Cocker Spaniel Collection

We don't have that many cocker collectibles, not like other things that we have collected over the years like my raccoons. There is also a magnet on the fridge. There used to be 2 but one broke and I wanted to fix it but my brother threw away the piece of it's back leg. I did keep it though only I accidentally knocked it down and did worse damage to it. I have cocker stuffed animals in my room. I took pictures of them and a whole bunch of other things lately and will be putting them on the computer within the next couple of weeks so I'll share that here. Some are beanie babies. Very cute. I haven't been spending that much time on the computer lately because I've been working on other projects. I will try to get back into it soon. I miss reading and commenting on my favourite blogs. What kinds of things do you like to collect or have you collected in the past? I'd love to know.

Cool Perfume Bottles

A friend of the family got this for me as a Christmas gift about 9 years ago. He found it at a flea market. It is Avon's Patchwork Cologne. I don't even remember that kind. I wonder what year this is from? The name of the this is Lady Spaniel. I love it! I never did twist the lid off to see if there is still any perfume in it and don't plan on it. I'm afraid that I will drop and break it. I wish that I had kept the other cool Avon perfume bottle of a silver fawn with Sweet Honesty in it. My Aunt Sylvia got that for me in the early 1980s.

Scrapbook Stuff 2

These past 2 days I have been going through my scrapbooks and getting rid of things in them and it's not because my brother says that I have way too much stuff. I just don't feel the need to keep some of it anymore. I will not toss out any of the 8x10 or 4x6 photos like the b&w one of Jon Bon Jovi in this post. I used to cut out articles from the newspapers and magazines like the TV Guide, People and Entertainment Weekly. I also would spend lots of money on ink for the printer and print out photos of the stars that I like. I did alot of Duran Duran photos that way. Well, as of last night a majority of the DD stuff is in the recycle bag. I am not sure if I will be doing the same to my Bon Jovi scrapbook yet or not. Will I be regretting this purging of possesions like I have in the past? I hope not, but I don't think that I will this time. I am no longer that into any of these stars and shows. I have so many scrapbooks. Today I did the Buffy the Vampire Slayer one. I can't believe how much I was into that show. I even named my dog after the main character with the middle name of another one - Willow. I will not be tossing out any of the items from my doggies and other animals scrapbooks - they are too cute to part with. Animals have much more significance to me than famous people anyhow.

My Stuffed Animal Collection 1

These are some of the stuffed animals that I had as a kid. They were always my favourite toy to play with. I would give them all names, personalities and families. My brother and friend Kim would also sometimes join in on the storylines that we'd create for them. I even wrote a few short stories with some of them and famous people in them. I reread these like 10 years ago - they are pretty bad. I foolishly got rid of many of these animals. I still am not sure why I kept my Barbies which I didn't like as much and not all of my beloved animals. I still have that bear with the eye patch - Poochie Weiners. He was originally a first holy communion gift from grandma to Mark which probably explains why he is in such bad condition. My animals were always looked fair or good. I do have most of the animals from the top photo on the left except for the peach Friend Care Bear and the Gund polar bear. I also have the raccoon in front, the ducks and gingerbread man that Grandma Wrunski made, the little brown dog, frog, light tan bear on the top shelf which was like my first stuffed animal and the brown bear with the pajama bottoms from the other top photo. I'm pretty sure that I gave those 2 Cabbage Patch Kids to mom. We had others but sold them for like only $5. 00 each at flea markets. I would trade in most of my beanie babies collection just to have them all back if I could, as silly as that sounds.

Good Books

I used to be an avid reader until around 2001 when I started having some difficulties reading from remembering things even shortly afterwards, comprehending, keeping track of the characters and visualizing what was being described. I had to re-read stuff alot and this got frustrating so I just gave up on it by 2002 when it took me a few months just to get through a Murder She Wrote book. That normally would've taken only a few hours. I decided to try getting back into reading mode last year and did an okay job of it. I still had some difficulties though and after reading about 16 books in 4 months I needed to take a break. Well, luckily my love of reading had returned and hopefully I will be able to stick with it. I do wish that it was as enjoyable and easy like it used to be though. Here are 2 good mysteries that I'd recommend - that has always been my favourite kind of book. When I was a kid, my grandma would get me the Bobbsey Twins for my birthday and Christmas gifts.

Buffy Memories 1

Everytime that mom went upstairs, Buffy would either follow her or stay at the bottom of the steps waiting for her to come back down. She was so attached to her grandma. February 18th would've been her 13th birthday. I was thinking about her alot today. Mom said that she really wishes that we could get another cocker spaniel but this definitely can't be in our budget.

My Ginger

We went to the animal shelter one day in 1979 and saw the cutest puppy. She was being picked on by the other puppy in the cage with her. We fell in love with her immediately and took her home with us. My grandma was the one who gave her the name Ginger. She looks a little like Benji. She was such a wonderful dog and mom says that she was definitely my girl. She always comforted me when I was feeling sad. She would sit next to me and give me little kisses to make me feel better. We don't have that many pictures of her - these are just a few of maybe about 15. No puppy ones. She was only in our lives for about 7 years. She got sick and my dad wouldn't even pay to find out what was wrong with her. It might've just been just an infection that meds would have cleared up. I still miss here even after all this time - it will be 25 years in October since she was put to sleep. I wrote about her when I first started this blog but didn't know how to add pictures back then.

The Baby Groundhog

In the spring of 2008 my brother found a baby groundhog in the middle of the road near our house. He rescued it before it could get hit and brought it into our house. We were going to release it into the woods by the county road behind our house. We took it over there only we saw it start to cross the road back towards our house. We decided to bring it back inside and keep it overnight until we could take it to the vet the next day. We forgot about the emergency vet place. We put water in a dish and put this in the box with it but it wouldn't drink any of it. We didn't even know that it was a groundhog then. I thought it was somebody's pet guinea pig with an unusual coloring that I'd never seen before. Our spaniel Buffy didn't even seem to know it was here.

I called our vet the next day but the vet tech said that they don't deal with animals like this, mainly just cats and dogs. I knew of another place in Clark so I called them and they said to bring it on over which we did. The girl didn't know that it was a groundhog either, she thought it was a hedgehog. Do we even have those in America? Luckily, she knew of a woman who runs a wildlife rehibilitation place so she got in touch with her. I asked her to call me to tell us how our groundhog was doing which she did and was glad to hear that it would be fine.

I have this feeling that something bad had happened to this baby groundhog's mother and maybe it was searching for her. I felt awful about this but am so glad that my brother rescued it before anything terrible might have happened to it. I was calling it Simon if it was a boy and Molly if it was a girl. I found this cute picture from Joni Johnson-Godsy on the internet.