Missing Foofur

I miss him so much...
I missed his weight on my feet in bed last night
I miss his tripping on the laminate flooring
I miss his little nose touching my hand
I think of all the things we did together and smile
I think of all the future things he'll miss and cry
I miss his comfort now that I'm so sad...
I'm happy I meant so much to him
I regret the times I got impatient
I'm so proud of my big little friend
I cry because there's only one dog barking when the door bell rings...
I miss a part of me
I miss you, Foofie.. ♥

For more than 16 years he was my buddy. I can't imagine myself and life without him... Everything around me reminds me of him. So many people knew and loved him. I am very thankful for all the support and comfort people give us, but still I can't stop crying.
I know he misses me too, he didn't want to leave me yesterday... I know it was the right decision. He didn't deserve to suffer after all the love he gave us so unconditionally. He was always there for me and shared so many good and bad times. He forgave me when I snapped at him because he understood it wasn't about him at all. I always apologized to him after something like that. I know he understands and forgives me but I still feel bad in retrospective. I meant the world to him and he to me.
When he was our only dog I took him with me everywhere. And even when we had more dogs I took only him with me to meetings. People rarely minded, because he was such a sweet and lovable dog. He was friendly to everyone: people, dogs, cats, other animals... He knew how to attract everyone's attention, but was also happy to just sleep in my lap or somewhere close when I was busy doing other things.

I know he'll miss me too and hope he'll come to visit me. I imagine my mum and my brother-in-law waiting for him on the other side. He loved them and they'll spoil him for me until I meet him and all the others at the rainbow bridge. He'll meet all the cats again that shared our life and his. When we got him we had 9 cats and they raised him too. He had some cat-like habits like the way he washed himself, sitting in the window sill and other silly stuff. He knew I loved the cats so he loved them too. They often slept as one pile of pets around me. Foofur never minded to share my attention, he knew he was special anyway...

I've written about him a lot. He is mentioned very often in my blog and on my social media accounts. That's only logical as he is such a major part of my life. Was? No, IS and will always be.
I'd like to share just some of the posts here...

• Feb. 12, 2015 Happy Birthday Foofur - his last birthday, his 16th
• Feb. 13, 2014 Foofur's Birthday - his 15th
• Feb. 5, 2012 Finally Winter! - Foofur hated rain but he shared my love for snow!
• Aug. 22, 2011 Foofur & Arwen in the dunes - with a video of them
• June 7, 2009 Dogs at the beach - pics, with Boris
• Feb. 12, 2009 Foofur's 10th birthday! - with (photo-shopped) birthday hat
• Jan. 12, 2009 Look what I won! - Leanne Wildermuth's portrait of Foofur
• July 31, 2008 Vote for Foofur! - photo competition (he won!)
• Jan. 8, 2008 Cats & dogs - Foofur and the cats
• and so much more posts and mentions...

Rest in peace, Foofur
Feb. 12, 1999 - June 2, 2015

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Farewell to Foofur....

Foofur has left the building....
Today we had to make that dreaded decision... 
heart emoticon  Rest in peace, my sweet little friend... heart emoticon
We love you, forever...
I can't stop crying, I miss him so much...

Happy Birthday Foofur!

Our little old man is 16 today! There have been times we thought he wouldn't make it this far, but he's still going strong! Just some infirmities of old age, but he can handle those. As long as he enjoys life and doesn't have pain, we're here for him to spoil him rotten.

Berner beach meeting

Yesterday we went to Noordwijk with Arwen to meet up with 135 other Bernese Mountaindogs on the beach for a walk. This time we didn't bring Foofur, because the loose sand is too tiring for him. Arwen loves it though! She has been running, swimming, playing, sniffing.... in short: enjoying herself thoroughly!

Arwen loves the beach!

We tried to make a group picture but with 100+ dogs and their owners that's not easy... :-)

Arwen and I among the others.

You can see all of our pictures in this album.

Who do you love?

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Kickin'It Old Skool, Day 15
"We'd love to see your loved ones! Your cats, your kids, your loves, your sisters, your brothers, your friends, your visitors, your elders, your neighbours, your besties. Who do you love?"

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First and foremost I ask you to click on this picture to open a new window with a post I made yesterday to celebrate the love of my life, my husband Ron. Cliche as it may be, it's the truth!

Although they are no longer with us in this world, I will always love my mum and dad. Dad died in 1996 and mum in 2006, but I still miss them every day... Here they are opening christmas-presents at our home somewhere in the 90's:

I love my sister Joke. She is 10 years older, but at our current ages of 45 and 55 that's no issue anymore. We've had our ups and downs like all sisters have, but we both know we can unconditionally count on each other whenever needed. Her husband Leo came into my life when I was 8. I love him too, but sadly we lost him on my birthday in 2009. Here are Joke and I in Disneyland Paris in 2010:

And of course our pets belong here too. Although I won't share pics of all that went before, they all are still in my heart too. I'll see them at the rainbow bridge... Here are the beloved ones that share our home today:

Foofur, Welsh Corgi / Jack Russell, 14

Arwen, Bernese Mountain Dog, 4

Freyja, silver/white Balinese, 7

Bastet, tortoise European Shorthair, 7

Maia, white/grey European Shorthair, 6

~*~

Where I Blog!

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Kickin'It Old Skool, Day 8
"We hope you don't mind if we invite ourselves over. We'd love to see where you blog!"

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I have older pics of my desk, but I decided to take a new pic here and now. No cleaning or tidying first, just stand up and click that camera. You can see the KIOS-blog of today is on my screen.
So, without further ado, this is where I blog:

It's a roll-top desk in the living-room, but it's only closed when I'm sleeping. The black cloth on the right hides my printer, because although there's a scratching pole next to my desk Maia's favourite spot is on top of my printer. And cat's hair and computer stuff don't go that well together... In fact this is a rare occasion as none of the cats are on or around my desk, they usually are most of the time. The buddha fountain on top is their drinking place.

10 Things About Me

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Kickin'It Old Skool, Day 5
Today's idea is a classic, simple as that: "Tell Us 10 Things About You". Sounds easy peasy, but is it? What to tell? Try not to state the obvious, or perhaps I should exactly do that. 10 things, pfew... Let me think...

~*~*~*~

If you don't know me yet, I'll share 10 things you should at least know about me...

If you do know me, can you predict which things I'm going to share in this list? Stop reading, make a list and tell me afterwards how many you had correct. :)

1. I'm married to the love of my life, Ron. Next Saturday is our 18th wedding anniversary, but we are together for more than 25 years. We met at a local marching band: he was on drums, I was a majorette/twirler. And the rest as they say is history... and present, and future! :)
2. I'm pagan, more precisely I call myself an eclectic heathen witch. Interested why or what that means to me? Read more here and of course you'll find lots of pagan stuff on this blog.
3. I'm a Robbie Williams fan ever since he left Take That back in the day. I have all his albums, dvd's and more. I've been to several concerts. This year I went to his Take The Crown Tour and just yesterday I scored tickets for his Swings Both Ways Tour next year. Woohoo! :) Read my posts about him here.
4. I love reading, I love books. I have a lot of books; you can see a small portion (appr. 1200 of them...) in my LibraryThing. I breathe books, like the smell, sound, feel, etc. of real books. My all time favourite book is The Lord Of The Rings, but there's so much more...
5. I'm a Trekkie! Love, love, love Star Trek. I like The Original Series and love the rest. I have all seasons of The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space Nine and all movies on dvd. I would love to have Enterprise too. Years ago I've been on television talking about Star Trek. That same day I've met Patrick Stewart, my favourite actor (not only as Capt. Picard).
6. I'm very fond of (all!) animals. I'm a cat-lover and a dog-lover. Some say you can't be both, but I am. We share our home with 3 cats (Freyja, Bastet & Maia - goddess names) and two dogs (Foofur, a crossbreed Welsh Corgi / Jack Russell, and Arwen, a Bernese Mountaindog). Read and see more of them here on my blog.
7. In the past I have been struggling with eating disorders and depression. For some years now I use my experience to help others. I tell my story, educate and give information to different groups of people: teenagers, students, fellow-sufferers, nurses, etc. I coach social workers and medical professionals in how to be of real help to a patient on the way to recovery by showing them a different point of view. 
8. I'm a computer-addict. :) Internet, social media, downloading, digital photography and lots, lots more. I like to learn and try out new things. It's my window to the world.
9. I love all seasons, but especially winter. Snow, ice, cold sunny weather... I've written about that yesterday, so I'll leave it at that here.
10. I like to make herbal home remedies. I'm a reiki master. I make my own candles. Ron and I brew mead. I collect Dutch stamps. I miss my mum and dad. I'm a hobby-genealogist. There's always more to know... And yes, I know this is cheating. ;-))

Arwen

I can hardly believe our little puppy girl turned 4 today... 

The first time I held her seems like yesterday!

We love her so much!

~*~ Happy Birthday, Arwen! ~*~

Foofur's Birthday

Happy 14th Birthday, Foofur!!!

Foofur turned 14 today (well technically yesterday...). I still remember the first day I held him close in the pet shelter: 10 weeks and smaller than a kitten. His name was Bambi, but I changed it. I love him to pieces!

Happy birthday, my little friend. I hope you'll stay happy and healthy with us for many more years to come!

Let it snow!

Skadi, Norse goddess of winter

If you know me or read here for some time, you know this is my time of the year. Although every season has its charms, winter is my absolute favourite especially when there's freezing cold and snow. Over here in Holland we don't have lots of snow and not often (enough), so I enjoy it for as long as I can!
I'd love to spend winter in real snow countries like Canada, Iceland, Norway and the other Nordic countries. Who knows, one day...

 

I've put my snow pics in two Facebook-albums (public, can be seen without an account):

Jan 15 - First snow in 2013

Jan 21 - Another snow album

Arwen & Foofur love snow too! :-)

Heartbonds Festival

Some time last year two young women looked at each other and said: 'Let's organize a festival!'. I'm sure more people have said something like that at some point, but then nothing came of it. But these two women are different. They gave it their all and got it together. They appealed to their network of family & friends and slowly but surely the Heartbonds Festival became a reality! From the sidelines of that network I witnessed it and I was (am!) so proud of these two friends and their mission. I wanted to be a part of it, I wanted to be there. Ron agreed and it so happened that they were still looking for volunteers. They needed someone to take charge of first aid and safety issues, just the right job for Ron! So we decided, what the heck, we're going!

The festival took place on Friday and Saturday, but most of the crew arrived on Friday. Ron and I arrived in the afternoon. The camp was situated on an open field in the middle of woods. Such a wonderful place! Great we were able to bring the dogs! Foofur and Arwen got acquainted with the other dogs there; soon they formed a gang of 5. :) They had the time of their lives, running around and getting cuddles from everyone. Arwen was a bit shy at first, but she adored the place. While we were busy doing our things she roamed the surroundings, rolling in the grass, splashing through the mud puddles, keeping an eye on where I was hanging out, running to Ron, playing around with the other doggies. At night she regularly sneaked out of the tent to guard the place, keeping unwanted visitors out.

Speaking of the tent... We hadn't brought our own, because we agreed to sleep in one of the workshops tents. They were due to arrive Friday around 4pm, but time went by without any sight of the tent. When they were called, the company had some lame excuse (their problem, solve it yourself!) and promised time and time again they would be there in half an hour. You guessed it: nothing after that half hour... Grrrr! I got quite upset. I was very tired and wanted to sleep, I need my rest. Finally they arrived late in the evening and around midnight our tent was ready. After setting up the bed and other stuff a.s.a.p. I was in bed by 1am and couldn't sleep... Pfew, what a start... but man, was I glad I stayed!

The weather forecast was not that good, lots of rain was expected. Luckily they were wrong regarding the Saturday. Apart from the occasional shower the weather was dry and sunny, wonderful for being outdoors. People started arriving and setting up their tents. On our part of the field several stands and tents formed a little market with wonderful products and even a smithy. In the early afternoon the festival officially started with a great opening ritual. During the first workshop round I decided to catch up on some sleep in one of the tents.

The cook only had a very small kitchen at her disposal, but she still managed to make all of us a delicious dinner. Compliments to the chef! The weather was fine so we stayed outside. During dinner we were treated with beautiful guitar play by the father of one of the organizers. Unfortunately we couldn't have a campfire; because of the drought earlier there was a code yellow / red. Even with rain the underground beneath the surface was very very dry. Later in the evening a band called Widar Volk gave a concert. People danced and chatted, we had a great time! I went to sleep when i was tired, but others partied on until late. :)

Sunday morning we woke up from the sound of rain pouring on the tent, heavy showers. After a few hours it got a bit less, but then returned full power. Ah well, we were lucky to have one mostly dry day. We had to make shift with it. We ate and chatted in the workshop tents and waited for a dry moment to move. :) In the morning I did a workshop about the wheel of life and the elements. After lunch I joined a herbal walk. In the rain of course, but who cares? It was very interesting!

Afterwards it was time to pack and say our goodbyes to old and new friends. Unfortunately Ron and I couldn't stay for the closing ritual, because we had another appointment later on. All in all we had a great time and hope to be back next year!

more pics here

Happy Birthday, Bastet!

Can you believe this little mouse-grey cutie...

...turned into this beautiful lady with cattitude?

Well, she did! Today Bastet has turned 6, just like Freyja earlier this month. She was the only grey and only female kitten in a litter of 4. Her 3 brothers were red. They were left behind at the door of the pet shelter without a mother when they were 3 weeks. 

Bastet started out grey with black tail, head and feet. Soon she started to get all black and later on red spots appeared all over her, that got bigger and brighter. This is her today:

Happy 6th Birthday, Bastet!

Happy birthday, Freyja!

Happy 6th Birthday, Freyja!

I can't believe it has been 6 years since I held this little silver bundle on my hand for the first time... She was and is beautiful. Can you imagine she was put out with the garbage in a cardboard box? Her siblings didn't survive, but luckily she did. Someone heard her meow and brought her to the local animal shelter. Together with Bastet she was my birthday present that year.

The birthday girl today; 

she still has those beautiful blue eyes, 

but didn't want to show them! :)

Happy Birthday, Maia!

Today is Maia's 5th birthday. Wow, I can't believe how fast that goes... She is the youngest cat, and stayed quite little compared to her feline sisters here. If you've been with me on this blog for a while you have seen her before. Let me share a few of the earlier posts about her with you.

Meet... Maia!
first post about her

Thursday Thirteen #53 - Maia
Maia shares 13 pics and facts

Cats On Tuesday #1 - Maia is tired
cute pics of a sleepy kitten

and of course some extra pics...

 

Oops...

Oops, I did it again... I haven't posted anything new for ages. I still read all your blogs in my Google reader, leave a comment from time to time, but somehow didn't post much myself. There are reasons, personal and other. Someone (don't remember who, when or where) blamed Facebook for being a blog-killer. I don't agree fully, but I must admit it takes time away from blogging. I still think a blog has another and/or added value, so I want to breathe new life into mine! I'll just start anew. :) If you have any questions, suggestions or requests about me, my blog or anything else... just let me know!

For now I'd like to share some pics with you... Click on the pic above the story to visit the album.


Last month Ron and I got tickets for a Re-enactment Weekend on Forteiland, a fortified island at the mouth of the harbour in IJmuiden. Lots of re-enactors were portraying German troops, French resistance, Dutch soldiers  etc. from (mainly) WWII. We enjoyed ourselves very much and made a lot of pictures.



Just like last year we took Arwen (& Foofur) to the Berner Sennen Beach Meeting in Noordwijk. This time 79 Bernese Mountain-dogs, 5 other dogs and 146 people came together and walked along the beach. Such a magnificent sight! Again we made lots of pics and 2 short video's.

Finally winter!

Up until a few days ago this winter wasn't really worth the name. At times it was more like fall and a week ago spring seemed to come far too early. That's not my kind of winter. I'm a winter girl and I want freezing weather, preferably with snow! This last week the temperatures dropped significantly and today it was announced we're having an official cold wave. Yay! Of course a lot of people started to complain, the Dutch are very good at that... *sigh*. You won't hear me complaining, I love it! Friday snow was added to the beautiful winter picture. First we had to go to a funeral; quite the experience, snowstorm on the cemetery... Afterwards we got the dogs and drove to the park to have some fun. Arwen was in her element and Foofur liked it too, although his belly touched the snow. :) 

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The weather fit perfectly for Imbolc! The feast of Brighid, a festival of the hearth and home, and a celebration of the lengthening days and the early signs of spring. Spring is stirring just beneath the snow, but clearly on its way...
Thursday I celebrated Imbolc with the coven. Yesterday Ron and I attended another Imbolc gathering in Eindhoven.

(and Lammas blessings to my friends in the Southern hemisphere)

The Queen's Meme Cat edition

We shall talk cats this week. Puuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....

1. Do you have a cat?
Yes, three!

2. What is your cat's name?
They are named after goddesses: Freyja, Bastet & Maia

3. What makes you love cats?
How can one NOT love cats? They are beautiful, independent, obstinate, loving, purring and soooo much more! Couldn't live without them!

4. If you are not a cat person, why not?
I am a cat person and a dog person. They say that's rare, most people are the one or the other, or at least have a preference.

5. What is the funniest thing your cat has ever done?
It never bores me to look at a cat playing with something simple like a paper pellet or a dripping tap. Makes me smile every time!

6. Do you think cats have feelings and can talk to their owners?
I like to think they have feelings. My cats talk (meow) to me, just wished I knew the language!

7. The Rainbow Bridge is the place where cats go when they pass away. I think it's a lovely idea. If humans could have a bridge of their own in the afterlife, what would you name it?
I say we all go to the same Rainbow Bridge. When we arrive at the bridge our pets are waiting for us to cross it with us to the Summerland.

BONUS POINTS! Post a picture of you and your cat.

I can't find a pic of me with all three of them, but here they are. 

From left to right Maia, Freyja, Bastet!

(the links bring you to their Catster-pages)