life collection

I'm at my in-laws house this morning. Don't they have the most beautiful yard? They live about two miles away from us and I come over with the pups on the days our house gets cleaned.

The girls love it here. Cricket gets so excited. She runs laps around the yard like a greyhound! It's so hard to get pictures of Amelia and Isabelle! They don't like making eye contact, especially bashful Amelia and I think she sees the camera as an eye. For some reason the camera doesn't bother Cricket at all.

I'm realizing how much of a puppy Cricket still is. She is over a year but is as flopsy, bouncy, and carefree as ever. I think part of it is that she had such a hard life up until we adopted her at seven months old. She was shy and scared of everything. Now that she has us she has come out of her shell and can finally be a puppy and experience all the things she missed. We just adore her. She is nuts, but so wonderfully wonderful.

Isabelle is a mess right now. She has skin allergies and we have been working with the vet with a weekly check in for a month now. She is so uncomfortable, I hate seeing her this way. She has scratched her ear so much that she is getting bald spots (shih tzus don't shed so it's not normal at all for her to lose hair). We have her on anti-itch medicine, and have tried a bunch of other meds. She is on special food and treats too.

Now we think it might be the redwood chips we have in the dog run. We put those in about two months ago and I can now recall that is when her allergies got worse. Poor baby! We are going to take out all the redwood chips this weekend and put in pea gravel. Until then we are keeping her out of the dog run. I hope so much that is what it is, otherwise we are going to have to run more tests and start from square one.

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In other news, I'm still really struggling with depression and anxiety. It's rough going. My therapist is on vacation until August 8th which makes things even more difficult. I'm trying so hard to hold it together.

In good news. I'm working on setting up a second blog. Don't worry, this blog will still be here, for sure! But I want to have a blog that contains more of my daily life and creative pursuits. I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to take some work, but stay tuned.

I've been thinking about how weird life is this morning. We are so alone and so connected at the same time. I wish I could help more people. I wish I had more friends.

Anyway, the day is awaiting...so time to go.

C