A Little Garlic

PutterHave you heard of Dogster? It's an online community for dog lovers to blog about their pets. 

Each of our four dogs (Putter, Bella, Lily and Kalli) has their own dog page. And much like mine, their blogs are infrequently updated!  I tend to update them once a year, and it's usually on a weekend when it's either really cold or raining and I'm looking for something to do other than laundry.  ;0

You can search Dogster for dogs by city, and by today's count there are 47 dog blogs from Paducah (of course, four of those are mine).  Here's Putter's Dogster page, which has photo links to our other three fur babies. 

If you're not a dog person, there's also Catster.   And I have to confess I have four cats too, but no cat blogs. (But I won't tell them if you won't!). 

And don't even mention the word "cat" to Patience's whippets...they're still barking among themselves about the "award featuring their 'servant' photographed with a cat."  

So Patience, my Dogs completely understand those misgivings...they think cats are for chasing, not worthy of sleeping in their bed and shouldn't be allowed in the same room as Dogs. "Dogs rule to chase."  But that's their philosophy, not ours.  In "Evansville," Bill and I [think we] are the supreme rulers of Dogs and cats, so the "no cat chasing" rule applies.  And Dogs hate that rule.  But cats love it. 

However, squirrels are "every squirrel for himself" based on Lily's rule (check out Lily's page on Dogster).  And since no Dog has caught a squirrel, we can live with Lily's rule...for now.  The cats, well we're teaching Dogs a prayer we say at bedtime that begins with, "We Dogs love cats and we promise not to chase them.  Amen."  We'll have to work with them on the squirrels.

Dogster and Catster are free of charge unless you want to upgrade your pages with "bells and whistles." There are also lots of breed-specific forums to join if you want to get involved in their online communities.  And you can search for adoptable pets by breed and location!

KalliI actually found Kalli on a Dogster search last summer for adoptable pets. She was a rescue living in Oklahoma, and was about one year old.  She's a pug mix, but we suspect the "mix" is daschund because she has very short legs, wide feet and a long body...but she's quite cute and personable!  Kalli and Lily, our other pug mix, are what I refer to as "puglets."  Pugs of unknown histories....

Bill reluctantly drove to Oklahoma to pick up Kalli (he didn't really want any more dogs as we already had Putter, Bella and Lily).  But he was already visiting friends in Arkansas when I adopted her over the Internet, so it was a fairly short detour west for him to pick her up and bring her "forever" home.

Please note, we had to pass a thorough pet-adoption screening before we could adopt her which included vet referrals and committing to keep her as an inside pet, yearly shots, monthly heartworm medicine and flea/tick topical treatments.  Also, Kalli was spayed before we picked her up.

The funny thing is that she somehow imprinted on Bill during the 10-hour drive back to Paducah and now she's "his" dog.  Kalli shadows him everywhere. She even snoozes on top of the couch behind his neck while he watches television.  She'll occasionally leave his side to find me for a quick cuddle, and then's she's gone to find Bill.  And don't let him fool you -- he loves every minute of it! 

I received the following news release today from my friend and colleague Dr. Darryl Armstrong.

ARMSTRONG & Associates is a behaviorial public relations firm in Eddyville, Ky. that provides services in the areas of public and community involvement, website design, behavioral management consulting, reputation and crisis management, environmental communications, database management and social science research, including survey design and analysis.  And check out Darryl's blog too.

Congratulations, Darryl and Kay!

LOCAL FIRM WINS AWARDS FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS WORK

EDDYVILLE, Ky., – ARMSTRONG and Associates recently received three awards for brochures and a video developed for their clients Lockheed Martin, Ophthalmology Associates of Western Kentucky and the Kentucky New Era.

MarCom Gold Award

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I've been meaning to update my blog and every day I say to myself, "Susi, you need to log on and say something, say anything...just get it updated." So I finally logged in tonight prepared to write something, anything--that is until I realized the last time I did write 'anything' was in October, three months ago. THREE months ago! I have a hard time recalling what I did last Monday, let alone what I did in November or December, but now...January 2008?

SGE and Mary ThorsbyMy friend Mary Thorsby, who is the CEO and creator of http://www.ilistpaducah.com, gets up early each morning to work on her website and blog (let's say 4'ish).  And that's her time to write.  Quite brilliant.  I just wished I liked getting up that early.  But I don't.  Which is why my blog hasn't been updated since OCTOBER! And why you should love and appreciate Mary's website and blog, because it's typically updated DAILY!  So register for a feed for my blog because you might not see updates anytime soon....  Unless of course I take Mary up on her offer for early a.m. wake up calls, but that's only if she includes a "snooze alarm" repeat call every 15 minutes.  ;0

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Updated on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at 07:44PM by Susan Gaffney-Evans

Thanksgiving 2007 Tablescape

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Boootiful Halloween Tablescape 2007

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I recently wrote an article called "Summertime Entertaining" that was published in July-August 2007 issue of Posh, a local Paducah, KY magazine.  The article featured my 4th of July tablescape shown below as well as a festive Cuban-inspired tablescape.

It's my third published article about entertaining with friends.  Look for the next one to appear in the Sept.-Oct. issue of Posh.

Posh is published byThe Paducah Sun, a local newspaper owned by Paxton Media Group.