If you build it... they will come....

It's going to be a nice Thanksgiving here at the cabin.. well actually it may be more Christmas than Thanksgiving.. Both Chris and Abbey are coming.. It has been years since they have both been here (in Ga.) together..and Chris is bringing a new member to our small family.. a fiance! We are looking forward to meeting her and getting to know her. The weather here this time of year is not nearly as nice as SoCal.. and we actually look a bit dreary with no leaves on the trees.. but I hope to rectify that a bit in the cabin. We are all stocked up on wood as the darn cabin stays pretty cool this time of year without a nice fire going. Abbey hasn't been here since 2000.. though she did come for a wonderful visit a couple of years ago to the Florida home. Wish Abbey could get her friend Heather to join us.. think of her as part of the family too.. but anyway - excited.. imagine they will be camping out in the guest quarters. We put in a wonderful gas stove up there that really heats up the place toasty warm.. plus it is well insulated.. much more comfortable than the cabin.. which is one reason we built it, so we could live there in the winter if we needed or wanted to.. Seeing the kids will be such a nice diversion from all of the politics and financial meltdown.. this has all left me rather disheartened...

It's Girl's Weekend here at the Cabin - Woo Hoo!

Geeking For Good

Well I have been spending some time lately doing volunteer work for a local animal rescue group.. Second Chance Animal Sanctuary. I called to donate some things to their tent sale and got to speaking to Penny, one of their volunteers, and she said something about they didn't have any computer help at the moment, and I said I could help out.. and so I have been. I helped put together a newsletter for them as they had not put one out in a year.. The group has suffered the death of one of their co-founders, the death of another member, and the woman who normally prepares their newsletter was caring for a terminally ill parent and trying to get married... so it was a pleasure to be able to step in and help them. I have donated to them before.. but I knew I couldn't foster any dogs and not really any cats, so I never contacted them... Anyway.. come to find out during this last year they also let their Internet domain expire thus rendering them out in "no man's land" with their website.. So I set them back up and offered to redesign so that we could incorporate some of the latest coding techniques for search engine optimization. Also developing the site to help bring in donations.. Anyway - the bones of the new site are in place and now I just need the embellishments... I think everyone is pleased and I have offered to continue to be their webmaster and anything else I can do for them, computer wise. Which works out well for me because I can do the computer work from the winter home. I am looking forward to volunteering with them and hopefully help them recruit some more volunteers to help with some of the things that need to be done. In fact, the Volunteer Page of the website is high on my list of "to dos"..along with some internet exposure.

I have done my share of volunteering.. My favorite was doing therapy dog work with the corgis through the Happy Tails group in Atlanta. I did that for several years until we moved up to the cabin. I really really enjoyed that.. I found I really liked going into Assisted Living facilities with the animals. It is so hard when you get older and you have lived with animals all of your life and you can't have them anymore. I became friends with several residents and especially looked forward to the monthly visits with them. I try and remind Cap'n Steve that I will come visit him with the animals when he needs to have assisted care... he doesn't laugh...I can't understand why..