May, the month of anticipation

May is my favorite month of the year. I love summer vacation, and the month leading up to it is the best. I am literally humming with anticipation of all that free time. (Who am I kidding- since when do moms have free time?)
May is also the month of my anniversay which means that someone in our family will take pity on us and watch the kids for us while we go out to dinner. This year we will celebrate at the end of the month at Chastain with James Taylor and some good friends. May also includes the end of school for Meg - she'll graduate from pre-K on May 21st. She has spent three years at her preschool, and has enjoyed every minute of it. We will be sorry to see her leave.
Other notables: Derby Party, T-ball games, dance recital, SEGA meeting in Newnan, Memorial Day, Mother's Day... The calendar is looking pretty full! I can hardly wait...

The Fruit of an Obsession

Amber Opal

Ok...I've come to admit that I may be a little obsessed with greyhounds.  We just adopted our first grey in December 2007, and I would certainly have a house full of them if we won the lottery tomorrow. It's the beginning of this obsession that I would like to explain...

When Newt and I were first married (nearly nine years ago, this week), we vacationed in Ormond Beach, Florida. Newt had grown up visiting this beach with his family and then later as a bachelor where he would frequent the greyhound track for some friendly betting. So, when he asked me if I wanted to go with him to the tracks on our first vacation together, I quickly agreed.  At the tender age of 23, I'd never given a thought to greyhound racing. When we arrived at the track it took about a nanosecond for me to sniff out the adoption room from which Newt had to drag me after what had been several hours. All that week, I begged to return to the track, and Newt gladly obliged.  He had no idea that I was secretly planning on packing one in between the duffle bags for our trip home.  I bought and eagerly read Adopting the Racing Greyhound and spent as much time as I could gazing into the hounds' eyes.  It was like looking straight down into their gentle, sweet souls. I was totally in love!

So, for nearly ten years I have pined away for my very own grey.  At the time we had Dixie and Josephine which we thought was steep on the responsibility slope.  Now we have six animals and two kids -let's just say we've realized the value of those footloose days, a faint glimmer in our memories.

When our yellow lab, Dixie, died at 9.5 years to cancer last May, Josephine was left as our only canine child. I waited until Newt was deep in the throws of pecan season in November before making my move on a greyhound. He couldn't possibly object to a new dog if he was never home! I found SEGA and filled out an extensive application.  When I talked to Patty Winters, of SEGA, on the phone, she informed me that a wonderful senior girl was located in foster in Perry - how convenient!  That was on a Thursday evening, and Sunday, Amber Opal came home to our house for good.  She just turned ten last week, and we celebrated with peanut butter milkbones and a new squawking duck toy which she loves!

Amber is such a joy to our family.  I will probably have a lot more to write about her...stay tuned.

New to Blogging

Ok, so I'm not a writer at all...I just feel like jumping on the bandwagon with this blogging stuff.  Why are my mother's words echoing in my head right now...if everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you too?  Well, no Mom.

But in this case, I think I'm pretty safe. This doesn't require any special equipment, it's free, and I think I'll be good at ranting and raving about stuff here.

Let me know how I'm doing.