hearts for hounds.  hfh cleaned her up, fixed her and brought her to their adoption event, which is where we met her!  we brough our other dog, vinnie with us to the event, and they immediately hit it off, so we thought she was meant to come home with us!  she's really sweet and very calm.  i've already taken her to work with me and she's of course a big hit there.  this photo is of her in her bed at work.   yes, she has a pink nose.  yes, she has pink ears.  yes, she looks more like a little lamb.  yes, she's super cute.

is it a bit soon to get another dog after oona?  sure, but after both ruby and oona died, a good friend of ours told us, "maybe the universe is just making room for more dogs that need you."  of course i still miss oona terribly, but it sure is nice to have another sweet dog around.  

the flowers are from some friends we met on friday...aren't they sweet?  we put them in our bedroom, so this was what we woke up to all weekend.

how was your weekend?

{photos by me}

thank you...

...for all the love, well-wishes, prayers, thoughts and notes about our fairy queen, oona.  it has really helped...we also have some news...but more on that later.

thank you, i wish i could write each of you individually, but frankly, i'm a little overwhelmed...please accept this as my thanks...

{photo from franticmeerkat on etsy}

rip oona, queen of the fairies

as i've written about here, the past month she's had many health problems. i won't go into detail, but she endured a massive surgery to remove a foreign object. while in the surgery, they removed one of her lungs as it was very damaged. turns out, the foreign object had not done the damage, rather it was the pulmonary carcinoma that they found. we weren't sure if the cancer had spread, but a few weeks later it was obvious that it had: she simply wasn't recovering from the surgery. and last week her eye doctor confirmed that the cancer had indeed spread to her eyes.

oona passed last night, peacefully in her own bed, surrounded by her family.

oona means "queen of the fairies" in gaelic. oona was truly a special dog...she definitely ran with the fairies. she was so sweet, mellow, relaxed and lovable--everyone who came in contact with her fell in love. 

thanks to all for the love and support...please excuse me if i'm away from the blogging for a few more days...

a room with a view

sorry for the lack of posts this week.  i've been spending every spare moment at home with oona and staring out the bedroom window.  i'll be back soon...thanks so much for all the love & well-wishes!  it really helps...

{photos by taken by me out our bedroom window}

happy friday

happy friday...this weekend we'll be laying low...our sweet oona has taken a turn for the worst...

the cancer seems to have spread and she may be leaving us soon...we haven't made any concrete decisions, but the eye doctor told us yesterday that the cancer is in her eyes now.  we are trying to make her as comfortable as possible and give her lots of snuggles and love...

having dinner with friends tonight will be a nice distraction {i took yesterday off work to be with her}...

please have a wonderful weekend and send some love oona's way...she can use all the strength she can get...

{photo credit:  photo maniacal on flickr}

a girl and her dogs...

how amazing are these photos of women and their dogs?

{photo credit via flickr}

happy friday

happy friday!  i'm planning on scooting around in the garden, hanging out with the dogs and doing my laundry...hopefully it will be nice enough this weekend so that i can skip the dryer and line dry my clothes!

{photo credit:  dennis cauchoix on flickr}

frolic in the forest

how beautiful is this?  i want to frolic in the forest with my cute dogs.  hooray for spring.

{photo credit: abless on flickr via olivet}

garden & delight

meg had me when she put the words "garden delight" in her title...the wedding she featured today is simply magical.  please, if you haven't already, go see.

{photo by one love photo via a practical wedding}

blessing in disguise: oona update

today we got to visit oona in the hospital.  she's still very drugged out and has a tube that drains fluid from her lungs.  she's being very well taken care of and is walking a bit on her own.  we hope to have her home before the weekend.

at the hospital, we were able to meet with her surgeon.  turns out the chicken bones and emergency surgery may have been a blessing in disguise.  the doctor did a biopsy on the lung he removed and it was riddled with cancer.  he said that it was hard to say whether the bones or the cancer caused the lung damage.  basically, if he hadn't have found the bones and done the emergency surgery, she probably would have died in a few weeks.  the cancer would have collapsed her lung and she would have died...

we still don't know how much cancer is in her remaining lung, but he said it was in good shape {he doesn't want to open her up again and we agree with him} . if we're lucky, she'll be with us for at least another year.  emergency surgery and almost as much money as we spent on our wedding is worth having oona around a bit longer.  

at this point, we know about the cancer and like ruby, we probably will opt not to do any invasive cancer treatments to prolong her life...our job, like always,  is to keep her safe, pain-free and loved.

{photo of oona and patty by me}

oona is going to be ok

our sweet oona had emergency surgery yesterday to remove a foreign object from her body.  turns out it was two chicken bones that have been floating around inside her for years.  we adopted oona about four years ago & before that, she lived on the street.  most likely the bones are from before we even had her!

her surgery went well, both her lungs had been punctured by the bones, and while one was mended, the other lung was removed as it was so badly damaged.  she survived the night in an oxygen chamber and if all goes well weaning her off the chamber, she will be home with us tomorrow.  

losing two of our dogs within a month was a bit too much for me to bear, and i'm so grateful the doctors were able to find this.  now i'm trying not to stress out about how much money the surgery cost us.  we didn't exactly budget for this.  everything will be ok.  thanks for the love & well wishes.

{photo of oona & patty by me;  image from studio mela on etsy.}

thoughts & prayers for oona

after losing ruby last month, our other sweet creature, oona is in the hospital today.  she has an infection in her eye and bizarre pockets of air in her body that are pressuring her heart, making it difficult to breathe.  the vets have never seen anything like it.  patty took her to a specialist and they are keeping her for a few days to run more tests and observation.  i'm praying to the doggie gods that she will be alright...

{she was one of the ring-bearers in our wedding.}

celebrate love: freedom to marry week blog carnival

day 5: celebrate love.

still feeling a bit under the weather with a cold, so this will be a short & sweet post.  the photo is one of the last photos of ruby before she got sick.  true love.

today we're going to the dog park with our dogs, driving to the pet cemetery to pick up ruby's ashes, seeing some friends and relaxing at home.

i'm so grateful to have patty & the dogs in my life.  i'm grateful too for the love of my friends and family.  everyday, i celebrate my overwhelming abundance of love.  that's all.

love.