Been a bit of a rough week

I'm not as emotional as I was during the first few days, but I still see Maggie out of the corner of my eye sitting on her favorite scratching post, or hear her meowing as I open a can, any can. I guess after 18 years, there are bound to be some ghosts. Rusty, my orange cat and general goofasaurus, looked for her the first day, but seems to have moved on. The kids, who distanced themselves from Maggie as she got old and uninteresting to them, are very pragmatic about the whole thing and want to know if they can replace her with a snake, or perhaps some frogs. Ah, the resilience of small boys.

I haven't had a chance to do any scrapbooking for a while, but hopefully soon. I would like to do kind of a retrospective of Maggie's life and my memories of her before they fade. Meanwhile here's a simple layout with a photo of Rusty. I used Cathie Allen's stamp smoosh technique for the background using a Fancy Pants acrylic stamp, and then stamped the flowers with a Magenta stamp and coloured them in with some glitter.

Good-bye Sweet Girl

It's hard to say good-bye to an old friend. I know it had to be done, and it was much better for Maggie not to suffer and to go with some dignity, but I'm a bit of an emotional basket case tonight, as I keep bursting into tears every few minutes. I've never had to put a pet to sleep before. The veterinarian, Sam Crosdale at Herber's Veterinary Service, was so kind, as were all the staff, and I am grateful they got me in so quickly. First, Sam gave Maggie a needle to make her sleepy and Maggie slowly drifted off to sleep in my arms. When I was ready, they gave her another needle to stop her heart. And that was that. I only wish that this stupid winter wouldn't keep going on and on. I had hoped to bury Maggie in the back pasture where she had so loved to go for walks, but the ground is frozen solid and under three feet of snow. Sigh. So poor old Maggie is just going to the crematorium in the city. I'll miss you Maggie. I'm glad you're not suffering any more, but I sure will miss you and I'm bawling so hard I can hardly see.

How do you decide

when it is time to put a family pet down? I am watching my cat Maggie decline rapidly from kidney failure and I am struggling with what to do. Maggie will be 19 this summer. Her kidneys have been failing for quite a few months now, but in the last couple of weeks she has seemed much worse. She sleeps all day and night, not even bothering to come sit on my lap any more or look out the window at birdies. Her eyes are dull and only half open, and while she doesn't eat much, but when she starts drinking water she might drink for 10 minutes to try and satiate her thirst. She smells really bad, I imagine from the failing kidneys, and periodically yowls for seemingly no reason at all especially at night. I worry she is in pain and not enjoying life at all and I will phone the veterinarian tomorrow........ Maggie has been part of our family for a very long time.

Canadian Scrapbooker Basics, Volume 3

Just wanted to share a few of my layouts from this magazine. If you haven't seen it yet, run to your local store and grab it! It is just beautiful, and full of so many ideas using stamps on your scrapbook pages and step by step instructions for some techniques you might not have tried yet ..........

I find it hard to pick my favourite layouts. Depends on the mood that I am in, I guess. I like them all just after I finish them, but then sometimes fall out of love with them later. :-) Sometimes I like the techniques I have used, sometimes the colours seem just right and sometimes the journaling and photo hits me like a punch.


This layout makes me kind of teary every time I look at it, but it was a way to pay my respects to my Uncle Lorne that passed away a few years ago and to help my children remember.

The cracked UTEE technique seemed perfect for such a sad, sombre photo. I found this worked best when I printed the photograph on a piece of white cardstock. I then rubbed it with Versamark, and put on three or four coats of clear ultra thick embossing enamel, and popped it into the freezer for a few minutes. After the photo had chilled, I bent it slightly to crack the enamel, and rubbed it with a bit of ink to enhance the cracks.


Lots of stamping and perfect pearls on this one! I love the periodic element paper by Glitz Designs. Very fun!


This layout makes me kinda sad too, as I watch old Maggie decline. She's 18 now, and I think this long, cold winter has been especially hard on her. Maggie feels like a feather when you pick her up, she maybe weighs 5 pounds, and doesn't do much but sleep. I stamped the hearts on canvas paper, and coloured them in with beautiful shimmery US Artquest mica watercolor paints. Just love those paints! It's hard to see the sparkle on a computer scan, but in real life, this product adds such a beautiful finish.

March Madness

Such a busy time of year for me! University is in full swing, with assignments to mark and lectures to prepare, and my 'day job' is just as busy. I'm still really enjoying teaching my course at night and it is much easier the second time around. I've been scrapbooking like crazy, finishing assignments for the summer Canadian Scrapbooker magazine and Canadian Scrapbooker Basics #4, and managed to squeeze in a scrapbooking weekend at Pigeon Lake with 13 amazing women. I have so much fun at weekend retreats; it is lovely to relax and scrapbook and share ideas and conversation.

I've placed my orders with a couple of seed houses in Canada, and am impatiently waiting to start my tomatoes, peppers and a few flowers. I usually plant my tomatoes around the end of March and grow them under lights in the basement until the beginning of May when I move them to my little greenhouse outside. Unfortunately, I have to move an awful lot of stuff before I can do any indoor gardening. The three tier grow light cart I use to grow plants seems to have become filled with scrapbook supplies during the off season. ;-) Amazing how that happens!