These are the 4 shots in sequence.

Jazz & Photography

I love to see pics of Jazz - that being said, I rarely photoshop her images.  Maybe it's because I take so many.  I recently had some downtime and took a photo that Angie Wheeler of Angie Wheeler Photography took and played with it.  Basically, I started off with the original color copy, desaturated the area at 100% around Jazz.  Then, I blurred the background quite a bit.  After this, I smudged the photo to get some cool background.  Then I dodged the highlights to bring out the green in the bench that I hadn't fully desaturated.  I like the way it turned out - very groovy to me....

Dogs & Cars

For a dog lover, I think one of the worst things you can do is to hit a dog with a car. Many times, there is truly nothing you can do other than stop and hope to find the owner.  In my 20+ years of driving, I've hit 3 dogs.  Each time, I've come away mad at the owner of the dog.  One time, it was a black puppy on a night with no moon and no lighting.  I had previously stopped at the house of the owner to give him back his puppies that were playing in the road.  When I hit this one and took his poor lifeless body back to the owner – his statement was, "One less to try and find a home for, I guess" – that has stuck with me for the last 15 years. 

 

Last night, I was driving home on a back road.  Due to the curves, I was only going about 30 mph when I see a dog running toward the road.  I begin to slow down and the dog turns around and heads back into the field.  As I am nearing the area where the dog was at, he's nowhere to be seen.  Then, all of sudden, the dog bolts out in front of me and I locked down the brakes.  Thank goodness no one was behind me.  The dog is pushed forward 20 or 30 feet, tumbling the entire time.  He gets up and keeps running.  I went to get out and the guy (who I assumed was his owner) yells to me, "he's okay, I'll take care of it." 

 

My issue is – why was your dog loose.  The county in which I live has a leash/fence law.  It's a law that goes unattended as I run into off-leash dogs all the time when I walk the Queen.  My biggest fear is Jazz getting loose – I have as many safeguards as I can to prevent it.  Protect your dog – keep it within a fence or on a leash.

 

It's hot...really hot

Summer is not my favorite time of year - it is simply too hot.  This summer seems hotter than it's ever been (it probably isn't).  I don't remember ever having this many 90 degree days in one (probably every summer for the last 10 years).  Add in the fact that I have a dog who doesn't like the heat or the cold or the wet...and I spend most of my weekends indoors with the Queen.  Her preference would be for me to sleep most of the day beside her, getting up to get fresh ice cubes for her water, a snack, maybe some dinner, and lay back down for a nap.

 

I totally get it - every time I go out the heat drains any energy I might have had....needless to say, the Queen and I anxiously await cooler temperatures so that we can be out and about a lot more...