"Awkward Family Pet Photos", In Book Stores Today

I received a review copy of this book and it is a must have for pet lovers! Available today in bookstores!

I grew up with many odd animals, not just cats and dogs! "Awkward Family Pet Photos" brought back memories that made me smile!

The website is as wonderful as the book! Check it out  http://awkwardfamilypetphotos.com/

Run, don't walk, to your nearest book store! "Awkward Family Pet Photos", the funniest pet book you'll see this season, is available today. This book will steal the hearts of all animal lovers. “Awkward Family Pet Photos” is a must have book for anyone who loves their pets. It is mostly a book of outrageous photos of pets and their owners, mixed in with text and stories about some of the pet photos.

You know me. I must write one of the only widow blogs that constantly features dogs! My dogs rescued me, I like to say. Pets are a vital part of any family and are with you through the good times and help you through the bad. I sleep with my five. When you find a man who finds that a plus, call me! The photo below gave me hope!



Maybe this is the guy for me?
One of the few black and white photos in book.
Pet Noir.


As a pet owner myself I am as guilty as the next at dressing my dogs up for special occasions. My chihuahua wears a bunny suit at Easter, my female dogs pose in vintage hats, and my late German Shepherd looked fabulous in a fedora. I love taking photos of my dogs.

The late Mr. Jake. He could wear a hat!

We take for granted that our pets love these antics as much as we do. This book proves that most likely they do. Every page is chock full of color photographs of all kinds of pets. We all think of dogs and cats in family photos, this book goes way beyond the normal family pet, to include some extremely unusual critters that just don’t come to mind when you say “pet”. Yet each photo demonstrates the love of the owner for its special animal.

At first glance at this book, my head started to spin. There are so many photos it is overwhelming. This book is a bit kitschy with its brightly dazzling high gloss color images. Each page is chock full of images so that you can’t just flip through the book and toss it aside as a pretty coffee table book. The more you look at the pages and photographs, the more you see and the more you laugh. I love that this book will take time to ingest. I have many animal books that I’ve looked at and put away to browse through later. You can’t do that with “Awkward Family Pet Photos”, because you want to go back again and again to see what you’ve missed!

The chapters cover dogs, cats, birds, exotic pets, farm animals, family portraits, and holidays with pets. I was very captivated with some of the exotic photos, which included a couple who met while walking their sugar gliders (this actually reminded me of my mother, who had two sugar gliders. I never knew about sugar gliders until mom rescued the pair from a young man), the woman with a opossum in her hair (my old high school boyfriend and I shared two pet opossums, he'd bring his when he visited me and my female Opie), and the family portrait with the snake intertwined around everyone’s head (remember that 7 ft indigo snake, mom, that left mites on all the kids?). The book made me smile and brought back memories of my childhood with a mother who loved exotic animals more than cats and dogs. She has two cats now, but that is another story!

Photo from book. Is that a pet Tiger?

My favorite chapter, however, is the last on Awkward Pets, catching some animals in mighty strange positions! The sweetest in that category is the “bum sniffer” where the dog is sniffing a baby’s butt.

The humor in this book is as amazing as the photos. I went online to check the book out further, and found a YouTube video with a young woman reading the book and laughing so hard she kept tripping from room to room as she flipped through the book. You will laugh your bum off too when you start reading this charming, funny look at life with animals.

Kudos to Mike Bender and Doug Chernack for coming up with a winner! The book is available today in bookstores. If you love animals you owe it to yourself to buy several copies of this book. You will want to keep yours and it will make the perfect holiday gift for your favorite pet lovers.

My own awkward pet moment! That's Princess from The Flying Feathers, featured several times at my shop. I used this photo on a dating site with the heading, Dating Is For The Birds. Wonder why no one contacted me?

Do yourself a big favor! Buy a copy of this charming book today. Check your local book store or buy online with the link on the book website!

Now, excuse me, gotta run. I am inspired to go torture the dogs and take some photos of them wearing the new cowboy hats I purchased for my shop!  Yippee-ki-yay!

The Sleep Better And Win! Sweepstakes. A Win-Win For All!

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead! You’ve heard that from me before. I love that phrase! It makes me feel fearless. I stay up so late at night, it is sometimes morning by the time I crawl into bed. Not that bright sunshiny morning, but that early morning when the rest of the world is still sleeping (except for those on the night shift) and I am just pulling the quilt over my head.

I don’t sleep alone. I sleep with five dogs. Four sleep on the bed, the fifth, my only male, stays in the doorway protecting us from whatever demons he still sees. Of all my rescue dogs, Bray is the one who still looks up in fear if there is a loud noise or a quick movement. He is a mixed breed Afghan. His fur is long and black and he looks disheveled most of the time. The fur spikes at the top of his ears, make him appear like the Rod Stewart of dog world.

I can watch my dogs most nights as they sleep and stretch, because so much light comes through the mini-blinds on my windows. Moonlight, streetlights, and sometimes the outside night light flashes on when a critter runs by the motion detector. Too much light coming into the room at night, does not allow for total rest. I am learning more about how sleep affects my health, and I need to get better sleep habits.

The way you feel during the day, hinges on how you sleep at night. One of the key components to a better night’s sleep is darkness. My bedroom is well lit from the outside most every night. Turning off my bedside lamp darkens my room for a minute, then my eyes adjust, and the light shining in allows me to see the outline of everything in the room. There is no rest for me! No wonder I am tired most days. I can accomplish much with little sleep, but the quality of my sleep is poor.

Thanks to my friends at The Balancing Act, Lifetime TV’s morning show for women, I have found a solution and a great contest to enter.

Let me tell you about it.

The Official Curtain of the National Sleep Foundation, SoundAsleep ™ Room Darkening Curtains, will be appearing on The Balancing Act on October 24th and November 21st. (7 AM Weekdays). These curtains marry fashion, function, and design to create the perfect sleep environment for everyone. Their room darkening technology reduces penetrating light, which allows for a key factor for a good night’s sleep…darkness. They are available in 10 colors and 4 lengths, with 2 valance style options. Prices range from $19.99 to $34.99 depending on the curtains length. They are made out of washable textured chenille fabric and easy to purchase on Amazon.

The Sleep Better and Win! Sweepstakes will award a $500 Amazon Gift Card on November 23rd and the grand winner, to be announced on December 9th, will get a $1500 Amazon Gift Card.

The contest has already begun, but you can enter now! Just go the Sound Asleep Curtains Facebook Page and Like them. You will receive one entry for the sweepstakes, and may receive additional entries for sharing their page with your friends. Complete details on Facebook.

Just think, you could win an Amazon gift card, buy your curtains, and still have a big holiday spending spree.

A good night’s sleep is essential for a healthy day. It can be as simple as buying a lovely pair of room darkening curtains. Now that is a winning situation.

Follow on Twitter too!

We'd like some sleep too. Get those curtains!

Win a 2012 Suzuki In Lifetime TV's "The Balancing Act" Sweepstakes!

Great Prizes In the 3rd Annual Balancing Act Back To School Sweepstakes!

I love blogging for 'The Balancing Act'. Their online website is amazing. Not only is it a great site for information on women's issues and family news, it is amazingly interactive. Follow the videos of the latest TV interviews, read posts from a super list of bloggers covering issues that are relevant in today's world - or just plain fun to read! Exercise, news, book reviews, recipes, healthy choices, the amount of information is incredible and relevant to our lives as women. The TV show "The Balancing Act" is on Lifetime TV and can be found weekday mornings from 7am to 8am.

Right now you can win a 2012 Suzuki by entering their 3rd Annual Back To School Sweepstakes. Link here to go to the form to enter. How easy is that?

Then once you've entered, move around their site and see all the wonderful things they have to offer. Like The Balancing Act on Facebook. Keep up with all you need to know to make your life a happy, better place and have lots of fun with the great folks on this show.

The Balancing Act on Lifetime and The Southern Women's Show are bringing the popular morning women's show to life- with the "Balance Your Life" Road Tour". Join them as they launch the fall "Balance Your Life" series in Charlotte, NC on September 15th-18th. There will be exciting new exhibits from the many sponsors, celebrity guests, prizes...and so much more!

Check out this partial list of locations, then link above to the Road Tour, for a more complete schedule.

September 15 - 18, 2011 Women's Show Charlotte


October 6 - 9, 2011 Women's Show Birmingham

October 13 - 16, 2011 Women's Show Orlando

Meet a wonderful group of bloggers online! You can read my posts on Monday (or sometimes it is Tuesday, because, as all of you who know me, know by now, I am always a little late!). I am the CEO of Life on Monday! Click here or on the link on my sidebar for The Balancing Act blog!

Please, dear Balancing Act, put Atlanta on your tour one day. We are full of exciting women and offer lots of Southern Hospitality! Meanwhile, thank you for including me with your blogging team. It is my pleasure to be part of such an exciting group!

Join the mailing list for 'The Balancing Act' and get their online newsletter. Click here!

My Latest Blog On The Balancing Act Made It To Their FaceBook Page. Cool!

While I have a Monday blog post on Lifetime Television's The Balancing Act each week I was very surprised and honored they posted my latest musings on their national Face Book page. If you'd like to read the entire post you can link to it here.  My handle is The CEO of Life. What does that stand for, you might ask! Creative, energized and old enough to know better! Truth is, if you know me, I don't know better - I just forge ahead. One of my favorite quotes, from an unknown source: I don't know why I did it, I don't know wy I enjoyed it, and I don't know why I'll do it again!

Widow Lesson Learned: You can find the light in the darkness! But I think I have been saying that for several years now that I have been on my own. A chill pill from Mother Nature helped me remember that!

What Will I Be When I Grow Up?

What will I be when I grow up? Dreaming and working hard to have my dreams come true!

Every day I ask myself a question. It is usually the same question. What am I doing?

It is then followed by a second question, What will I be when I grow up?

Just because you are older, doesn't mean you've reached your final destination.

Life changes can  open doors and if you walk through them, amazing things can happen. Sometimes a change can be triggered by a sad event. Mine came from the death of my husband. I needed a new life, but I had no idea how or what to do. I just started moving forward.

Don't wait for a sad event to walk a new path. Sometimes it is just time to do something new. Reinvent yourself. Finally give in to the muse that has been haunting you for years.  Courage and faith move you when your feet are slow to take steps.

You can teach an old dog new tricks. (Yes, I revert to the dog saying, because I am Writer With Dogs on many sites!) The only dogs I can't teach new tricks are the spoiled pups at my house! But, I am older, and I am learning new things by leaps and bounds!

The last three years my creative energy has exploded!  I wrote my book. I self-published it. I started two more books. I launched a one-time online full color dog magazine. I became an independent publishing company, but only have my web page to show for it, "Gilbert Street Press", coming soon. I opened a small antique gift shop, with a twist, I have weekly art openings, book signings, and live music. I called it, The Little Shop Of Arts And Antiques, the longest name I could think of for my tiny space. Then I opened the shop next to it as my events center, because I needed more room for all the lovely artists that started coming to my shop. Last week I opened  a third building, the Old Town Lilburn Center For The Arts. In six months I have expanded my vision for this tiny hub called Old Town that I love. My smiling, sweating face, in front of my shop, was featured on the cover on Lilburn's Up Close And Personal magazine, that is mailed to every Lilburn household. I am now President of the newly formed Old Town Merchants Association.

I still have my pack of dogs, missing my old gal Foxy, but five dogs keeps me pretty well loved. I am working on my books and publishing company, will have them in place by end of year. My inspiration - I need to get those start-up expenses on my tax returns! Now there is a creative incentive.

I blog on the Lilburn Patch. com and on The Balancing Act for Lifetime TV. I still find time to play catch-up on my own blogs.

I love all I am doing. I am doing everything but making money. I tell myself time will sort this out. I have faith I am where I am supposed to be at this time of my life. I turn 63 in August, two months away, and wonder every day, What will I be when I grow up?

I don't plan to be old and broke!

I have a plan. It is an odd one. It is centered on faith. Faith that what I am doing now includes more than just my having a business and succeeding. The little downtown area I chose to open my shop in was slowly vanishing. It is two half streets of shops, a city hall, and a large city park with incredible walking trails. The restaurant had just closed as I signed my lease last December, which has had a huge impact on shopping traffic. The restaurant closed for personal reasons. It was doing a whiz bang business. It was a very sad day for Old Town and the many people who loved the restaurant and its friendly owner. Six months later it is still the talk of the town because it is missed.

The city of Lilburn is huge, full of strip malls and subdivisons, the down town, historic area, is tiny. The railroad tracks cross Main Street. When I sit in my big wing chair, covered in vintage rose fabric, I smile when I hear that train. It drowns out any chance of continuing a conversation if I am in the middle of one, but it reminds me of all the charm that surrounds me.

Everything I have worked on is now centered in Old Town. I feel this year some answers will come and the historic hub is on the verge of something good! New merchants are filling empty buildings and with them comes the enthusiam of the young.

Me? Yeah, I am older. But I am not old. I am as excited as any of the younger folks coming into the area. I hope in some way my shops will inspire artists and authors of all ages to be proud of their art form. My shops will give them a voice. My plan is to slowly find others who want to rent and take over part of my three buildings. I hated the term, it takes a village, when it first came out. Now I am saying those words and loving them. It will take a village of talented writers and artists to keep my shop and Old Town rejunivated. It is a very exciting time to look forward to what may be and not back at what has gone.

What will I be when I grow up? I hope to be asking myself that question until my last breath. The journey of discovery of what I can be, what we all can be, is the best travel plan of all. You don't need answers when you have such an inspiring question!

Widow Lesson Learned:  It is never to late to discover your inner muse.



A Farewell To My Dear Foxy

An Aging Dog was my post on April 11, 2011 on Lifetime Televisions' blog for The Balancing Act. My dear Foxy was the subject of that post, and how I worried about her days coming to an end. Good for Foxy, she lasted another few weeks. But on May 5th I had to make the hardest decision ever, to let Foxy leave this world for a better place. Her body was just giving out on her. My post An Aging Dog was a hopeful one, for I did not have to make that decision in April. I had the extra time to pamper Foxy and tell her how much I loved her. Five other dogs watched with envy that she got chicken in her kibble and they didn't. Five dogs, five pretty smart dogs, now know why and say, "no thanks" to chicken! I was blessed I had Foxy fifteen years. She was the dog that came to my husband and me when our big dog Boy died. She made us smile again. She is the dog that stayed by my side when my husband died. She watched Jake my other dog, leave us nine months later. Then she watched, not always so gleefully, five new rescue dogs come into our house. Five dogs who respected Foxy, because she was the leader of our pack. She was graceful, elegant, and a very good sport. I am sharing a repeat of some of her early photos when I sold on Ebay and put photos of Foxy in vintage hats on my auctions to grab that extra attention. I will always miss Foxy, as I miss my husband. Lucky for me I have five dogs that make me laugh and would not let me be sad for long.

I call myself Writer With Dogs on many blogs. A writer with six dogs, now a writer with five. I have trouble with the math when the dogs come in. I still have to count to be sure they all are there, but the total still confuses me as I know one is missing, but where all good dogs go at the end of their days.

Will I get another? My pack is pretty close and they are a united front. That is the only reason I may hold off on adding another. If I didn't have my five, you can bet I'd be out looking for a new dog in a heart beat.

Many people have said they can't go through the pain of loss again. I look at it as the joy of love, and I'll go through that on any day of the week!

To my dear Foxy, who opened her heart to take in five dogs that annoyed her most days, but loved being the center of all that attention.

A Follow-Up To My Post On Cypress Gardens and Esther Williams

A Blast From The Past!

I wrote my last post about beautiful Cypress Gardens. My brother, who is the family genealogist and has all the photos, some black mail worthy, e-mailed this gentle reminder to me. There are the three of us (me, my sis Pammie and little bro, Steve) meeting with Esther Williams, at Cypress Gardens! OMG! What a photo and just how many years ago was that? Way many! Thanks, Steve, for sending this gem to me! Your loving older sis!