Wordy Wednesday: How We All Ended Up Exhausted

Just looked back and in almost a month I've only posted 3 times. I mentioned the blog would be quiet for a bit, and originally that was for a good reason. I was feverishly editing my new book! (More book news below.) But then the good reason for the blogging break turned into a sad reason.

A begonia on the hospital room windowsill

Give Cancer the Paw: A Tribute Post

This post is a brief tribute to these two beautiful girls that we lost to cancer.

Wordless Wednesday: Pups and a Pledge

Pups:
First I want to show you some special pups today:
{Wait... we interrupt this post to first apologize if you subscribe via email and get this twice. Somehow this posted with a back-dated timestamp. (?) Had to hunt all over to find it and repost it as today. Sorry for the dupe. Now... here are some pups:} 

My mom's angel beagle, Sugar

Yes, just what the world needs. Another blog.

OK. I'm starting a blog, which is something I've been thinking about for a while. After all, I'm supposed to be a writer. (OK, well, I am a writer if you consider that I sit around and write at least a little bit almost every day - but I'm an amateur writer at the moment since no one wants to pay me to be a pro - yet.) Some people say writers need to have blogs. I don't necessarily buy into that line of thinking. After all, people might love your books, but hate your personality, so maybe your blog would be a detriment to your writing career. So, I'd been resisting the whole blogging thing. Even though my family is suddenly sprouting bloggers left and right: like my niece and her excellent fashion blog, Waitin Round 2 Be a Millionaire, or my sister and her fun blog about Garage Sailing, or my brother and his amusing Gumbatarian blog which is mostly about food. These folks have a passion, and they blog about it. But what was my passion?? And how did that relate to would-be writing career? 

Of course the subject of dogs occurred to me. I'm a big dog lover and most of my writing includes dogs as main characters. I've had dogs for most of my life, and I volunteer every Monday at Helen Woodward, a wonderful animal shelter where I play with the adoption dogs. But I didn't know what I would say about dogs. I mean, a weekly post about how much I love dogs? That would probably get old...

Unfortunately, the subject matter presented itself this past Monday, in the form of the dreaded "C" word. That was the day we found out our dog Abby, a mixed breed pup that we adopted from Helen Woodward the day after last Thanksgiving, has bone cancer. 

We were shocked, angry, devastated. We'd just lost our twelve-year-old beagle only a year ago to cancer. How could our 15-month-old puppy, so full of energy and spunk (don't you hate that word?) be sick?? And not just sick, but dying. How could that happen?? She'd started limping a few weeks earlier. We thought it was just a sprain at first. But after two weeks of sedative-induced rest, it was no better. In fact, by then we could see the lump on her leg. The vet biopsied the bone one week ago today, and warned us it might be a week before we'd know anything. But by Monday he already had the bad news: osteosarcoma. A wild two days later, spent researching, calling the vet multiple times, meeting with the oncologist, etc. etc. and we already have her booked for an amputation of her right front leg. She goes in for the surgery tomorrow. Oh how things change in a week.

I'll post more on the whirlwind 48 hours that it's been later. For now, just wanted to get started. 

Thanks for reading.