• Roxie,  Spreading the Bloggie Love

    Sunday Reading

    I’m super happy it’s Sunday for many reasons, not the least of which is that today being Sunday means that tomorrow is Monday, and Monday is the day Roxie finally gets her stitches removed so we can put the Cone of Shame away. It’s been a long week and a half. As much as I wanted to give her breaks from her post-surgical collar, she couldn’t last longer than thirty seconds before making attempts to lick where her stitches are. So annoying (for BOTH of us, I get it!). On Friday night I took the collar off and distracted her for a good twenty minutes by giving her a much-needed…

  • Confessions,  Roxie

    The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

    This girl. Sigh. At the time this post goes up, I’ll be delivering her to our vet for another procedure: today she’s having a cyst removed from her front leg. We’ve visited our vet more frequently in the past eighteen months; that happens as a dog (or anything, really) gets older. It’s hard. She’s ten and a half. My other beagle (the late, great Bijoux) lived to be thirteen. She was my first baby: we brought her home two years before D was born. I spent the last three years of her life panicking over each and every health incident (and in between them!) because I was worried that, each…

  • Food,  Roxie

    Apple Bread, Apple Cake, Tomay-to, Tomah-to

    It’s officially autumn, which means that it’s time for me to make hundreds and hundreds (or at least a dozen) loaves of apple bread. I got the recipe from Judy, an awesome woman with whom I worked at a craft store more than twenty-five years ago. Back then I was a young newlywed who was going to college and working at the craft store as head cashier and eventually custom framer—all of this seems like it didn’t even happen in this life, by the way, because it was so long ago. Judy worked in the floral department and basically spent all day restocking the silk flowers and creating beautiful flower…

  • Roxie,  Travels

    Roxie: Keeping Things Unpredictable Since 2004

    Last weekend my sister and I drove down to our parents’ house in Tennessee on a trip that was planned with less than twelve hours’ notice. For various reasons, I decided to bring Roxie along rather than board her as I normally would, and I was not looking forward to that part of the trip in the slightest. Roxie hasn’t been on a road trip since she was a puppy and, at ten and a half years old, she is set in her ways. She barks for the duration of every ride to the vet and every ride to Petsmart, both of which are less than ten minutes from my…

  • Random Thoughts,  Roxie

    Pet Names

    Alternate names I have for Roxie, in no particular order: 1. Sissy 2. Mama 3. Mamacita (I don’t know; it just came out one day and stuck) 4. Beebs 5. Baby 6. My Baby 7. Babes 8. Sweets 9. Siouxsie (yes, as in “and the Banshees”) 10. Bougie-Bougie (shut up) 11. Mooshie 12. Mooshie-Booshie Alternate names Jim has for Roxie, in no particular order: 1. Nothing I can list here because this is a family blog. He DOES call her those special names with love, which I guess explains why the second he walks in the door, she drops me and my “Bougie-Bougies” like a hot potato and makes a…