frugal fashionable farmer: its been a whole week! double post!!

Yikes! I forgot to upload Christian's mixtape yesterday morning because I was so excited about the fact that I was able to do 75 flights of stairs in under 20 minutes at the gym!! Aside from that, I decided sleep a bit later every other morning because I either had company, or was recovering from my birthday weekend :) - some parts were sad, some parts were flat out weird, but for the most part it was pretty amazing.

Christian's mixtape is here....... and the rest of this post continues after that - chocked full of pictures and stories of all the things that have happened while I was taking a breather from the blog...

Last Thursday evening, this was the sunsetting sky.... I must say the universe can be pretty spectacular with the gifts. I was standing outside with my mouth wide open, staring in awe the entire time, as the sky got darker.....

Friday morning kicked off with new red birthday shoes!

...and then Andrea, my old roommate & bestie flew into town!!

We had lunch, then headed to animal control where I had gotten wind that one of my pups I work with was on his last day. Sadly he was a senior, and a dog I named - after Wade Walker from Crybaby, because of his sad face and tears when he first got there.. :( Anyway, as sad as I was about his leaving to cross over the rainbow bridge, I felt I owed it to him to make sure he damn well knew he was loved, even if his family never came back for him. I loved him... and when you name these dogs, it makes it all the harder to let go, but he was a senior, big bully type, and no one was giving him a second glance at the pound. He didn't deserve to spend many more days in that situation, losing hope.... RIP sweet Walker - boy...

After my goodbyes, and this last pic of him enjoying his tennis ball, I needed to soak up some better energy before I left, so I got out Bubba to show Andrea... he is goofy, chunky (one of my weaknesses is chunky dogs!), and a love bug to the max. As we were walking out of the shelter, he was about to be tested with a dog from a rescue that was interested in pulling him. He passed and is now in rescue!

Saturday Andrea and I hung out in the little saltwater pool for a bit, after she worked a full day - (she has the luxury of being able to work almost anywhere she goes, so vacations can pay for themselves!) and then she was off to hang with another old friend in town....

Sunday morning - my actual birthday, I did my usual hours at the rescue, working with Coco & Reece, and realized as I was leaving that there was a large animal trap I needed to return to animal control... When I got there, I was informed that one of my favorite dogs (who was constantly overlooked, had no interest, and was increasingly heading towards 'high risk' status) was about to leave with his new mom!! WHAT??? A perfect bday gift!! I decided to take him out while I was there, let him do his business before this car ride to freedom! While I had him out, his new mom came out and was informed that if she had any questions about Odin, I was his person at the shelter. We made friends, it sounded like a perfect match, as she didn't want a super clingy & needy dog, and Odin was good at entertaining himself - Yayyyyyy!! <3

...later that evening she sent me this pic of him tiring out before the end of their walk... It is the stuff like this that helps the sad and harder stuff to swallow, go down. I may have lost Walker, but Odin was creeping up on that same list, and he was young, eager to please, and I knew he'd make someone the most perfect companion.

Sunday afternoon I made my birthday cake... YES! I am such a control freak, that I wanted a GF yellow cake, made from scratch with chocolate icing, so I whipped it all up, and then Christian decorated it. Hey, it is MY birthday, if I want to make my own cake, that's ok! Ha!

here are a few more pics from the week..... starting with Deere. A sweet scared pibble who was in quarantine while he was getting used to the shelter environment. I found out his favorite thing to do is to play with the giant Jolly Ball. Can you tell he's happy? This was after a solid 30 minutes going full speed after that ball. He is an energetic boy for sure!! Annnnnnnd he is now in a regular run at the pound and out of quarantine!