Where'd a decade go?!

Looking back ten years!

Okay, I was going to post about soup this morning, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I started looking for something in iPhoto (I forget what now!) and ended up pulling a bunch of photos from 2002. How can it be that ten years have passed since I got my first digital camera?!

Some things haven't changed, but a lot has...

Ten years ago, I weighed at least ten pounds less, and we were living in beautiful Nova Scotia, about 20 minutes up the road from Peggys Cove. (Apparently they dropped the apostrophe in "Peggy's" in 1976!)This pic was taken not far from that famous little village.

 Ten years ago, we had two dogs: Tara (an English Setter I inherited from my Mum) and Chelsea, my Lab-Collie-Pointer, adopted as a tiny puppy at the end of 1987.

In 2002, Tara was 10. Chelsea was 15 and coming up to the end of a long, happy life with us.

Tara always knew she was a beauty. What a princess! You'll find her in the early years of this blog. We had to put her to sleep in 2006 when she was 14-1/2. She had a good life.

Chelsea was my heart dog. She was the first pup I could really call my own. I adopted her from the Pickering-Ajax-Whitby animal shelter in late 1987. She was an adorable puppy:

No digital camera then!

The vet came to our house in Nova Scotia to put her to sleep in August 2003. Chelsea will always be in my heart. She and I went through a lot together and she was always loyal and loving.

We had a two different cats back them...

Here's Mashka, adopted at the Toronto Humane Society in 1995. She was our first cat! Beautiful and with a very regal attitude. Gordon picked her because she was the only cat not sleeping in her litterbox, so he figured she was smart. And he has a thing for grey girls (good thing, since I don't dye my hair and 50 is just around the corner!)

Zoë joined us in 1997, just after my Mum died. She was a tiny, ringwormy kitten at the time. (In fact, she gave us all ringworm, despite precautions. Such fun!) It's a long story, but she came to me from Washington state. Deb, a friend of mine there, had rescued her and was looking for a home for her. I said, "If you can get her here, I'll take her!" Deb took up the challenge.

That mission was accomplished with the help of several wonderful volunteers who were active in dog rescue. The last leg of her trip involved a flight from Calgary to Toronto on Air Canada. The boss of a woman I knew in dog rescue had a business trip in Toronto (where we lived at the time) and agreed to bring the kitten to the airport and hand her over to us. She was so tiny, everyone called her "Itty Bitty Kitty." She came as carry-on in a really small crate, with her pet "skunky", seen on the top of the couch behind my shoulder.

We nursed her back to health and she spent the next ten years glued to either me or Gordon.

And yes, my hair is naturally curly/wavy. Only in the past two years have I been wearing it straight (thanks, flat iron).  I grew up with wavy hair in the 70s, when all the other girls wanted to look like Marcia Brady. Everyone needs a change now and then, but I'm sure it'll be going back to wavy before too long.

We lost sweet Zoë suddenly in 2007. The vet thought she had a tumour on her heart. She only got to live at the farm for a few weeks, but I'm glad she saw our new home.

Gordon had less grey hair back in 2002, but he still often sports a cat on his lap!

And look who's enjoying a catnip fix on the counter with Zoë...

 Why yes, it's Julius. He is our Nova Scotia kitty. He showed up at our back door sometime in late 2000 and never left. He has travelled all over Canada and lived in four provinces. He was much fluffier back then because he was an indoor/outdoor cat. He's got his full winter coat on in this photo.

This is the "High Head", a spectacular cliff walk near our house in Prospect, NS. Our house was on Shad Bay, which starts where the cliffs do in this pic, and leads down to the right. I used to see minke whales and seals right behind our house. Oceanfront property was very affordable in NS in 2002!

Just a stunning spot at any time of the year. I got that headband for Gordon at the airport in Iceland on the way back from England. He lost it somewhere on one of our many moves.

I still have that green jacket. It's now my barn coat in winter. 

I miss living in Nova Scotia, but I ended up where I'm supposed to be, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So much has happened in a decade.