What Sustains Me.....

It's hard to believe it's already been a week.  How did I make it?  All of these things helped sustain me....

~ THE feather.  I keep it on the dash of the car and, every time I look at it, I feel stronger.  Heaven help me if anything should ever happen to that feather.

~ All of the flowers that were left over from Clara's party.  They're spread throughout the house and they definitely lift my spirits!

~ The calls and emails and concern from our family members.

~ Last Thursday I decided to start a small memorial garden for Hubbell.  I have this run-down little flower garden by our back gate (when I tried to find a photo, I noticed that Hubbell was in  the background of this one!!!!).  I moved the girls' umbrella over to shield the sun. I kneeled down, started weeding and cried my tears into the dirt.   I cleaned and refilled the birdbath. I researched how to deadhead the few Coreopsis plants that are left so that maybe some new growth will appear.  I researched some flowering plants.  I know this will be therapeutic for me.  It already is.  It will be a long-term project because I am terrible at growing flowers but I'll hopefully post a follow-up in the near future.

~ The documentary, "Animal Odd Couples" (available on Netflix and/or preview available here).  Alain put it on one night and I thought my heart would literally burst watching it.  I couldn't stop laughing, smiling or crying.  While we were watching, Alain even said to me, "You and Hubbell were an animal odd couple."  Yes, I suppose we were.  Thank you, Alain.  That show cheered me up immensely ~ you must've known it would!

~ Scout is our lone pet now, at least in this house.  She sometimes chirps at me, sometimes flies around my head and still watches me from the back door when I'm out in the yard/garden.  She makes me smile!  (I will post on Atticus soon.)

~ My other "resident birds" come to the window feeder and sometimes they hang out for a while, even when I'm standing there.  I love to watch them ~ they warm my heart.

~ I stopped telling myself that I should temper my emotions, tears, etc out of fear that people will judge me over being this upset about "just a dog".  I don't really care if people think or say that.  Hubbell was my constant, constant companion and I will mourn him however I see fit.  When I have really hard moments, I light a little memorial candle by his picture.....that is now surrounded by cards from friends.  It's helped me a lot.  Those cards help me a lot!

~ My blogging friends.  Deb, Kay, Louise, Keith, Jan and Rebecca.  Your comments and emails are so precious ~ thank you for caring enough to write, check in on me, etc.

~ Deb sent me this sweet video of her turtle, Rexy (via Instagram). I wish you could have all seen me smiling.  What a sweet gesture!

~ I went to the library and got some new books.  I hadn't read a single page in a single book since May 1st, the day of Hubbell's surgery and the day we learned we'd lose him soon.  If I'm not reading, something is definitely wrong.  Well, I'm now reading "Failure Is Not An Option" by Gene Kranz.  It's amazing.  If you haven't seen the documentary series, "When We Left Earth", please watch it (available on Netflix and/or sometimes replayed on PBS stations).  I also checked out "The Girls of Atomic City" by Denise Kiernan (remember my fixation with the atomic race after reading this book?).   I was so thrilled with I saw this book on the library shelf!  Anyway, I'm reading again so I know I'll be okay! 

~ I wrote a very heartfelt letter to the woman who helped rescue Hubbell and who cared for him until he came to our home.  You can definitely say that she hand-picked him just for me because I was very insistent that I wanted another girl dog.  And she wouldn't back down.  She even tricked me into driving out to her house to meet Hubbell.  Well, of course, once I saw him and spent 30 seconds with him, he was ours!!!! Anyway, Kathy wrote to me all week, sent me a sweet card and then sent me a gardening stone with the words, "If My Love Could've Saved You, You Would Have Lived Forever" (Isn't that the truth?).  She's been an angel and has really looked out for me (just as she once looked out for my guy). She's the only other person I know who has "mothered" Hubbell so I feel a connection with her.  She knows just how special he was!  And she gave me the most precious and wonderful gift.  I feel so thankful.

~ I called the Golden Rescue where Hubbell came from.  I was a board member for several years but fell out of touch during my crazy working years and once I had children.  Well, guess what, I'm back on board to help again and it feels really good to know I might help other Goldens.  I know Hubbell would like that!

~ Last, and maybe most importantly, Alain decided to take some pictures of each of us as we said goodbye on Hubbell's last day.  At the time, I wasn't sure how I felt about this. It seemed a little morbid and I thought I'd never look at such depressing photographs.  Well, I owe a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE thank you to my sweet husband.  It took several days but I did finally look at the pictures.  Wow, it was so damned hard.  They are amazingly beautiful, raw, emotional, and SO FILLED WITH LOVE. I can't share them here out of respect for Hubbell's privacy and I just think they're way too intimate.  But I love these pictures with all of my heart.  I won't look at them often but, when I do, I will always feel thankful to have had a love that strong in my life.  For all of us. This family is so very lucky.

Scout & Atticus popping in....

......to wish you a VERY HAPPY WEEKEND!!!!

Note: I took these pictures from our deck. When I'm outside, the birds love to fly over to the door and watch me through the window.  They chirp so loudly I can hear them out in the back of the yard.  On this day, I had my camera and was so happy to finally get some pictures of them while this was happening.

Scout & Atticus were at Uncle Jon and Aunt Leslie's with their five bird cousins while we were at the beach and while Hubbell was recovering from this surgery.....about three weeks in all (THANK YOU JON & LESLIE!).  Now that they're back, I realize how much I missed these feathery little beasts while they were gone!!!

Tuesday's Twitter

We have big bird news in the house.

SCOUT IS A GIRL!!!!!

When we first got the birds, they were very young. You could already tell that Atticus was a boy because his beak was a nice shade of blue. Scout was not so clear. For a while, her beak looked like it had a tinge of blue. Since then, however, it has turned brown and it's VERY brown. So we have a little pair of lovebirds on our hands. Here are a couple of photos of Atticus & Scout that we took over the weekend. How sweet are they?

Please give a warm welcome....

......to ATTICUS and SCOUT, the newest members of our family!!!

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to have some indoor birds. Recently, I've thought more and more about how I would like to have more animals in my life. Having birdsat in the past, I knew that parakeets were wonderful pets to have, fairly low maintenance and not too expensive to keep healthy and happy. Last week, as I drove past a local pet shop, I saw a sign that the store was closing and they were liquidating their inventory. Even the animals were on sale. The idea that these sweet little birds were "ON SALE" was rather heartbreaking to me. They're already so cheap ~ aren't their lives worth more than that? After three visits to the shop, some additional research and a talk with the hubbie, we decided it was the right time to adopt two feathery little babies.

On Saturday, we made our way to the store.....chose a new bird home and all of the accompanying food, treats, toys, etc.....and, finally, picked out the sweet little beings who would come home with us. Choosing them was the hard part ~ they're all so beautiful ~ how to choose? They're also very young so it's not easy to tell their gender. There were two with gorgeous pastel yellow plumage mixed with light blue and white feathers. I knew I wanted one of those. The second one was much harder to pick and, in the end, I picked a fellow with amazingly bright turquoise feathers....simply because his color (at least to me) was the most beautiful.

They were packed up in boxes (!!!!) and we drove them home.

We quickly assembled their new home complete with water, food, millet treats, toys, ladder, wheel, etc.

Then we put them in and let them find their way around......

Here are their first photos:

Scout (left) and Atticus (right)

A close-up of a very curious Scout

(As you've probably guessed, they are named after characters in my favorite book/movie, To Kill A Mockingbird. Although, after spending two days with them, I am quite sure that Scout is also a boy. Quite alright with me. No need to worry about baby birds in the future and the name "Scout" is just as fitting for a male bird.)

For $11.00 (can you imagine?), they've already brought us so many smiles and lots of happiness.

Welcome to the family, Baby Birds!!!