my loves

I spent yesterday home sick (blah), so – for the first time in quite a while – I didn’t work. (i.e. I didn’t go in to the office/day job, and didn’t work at home on my photography to-do list that’s a mile long.) It was weird for me. I rarely ever do that. But my body was telling me to chill the heck out for once… so I kept my butt in bed nearly the entire day.

Turns out that laying in bed dozing in and out of sleep all day creates quite a lot of time to think, contemplate, and reflect on life. And through all this thinking, contemplating and reflecting, my mind kept coming back to two things…. my loves – James and Phoenix.

As most of you know who are friends of mine over on facebook, Phoenix hasn’t been feeling so fabulous lately. I know, I know – she’s old. It’s bound to happen. She walks more slowly. She has less energy… yada yada yada. But the change James and I saw in her over the past week or was such a drastic one that it threw our entire little world off its axis.

She was refusing to eat practically anything and was throwing up nearly every day. It was to the point that she wouldn’t take more than a bite or two of her dog food and was refusing any treats, bones, and even cheese. (She loves cheese!)

Finally we got so desperate for her to just put (and keep) something in her poor little belly – that we fed her everything she would accept from us. You can probably guess what happened next…. yup – she ended up throwing it all up later on. (And let me tell you – corned beef dog puke is not pretty. Especially when you just ate a reuben sandwich for lunch. That’s the last thing you want to see. Was that too much information? I’m sorry.)

We found our little pup who used to only need to go out twice a day needing to go out 4-5 times a day. She was waking us up at 4am to go outside, or to throw up, or just wandering aimlessly around the house. It was an exhausting week, to say the least. But at the same time I felt like it brought James and I together. Rather than getting snippy with each other over any of the circumstances or lack of sleep – we gravitated towards each other for comfort.

I’d find him laying in bed chatting to Phoenix about who knows what. I’d hear him trying to get her to eat something before I was out of bed in the morning. Maybe it’s a weird thing to say – but I started to picture James as a dad – doing all these sweet things for our kids some day… comforting them, kissing them on the forehead, checking up on them, feeding them… And even though this week has been hard – that thought has given me peace somehow through all of it. Because I realize the day will come when Phoenix won’t be around (she is almost 14, after all), but picturing our future together – knowing that we will still have each other (and hopefully more than that… hopefully little ones too…) brings me hope and calm.

. . .

And you know I can’t leave you without photos of my loves… so here they are:

(James might kill me if he knew I was posting this pic on my blog – but I can’t help it! haha I was laying on the couch when he got home from the gym yesterday and I glanced in the kitchen while he was blending up his protein shake and I couldn’t get over the light! It was shining in the kitchen window, creating the perfect rim light, and then reflecting off the wall over the sink back into his face. See, even when I’m trying to get some rest and not think about photography, I really can’t help it. Beautiful light will always scream at me, “Take a picture!” haha. So I did. And he was so nice about it – even though he was just home from the gym, still in his sweats and wearing a headband. LOL. And that’s why I love this man! That, and he’s pretty darn cute.)

I hope you all have fabulous weekends with your loves – whoever/whatever they may be. XOXO!