Celebrating a Missing Camera

Thank you, Ruth, for hosting this celebration of our week!

Last June, my sister and her family relocated to Dallas.  I have missed them terribly.  This past week, they came into town for a visit.  It was great to catch up and to spend time with them, especially my niece and nephew.

Yesterday, we celebrated Jack's and Grace's birthdays since all the rest of the family lives here and were unable to celebrate with them on their actual birthdays.

So what happens when your six year old nephew "borrows" your camera?  Lots of fun selfies for me to remember them by after they return to Dallas.

Gotta love that boy!

What are you celebrating this week?  Be sure to check out Ruth's blog for more celebrations and to add your own!

(P.S. -- I'm new to this celebration linky, but I have noticed that when readers leave comments on my posts, most of you are coming up as a "no reply blogger," which means I can't respond to your comments via email.  If you are using the Blogger platform for your posts and would like to fix this, there is a great tutorial here.  The fix is super simple and will make commenting correspondence so much easier!  It is worth the minute to see if this is affecting your blog.)

Jennifer

Missed

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for hosting this weekly celebration of everyday writing.  I'm new around here and am excited to participate.

You could say I'm a "dog person." I have had a dog in my home and life for as long as I can remember. While I don't believe in dressing dogs up and carrying them around in my purse, I have been known to carry on a (one-sided) conversation with my pooches when no one else was around. My dogs "get" me.  They know when I've had a bad day and need a snuggle and they know when to leave me alone. (I should be so lucky to have my family do the same.)

I'm not a traveler, never have been.  Even as a child, we didn't take very many vacations away from home and I kind of grew used to that. Truth be told, I really don't like leaving my dogs for very long.  They miss me.  I'm sure they do. Last week, I was out of town for three days to attend a conference.  My family had their own things going on so I went alone and they stayed home with the dogs.

Three years ago, we adopted a rescue dog (a Puggle) and named her "Rosie."  Rosie was MY dog, if you know what I mean.  Our other dog, Toby, loved me, but really preferred my husband because he would throw the tennis ball without end. Rosie snuggles with me every night on the sofa as we fall asleep watching TV and she cuddles in my lap as I sit and read.  She won't do this with anyone else in the family...just me.

When I returned from my trip last Friday, Rosie made it perfectly clear to me that she was not happy that I had gone.  I know that dogs can't talk, but she made it known through her body language that she was mad.

As I unloaded the car, she just sat and pretended not to watch.

She wasn't interested in playing ball in the yard.  She stayed on the porch and watched.

And snuggle time during nightly TV...not happening.

It took until Saturday morning for Rosie to finally warm up to me being back.  Maybe it has something to do with her being a rescue dog.  Maybe she thought I had abandoned her. Maybe she was worried that I wasn't coming back.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. 

Anyway, it's nice to know that I was missed while I was gone.

Celebrate this Week {6-21-14}

I just returned from the All Write 14 conference in Warsaw, IN.  It was an amazing two days of learning and making new friends.  While there, I met Ruth Ayres and other friends who took me under their wing as I was travelling alone and this was my first time attending this conference. (I blogged about it here at my teaching blog, Mrs. Laffin's Laughings.)

Ruth reminded us that it is important to celebrate, even in times when we don't really feel like it. Sometimes celebration is hard.  Sometimes it is difficult to find the bright spot in the gloomy day (or week). But sometimes, that celebration comes easily.  Such is the case this week, having returned from time away that nourished my soul and mind.

Here's what I'm celebrating this week:

Writing:  At All Write, I saw the power that writing has of bringing people together.  Writing, itself, is a solitary act.  It is just the writer and the pen (or keyboard). It is easy to become isolated.  However, writing can also connect us.  At All Write, I was witness to the friendships that blossomed as a result of people's writing.  Link ups like this one and Slice of Life have connected people in ways that takes the isolation out of writing. I am looking forward to becoming a part of this community.

Nature:  Sometimes, we need to step back from something in order to see the growth it makes.  It's that way with a lot of things.  I see my own children every day and don't notice the changes they go through.  But when others see them a few times a year,  they remark on how tall they've gotten or how much more mature they've become.  That was the case with my gardens.  I love gardening.  I love to sit on my patio and just look at nature around me.  A few years ago, my husband bought me an arch for the patio and I planted honeysuckle vines on both side.  This spring, the honeysuckle has been very slow to bloom. (It doesn't help that winter just ended a week ago... ) But, when I got back yesterday, this is what I saw...

When I saw these bright pink blooms, I couldn't help but smile!

How about you?  What are you celebrating this week?  I hope you will share your Celebrate This Week post with Ruth's link up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer