Goodbye Archie Boy

Such a sad thing happened over the summer school holidays. Our pup that we recently got had some relapses with his autoimmune disease. He was going ok on his medication, but really was never the same dog since initially getting sick when he was just 17 weeks old. I've only just now got to the stage where I can share this here.

Archie-boy days before another relapse

I won't go into the sad details of what happened, all I will say is that when we weighed up everything, and thinking about what the future would hold for him, we decided to have him forever put to sleep, soon after some new medical issues presented themselves at the tender age of 6 months.

That day required some serious emotional eating by all involved in the form of various flavours of ice cream.

Archie in emergency when he first got sick

I painted this artwork to work through some emotions I was feeling surrounding the whole experience. The painting initially read "Will it be ok", and I painted over some of the words for it to read, "It will be ok." It's like I worked through some emotions from the beginning of the painting to the end. The painting is filled with texture and layers to symbolise the depth of our lives and emotions. The spikey bits represent those challenges we face every now and then. The painting is filled with shapes symbolic of happier, calmer times too.

When I was painting this I was asking the universe some pretty unanswerable questions, as we have had some grief surrounding us with close friends and losses and challenges they are going through at the moment.

I don't know what the answers are except that we just try to do our best, and get up each morning and put one foot in front of the other.

***

We thought Archie's last day was in this photo below when he had a particularly bad relapse, but we managed to get a bit more time with him. Since getting sick he always had gunky eyes, and his nose was always dry, yet dripping constantly and under his chin was always wet due to the medication making him so thirsty. I have no idea if he was in constant pain, but I suspect from his lack of activity, he wasn't doing too well.

I'm still trying to work through all this, and I get that he was "just a dog", but I really didn't cope well with it at all. In some ways, it was harder saying goodbye to him than my two previous older dogs, who I know had come to the end of their lives. I was left with no residual anger or guilt when their times were up; just the grief.

Archie really did tick all the boxes for us as a dog and we were over-the-moon happy with him. It took me a long time to bring another dog into our lives, out of fear of what we'd get, and I was so relieved when Archie came along. He was perfect. (Except for perhaps the leg humping, which he never did again after getting sick but we would have gladly welcomed back!)

Now, we are in the same boat again. We really do want to share our lives with a dog and have a pup grow up with our animal-loving kids. But I'm fearful of what we'll get! I just need to trust that the right dog will come to us eventually :)

Happier days - pre auto-immune disease

Our lives were enriched for a short time by having this precious boy with us. I feel bad for my girls who went through this journey alongside us, but I suppose there are some life lessons in there for them. 

I have made him a memorial stone and he has joined our previous dogs Bender and Leela in a section at the back of our garden. (This project can also be found as a free tutorial which you can find here: DIY pet memorial stone)

Goodbye Archie-boy. We loved you to the moon and back and we hope you're having a humping, I mean "twirking", good time in doggy heaven.

Jules.

A Late Christmas Post & Update

Helloooo!

I have been very quiet again here, sorry! I thought I'd do a belated Christmas post, showing the decoration I made for Christmas 2017, which is now last year.

Gluten free macadamia & current shortbreads that were a hit! Seriously, healthy food is yummy!

We decided to stay home this year instead of driving here there and everywhere to see family. But, I wasn't getting out of any work as people came to us instead. I kind of forgot about that part! Lucky I have a great Mum who came and helped me with everything, and family members also all brought something to share, which lightened the workload.

For my Christmas display above the table, I placed a plank of wood on top of my hanging Morrocan style light. I used some greenery from the garden and tied it all on securely with string.

I hung felt stars that were previously made for a craft tutorial I did recently. I draped second-hand necklaces around the branches, then twisted some little battery operated lights around it all. 

I had a bag of pearl beads and I set the kids to work threading them and hung them up too. Putting the kids to work makes jobs like these easier, and they love helping me with projects like this. They enjoyed choosing the different colour combinations of the beads.

Christmas was fun and pretty relaxing. Except for the trampoline that a certain delivery company couldn't deliver to us in time, but it all worked out ok, the kids were very happy with what they received Christmas morning, and the trampoline was basically a replacement for the old rusty one we already had in the backyard. We have since received our new trampoline and the kids are very happy!

We had a second round of people over for New Years, and I made my husband fill two buckets with concrete and branches for me to string lights between. I will have to take a photo of that to share.

I have been a little absent lately as our new puppy got very, very sick. I have been dealing with vets and doing lots of research and have a whole protocol of things I am doing for him. We nearly lost him. Twice. He seems to be on the improve now though, so fingers crossed we are through the worst of it and that he will be ok! Here he is enjoying the swing at the local park :) He is a dag :) He had immune mediated polyarthritis, meningitis, and signs pointing to immune mediated thrombocytopenia where basically your platelets are attacked and you start bleeding internally. The arthritis was an immune attack on his own body. He is not 100% as he went through a lot and is now on medication. We suspect his puppy vaccinations were the cause or trigger. It's been an awful experience and a very expensive one too. 

And see my nails in the above photo? We have really got into nail painting these school holidays! Here are some bunny nails I did for my eldest, courtesy of Pinterest searching!

A project I have begun work on is a chicken coop reno!! Here's a sign I have painted for above the front door. We need more nesting boxes and perches so I am going to get Jim to do those, but I have a few plans for doing up the girls' space with a touch of colour. After all, they do need some prettiness to lay their eggs, right!?

Hope you've enjoyed my update. Happy New Year to you all and I'm looking forward to 2018 being a super creative year!

Jules :)

Happenings...

Hello! My book project is nearly done, so I will be back babbling on here again in no time. I am dreaming up lots of outdoor crafty projects, as I want to get outside and away from the computer now that the weather is warming up. I'm thinking mosaics! And cement! I have caught the cementing bug :)

We have mostly an Australian native garden here but I still manage to find some colour for a vase

Spring has arrived in the land down under and it is a sight for sore eyes. I think the winter just gone was the coldest ever, or maybe it's just that I'm getting older? I'm not built for the cold.

Another reason for getting outside more is this little guy:

Meet Archie! The cheeky fluff- ball bundle of mayhem! Our newest family member.

And in honour of our not-too-long-ago-passed previous fur babies, I have finally made them memorial stones for their graves in the backyard. That was a project I'd been meaning to do for a long time. I have made it into a tutorial too, as I couldn't find instructions online specifically for what I wanted, so stay tuned for that one.

Another thing that's been taking up a lot of my time is cooking. Miss 6 has been put on a special diet by her integrative doctor which is similar to the paleo/ gaps way of eating. I'd go into why, but don't really want to get into finer details but I will say that I think functional/ integrative medicine is the way of the future! I'm doing the diet too as I just feel so much better when I eat this way. I do it mainly to tackle some niggling health issues that I have. I always believe in addressing the root cause of issues and asking the question "why?" Because I'm never satisfied with "it just is." :)

The authors healed ailments such as eczema and OCD through diet, and this just fascinates me no end.

My favourite cook book at the moment Life Changing Food

Mmmm veggie seaweed crackers and baba ganoush- from the book

Gluten free sausage rolls with homemade tomato sauce (both in the book) with a side serve of steamed cabbage and kombucha

I just wish I could eat this way and not have to make all of it. And the dishes are mountainous! I've started asking the kids to help me with washing up, and they can earn a bit of pocket money on the side.

So combined with puppy mayhem (it's like having a baby again!), masses of cooking, and the kids book I've been working on, things got a little crazy busy. I'm looking forward to chilling out a bit more in the warmer weather and focussing on what's important, and not trying to do everything and be everything to everyone. I think as mama's or even women we can easily get stuck in that trap, until we realise we must do some tweaking for everyone's sanity and ease back on some things. Hence the break from the blog. And I decided, that was OK.

Here's another little snippet from the book:

This dog is quite small within the illustration I did for this page, but I'm interested in enlarging parts I've done so I can see individual line marks and colours. I love seeing brush stories and paint marks.

I'm at the stage now where I'm touching up and editing images, so... nearly there.

Catch you soon,

Jules :)