Good bye Sabar we all miss you.

 

Sabar –1998- 2011

I am sorry if I seem to ramble and please don’t feel obliged to read this but I have to write how I feel about my companion.

This post is one of the hardest I will ever write.We had to say goodbye to one of our family members last Thursday evening for the last time in this lifetime of ours.

We got Sabar by default really- we had lost our previous dog “Casey” a Rottweiler cross in January 1999- we found her collapsed in our back yard and rushed her to an emergency centre but unfortunately whatever was wrong with her couldn’t be helped and we said a sad goodbye. We weren’t ready to get another dog for the time being and so we just went on- it was hard for our youngest because she was his guardian angel and protector he was 8 at the time.

A girlfriend of a friend was studying veterinary science at a place in Werribee in Victoria and new we all missed our Casey so when she heard they were going to be putting some puppies to sleep she thought she would try and find them homes-Apparently Sabars’ mother had been inseminated and they had wanted female puppies but out of the litter of about thirteen they only got three or four females- the rest were males and only four of them survived out of a litter, they kept the “dogs” and trained vets in vaccinations and goodness knows what on them they then decided they didn’t need them any more and so this is where the girlfriend stepped in-she told us it was a rottweiler puppy but when we saw him we new it was a mixed breed of some sort- but we also fell in love with him and couldn’t let him get put down- so home he came- when we first saw him he was six months old and looked a bit like a dachshund but with a roly poly dog skin- he was so scared and just wanted to be loved- which we did.- we took him in and even though he didn’t like human contact we all held him to get him used to being touched without the pain, my daughter and I spent most of the day for the first few weeks doing this and eventually we got him used to us he would shy away from most males he came in contact with for several years but eventually most people were ok.  Our daughter got seriously ill with meningococcal in the July of that year and he played a big part of her therapy and rehab - we were allowed to take him to the rehab clinic for visits and when she was allowed home for weekends he stuck by her side most of the time. I am human so I can sit on the furniture.

From then things went reasonably smooth except for arthritis when he was about three onward which we effectively treated with glucosamine and about four or five years ago when he had to have his spleen removed because of a tumour- cost us thousands but we felt he was worth the expense for what he had given us.

Then because I  have been working full time for the past three weeks and a week ago when I came home I noticed he hadn’t eaten his breakfast- this was totally out of character for him- he may look slim in the photos but man could he eat –at first I thought he may have been protesting because I was not at home with him but then somehow I just knew something was wrong.I took him to the vet last Saturday and they took some blood and the results were inconclusive so they recommended an ultra sound which we had done on Wednesday- this also didn’t show positive results of any sort but that there was something either on his pancreas or around his intestines and liver- the options- put him through surgery with the high likely hood of it being a tumour and having to euthanize him or let him die in pain in a month or two because they thought with his history and the other results that was about as long as he had- I chose to bring him home so everyone that wanted to could say goodbye and then let him rest peacefully- both the vets we dealt with were nothing but compassionate and they dosed him up with pain killers and sent him home for his last good byes. My daughter and I were with him when he went- very quickly and very peacefully and he is now buried near our other dog out on a friends farm in their orchard.                              When we first got him he ate nearly everything he could get his teeth into but over the years he only ate what he was told to eat- except for when the grandkids were around and then anything they dropped or put on the floor was fair game- He NEVER took from them unless he was told he could “have it” and he was very gentle and patient with them all- we have 7 grandchildren four years and under and they have all been around him since they were born –even though he was getting older then - admittedly we did watch carefully for any sign he may snap- but he never did, if he had enough of them he just got up and went somewhere else- he was so patient he put up with babies and toddlers pulling at him and just about squashing him trying to get a cuddle but he just took it all. He thought he was human and would back onto a chair or the couch with his hind legs up on the seat and his front legs supporting him on the floor – or he thought he was a lap dog because we used to cuddle him when he was little as he grew he continued to think that but he was very bony.

He also made a companion to our cat and they used to play chase around our back yard- taking in turns who would be the chaser- our cat “Rambo” is totally lost at the moment.

Here are a few picture of Sabar in varying degrees- some have dates but most don’t

He thought he would pay the cat back – this is an old picnic basket I got for the cat to sleep in in my craft room but Sabar decided he would take possession of it no matter how uncomfortable it was.  

   

making themselvess comfortable on our bed while I stepped out for a short time.

enjoying a brief burst of sunshine

     This is Rambo getting ready to take off after Sabar- who happened to run behind me for protection- it was nothing for the cat to bite the dog without any retaliation and Rambo new he could get away with it if I was not on the scene- then he would get growled at.

This has been an effort to write and I thank any of you if you have read it. We will get another dog one day- when one chooses to take us as it’s family or within the next few years- which ever comes first.

Thanks to Ida –http://faithartistry.blogspot.com/ who suffered a similar loss this past week and has been a great help in coming to terms with it all.

Regards

Thanks for visiting

Kathy S

Did you know?

Creating from the heart – keepsakes by Melissa  has some great candy at the moment- but hurry if your interested as it’s only up for grabs until March 11 2011

It’s a  Sewing machine and some really cool accessories to tag along with it. if you want to check it out go to this post http://keepsakesbymelissa.blogspot.com/2011/02/candy-for-u.html  there is a

Brother CP-7500 Computerized Sewing Machine;1 Sew Easy Tool (Love these); Sew Easy Mat;Sew Easy Thread in Pinks and Blues;  here is a picture of the machine – wouldn’t it make sewing on your cards- or creating anything for that matter a dream?

 

cool huh!-

if you would like a chance to win got visit her blog now and thanks for visiting mine.

Regards

Catch you Later

Kathy S

 

Papertrey Ink Tag Download Challenge

With the weather here lately anyone would think it was winter or at least autumn not Summer- we have had a couple of days of summer earlier last week with nice warm weather but the past weekend has been nothing but rain and it has turned cool. DH and I spent all day Saturday up at out local Fire station helping coordinate and assisting the CFA and SES with evacuating various residents from surrounding areas as they became surrounded by water. It was all such a sudden downpour that there are few who were not affected in some way- Our house and our childrens' houses are fine but one of my nieces had to evacuate and when she got back has lost quite a bit including most if not all of her photos and heaps of other stuff. We all help out as we can. Hope everyone else is staying warm and dry glad we haven't got the snow a lot of you are getting.

I have to say that my posts are going to become sparse again as I have just had an emergency call to fill in at one of the schools I work at indefinitely so I will try to post as best I can but mostly will be only at night or weekends now for a while.

Papertrey Ink is celebrating their 4 year anniversary and today there is a free PTI Anniversary Tag Download  and a challenge to create a project.

Although I don't own any Papertrey ink products and have never downloaded any of their other freebies -which I will be seriously looking at now- these tags are divine. I have always admired them and been envious of those who do have them so this was very generous of them to give these away.

Here is my card using Heather Nichols tag. I basically just printed the tags from the free download and cut out - I actually used a punch first up but cut crooked-oops -so to centre the image again I used the Quickutz circle die -it's a tiny bit smaller than the original but still looks magnificent -thanks Heather. I used scraps from my stash to finish the card- I had this lotus cut out and when I was looking for paper to cut a scalloped edge for the tag found it so thought I'd use it instead. I stamped a stem to make it look like a flower and then just stuck it all down. Hope you like it. Thanks for visiting.

Card Info:- Heather Nichols Tag;Stamp-kaisecraft Lilac Avenue set; Ink-Whispers-Whispers Sage; Spellbinders- Lotus Pendants;  papers,ribbon and gems are all from my stash

Catch You Later

Regards

Kathy S

To the world

This card is for the  Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #89 (MMSC89) and came together pretty easy, thanks to the great sketch, the hardest part was finding a sentiment I wanted for the front- I had the colours in my head and just went from there-I sort of tried a shabby chic/ vintage feel because I love this style but I am not very good at them and am trying out some ideas so I hopefully get better at it. Hope it worked and you like it.  I stamped the background using the vintage farmhouse background stamp and then cut to size, the rest of the card is pretty self explanatory  so I won't prattle on this time.

                                       

I am having a real issue with my camera at the moment and am looking at getting a new one just not sure what I want so please excuse some of the pictures if they are a bit blurry I have tried a few things to fix it but I don't think anything worked.

Card Info:-Cream cardstock; Papers-pink paint sampler,green office paper from stash,Stamps-Fiskars Vintage farmhouse set and Kaiserstamp- You're the World;Ink- Archival-Jet Black, Distress Ink Vintage Photo;Spellbinders-small petite Ovals#4(1 being the smallest);Buttons-Beutron; Ribbon-exquisite & warehouse stores brand;Lace-stash; Helmar- Tacky craft Glue;Double sided tape;Gems-Smart Kraft.

When I had finished I checked out a couple of other blogs and thought it sort of went into the Crazy4Challenges C4C72 which was to make a vintage or shabby chic what do you think?

It also could possibly go in the Shabby Tea Room challenge Week #47 - 'Get Creative' but I'm not sure if it actually qualifies as I did make my own background paper- but I used buttons and ribbon etc. that where commercially produced.

Thanks for visiting

Regards

Catch you later

Kathy S.

Sweet 'n' Sassy hugs and kisses.

   Isn't this an adorable stamp- it's one of sweet 'n' sassy digital images- I won this image last year in their blog hop-whooho!

Cocoa the mouse is so sweet-pun intended- I finally got the courage to use him-I have coloured and played with him before but never felt any of them were good enough for a card-I am still a bit intimidated with digitals and colouring any images but I think the more I use digitals the better I will become - long way to go yet but give it time and I hope I'll get better at colouring.

I actually made another card with this image -coloured nearly the same and using the same papers but when I looked I had used the last sketch design instead of the current one- oh well -lol so I started again and made one for the current sketch SSS93 - January 29 and because the papers were still out and I liked how they all came together I thought I'd make another card with them. I didn't want the image to look like chocolates I wanted cup cakes so I coloured in with that in mind and added a bit of sparkle but they could be either.  I printed this image on photo paper just for something different and the problem was I was using waterbased brushmarkers which didn't want to blend if I coloured straight onto the paper and even using on a palette and brush they only blended minimally so there is not a lot of shading on the image but his cuteness helps hide that fact I hope.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

  For the flower I was just playing with a piece of ribbon and this was the end result- The ribbon is actually stuck onto the piece of orange acetate which I had punched for something ages ago and never used and ran it through my xyron to make it sticky. I was actually making this flower with the other side as the focal and the acetate as the base but when I turned it over to check the back I ended up liking this side better so I found a greeting that fit in the circle and stamped it using Staz on ink. and added a bit of bling just because.

Hope you like it. Thanks for visiting and comments are greatly appreciated-good bad or otherwise.

CardInfo:- white card stock,Papers-Fiskars- Heidi Grace-"meadow collection" ;Images- Sweet'n'sassy -cocoa's chocolates; greeting from another stamp collection- unsure of manufacturer; Ink- Staz on Jet Black, generic orange; Distress Ink- Vintage Photo;Other- Spellbinders Small labels #4 and #5(1 being the smallest);Whispers brushmarkers, Xyron create a sticker 150 machine; Gloss paper-Aldi; Kindy Glitz-Crystaline,Glitzee-Old Gold,Multi Mix; Ribbon santa's Christmas;double sided tape,foam mounting tape.

Although it's not as pretty as some of the flowers already on their post I am also posting it for the Just Us Girls Challenge #69 - Wild Card challenge of make your own 3D flower.

Regards

Catch you Later

Kathy S