Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Author Archives: dawnkinster


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Sheltie speak

Hey everybody! Katie here!

I know, I know. Today is Wednesday, and so I’m supposed to be wordless. I don’t know who thought up that stupid rule, but let me tell you, this girl has never been wordless in her whole life. And I’m not going to start now!

Mama? Can we please go on another walk?

Actually I don’t really have much to say, being that I hardly ever get to go anywhere anymore, except the vet or the groomer, and those are not places you want to hear about! Or maybe you do?

They’re not going to weigh me are they? Cause I’ve put on a couple pounds.

Really? Well, OK then.

This past week I went to a new groomer. You know how I used to go to my groomer Nicole, I’ve been going to her since I was a baby. And then this weird covid thing happened and her groomer place wasn’t open. So after months and months of no baths or nail trims mama was getting sort of desparate and she asked on her neighborhood FB thing if anyone was a groomer and would be willing to take care of me under the radar…and I went to see Jessica.

Mama….do I look round to you?

Jessica was really nice and the good thing was that I’d get an actual appointment and not have to be dropped off at the beginning of the day and picked up at the end of the day like at Nicole’s. I only had to be in the scary place an hour. And it was pretty close to where we lived so mama liked it. I went to Jessica for over a year.

But Jessica didn’t really listen to mama. Mama likes my furs long and flowy. She loves to watch me walk with all my fur blowing in the wind. Jessica would nod her head and then when mama picked me up in an hour I looked like a tough street kid with short spiky fur! Everybody thought I was cute in the short cut, but mama was frustrated.

I don’t know…I guess it’s a look.

Then Deuce’s mom (you remember Deuce, my cocker spanial friend?) started taking Ace, his little brother, to a groomer right here in my very own town!

Deuce and I went for a walk while Ace was at the groomer, but it was so cold and windy the moms made us go back home.

She had high praise for this groomer, cause Ace, who has only just turned 2 and is a real handful, has a thick heavy coat, sort of like mine, and he takes a lot of maintaining. Kinda like….well….me.

A couple weeks ago mama took me to meet Tracy and to get my nails and feet done.

She only did my nails this time, but I still got a bandana.

And last week mama got a full grooming appointment for me. Mama dropped me off and went home to do some vacuuming in peace. Tracy, the new groomer, sent mama pictures of me and asked if she should take off more or leave parts of me longer. Mama appreciated that.

I was cute but not really feeling the pink floof.

OK, I came home with silly pink things in my furs, but at least I had some furs left! Mama likes Tracy a lot, and I like that I didn’t have to stay there very long, and that the car ride was really short. Cause lately when I get put in the car I go to scary places, so I’m sorta not liking car rides so much any more.

Ah….I remember the old days when mama and I used to go on long car rides and stop at lots of rest stops with great smells, and sleep out under the stars and run on the ocean beach, and walk among old growth pines and hang out on my lake house deck and explore the world and meet new friends.

Me and my Florida friends in 2018!

Yep. I remember those days. I sure miss doing fun stuff like that, but I appreciate mama and daddy taking me out on short walks around the neighborhood whenever I ask. And I ask frequently, cause let me tell you it’s boring here in the house!

Mama, me and my shadow going for a walk this week.

Mama’s been feeling a bit stircrazy too and she says if I stick around until spring she’ll set the tent up in the backyard and we can sleep under the stars again. I can’t wait, I hope spring hurries up and comes! But mama says I shouldn’t wish the days away, cause there are only just so many.

What you talkin’ about, mama?

Sometimes mama is a little obtuse, you know? I think I’ll go take a nap while she wipes her eyes. Darn woman is just so leakey-eyed these days. She never used to be like this, I don’t know what I’m going to do with her.

I guess I’ll sign off for now, mama will have to figure herself out on her own.

Sometimes a girl just has to take a nap

Your perfectly coiffed princess,

Katie.

Don’t forget to wake me up for supper!

PS: Mama says she’s sorry about the quality of the images…most of them are from her phone. She hardly ever takes me on photo shoots with her big camera anymore. She says she can’t give me treats, and so she doesn’t think it’s fair for me to have to pose for free. Plus it’s cold out there.

Mama is a wimp.

Mama and me.


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Jump right in.

I’ve been painting the little cards that I send off in batches of 5 to a nonprofit who distributes them to seniors in Michigan assisted living and nursing home residents, I get attached to almost every painting and it’s hard to put them into envelopes and mail them off. It’s kind of like they are my kids or something.

I need to start working on spring stuff again.

Before I mail them I like to just look at them, and I always take a picture before they go. I’m often surprised that I painted them, but other times it’s painfully clear that I did them, though most of the time I send them on anyway. I know how much it means to get a note in the mail, and most people won’t be offended if the artwork isn’t up to par.

Did these in January for Valentines. I think I did 10 of them.

Because, really, who decides what’s par anyway?

The nonprofit I make these for is called Bring Smiles to Seniors, and it sends cards all across the United States. I work with the Michigan chapter, because that’s where I live. But I know there’s a big chapter in Florida too, as well as smaller groups in the other states.

These just went to the seniors. Sometimes I do images a second time, so some of you might recognize something in here.

They take handmade cards that are donated by individuals and groups, and get them into the hands of people who could really use a smile. Check them out if you make cards and are looking for an outlet for your art. Your art doesn’t have to be watercolor. It can be anything at all, stamping, collage,pencil, anything that will make someone smile.

Still love to do birds.

But I really meant to blog about a tiny bit of branching out that I did. Something a little bigger than the greeting cards I’ve been painting since the pandemic began. This is a 5×7 piece, done from a reference photo I stole from a friend’s Facebook page a couple years ago.

I loved the color of her coat and boots and especially the hat.

I didn’t have enough confidence to try it back then, but I loved it when I saw the image on her page and thought it would make a really lovely painting. It’s her granddaughter, walking among the pines on one of their many adventures up north.

At the beginning of 2022 I began to think about trying to reproduce some version of the image. I always knew I’d mail it to my friend, regardless of how it turned out. It’s the thought that counts. Right?

Might even start to do some summer stuff. Even if there IS 5 inches of snow on the ground today.

But oh the pressure! To do something bigger, something specific to someone. And to do a person, even if it’s just the back of a person! All of those things made it very difficult to start.

These, done last fall, were much easier!

Why is it that we so often don’t want to start, in fear of failing. Of wasting a piece of paper and a little bit of paint? I did a practice painting in my sketch book and it wasn’t bad. So I took a deep breath and just began.

And I’m mostly pretty happy with it. Of course, like any piece, there are things I’d do differently, things I hope no one notices. But that’s true of any piece of art.

And in the end, it fulfilled a number of goals. One was to make my friend smile. Another was for me to try something different. And a third goal was to realize it’s just paper…dont worry, jump in!

From this past Christmas.

Today I encourage you all to take some time for yourself and jump into something you love to do. Or something you’ve always wondered if you’d love.

The experience will make you smile. Guaranteed.


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Owl….no barn…no owl…hunt

Sunday morning, in preparation for the Super Bowl, I left home with my camera.

Multiple barns make for an efficient shot.

OK. So maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the Super Bowl, maybe it was just me wanting to get out of the house for a little bit. With a camera and nowhere specific to go.

Artsy-fartsy sun on pole. No owl.

A friend had told me about a snowy owl that she’s seen a few times over near Katie’s vet. Lots of open fields and telephone poles out that way so I figured maybe I would finally see a snowy owl if I headed in that direction.

So I did.

Barn with multiple additions.

And I might have seen one. Something kind of large flew directly over the car, while I was still on the freeway. I only caught a glimpse of the underside, the same color as the light grey sky, it blended into the nothingness above me and then disappeared. It might have been a hawk. But it felt more round than a hawk in flight would be.

Starting to snow again.

Anyway, when I got to the town nearest the vet I entered a pretty heavy snow squall. It was hard to see anything, and I was trying to figure out if I should just turn around and go home. How in the world would I see a white owl in a blizzard?

Hard to see a white barn in a blizzard too.

I crept along, passed Katie’s vet and turned south on the next big road, looking for the small rural road she said the owl had been seen on. It seemed sort of far, and figuring I had missed it, I stopped looking at the street signs just about the time I passed the road.

Darn it all.

But sometimes it was sunny.

So I drove on to the next road and a place to turn around. But what was that over there? A very nice barn? Well, might be I should just go over there first and then go back and find that owl road.

White barn, white fence, white snow.

And up there at the next, quite far away, corner, well that looks like a good barn too. And wait, over there, I need to see what’s over there for sure. Good thing the snow let up.

White on white.

And that’s how it went. On my way back to the road that might or might not have an owl I kept finding more barns. And the snow came and went.

Still pretty.

Sometimes on the left would be sunshine and blue sky while on the right a blizzard raged.

Another version of red, white and blue.

I eventually did wander down the road I had originally intended to explore. Never did see an owl of any color. Saw a couple turkeys cross the road, but they didn’t want their pictures taken.

Such a pretty farm.

And then I turned a corner and saw the sweetest little barn with a dormer. Something niggled at me and then I remembered. I’d been by this exact barn about a month ago. I had no idea where I was by then, but I knew if I was repeating barns it was time to head for home.

Why do you look so familiar?

I have to say this adventure was mostly a barn hunt on which I might have seen a snowy owl float overhead for a moment. In fact I think I’ll just say that’s what it was.

Yep. I saw a snowy owl on Sunday, and I got home in time to watch the game too.

Last year’s corn, this year’s snow.

Win/win


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Remembering Bonnie

The last couple days I’ve been thinking about Bonnie, our sheltie-girl who lived with us before Katie. She had an entirely different life with us than Katie has. Not bad different, just different.

Going for a walk.

The only school she went to was puppy school, where she was mostly shy, but very smart. She threw up on the ride over to school most weeks. I’d arrive with a damp, smelly puppy and jeans soaked in puppy vomit. Regularly. When we got to the distance sit/stays she was so scared she slowly turned around until her back was to me as I stood on the other side of the school gym. The instructor said to me, “Well, she certainly hasn’t bonded with you!” Yet, at the end of the class she won 1st place in our mock obedience trial. Because she was a very good girl and had, in fact, bonded with me just fine.

She had lots of health problems. Born with a heart murmur, she had occasional seizures and was on meds for that her entire life. She had a toe amputated, and her tail, too, after it was injured durng a stay at a kennel. Through it all she soldiered on.

Near the end of her life, hanging out on the front porch.

She was lost for four days once, when she was staying with her favorite Grandpa Jack and got out of the house when no one was paying attention. Bruce and I were out of town and Grandpa Jack didn’t tell us she’d run away until we got home. Devestated didn’t begin to describe us and him. Luckily we got her back after signs were put up in the neighborhood and a woman called to say Bonnie had been hanging around in a vacant lot several streets away from Grandpa’s house.

Hanging out in the office with her mom.

She got lost for a little while here at home, too, when she chased a cat into the woods behind our house and I couldn’t find her. Turns out we hadn’t realized she had become deaf, so she didn’t come when we called for her out there in the woods. My husband found her sitting in a clearing waiting for us to come get her.

I called her my sweetie-girl because she was. Except the three times she got skunked. She never needed to be on a leash, we let her out to do her business at night, and sometimes she got involved with the visiting black and white kitties. Oh the smell! I can tell you with certainty that tomato juice does not take away the smell of skunk. It does, however, give you a smelly, wet orange dog.

The driveway was a good spot to survey her kingdom too.

She was a special little girl who died three months shy of her 15th birthday, here at home exactly 15 years ago today. I wrote about her last afternoon with us way back when I began this blog. Today I went back to the blog to find out when she died, because she’s been on my mind.

Imagine my surprise to find today was the anniversary.

She never went camping, never explored a park, didn’t go traveling, never really liked being in a car. What she really liked was being home with her people. I guess she’s been hanging around my heart and my mind these past few days because she wants me to know she’s still here. Of course she is. She never ever wanted to be anywhere else.

Love you forever Bon-bon, my sweetie-girl.

Me and my girl.


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More snow?

Those of you living in warmer climates would probably like to see more snow photos, right? Since my retirement I can attest to the fact that snow is better viewed from behind windows than windshields.

I always think that wet, clingy snow like this shows off patterns we never notice other times of the year.

Similarly I bet snow is better viewed from a beach in, say, Alabama, than from the deck of a home here in Michigan. And since I didn’t want you to miss the exquisit beautify of life here after a snowstorm, I figured I better get to it and post a few more before springs drops on us.

“Do you think they’ll pay us extra to pose for next year’s Christmas card?”

Because this is the time of year that I am fooled, every single year, into believing that spring is right around the corner. Even when I look outside and there’s nothing but snow as far as my eye can see.

“It’s hard to commute back to my nest when my freeway is snow covered.”

We have had sunshine the past two days, which in itself fools a person into thinking winter is almost over. After weeks and weeks of grey skies I felt like I needed to take the camera and go somewhere, anywhere, just to get outside.

Room for everybody at this diner.

But I needed to feed Katie her lunch and then take her outside before I left her for a few hours. And of course on our walk I saw this.

They blended right into the vines as they enjoyed lunch and the sun.

And of course then I had to hurry her back to the house, grab the camera and go back to the robin tree (which is actually a dead tree covered in bittersweet vine) which was shining in early afternoon light.

Nom, nom, nom.

And by the time I got done taking those it was getting sort of late to go on any big adventure, so I settled in to process the robin images, and that ended up being my big photo shoot for the day.

Red, white and blue.

Next week I have meetings and appointments almost every day. And of course who knows if we’ll have sun again any time soon. It’s hard to say if I’ll have another opportunity in the near future to run away for a few hours with the camera.

But since I know it will be spring soon I’m not too worried.

Sometimes there’s only time to run away down your own street.

Yep. Next week or the week after I’m sure I’ll be seeing little green nubs pushing up in my gardens. Though at the moment I can’t actually see my gardens since they’re buried under the snow.

Home sweet home.

But it won’t be long. I just know it.

“You better be right about spring, lady. I’ve about had it with this snow.”


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Reporting in

Katie here.

I’ve heard through the grapevine (OK, from mama) that some of you are wondering how I’m doing. I guess mama gets worried and writes stuff and then you guys get all worried too. Mama says it helps to share her worry, cause sometimes she gets overwhelmed by all the ‘what ifs.’

My backyard during the ‘storm of the century!’

Mama says sometimes she looks at me and wonders if I’m still happy, or if I’m hurting but not telling her. Or maybe she’s just too blind to see. But I have to ask you all….do I LOOK like there’s something wrong?

I love snow!

I thought not.

But of course you all know there is. I’m in stage 4 of kidney disease. I’m eating the special food and taking all my meds like a good girl, but you can’t change the fact that I’ve got an incurable disease.

I got my toes trimmed and the nice groomer gave me a scarf!

But let me remind you that I’m fifteen now, and that’s a good old age for any sheltie-girl, even a princess like me. Of course I’d love to live to be 17 or 18 like mama sees sometimes on Facebook, but honestly? Only if I still felt like a puppy, and I don’t think that’s possible.

Yes mother, I know I’m not supposed to be eating the birdseed under the feeder.

As it is I sleep a lot, and I have some trouble getting up and down because my hips are stiff. Mama and daddy have talked about this with the vet and I’ve got some meds for that, but the meds seem to make me unsteady and sometimes I can’t get up off the floor at all!

Sometimes after a good walk a girl needs to take a nap.

Mama says I look like a beached seal, flapping all my legs trying to get them under me. But she’s not laughing when she rushes to pick me up. Once I get my feet back under me I’m just fine and I usually ask her for some lunch. Or at least a snack.

They took me back off the meds and will discuss all of this at my vet appointment next week. Mama and Daddy are really hoping my numbers aren’t getting worse. I hope they’re getting better, but mama says that isn’t likely. Well. A girl can dream, right?

Mama says she’s really happy that I’m getting to experience all this snow.

Meanwhile I’m pretty happy most of the time, so don’t worry about me. Mama and daddy are taking real good care of me, and in return I’m being my normal annoying demanding self. I figure it’s my responsibility to uphold the princess job description.

Royalty always carries on, and I’m definitely the one most royal in my family. I’ll have my staff keep you up to date on my progress.

Heading back to the house, following my own footprints home.

And thank you all for the kind thoughts and notes that mama gets. They help a lot especially when she’s having a bad day. She should learn from me to take each day as it comes.

Can we go on another walk mama?

You’d think after fifteen years she’d know to follow my lead. Silly mama.


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Musing Wordle words

I am terrible at Scrabble, I can never come up with words within my set of tiles. I can’t do crossword puzzles either, though my mother loved them.

And then along came Wordle.

The latest storm of the century happened here this week.

In case you’ve been living in total isolation (in which case you’re not reading this anyway) you’ve seen the game, or read articles about the phenomenon it’s become.

People around the world are figuring out the 5 letter word of the day, through a process of guesses and elimination. There are any number of ‘best’ strategies, most centered on how to choose your first word, from which you will, hopefully, discover the final word.

Hanging on for spring.

I haven’t read any of the articles; I think doing so would take the fun out of the experience. But I will tell you why playing Wordle is fun for me.

It’s fun because there’s no time pressure, nobody else is waiting for me to make my move. I can take my time and methodically work through all the available letters. I can consider different combinations at my leisure, ponder on it for half a day if I want to. Consider my next move. And when I am successful I get to share my success (but not the word) with all my friends. For me the sharing is the icing on the game.

Focused on something.

And there’s something interesting about knowing that thousands of people are all looking for words along with you. All kinds of people are taking time off from their regular life to discover one word. Across this country and around the world people are focused, for a few minutes, on something as simple as a word

The same word. We’re all thinking about, stratigizing over, smiling or frowning over the same word. It kind of makes me feel connected, and in these lingering times of isolation, that’s a good thing.

Not looking for words,lady, but I could use some lunch please.

But I swear there’s a novel waiting to be written based on the way this game has spread, in the way someone is manipulating us all to find a single word each day. Somewhere, in the far reaches of my brain, I wonder how it could be used in a story of suspense, if the one word each day could begin to change people’s opinions, or thought processes, or even behaviors. Or maybe the daily words are a series of hints to some horrible event that will end the world unless someone figures it all out and saves us all.

It can stop snowing now.

The thing about this game that I like the most, that everybody’s headed for the same word, is the thing that makes me feel a little creepy once in awhile. Especially if it’s a weird word that might have several meanings or connotations. I imagine some guy in a dark lab somewhere chortling over his choice of words, anticipating a whole society gasping in shock when they figure it out.

Oh, but all this is ridiculous. People would have to be addicted to playing the game. The game would have to be run by some huge mastermind. There would have to be sinister intent not readily visible to the regular folks playing the harmless game.

Waiting his turn at the breakfast bar.

Since I’m not into conspiracy theories, I’m going to just enjoy finding the word each morning and cheering my friends on when they find it in fewer guesses than me. And when the New York Times starts charging for the game I’ll move on to the next craze.

But for now I think it’s kind of cool that people are focused on words.

Looking for patterns.

How about you? Are you playing or have you resisted the temptation?