What do you know guys…spring has left us again. I’m actually sitting here looking out my window at  bunch of snow falling from the sky. Bummer! Another busy week done and gone. Looking forward to April and warmer weather, a visit from my family, my best friends birthday, and a lot of other unknown great things. This is some of the highlights of my week.

1^ Bought some books online from Borders.com. All the books I bought were 50% off! (I’m really upset that Border’s has filed bankruptcy) Books I purchased: The rest of the Hunger Game series & The Art of Racing in The Rain.
2^ The boy’s mother came to town this weekend to help do his taxes. I don’t see the point in doing them yourself, so I sent mine to “The Tax Man”. I’m pretty sure I’d screw them up if I attempted them myself.
3^ Took the puppy to the “beauty shop” for the first time. He’s seemed to like it and now his nails aren’t like daggers!
4^ I’m dying to get back outside on the weekends. I see lots of picnics and park days in the near future. I think park naps are one of my favorite things.
5^ Feeling a little bummed that I missed the blogger meet up in Arizona this weekend. A lot of the bloggers I follow were able to attend, but I couldn’t justify the expenses for a weekend trip on the other end of the US. Sadness. I hope of all the bloggers took their cameras!
6^ I hit the blogger jackpot this week as far as finding new lovely ladies to follow, so I’ve updated my daily reads list. You need to check out these gals: Designer’s Library, Esme and The Lane Way, Fancy Fine, Field Guided, & Flashes of Style.

Happy Sunday! Today is going to be a chill day…I hope.

…your world starts to get sucked back into the black hole. I think I’ve hit the wall that I hear most new bloggers talk about. The wall that makes you question whether or not all your time and effort has been worth it. You’ve been pouring out your soul, sharing your life with the world and is there anyone who really cares? Anyone listening?

The fact is this-  it shouldn’t matter if anyone is listening. I shouldn’t have set so many unrealistic goals. I should think about how I had the best time documenting my weekend, versus…who’s even going to read this? I love blogging. I love everything about it except for the technical difficulties I’ve been having with WordPress. I love the community. I need to focus on today and not where I’d like my blog to be a year from now. I need to enjoy every minute of it and take breaks when I’m a little burnt out. I need to live in the world of reality and not a world of high expectations.

I think I just needed to write this post as a reminder to myself. I need to remember that life is not about the destination, but the journey and all the adventures. I need to remind myself to keep documenting because I’ll really appreciate looking back on all the fun stuff I’ve done. I need to remember why I started this blog. This blog is for me!

Thank you to all the gals who had a chit chat with me on twitter about all these feelings. You really opened my eyes and allowed me to see things from a different perspective.

It’s been one year since we picked up our puppy from the ranch. We brought him home at 6 weeks old and he’s changed our lives for the better, despite all the trouble he’s gotten himself into. If you’re a new dog owner too, there are tons of things you ought to learn such as how to calm your puppy down in order to make your pet-owning a breeze.

There have been bumps along the way and Porter James has acquired the nickname “the problem child” and “high-maintenance”. He’s been a pretty expensive investment and has given us many sleepless nights filled with worry and concern for his health. We feed him the best food, As seen on TV commercial about Bella and Duke company we bought great quality raw good food him. Here are some details about puppy how we handle him .Are you ready for all this?

Photo 1: Porter James, 6 weeks- the day we brought him home / Photo 2 Porter James, 1 year-1 month- at the park

At 12 weeks, Porter had to have emergency stomach surgery to remove a bunch of fabric that he had eaten and that had tangled around his intestines. We caught it just in time, but it set us back a good $2,000. He wore the cone of shame for two weeks and had the staples removed later. Bad dog! He keeps us on our toes and we are frequently running towards him at full speed ripping thing he shouldn’t be eating out of his mouth. He’s getting better with age, but he’s definitely a chewer/swallower.

At 5 months old he literally stole a sock from our neighbor’s hands and swallowed it whole. We were on vacation and were pissed to have to take him to the emergency vet again. They induced vomiting, but nothing came up. They sent us home to keep an eye one him and we feared we were going to have to pay another $2,000 to remove the sock. Dear lordy, two massive surgeries can’t be good for a pup of this age. A week later Porter finally threw it up, but we were on pins and needles the whole week.

At 7 months, we took Porter on a hike with us. All was going well until we walked straight through a “tick bomb” on the trail. This basically means that thousands of nearly invisible baby ticks were all over us. ( I know. Gross)  I pretty much had a breakdown/freakout/panic attack on the trail balling my eyes out and this was the start of another few weeks from hell. We thought we had all the ticks removed and went home and showered just to be sure. Yes, the dog got in the shower too.  A few days later (after the ticks had matured and turned brown) we noticed that all 4 of Porter’s legs and feet were covered in thousands of baby ticks. THOUSANDS people! Back to the vet we went and we had to treat porter for the next two weeks and watch the ticks slowly die and fall off. Porter lived in the bathroom for those two weeks and we had the eeby jeebies for long after.  I’m never hiking again!

At 12 months, Porter James gets a double ear infection. Most dogs let you know they have an ear infection, but our happy-go-lucky puppy didn’t give us any signs. Who knows how long he had that ear infection. We had to treat the infection for two weeks with drops and a bi-weekly cleanse. Went back to the vet to make sure he was free of ear infection and NOPE…he still had it! Another 3 weeks of drops twice a day. Annoying and expensive. Take a look at the full list of cat treats here that also works for dogs that are natural, healthy and nutritious. Reduce your pets anxiety and alleviate their pain with cbd oils for dogs.

At 1 year, 1 month we found Porter chewing gum. Spearmint gum. We don’t chew spearmint gum so this means he must of scraped it off the sidewalk. Gross. His breath smelled awesome!

And here we are. Porter James is 1 year, 1 month old and has costed us well over $5,000, but we love him to death and he is the funniest little guy. Did I tell you he loves dog parks? He also smiles and makes funny faces. Thank goodness he does cute things of we would of shipped him off long ago.

Hey guys, another week down and spring is still not officially here. I am please that Mr. Weatherman has predicted a warm and sunny day, but we’ll see if he keeps his word this time around. I’ve found these Sunday portraits to be a lot of fun and the perfect opportunity to play with different photoshop effects/techniques. I’m going to try a bunch out until I land on the perfect one. The image above was done with a modified cross process technique mixed with a subtle pin hole love. That sounds fancy, but it really wasn’t all that tricky.

1^ I’m almost done with my current freelance project and I’m looking forward to having a little extra free time on the weekends.
2^ I’ve almost finished the first book in the Hunger Games series and I’m really liking it so far. I must say the first half of the book wasn’t holding my attention, but now things are intriguing. Moving onto Water for Elephants next!
3^ The boy and I decided we are in desperate need for a little vacation with hopes to travel out west. Trying to pinpoint the perfect location and currently thinking about places like San Francisco, Portland, Austin, Denver or somewhere in Arizona. We’ll see!
4^ I donated to the Japan relief on Friday and it felt really good to help out just a little bit. Check out how much money has been raised. Amazing!
5^ The boy is actually starting to show a little more interest in taking pictures with my new camera and I’m super excited. This means that you might see me more in pictures, since I’m usually the one behind the camera. Oh..and I think we are doing a Vlog tomorrow, together! hahaha
6^ My hair looks really stringy in the above picture. I really need to do something about that. I hate having super fine hair!

Happy Sunday and stay tuned for our video blog tomorrow!