Goodbye Sweet Jemma

We had our latest foster dog for 5 weeks this summer.  I remember the first week I thought, "what have we done".  Don't get me wrong, she was a great puppy, but she liked to get up early (before 6 am most days) and needed to be watched pretty closely!  She was fine if you were busy, she would just go to the room in which you were working and watch you!  However, if you sat down, she figured "it's Jemma time".  She wasn't a lap-dog, in that she didn't want to just sit on your lap and allow you to rest.  She would sit nearby and let you pet her forever.  She also loved chasing a toy or ball that was thrown.  She had a skin condition, so she was always scratching herself, which was probably the most annoying thing.  She was fine if you wanted to rest near her, but you had to be able to ignore her scratching unless she found an interesting toy to chew or was asleep.  It was hard to ignore the itching, because we knew she was hurting herself by scratching/biting, so we would distract her by petting and playing.  Jemma left us last Wednesday and as I look at these pictures I really miss her.  That said, it is nice to be able to sit down without her 100% attention.  Also it has been nice to sleep past 6!

1st Jemma before:  (I didn't get a very good "before picture")  The pictures I have don't show how terrible her fur looked.  When Animal Rescue League worker brought her to me I could hardly believe that they were bringing me a dog with such terrible skin!  (I was not prepared by their picture of her....but now that I re-look at it, I see the issue.  (This is from Carolyn's Instagram or some other media.)

BEFORE

AFTER (the effect of love, special baths, medicine....but I think the frequent petting really helped stimulate the recovery :0)

I could hardly believe how much better she looked.  Like I said though, she still had very itchy skin and was not completely healed.  The Animal Rescue League Vet however said she was ready for adoption and I am guessing she was gone the first day after she was spayed.  She was a very friendly dog.  She was all about people for sure!  She loves attention.  I do worry if she lives with someone who leaves her for long periods of time.  We foster in the summer so that at least one kiddo is around most of the time.

Now Jemma's fan club:

(no Matthew - he helped with her when needed, but is not the fan of dogs the other kiddos seem to be)

We were sad to see her go, but everyone recognized that she needed a lot of attention that we could not provide during the school year.  (Plus we leave for vacation on Saturday!)

scrapbook challenge

July 5th was my Independence Day

I finished my last scrapbook page for the family album!  (see below .... 3 of my final pages....much nicer than usual since I knew I was almost caught-up and was celebrating with extra beauty)

Joel's last year in Little League.  His eleventh year!  Next year he will continue to be involved in baseball via umping.....but I won't watch that because I hate the way coaches and parents treat the umps.  Luckily Joel has a much thicker skin than I do!  Next spring he has chosen to play high school soccer (normally his fall sport) instead of baseball.  Much more likely to get playing time and better cross training for country country.  

2017-18 Show choir a family favorite activity (ok - not for Matthew who would have died before dancing on stage....nice voice though)

 Anna's birthday.  I wanted this to be especially nice given that she isn't quite as busy as the 2 other "at home" kids and therefore doesn't have as many pictures this year!  (Matthew has too few to count, since he lives in Iowa City much of the year.)

Before you think - wow Betsy doesn't have anything to scrapbook......remember that I made a fateful decision almost 20 years ago that I would do separate kid and family scrapbooks.  Matthew, Carolyn, Joel and Anna's books are not up to date.  Anna's is the closest in some ways because a few years ago I felt bad that I only had her infancy scrapbooked and I did many pages for her.  Plus she hasn't lived as long as the others!  Additionally she is home more often and she and I enjoy working on her pages/looking at the albums.

My challenge relates to the fact that Carolyn graduates high school in 2 years and I want her albums caught up at that point.  In the process I don't want to get further behind on everyone else.  (Matthew's albums were not done for his graduation....I put out the family album for the more recent years...which still wasn't up to date!)

I have broken each year into typical pages:  school year, Christmas, Easter, summer and vacation.  (5)

Each kid and I have 5 categories per year of life.  Me=19+ (done), Matthew=19+, Carolyn=16+, Joel = 14+, Anna=11 (exactly :0)   Although this doesn't work out cleanly.....I figure I have 26 more years to scrapbook!  (this is the number of years that I haven't finished working on.....an average of more than 6 years per child!!!!)  Instead of being overwhelmed by this number and regretting my choice to make such nice albums for the kids......I have taken up the challenge.  I want to be done by August of 2019.  (Senior year will be busy enough without trying to scrapbook a ton.)  14 months.....that is less than 2 years of scrapbooking each month.  (that is not 2 years for 4 kids....that would = 8 years via my crazy counting)  So really I can do two categories from any given year for each child and mostly complete the goal.  This is my plan.  For example I am trying to get the summer of 2008 done for each child.  (before you do the math and think I have WAY more to do than I have confessed, know that there are many more pages done in later years that I did when the urge struck me.  (Many vacation and Christmas pages linger in the kid's boxes)  Anna is mostly complete through fall 2013 for example.

I am posting this here so that everyone (by that I mean the 3 people who read this) can ask....."how are those albums coming?"  to urge me on! 

Last bit of good news - all the pictures are printed (except less than 10 (example below - Joel just got home from scout camp!))   I figure I am 3/4 the way organized by year....but perhaps I am being optimistic.

Peace!!