Wordless Wednesday: Comfort and Joy

Thought I'd share with you the front of our Christmas card for this year:

Monday Mischief: Everything Is Irresistible

It's Christmas, and Rita is finding everything irresistible. 

First of all, there's the "dogs at the beach" themed tree I put up. She LOVES the smell of the starfish and shells on the tree! It's a bit of Momma-mischief to put something so smelly on the tree, but so far this year she's been good and hasn't stolen anything off the tree!

Dog-Inspired Xmas Windows and Forced Xmas Crafting

If you've followed the blog for a while, you know that every Christmas my sisters and I get together to paint my one sister's windows. It's always a dog theme, featuring her pup Indy. (Last year was Fleas Navidad. If you'd like to see a retrospective of some of my faves, check out the guest post I did at Peggy's The Writer's Dog blog 2 years ago.)

This year, we also did a bit of "forced crafting." That's what my family calls it when someone gets the idea to do a little crafting project, and the rest of us are forced to join in. (It's like a forced march, but more fun. And you end up with cute things to bring home.) I'll share pics and how-to instructions from our craft at the end of the post for those who like to get crafty!

Now, back to the windows. This year the theme was Muttly Kalikimaka, so of course we have Indy on a sandy beach wearing a lei, with the ocean behind her. 

Monday Mischief: A Spa Technique the Dog Hates

Last week, the hubs and I went away for our first ever vacation at a spa. (Although I scheduled some posts to go up while we were away, we were mostly "unplugged" so I wasn't able to reply to comments or visit your blogs. I missed you guys!)  While we were at the spa, we took a lot of classes, including one on myofacial release - basically using tennis balls to massage your fascia (the thin connective tissue that wraps around your muscles and most other structures in your body).

Rita is not a fetch-crazed dog. She has several tennis balls, but mostly ignores them. Oh, she'll chase them a time or two if you initiate a game, but she quickly gets bored and her tennis balls just lie around the house.

Wordless Wednesday: Before and After

Last week I shared this pic of Reggie after he and Rita had had a good play session, romping in the damp grass and through the flower beds:

A Gift for You - A Free Anthology!

No mischief today - just a little giftie from me to you guys! I've got a Fido-friendly fictional short story coming out in an anthology, called A Cup of Christmas.*

The anthology will be FREE (!) from Tuesday, Dec. 2 and for the next 3 days. Thereafter, it will be priced at $1.99, and ALL proceeds will go to First Book, a children's literacy charity.

"Cindy Lou" from my story