New Blog

Okay everyone I finally have the new blog up and running!

http://jenniesloan.com/speak

I absolutely love the new look of it, and it is MUCH more efficient. Make sure you check it out and either this weekend or Monday I plan on doing a new contest for something TOTALLY fab.

Update your readers and bookmarks!

Goodbye blogspot!

Jennie

Piper-- Bernese Mountain Dog

I first met Piper at the Animal Welfare Association's Paws and Feet Walk. Piper ended up being one of the winners, and I was so excited to set up our session. Sue (her mommy) and I both wanted to find a location where Piper would be comfortable. You see, as many women will tell you, we suffer for our beauty and Piper gets hot pretty easy. We settled on a gorgeous farm location in Cherry Hill, NJ and after being rained out once finally got together.

Piper was such a refreshing and lovely dog. I enjoyed her session so much. She always seems happy and has that fantastic doggy smile on her face. Piper also has Lyme's disease. Sue isn't going to let that get Piper down though, and is even taking her to water therapy once a week. You would never know it with this sweet girl.

Not that she told me or anything, but I'm pretty sure Piper's philosophy on life would be- Don't get the tough things in life get you down; just keep smiling. And hope for some yummy hot dogs.

Thanks for having me Sue and Piper! I hope you like your photos!

Super model on the bridge.

Showing off those beautiful brown eyes

Working it in the Herb Garden.

Look at that inquisitve look! This was the only photo I have of her without that big smile, but doesn't she look so darn cute?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program...

I just wanted to share this video that my BFF showed me when she used to do color guard and she went to the finals. Whether she was 17 and tossin that crazy flag in the air or a mommy and a wife, tell me she isn't one hot Mama!

So if you tweek this video on to 1:40 you'll see her! WOOOOO STEPH!

Quick message

I just wanted to post a quick message to say that my e-mail is down and I am working to resolve the issues right now. From my knowledge it has been down for about the last 72 hours, but the issue should be fixed by the end of the day.

I will be moving my e-mail to a new address sometime within the next month or so (and am kicking myself for not doing it sooner) so keep an eye out for news on that.

Pics of Piper, the gorgeous Bermese Mountain Dog up soon!

it's been crazy

Whiskers

remodeling the bedroom, sick, broken finger, sleeping on couches/floors. Interesting is one of the words that comes to mind.

Hey Jennie, did you make Carl paint the bedroom two colors last week, and then walk in and scream that you don't like it?

Yes, yes I did. But I definitely helped paint.

Did you also go to the paint store and pick out two completely different colors? On the opposite end of the color spectrum?

Yes, I did that also.

Did you receive less than three hours of sleep each night, due to your spoiled rotten dog waking up every hour because he wasn't touching someone?

Yes. But that isn't my fault.

Do you seriously not have curtains on your bedroom windows?

No. I don't. And here's a better one, for four days I didn't have blinds up either.

Do you have a cat sneezing on your newly painted walls/duvet cover?

Yes. That isn't normal?

Did you break the tip of your finger opening a window?

The window had it out for me.

I have to ask, does anyone else find that they can never complete any type of project without being completely covered in the materials? Whether I'm cooking (hah like that happens often), painting, etc, I always seem to find myself dripping in paint or with cheese down my shirt. When I went to college I would leave the darkroom with brown stains covering my clothes from the fix. My professor asked if I was bathing in it. Last week I was covered in five (yes, because I couldn't pick a color, remember?) different paint colors. I had a streak stretching from my ankle to my upper thigh. And I have no idea how it got there.

I was very, very cranky last week. Let me preface this story by saying I didn't want Bear sleeping in the bed. Yes, I know, it's unbelievable that the crazy dog lady didn't want the dog in the bed. Now, before you judge me and say "ugggh, she totally doesn't like dogs as much as she says," I will continue on with: my dog is giant. Carl is 6'2. Our bed is not giant. So as the dog has grown larger, the space in the bed has become nonexistent. Usually after I accidentally elbow Carl in the face because the dog owns 3/4 of the bed I hiss "SEEE? I TOLD you that he was going to take up the whole bed and that we ALL would be uncomfortable." That really isn't the major problem. We've learned to deal with that.

The major problem now is Bear typically can't sleep without touching someone. Even if his paw is brushing slightly against your foot, he's happy. So due to this anxiety, I was up with him, trying to calm the pacing. Every Hour. I did this in between unsuccessful attempts at waking Carl up (by doing things such as chucking my phone at the base of his couch) because if I WAS UP then damn it he should be too. And once I gave up on that I was off the uncomfortable couch onto the more uncomfortable floor. So the dog could be touching me. And that's when I woke Carl up and told him that if the bed wasn't back where it belonged by the end of business day I'd beat him with a paint roller.

The bedroom is almost done. I'm going to go buy new curtain rods today. I have no headboard but I think I'm going to make a mounted fabric one, so that could be a while. The shelving system Carl and Noah (thnx for letting me borrow your Husband again Steph.... who can fix it? NOAH CAN!) are building should be finished tomm.... and then I'll post pictures.

Unless I walk in the room and scream "ohmigosh I HATE IT."

Because then I'll never take another picture. Because Carl will kill me.

Some more Oni!

Sorry I've been a little absent. We have 1,900,654.32 things going on right now, including trying to find the perfect paint color. Ugh. Thank you so much to those of you who have left me comments, also. They truly brighten my day.

But to brighten up everyone's day, here's some more of the super happy ONI!

The above is Oni playing with her CUZ ball that every doggie gets during a shoot.

Also, if everyone could shoot some thoughts and prayers out, we are taking Llana to the vet today. She's having a bit of a back slide and is coughing again.

Fingers crossed.

I needed more Teddy in my life

Some more Teddy pics from our session on Saturday. Here's a secret I'll share with you, but brace yourself: Teddy is ELEVEN! His mom actually took out his birth certificate because she knew I wouldn't believe her. He is so spunky and has such a spark about him no one ever thinks he is as old as he is.

Here's to many more years with your wonderful Mommy and Daddy. Thank you for having me!

Sneak Peak:

Meet Oni, the happiest, bounciest red Labradoode I've ever met. Her Mommy and Daddy Sarah and Terry mentioned that they were thinking about getting another Labradoodle puppy. And that's when I melted into a puddle on the ground.

Teddy sneak peak:

Teddy, the Harley riding Pomeranian :)

Look for a longer post soon!

Hump Day

Happy Wednesday.

This has been a weird week. There's no other way I can describe it. For instance I'm pretty sure Llana is in heat. And before you toss me in the street and run me over for not having her spayed, remember she's sick! She's immune deficient! We haven't yet determined when it will be safe to do surgery on her, if ever. In the meantime I get to deal with incessant meowing. Like all evening, and at 2:30am, and all morning. Did I mention it was incessant? I've tried letting her in the room, out of the room, giving her food again, giving her new water, cleaning the litter box. Nothing. Nada. Except meoooooow. meeoooow. mowww?

Yesterday I went home downright miserable, and then felt bad for dragging Carl into my misery with me. What can I say, I feel awful that we struggle, and it's mostly because of me. Starting your own business isn't easy. I could have made it okay on both of us and just gone to school to be a brain surgeon or something. You know, easy money. Just kidddding. Some days, after I tell him I'm going to spend some more money on something glorious like a canvas or a lens, I know he wants to just toss his hands in the air and sacrifice himself to The Federal Reserve or The Credit Reporting Agencies. We capitlize those in our house. Their big players.

Also huge huge huge shout out to my Mommy (yes I still call her Mommy) for all of her help on Saturday. Those of you who were there may have noticed her hanging out with me and going above and beyond to make sure my table was noticed, that people entered the drawing, and that people know HOW PROUD SHE IS of me. Thank you Mommy. I couldn't do any of this without you. Not only did she come with me on Saturday, but she also helped me get multiple frames for basically like a dollar from yard sales, and then painted them black. That's because she's awesome. I also receive text messages from her frequently with ideas and questions such as: why don't you have this this and this picture in your gallery on the new website? You need to put it on there. Now. And she reads my blog. Almost every day.

Also, for those of you that received my e-mail after the walk, apparently there was a misspelling in the subject line. What I don't understand is that it's spelled correctly in my outbox. Go figure. It makes me get a pain in my lower back to think of people going jeez, she doesn't have spell check? I promise it was spelled correctly, but just in case: announcement! LOL.
edited to add: For those of you who don't think typos are hereditary, check out the comments under this post from Mommy. Love you Ma;)

I have some sessions I'm really looking forward to in the next few weeks. I know its going to be a great time :)

Anyway, here is Bear saying HAPPY HUMP DAY
and letting you know he has a huge head.

I know when Carl and his mom read that their going to beat me with a pillowcase full of bars of soap. BRING IT!

little does she know, I'm only testing her to see if she reads my blog. Like when I call her cat the Devil (which, seriously, she is).

ROXANNE!

Hello meet ROXANNE! She is currently up for adoption at the wonderful Animal Welfare Association, and if you think you would be a good match for her and vice versa, you should go adopt her, because she's pretty cool.

ROXANNE! is a two year old Sheppard mix. Let's get the rough stuff out of the way: ROXANNE! prefers to be an only pet. She also should be a home without young children, as she can be mouthy on occasion. Now lets get the stuff that I am downright impressed with out of the way: ROXANNE! can pretty much clear a six foot fence from a standstill. The first time I saw it I was like "nuhhhh uh." So to say the least she needs to be leashed when outside. She is VERY smart and loves to learn. Stuffed toys are her favorite, along with chew bones. ROXANNE! is also drop dead gorgeous. Her favorite volunteer is working very very hard to help her be the best she can be. Can you come and pick up where he leaves off?

Why am I obnoxious and saying ROXANNE! ? Because anyone who even knows The Police song will sing that to her, or at least say her name in that manner. Unfortunatly without uploading a soundbyte of me singing (trust me, your better off) this is as close as I can get. And if your crazy like me, you'll continue on with:

ROXANNE!

You don't have to put on the red light

I loved you since I knew you

I wouldn't talk down to you

I have to tell you just how I feel

I won't share you with another boy

And I'm lucky if I make it that far cause I really don't know the lyrics that well.

Come meet ROXANNE! She's as special as her song :D Plus check out that gorgeous smile.

The WALK!

As I blogged before I attended the Paws and Feet Walk for the Animal Welfare Association today as a vendor. Big shout out to Sue the AWA's awesome director for the awesome photo above!

I HAD SUCH A WONDERFUL TIME!

Overall, I was pretty happy with how my table came out, although I did want another easel in the back, but we wont get into why that didn't happen. Besides the picture frames frequently blowing over (at one point they were in a completely different arrangement), everything was great. I also had my easels in completely different areas at one point, but apparently the wind was much stronger in that exact spot? I have no idea.

I saw SO many amazing dogs, and their owners of course. I'm sure the sounds of squeals followed by "ohmigosharen'tyoujustthecutestEVER?!" was heard from my table so many times the vendors next to me wanted earplugs but I just can't help myself.

It made me think, WOW I want another dog. And then I came home, and there was a CHAIR completely turned over in the living room, along with another massacre in the family room. I looked at that big, wagging tail of death and said, "Maybe just one is enough for a while."

I really enjoyed being around so many people who loved animals as much as I do, and holding conversations about our fur babies.

Excuse the picture heavy post, but I couldn't choose between these ones. At least I didn't upload the whole album, right? If any of the pet owners below are interested in a print, shoot me an e-mail at jenniesloan@comcast.net

And lastly I would like to announce the winners of the free photo session. I was originally only doing one session but I couldn't help myself and decided to do two. Drum roll please.......
Susan S and Sarah M! I'll be shooting you both e-mails a little later!!!

Update: Piper, the Burmese Mountain Dog below is one of the winners! Congratulations Piper and Sue!

Llana update

This is Llana's new favorite place. Someone had moved a chair in the hallway and threw a blanket on it, and she's now claimed it as HER spot. I moved the blanket the other day and she was all you must be kidding. Sorry kiddo. A wonderful friend of my mom's Jane gave us a window perch that her cat wasn't using anymore and she's starting to really love it. Her chunky butt was not fitting on that windowsill alone anymore.

She's officially off of antibiotics. She had three rounds of them and we determined we should give her a break, even though she is still sneezing. Honestly I can't tell if she's doing better, worse, or what. All of that wonderful snot seemed a little bloodier the other day, but I think I was just stressing. She isn't the type of cat that I can really tell if she's having a good day or bad day. With Bear I can tell when he doesn't feel good because he isn't doing the typical BOUNCING OFF OF THE WALLS or shoving something he shouldn't have in the first place in my lap to throw. With her she lays around most of the time anyway so what am I supposed to base this off of? Carl asked if we could take her temperature the other day, and I was like yeah sure but your putting the thermometer in. To say the least once I explained where it went he was past that idea.

We've also started this awesome routine of spraying a saline mixture down her nose. It's great. Really. If anyone wants to come over and experience this miracle themselves, shoot me an e-mail. It would be hard to give this responsibility to anyone else, but I guess I could let go for one round. I tried explaining to her, after I basically tackled her so I could prevent her escape, that this was to HELP HER and she should be HAPPY that someone will take the time to shove this bottle in her face and spray stuff down her nose. No dice.

I mean heck she only gets Interferon and Lysine everyday, what's a little saline four or five times a day?

If we could get some good thoughts sent her way that would be great. I need to get her over this last hurtle. The saline is hopefully going to help heal the burst blood vessels in her nasal cavity. We also have a cool air humidifier going to help keep it moist in there. Her eye looked goopy yesterday too so I'm praying she isn't getting a situation in her eye too. She has enough situations.
Some days I stare at them and think, if I worry about you two this much, how am I ever going to have a human baby?

There is SOME progress. She can actually meow now, versus when she would just open her mouth and nothing would come out. She is using this to her advantage to let me know it's time for breakfast at 5:00AM.

We also worked on fixing Bear's food issue some more. He wasn't doing any better on the dry food with the canned wet food mixed in. Thank you so much everyone who offered suggestions, it was a huge help. On a suggestion from someone I know who works at PetCo, we started mixing in half of a pouch of the Nutro with his food. Did it make a difference? A little. This morning I made the mistake of moving from where I was sitting on the bed to the closet to put laundry away, and that was it, he wasn't eating anymore. He HAD TO KNOW what I was doing. I could be getting ready to do something much more fun than eating. I told him he could always hang clothes and I'll go eat.

I think our next move is to try the fish kibble recipe that Nutro offers. I mean he loves to eat the cat food. And the cat treats. And THE CATNIP!?!?!

5-11-09

Bear would like everyone to have a beautiful Monday.

Lagging

So sorry for being absent. I've been super busy and then as Murphy's law would have it starting having migraines again. They are usually very well controlled with a daily medication and injections for when I have the onset of one, but nothing was helping this past week. It doesn't help that its been raining for about a week now. Hopefully that's over with (the migraine part at least), and I'm pushing forward.

Some news: My new website is up and running! It is still at http://www.jenniesloan.com/ but, in my opinion, looks a lot better! I'm still doing some tweaking, and working on getting the galleries where I want them but overall I'm pretty happy with it. I actually did it myself using a flash template. If you'd like a link to the service I used please shoot me an e-mail.

I will have a table at the AWA Paws and Feet Walk on May 16th at Cooper River Park. Come out and walk for the animals and come see me! I will be doing a drawing for a free photo session and some free prints so be sure to toss your name in!

I am now on Twitter! Lets be buddies and "tweet" about our day to day activities. As before I am still on Myspace.

Llana is doing very well. We are learning all of the rewards, trials, and tribulations that go along with owning an immune deficient cat. She is still improving, and it is like night and day from when I first brought her home. No more coughing, and only sneezing. She likes to aim it right at my pillows or walls so there has been a lot of laundry to do.

I had my own little breakdown this morning. It has been tough having the four of us basically living in that little room (by four I mean Carl, Bear, Llana and myself. And for those of you that are just joining Llana is a cat, not a third person. It gets cramped, and I am constantly battling the smells of the litter box and cat food. Our whole schedule recently changed, as in an effort to get Bear to start eating more regularly we started mixing wet food in with his dry.

I own a weird dog. Bear does not care about eating. There have been many times where I've said "You know Bear there are dogs in Africa who don't have anything to eat." It didn't get through to him though. He does not eat unless someone is with him, and has on occasion gone over a day without touching his food because someone wasn't near the food bowl long enough. In an effort to get him to eat we had dog food bowls on both levels of the house. He also went on a hunger strike the last time we tried to change his food. This lead to the ringworm epidemic in the house, because his immune system wasn't on the same level as usual when I brought home Satan Kitty aka Sophie who was the original Typhoid Mary.

Anyway to make this long story even longer, I woke up to start my morning feeding, which includes mixing Lysine into the grosses smelling cat food EVER, mixing dog food into kibble, microwaving all of it which makes the aroma even better, and wrestling with Llana to give her her Clavamox and Interferon. She thanked me by sneezing in my face. I used to stay in bed for another hour and half after Carl left in the morning before this all started and decided to drag my butt back into bed to try to catch another hour. No dice, because ALL of these animals eat in our bedroom all I heard was chewing, and all I smelled was animal food. I was exhausted from being sick yesterday and decided to have my own little fit, but just as the first tear rolled (I know, uncharacteristically dramatic for me) Bear jumped in bed to spoon with me and Llana curled up on the other side to purr. My lovable lab turned to look into my eyes and breathed a deep sigh right in my face. It was like he was saying "Stop whining buddy, your animals are (for the most part) healthy and happy and so are you." Everything was wonderful and completely worth it.

To make this complete, here is a picture of my very happy Bear Bear standing in his pool. This was before the rain started. Last week.

4-29-09

You know, Bear is a really handsome guy. I wonder if our children will be this gorgeous?

Llana Update

First thing: I FINALLY GOT MY NEW SITE UP AND RUNNING! I'm so excited. It's not *exactly* how I want it, but it looks a heck of alot better! Sweet!

Llana is doing soooo much better. Still sneezing, but it's not as bloody, and she is barely coughing now. I talked to Dr. Stull who generously donates some of his time to the AWA and he agrees with me ten fold that as long as Llana is happy and not extremely symptomatic that we are doing the right thing. We are going to retest her for FeLV, as he confirmed that the test is often not reliable. He is also going to bring in some Interferon for us to give her. This medication has shown alot of promise with helping cats with her diseases.

Here is a picture of her in her new favorite place, which is right next to (if not on top of) the air conditioning vent. I couldn't figure out why it was so incredibly hot in our room the other day, and don't you know there she is, right on top of it. What a goof. Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for when we retest her. Getting rid of that FeLV diagnosis would really improve her prognosis.

Ms Mocha, more than a bag of bones.

This is Mocha. She is less than one year old and looks like this. I don't know her whole story because she came from another shelter, but I do know that she is like this because someone didn't take proper care of her. I wanted to take her home and cuddle with her. She deserves it. Those eyes only show half of how sweet she is.

This beautiful girl is up for adoption at the Animal Welfare Associaton

Dose of Cuteness

Poochie is currently up for adoption at the Animal Welfare Association. This cutie shouldn't last long!!

What...

A wonderful day I'm having.... (Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me.....)

Weird

So this is just another example of how weird things always happen to me:

I'm at my 9-5 when someone starts screaming. Now I work at a bank so someone screaming is never a good thing. I go running and what do I find? A baby bunny. They thought it was a rat.

He was just chillin on the top of the stairs looking at us like "What?" So I chased him down, which took forever, and called the Wildlife Rehabilitator in my area.

She thought I was out of my mind. She goes "So wait... you found a baby bunny. In a bank?"

I hope your in much greener pastures than this asphalt wonderland little guy.

Hi my name is Bear.

And I'm a cat food addict.

Llana update

Well, Llana seems to be steadily improving. Knock on wood, she didn't cough at all yesterday. There was some coughing last night, but maybe it's just like humans; it settles in your chest at night and makes it harder. She seems to be sneezing alot (really chunky ones that she likes to aim right at my walls and entertainment center; aren't you glad I shared?) but I think that it's a sign she's getting all of that gunk out of her. She's brighter and more active, and seems happy. She seems to be a very lazy girl, and has no interest in toys, but maybe that will change once she's feeling 100 percent.

One of her other favorite activities besides laying on the bed is laying on the windowsill (are you seeing a trend here?). I think I'm going to have to invest on one of those windowsill perches so she isn't hanging off. I also would looove to get one of these to hang on my closet door. How cool is this? We've also invested in some claw covers (great humane alternative to declawing, http://www.softpaws.com/) because she's smacked Bear around a few times, and I'm terrified she'll catch him in the eye. Looks like she has tips doesn't it? She has clear on right now, because that's all they had for the store brand, but I'm going to get her red for next time. I put them on my mom in law's cat Sophie (Satan Kitty, take that Rena!) and man was that an experience. She howled and tried to take a chunk out of me the whole time like I was killing her. She's forgotten they're there already, and the furniture is much safer. Llana just sat there and looked at me.
She's a BIG kneader. She loves to lay on our chests and knead right below our neck. The only problem is she doesn't tend to know it's bed time. I woke up at about 3:00am the other night to her kneading the back of my head.

I've run across a few sites that suggest high protein diets are helpful to FIV+ cats and have put her on a high protein food from Blue Buffalo (awesome holistic food) called the Wilderness formula. She eats it like a champ and I think I'm seeing an improvement since we switched. The wet food stiiiiinks though, but it is literally straight up seafood in a can so no wonder. Gag. I looked into a raw diet for all of 10 minutes before I realized my vegetarian self was never going to make it through that process.

Here's a picture of her in her favorite spot. Not a bad improvement from last week.

Tumbles

We took Bear swimming for the first time this year. To say the least he was thrilled. There is a beautiful park about 20 minutes from us called Freedom Park (in Medford for any of you Jersey people looking for a sweet DP). It has huge open fields for the dogs to run in and a creek that you can walk along and the dogs can swim in. Bear takes advantage of the creek more than anything else. What usually happens is as soon as we let him off leash at the entrance he takes off running to the path through the woods. We'll get halfway across the field when we hear a huge splash. He then will come running back out, soaking wet, so he can show us how proud he is of himself. We don't typically know anyone at this park because we aren't there often, but did see one Dog Mommy who had six (I'm pretty sure it was six) dogs, two of which were three legged. One of her super cuties is pictured above. Carl smirked at me and said "yeah, that's us in five years." At least he knows there's nothing he can do about it right?

Now I was sitting on a ledge that overlooks the creek for the first 20 or so minutes. Then I got this really bright idea that I needed to go down to the creek bank so I could get a better view. I was kind of out of it (at least that's my excuse) and decided that instead of getting up and walking down the really easy incline about 15 feet away, I was going to climb down the steep incline in front of me. Now, the *wet* dogs run up and down this constantly so it's really muddy + I'm in flip flops. I think you know where this is going.

This is how Carl retells this story: All I heard was EEEP and turned to see you sliding down in the mud right towards the water. Your right arm was stretched to the max above your head so your camera wasn't in the line of fire. (this story is usually followed by alot of laughter, and has been told multiple times to embarrass me.)

Do you think the jerk came over to help me? No, he couldn't stop laughing long enough. I just stood in the creek for the rest of the time we were there. I figured I was wet anyway.

The picture below, of the border collie in almost parallel position, is the incline I slid down. Cute, huh? Let me tell you what, I didn't care what happened, my camera was NOT hitting that mud/water.

Well I'm off to bed. Actually to lay in bed, because it is entirely too hot in our room for any normal human being to sleep. Ugh. Look for an update on Llana tomorrow. No worries, it's good news.