We have another new visitor to our home, Tom the 5 year old Alaskan Husky. I’ve never even heard of an Alaskan Husky before. Apparently they exist.

So, Tom is foster puppy #2 and he comes with his own unique challenges. Being bred for sledding and speed, he needs a little room to stretch his legs. Thankfully, we live not to far away from the local dog park. After expending a little energy, Tom seems much happier and much more well adjusted.

I really think that after a little more time and socializing with the family, Tom is going to make a great family pet. After all, how could you not love those bright blue eyes.

I will post pictures of him as soon as I can convince him to pose for me.

The coolest thing happened on Sunday. Not only did the Broncos win in the playoffs but even more exciting than that was when our foster dog found a home. Our family decided that we would try to give back in 2012 by volunteering for a local animal rescue organization. We contacted Animal Rescue of the Rockies (ARR) and offered up our home as a foster for dogs needing a home. ARR is an organization that rescues dogs on current “kill lists” from shelters all over Colorado and sometimes as far as Texas. Their goal is to find each and every dog a loving home and make a difference one little life at a time. What a great organization!
We were matched up with Kaylee…a sweet little 7 month old Black Mouth Cur. We were told this was a popular breed in the southern United States. Being from the south, we had never heard of the breed which prompted us to do a little research. The dogs were originally bred to be solid hunting dogs but also gentle family pets. They are common in Texas, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama. The coolest thing we discovered is the breed’s connection to the book Old Yellar. The subject of the book was actually a Black Mouth Cur.
It didn’t take long for us to remember the challenges of owning a puppy. Kaylee needed 24-7 attention. Between potty breaks, playtime, crying at night, and chewing…Kaylee was a handful. She was driving poor Max, our 11 year old lab, crazy! Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, it was time to stand outside PetSmart for ARR Adoption Weekend. This was the big show; the event that would bring together loving families with some wonderful animals.
Kaylee was lucky enough to find a home this weekend. She met a lovely husband/wife team from Kansas City that wanted a playmate for their current dog. ARR asked us to do a home visit and verify that this family did want Kaylee and could provide a good home for her. The whole drive there, I held Kaylee in my lab and realized that even though she had driven me bonkers for 9 days, I was going to be sad to let her go. I wondered if the new family could take care of her and if they would love her like we had for the past week. All of my fears were put to rest when we got to the home. Kaylee ran around the backyard like a child at Disney World. She was so excited to be running free and have a puppy playmate. It was wonderful! I felt like a proud parent sending a child off into the world.
It was those few moments that made all of the sacrifice worth it. We had helped saved a life! Kaylee was on a kill list and had only days left to live if the wonderful people at ARR had not rescued her. She is such a sweet, gentle, loving animal and almost didn’t get the chance to be someone’s best friend for the next 10 or 15 years. This is such a sad reality for so many animals. Their precious lives are cut short because of irresponsible owners, breeders, etc.
The only thing we can do is continue to fight the good fight and save one life at a time. We are going to pick out our new foster dog on Thursday. I cannot wait to see what wonderful animal we end up with this time. Even better, I cannot wait to find out what wonderful family gets to adopt our soon to be new little bundle of joy!

If you would like to look at some of the animals available for adoption or make a donation to Animal Rescue of the Rockies, please check out their website at www.animalrescueoftherockies.org/.

Wow, what a month! Quick update as to our absence from the interwebs:

We moved! Yay, good thing but I don’t want to do that ever again. Moving sucks. I think next time I’m just going to sell the house with all the contents included. All of it! After all, my pictures are digital. Everything else is just stuff right. I know hat you’re thinking – Kristi will never go for that. Well, I have a plan for that too. I’ll just sell it all on Craig’s List while she is at work. Maybe she won’t notice until it’s too late.

We had an unfortunate incident too. We had a crash in the family during the Christmas break. Everyone is recovering now but as with any incident of that magnitude, it will be a long journey ahead of us.The shining light in all of this is that we have a great family and they will all pull together to make the best of the situation.

We have many great things in store for 2012! Among the many things we have resolved to do as a family is to have a more consistent presence here – our family blog. Since we are so far removed from most of our family it is the easiest way to talk about how awesome we are. Well, maybe just how interesting we are. Ok, Ok, how about just about our silly adventures – that is more realistic. So, within the next couple of days we will be posting a list of goals, some lofty and some just ridiculous, for 2012. I expect you – our family and friends – to hold us to them – no matter how nonsensical they seem.

Finally, I want to thank all of our family and friends that have been there for us during our recent unfortunate turn of events. Get better soon Bob!

I fizzled out around day 18. I do have a good excuse – we moved. But, it’s simply that, an excuse. The good news is that I made it 20K words into a new story that I definitely want to finish at some point. That point will be after I finish my first book. I’m going back to Croatoan.

This time away from it really motivated me to get back into the story and finish it off. Hopefully this will be the push it takes. Then I can get back to Det. Reece my new character.

It’s ok, calm down and take a breath. Whew that was a close one, but you’ll be ok. I hope I didn’t lose any to feinting.

Tomorrow is my off day, so I plan to get fully caught up. Well maybe. My brother brought up a good point. He reminded me that the idea was to continue writing, not to get bogged down with the numbers. Good advice.

Focusing on the numbers, I almost lost sight of the fact that I’m actually putting together an entertaining story. So, tomorrow when I sit down to pound away on my iPad, that’s what I’ll focus on.

I know everybody will be constantly hitting refresh so they will be the first to get the update on my progress. Stay by your computers, I’ll let you know how it goes.

This brings me to a total of 5012 words for my new story. It’s still a little early to give up any kind of story line as I really haven’t come up with it yet. For now, I’ve simply started with one little seed of an idea. I know that it’s going to be a mystery/crime novel in which the main character of the story, Detective Reece, is working to solve the murder(s). I also know that since I’m doing a cop drama, I want to make it very gritty and realistic.

Probably contrary to what real authors do, I’m just letting the story flow and I will decide later where it’s going to end up. I can honestly say that I haven’t even tried to decide what the end of this story will be like.

Again, I encourage anyone interested in writing to jump on board. If you’re considering it go here for more information.

While it may sound like a daunting task to attempt to write a novel, much less in a single month, it’s possible and worth it. Go for it! I’m even more hopeful of the results this year as I have more people to hold me personally accountable. On top of that, I am going to post my word count each day. I’m going to keep this one short as I have been up for a long time.

So, here goes:

Word count Day One: 1518