Hello to all my friends and contacts. I realize that it has been a really long time since my last post, which has brought me to a decision. I am going to leave "My Place of Relaxation" here and post things going on that do not involve my jewelry. I will be doing a new blog for my jewelry and will keep you posted once I have it up and running.
It has been a very busy time for me since my husband and I decided (with much prayer and consideration!) to send our daughter to public school. I have homeschooled from the beginning and would have begun 3rd grade this year. Therefore, Gab had never set foot in a public school before and I was really apprehensive about this decision but decided to trust God and let her go. The experience so far has been wonderful! She is having a little bit of difficulty adjusting to a few students not following the rules and her being the rule police! But all in all she is doing extremely well. She is acing all of her subjects (thank God since that would have been a reflection on me!) and brought home all A's on her first Midterm! She was also given an assessment along with all of the others in the elementary school and scored above average. She lets us know when it is time to go to bed so that she will get enough sleep for school the next day. She LOVES school and being around children on a daily basis. I stay on top of the curriculum that she is being taught and stay in touch with her teacher. I can even email her during the day to get status! I could not do that with my adult children when they were in school! Of course, we still do our Chris Centered foundation building at home since that is not the schools responsibility to begin with.
That has freed me up to get some things done that have been put off through the years because I took my homeschooling very seriously. I started with our recording studio and repair shop. That took approximately a month! Still need to paint but it is now organized. Then I hit the storage areas. We have two upstairs on each end of the house and one in the hallway upstairs. I never knew what a pack rat we were until I went to organize these areas. That took an entire weekend! Needless to say we are Fall cleaning!
Pets - This was Blackie 
Last week was not a good week for me! I am an animal lover and I have/had 12 dogs, 4 cats, and two fish. My 15-yr. old dog (Blackie) developed vestibular syndrome last November and due to the fact that he was blind had a very difficult time trying to recover. For about a week there I had to give him water with a syringe and feed him by hand. He eventually got to the point that he could drink and eat on his own but still had the head tilt that accompanies the syndrome. Well, ever since we had all of the dogs vaccinated last month he had been declining. Thurs. afternoon we had to say good bye to Blackie. This was very difficult for me. Then we noticed that his son whom is 12 is showing some of the same symptoms. Beaty still has his sight so far though. And then on the same Thurs. morning we had to take the newest kitten for the second round of vaccines. By Sat. he was lethargic and would not eat. He is finally beginning to act like himself today. Now, with all of that being said and knowing that my 4 cats are inside and all of the dogs are contained in a fenced in front and back yard, needless to say I will no longer support vaccines! I will do the rabies since that is required by law but I would advise all of you pet owners to do the research on the vaccines before you subject you pet to them again. My oldest cat that was 22 years old in Aug. has been to the vet three times in his entire life. We also feed them all holistic food which we purchase from "Animal Supply House" here in the Carolinas. You may also want to do research on the foods that you are feeding your pets. Some of these foods are made with animals that have been euthanized and they are all taken to a place where they are used as food. This includes any collars they had on, any flea preventative that may have been used on the pet etc. The list goes on...........
Many Blessings To You All,
Sam
