HoundBlog

Morning has broken
Like that first morning
Cardinals are singing
Mourning doves coo
I see from my window
Hummingbirds seeking
Nectar and dew

Thrush sings a love song
Praising the daylight
Finches echo the sunlight
With feathers of gold
Praise for the morning
Praise for God’s creatures
Of feather and fur

Love fills my soul
For all God’s creations
Beauty surrounds me
With color and light
Despite living in a world
Filled with conflict and strife
Peace fills my heart

Have to do the marathon clean as Eddie, Yvonne and Randy will be here this afternoon.

Completed the last page (for now) on the website. I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

Got Riley a new cage — not that he’s thrilled about it. This one has door catches that he can’t manipulate, so he can’t let himself out at will. Not that he ever did anything really bad — stripped all the leaves off the (already dying) ficus. Unlike Taji who destroyed everything in his path, Riley pretty much left things alone. He just terrorized the other birds by climbing on their cages and since the ‘tiels are sitting on a clutch of eggs, I really had to curtail that behavior. Billy and Whitney are being such good parents!

This is Tigger (new Whippet puppy) and Payne (one of the new Crested puppies) playing. They do pretty well together all things considered.

Well, got to get started or I’ll never get finished

Love to all,

Margaret

Our little road (if you can call it that) was on National News last night — we had local news reporters along with a CNN reporter blocking our road trying to get a story. It’s still a top story  at http://www.wyff4.com today.

It seems that they were not the people we knew at all — they were using different names (except Rebecca was really the little girl’s name). Norma is in jail on $50,000 bond which she has no hope of raising. John has already been extradited back to Arizona where the kidnapping occurred.

Ken and I were oblivious to it as we were in the middle of our reunion after his trip. Charlotte was forewarned by her friends on the Abbeville County Sheriff’s department , so stayed behind closed doors.

To answer Eddie’s statement, no, these are the people at the other end of the driveway from where you are talking about. They were renting one of Charlotte’s houses. While they have 2 dogs and several cats, none of the dogs were on chains. They were in the process of moving and the animals are at the “new” place in North Carolina. We’re hoping that Rebecca’s mother will let her keep them with her as they were her animals.

I’ve just seen 3 more unmarked police-type cars go down and back up the driveway. I know Charlotte was going to be in Anderson this afternoon taking care of some business and then she was going by the jail to see Norma to find out what to do with the rest of their things that were left in the house. There is also their car and a trailer they were using to move with that need to be taken care of.

Poor Charlotte — she’s trying to re-rent that house, but has so much going on right now, it’s like a two-penny novel. I’m glad that I’m just an onlooker.

That’s all for now.

Love to all

Margaret

Well, we had a bit of excitement last night.

It seems that our neighbor of 4 years kidnapped the little girl they said was their daughter 10 years ago. The FBI and police came last night to arrest Norma and take her daughter into SSI to return to her natural mother. Husband John was arrested earlier in Virginia where he works.

What a crazy world we live in — where people who seem relatively normal (Ok, so I thought he was an overbearing, controlling SOB, but I’ve known quite a few of those and none until now have been kidnappers!) are criminals.

How heartless to take a 2 year old away from her mother leaving her to wonder and worry for the worst.

How hard for Rebecca to be taken from the family she’s grown up with as a 12 year old (not an easy age to deal with) and given to a stranger!

I’m still trying to get my mind around all of this.

Ken comes home tonight. I’ve missed him a lot.

Well, enough for now.

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, the weather is holding up for Ken. He called me at lunch today and said it was windy, but sunny at the track. He’s having a ball! He sounded like a little kid at a party in his honor. Told me he had gone 148 mph and I told him I was disappointed as I thought he could go faster than that. He said the winds were making them go slower as it was harder to keep the front of the car on the track with the winds. Before he left, I had to give him a haircut — buzzed his head — less wind resistance that way, don’t you know?

When I talked to him this morning, he said they had stayed up too late last night at the dog track. He was up at 3:00 yesterday morning so yes, he was out too late. He says they’re planning to go back tonight and I told him to not stay out so late — what am I anyway — his mother???

Speaking of being a mother — Eddie, Yvonne and Randy are due in Saturday afternoon. Not much of a visit, but at least I’ll get to see him before he ships out.  Y’all be praying for his safe return, now, OK?

Next weekend (6/24) we’re supposed to go to Charleston for Bebe’s recital. That will be a whirlwind trip since we have no dog sitter, but if last year’s performance is any indication, we’ll be in for a treat.

Pam had back surgery last week to fuse some discs that were ruptured. She’s doing OK according to John and knowing Pam, she’ll be right back at it way before she ought to. Seems like we’re all falling apart at the same time, though.

It’s hell to get old.

Chris and Gina are still separated but talking. Not a good situation if you ask me, but you didn’t. Told you anyway.

Got a new SQL book in the mail yesterday — SQL Cookbook by Anthony Molinaro. Looks pretty interesting! I’m learning about Window Functions and Partitions. Haven’t figured out yet just how relevant these will be to my job, but they say learning new things keeps Alzheimers at bay and BOY HOWDY! don’t I need that! (Ma — that stands for rolling on floor laughing my a** off)

Well, guess I’ve rambled on enough. Need to get the lyrics to a Muddy Waters’ song I  heard on NPR this morning, so I’m off to do a web search.

Love to all,

Margaret

Oh dear — have not written in several days! I am bad…

Had the Asheville dog shows this weekend. Boy was it HOT!! Ken could not go as he had to work, so I found a couple of people to take his dogs in otherwise the majors would have broken in both sexes — it still broke in dogs, but that’s the breaks I guess.

Stephanie took in Oscar and did a great job with him. She got Reserve Winners Dog with him and I thought for a moment she might end up getting Winners, but Connie Alexander’s dog handled by Donna Bost took those honors. Dana took in Maggie. Maggie looked, great, but got 2nd both days.

I got 2nd both days with Ashely and 4th Saturday and 3rd Sunday with Butterfly who, I’m told was gorgeous.

Got to see lots of friends –Janet, Kitty, Calvin, Yvonne — it was nice!

Ken left this morning (at 3:30 am!!) for BMW where he will then go on to Daytona Beach, FL. He was kind of excited about the trip — guess this will seem like a vacation despite the fact that it’s work. They are taking some cars down there to test on the track where the Daytona 500 is run. One more thing to add to his store of “things I can tell my grandchildren” 🙂

Tweaked on the website some. Not content, but just looks. I need to get on those individual dog pages! Those are the only thing left to do to complete the site. Don’t know why I am dragging my feet on them.

Have a wonderful day today!

Love to all,

Margaret

Hello nice people! I sure hope everyone is having a great day today! It’s such a lovely day here — the sun is out and it’s not unbearably hot. The dogs have spent most of the afternoon out in the grass sunning themselves while I was inside working.

Johnathan and Angie stopped by earlier and met Skinny Marie (and the rest of my crew of course!) in person. Johnathan HAD to take a photo of her with both himself and Angie. I had to laugh at him leaping my fence gate to get into the midst of the dogs. He almost didn’t make it 😉 He seems to be full of fun and energy and he and Angie make a nice couple.

Check out John Heffernan’s blog. Wyatt (his Whippet) has been accomplishing some great things in the obedience ring! Good Whippet Blog — I’ve added him to my list of links to other blogs down at the bottom of the page.

Now that you’ve been reading this for awhile, what do you think? Most of you come, read and go on your merry way, but I would love for you to leave a comment or two every once in awhile.

I have plans to include some poetry and short story writings of my own at some point. Just not enough hours in the day! I will have plenty to do when I retire, though, don’t you think?

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, as you can tell, I’ve updated the look of the blog and I think I like it very much. I hope you do too.

My crested babies are growing and they are more cute every day! I can’t wait until they are old enough to show. Payne will be old enough to enter in the Greenville shows, but Teddy and Saber will have to wait another couple of months after that.

Tigger will also be old enough to show in Greenville. He’s looking a little lanky right now having gone through a growing spurt this last week, but I know he will go back to being the nicely proportioned boy he was 2 weeks ago.

Ken leaves for Daytona next week and will be gone 4 days. I’ll miss him terribly while he’s gone, but at least it’s only for 4 days — not like the 2 months he was gone to Germany last year.

Eddie goes to Fort Jackson June 18th — kind of a bummer to have to report on Father’s Day, but that’s the things that you have to put up with when Uncle Sam is your boss. I know it will be very hard on Yvonne, Chrystalyn and Randy to have him gone for 6 months. We will have to make extra effort to keep in touch with them and make sure they have the family support they will need during this stressful time.

Work today was work. Still trying to get a couple of projects finished and another started.

That’s all for tonight.

Love to all,

Margaret

Sorry about not posting yesterday. By the time I got home from work, cleaned up and fed the dogs and Ken, it was very late and I was tired, so went to bed instead of writing.

I worked from home today. Got a lot done since I had no distractions of any major sort. Was very peaceful with just bird chatter and the occasional dog bark for background noise instead of the office roar.

My Barbara Mitchell daylily has bloomed. It’s not fully opened yet, but I did promise you a picture, so here it is.

Also blooming is this lovely Gladiolius

Got to run — have a meeting tonight with SQL Server development group.

Love to all,

Margaret

Got home from Pinehurst around 5:00. We didn’t win anything there, but enjoyed spending time with friends and seeing beautiful dogs. Had a camper full of dogs and Charlotte stayed with us, so it was pretty crowded.

Next weekend is Asheville and we will drive back and forth for that. Ken says he will probably have to work and to leave his two at home, but I will try to take them anyway and show them for him.

Not much else to report.

Love to all,
Margaret