Weekend Reflections

Hello! It has been a while. Last time I wrote, I was filled with excitement over what I was going to plant this spring. We had a very mild winter and in late January I was beginning to see bulbs starting to poke through the ground. My seed orders were starting to arrive. The winter fog that envelopes the valley I live in was beginning to lift.

Then the unexpected happened. We lost our beloved pup, Mia.

My shadow, Mia

On my husband’s birthday, she became very sick. She was running around Friday and had passed by Sunday evening. The official diagnosis was a large mucus cap on her gallbladder, a ruptured gallbladder, a large mass on her liver and free fluids in her stomach. She was in so much pain, there was no surgeon to do the emergency surgery she needed and they did not think she would make it through the surgery.

We had to say our goodbyes and gosh it hurt so much.

Mia came to us as a rehoming at 9 months of age. While we were told she was house trained, she was not at all. She also had severe separation anxiety. Those first few months were challenging to say the least.

She saw her first quail and before I could stop her, she killed it. She thought it was a toy and just grabbed it and that was all that it took.

She had never seen a pool before and when we opened the door she ran out and jumped right in not knowing what it was. She was terrified and sinking but we rescued her quickly. After that she hated the dreaded pool. Even when we were in it.

We all tried but as you can see in the photo below, she was only ok if she was out of the water.

Our previous pup, Chloe was a lover. Gentle and sweet as pie. Mia was a live wire. That girl had so much energy and so much personality. At first she took us off guard because we thought we were getting the sweetest little puppy but no, she was a force to be reckoned with.

To give you an idea of her personality, look how calm she looks above. Well that only lasts a few seconds and then she is a wild child again as you can see in the photo below.

For such a little dog she was incredibly strong.

She took over our home very quickly and kept everyone in line.

As she settled in, we learned very quickly how smart she was. She never had a mistake in the house once she was trained.

She learned sit, lay down, shake a paw and high five extremely quickly.

And quick she was, she knew a treat was coming so she liked to do all of the commands as fast as she could to get her treat which was hilarious to watch. Here is a link to my Instagram reel and you will see what I mean.

She moved with us to live in an RV while we built our home. She was not a fan of the trailer but she sure loved being outside barking at the deer and marmots.

Below was a spot she picked right away. It was her favorite spot as she could oversee the property and any possible intruders (people walking by on the road).

She happily accepted her role as site supervisor when the house was being built.

She was my shadow. We went everywhere together. She loved being out at the greenhouse, or in the garden, or laying by my feet in my office or even BESIDE the pool as I swam.

What started off as a bit rocky turned into the best thing that could happen to us. God has such a great sense of humour and always knows what we need more than we do.

We thought we needed gentle but we were given life.

She brightened our home.

She kept us on our toes.

She spotted every animal outside (bears, deer, coyotes, etc) far sooner than we did.

She gave the best puppy dog eyes.

She got so excited for Christmas and would try to sneak and open her gifts early.

On Christmas day she was so excited to open gifts and eat turkey.

She loved us all with her bigger than life heart.

She has left a huge hole in our life. The house is so quiet. I miss her everyday.

Until we meet again, sweet Mia, thank you very much for being exactly what we didn’t know we needed.

Keeping busy

Sometimes the best way to get through grief is to keep busy. Here is what I have been up to:

I refinished an old dresser with rub on transfers. It was surprisingly easy. Click here for the tutorial.

Zinnias are such a beautiful, resilient flower that I wrote a post on them and the 14 reasons I love them. Just click here to learn about the gorgeous flowers.

Then I unearthed some flowers that I dried in silica last summer and fall that I had forgotten about. They turned out so beautiful it is hard to believe they are dried. So of course, I wrote a post on the six different methods to preserve flowers. Just click here to read it.

What’s coming up next…

Now that I have all these beautiful dried flowers, I made some candles with them. They turned out so pretty that I will have a post complete shortly sharing all the details.

The greenhouse is all styled for spring and looking so pretty. A new post will be out soon.

This week I am working on revamping my whole website and I think it is going to look incredibly beautiful. I am taking photography lessons and my goal is to create dreamy photos. I will still be bringing you loads of home and garden content, just hopefully more polished and more in line with what I see in my head.

Thank you

As always, thank you for being here.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post and that you are looking forward to all that spring brings as much as I am.