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Throughout the course of your life, you will find that you must make a number of decisions, so many, in fact, that you will not remember most of them. The decision to get out of bed in the morning, to go to school or not, to make new friends, to take interest in an online contest.

There are plenty of choices in the world, and plenty judgements that had to be made, sometimes, when you don't want to.

From kindergarten well into the third grade, I had two special friends. We were always together at school and out and were certain that this friendship would last us a lifetime. After all, we had known each other for all of three years already, so what could possibly keep us apart?

Well, one of my friends moving out of state certainly seemed to do it. There were promises to be pen pals and to keep in touch, but those plans fell through just like our friendship. It would be years later when I found this friend again, on a popular social media site.

The remaining friend didn't talk to me as much, and our friendship slowly faded. She went onto talk to new people and we stopped hanging out. I didn't know how I was supposed to move forward, without my two best friends at my side. Who would play with me? Who would talk to me? Who would laugh at my jokes?!

I never had the need to change any part of my life up until that moment, nor had I particularly wanted to, but during the beginning of my fourth grade year, I knew that a decision had to be made. Did I want new friends or not?

So, on the first day of class, when I was seated next to a girl with a wolf t-shirt, I stuck my hand out and said "Hi."

Little did I know that the friend I made in her would last me the next ten years.

Anyone who knows me knows I absolutely adore Alice in Wonderland! *A * This is best teacup.

My decision to get ferrets was sort of a spur of the moment sporadic thing. See I'd wanted them all my life, since I was little and my best friend two roads over had one. They were squirmy, wiggly, slinky creatures of perfection as far as I was concerned. However they're expensive, and require a lot of care so it wasn't really in my cards to get one when I was younger. My parents didn't have that kind of cash to blow on a critter, specially when we already had dogs and cats to take care of. So I just sort of let it slide on by and kinda sorta forgot about it.

Years later, literal years, and my girlfriend pops out with I want a rabbit. Well rabbits are cute, I mean, I'd never really thought about owning one but they're pretty awesome. I'd lost my cat some time before this so I figured why not? So we get a rabbit, lemme tell you, that was the worst decision of my life. I'm one of those people that really reads up on an animal before I get it so I was fully prepared for this shy, skittish, jumpy little bunny. What I got was a hellion that had crawled it's way out of Satan's butt hole to torture me. They say rabbits are litter trainable, that is an outright lie. They aren't skittish or at least mine wasn't, he was a ballsy, head strong, defiant toddler is what he was. It. Was. Awful. He acted more like a cat than a rabbit and our relationship was a very hate hate one, but I had agreed to this so we kept him until he passed on.

Fast forward some time and I decide hey, no rabbits ever again but maybe a dog would be great. I love dogs, have loved dogs all my life, but my girlfriend was raised around cats. Her mother is terrified of dogs so it was gonna be a bit of a hit or miss. She was a little skeptical of the idea, but she found Australian Sheppards to be beautiful dogs and kinda fell in love. Well I've always been a border collie kinda girl myself, but I figured we'd compromise and get a mutt. Best. Decision. Ever. Our dog is literally the best dog to walk the face of this planet. She comes when called, sits, stays, doesn't jump up, was house trained two weeks into us getting her. She's just amazing.

I promise this is all relevant to my choice to get ferrets.

Well time goes by and we're heading into our pet store for... I don't even remember what. Well what does my girlfriend find in this pet store? Why nothing but a FERRET of course. It's bouncing, and playing, running a muck and is so darn cute I can't stand myself. Oh right! Hadn't I wanted one of these fuzzy snakes a long time ago?

I've never had any experience with them though, beyond my best friends ferret. So I get to reading up on them and then suddenly it hits me. I've done this all before, with the rabbit, and we remember how well that worked out for me. So I hesitate, this is something I've wanted for a long time but do I really want to run the chance of a set of crazed beasts in my house again? I mean we already had two dogs, and five cats, plus a squirrel intermittently in there. While admittedly out of all the animals in the house I only owned two, I still wasn't sure it was a good idea to take on something that would destroy my room again. They were said to be smelly, chord chewers, nippy the list of bad traits goes on and on. They weren't shaping up to be very good pets. So I let it go again, maybe some other time we could get ferrets, later in the future, when I felt a little more prepared for it.

Fast forward again and we are waltzing into petco, cause we are out in greenville and it happened to be right there. We have a bad habit of entering any nearby petstores and picking up a toy for our dog. Nimueh literally has a box full of toys because of this. However I never think about this when I'm out and see the store. I'm always like 'oh gosh! The baby needs a new toy!' and this is how it starts.

Well we enter petco and the first thing I get is a cacophony of birds. They are all just a tweeting away and people are huddled around them oohhing and aaahhing. We sorta skirt that area and head over to the dog section, momentarily getting sidetracked by the fish and reptiles. Eventually we scoot our way around the store and come back to the small animal section. The one that had previously been flooded by people oohing at birds.

That's when we see them, two little ferrets, in a big circular tank. It's kinda dark, a little dingy looking and they are wandering around almost aimlessly. It's probably a terrible idea to go over but we do anyway, stepping over to inspect the little dears in their habitat. The first thing I notice is that there is poop all around the outside of this enclosure. Either it hasn't been cleaned in awhile or these guys poop a lot! We watch them for a bit before we notice that they are out of water. Well maybe the associates will be around to check the cages soon right? Wrong. Four hours later and they are still out of water. I'm annoyed, I let someone know and hopefully it gets fixed.

We head home and I'm chomping at the bit the entire way. I can't stand it, it specifically says to have fresh clean water available for them at all times. My girlfriend can tell I'm in a tizzy because I just will not let the subject drop, the injustice done to these poor fuzzies. Time passes and I come to find this is a regular occurrence! Their cage is never clean and they almost never have any water. I decide then and there that we are going to rescue these cute balls of fluff.

So I order this top of the line ferret cage, I get all these toys, bottles, litter pans, food, and do a whole bunch more research before snatching them from the depths of water-less filth and depravity.

Second best decision ever made. It was tough at first and I constantly wondered what the hell I had done. Yet in the end it proved to be a very wise choice. They do have a strong smell, but monthly baths and a clean litter pan make it 95% better. They never n**, or bite, or cause harm. They play a bit like cats really. They don't chew chords, and were fairly easily potty trained. I was amazed, all these bad habits and things people were talking about didn't happen. I thought they would be nightmares but they have turned out to be adorable fluffy attack snakes. They n** the toes of people they don't know who enter the room and it's the most hilarious thing to watch. My cousin calls them fuzzy demons because they pounce him as soon as he walks in.

The connection I have with Atreyu is well beyond what I had with the rabbit. He'll lay on his back on my chest lick my chin and let me rub his belly. He's a constant companion sorta like my dog, who is amazing with them by the way. In the end I'm really glad I didn't let my fear of having another rabbit fiasco on my hands fully dampen my spirit to try again. It turned out pretty okay in the end!

Lisa was faced with the difficult task of caring for her mother. Each day that passes it seemed as if more tasks were needing her attention. At first it was little things such as getting her something to drink, to helping her find the remote or helping her with her hair. Then it was making her lunch or dinner daily, washing her clothes, bathing her, helping her into bed, driving her to doctor's appointments. It seemed that her mother was becoming very dependent on her.

Lisa has a young teenage son whom she was raising on her own due to his father passing away suddenly leaving Lisa in a state of shock that lasted forever or so it had seemed. She functioned day to day doing what needed to be done but when she was alone the tears fell at first then shutting out all feelings and emotions she became almost emotionless. Her son did not know his mom anymore, he got guidance from his grandmother but that was fleeting as she depended on his mom for care.

Years passed and this was the norm in the household til suddenly one day Lisa decided enough was enough she needed to make a change in her life. Sitting her son down she talked to him about her finding a nice man to have in her life and his life to see how he would feel about it. Her son's response shocked her "Whatever makes you happy mom, I hate seeing you mope and have the look of sadness on your face every day but do not expect me to call him dad unless I want to" Lisa replied "I do not expect you to if the relationship becomes serious I will let you know and you can decide what you call him".

Deciding to find someone to chat with online she joined a dating site to her surprise alot of single people do since the world is so busy not having alot of time to meet the old fashioned way. There was alot of men on this site some good, some bad, some gave off the icky vibe. Weeding through the slew of men it took awhile several dates, a relationship that went nowhere til slowly out of the hopeless feeling came a message. Clicking on it the smile came across her face as she read it and saw the picture on his profile. The adorable cherubic face of the little girl with him made her want to know more about him. She looked happy and so did he, it raised questions that she wanted to know the answers to.

Talking online for several weeks they decided to meet. The attraction was undeniable and they started to date. Feelings came quickly within 3 months engaged and married within 8 months married. To some this make seem way to quick but to her it was perfect just like the man she married. Not one day goes by she does not thank her lucky stars he found her.

As for her mother, she is being taken care of by son and sister. Which gives a break to her daughter to have a life of her own after all she is a full grown woman and needs her time to have her own life.

Moral of this story is never give up, never surrender your dreams and hopes. Trust me I have been through the wringer in my life. Alot of negative things has happened to me, the day I met my husband is the best day of my life next to having my son. You are never to old to find someone, never to old to go back to school to get a degree, never to old to find a better job, never to old to watch cartoons and never to old to do anything you want and put your mind to. Your life is already laid out for you, the path is yours to follow. You make the decisions and deal with the outcome of those decisions.

http://gallery4collectors.com/images/Sculpture-Ceramic/BonnieBelt-GrapevineTeapot.jpg
This one is just a beautiful tea pot, and I love the vines.


Love the modern look of this one, and how the tea and leaves make an almost painting like sceen of a forested mountain at sunset rofl

As an animal lover, and owner of many amazing pets throughout my life. I"ve had to make a lot of decisions, some were easy ... some were not, all of them were necessary. This is the story of one of those decisions.

The hardest decision of my life, involved my second horse Sheza More Star (AKA: Lady). Lady was a wonderful mare, she was a no-spot appaloosa out of two leopard appaloosa parents and she had some awesome bloodlines, going back to Doc Bar as her Great Grandfather. At the time I was blessed with her, I could not have asked for a better horse. You see I was a green horn rider and my first horse Dolly had made me nervous, insecure of my abilities, and a little afraid to try again.

Lady came into my life like a fresh breath from Heaven, she was patient, put up with my lack of riding skills and never showed ill temper towards me. Every day that mare taught me something new about horsemanship and about myself.

I had owned her about a year, when (long story short) she had an accident that had required the decision to remove her left eye.

To the surprise of everybody, both those that knew her best, the loss of an eye never phased that horse. She was just as calm, nothing made her jump; and I mean –nothing- you could run up to her form her blind side screaming and hollering like a banshee and that horse never flinched … though she would turn her head and look at you with her right eye like you were a little silly.

I didn’t matter to me when people stared, or thought badly of her for having a missing eye, I loved her more still.

The loss her sight did make it harder on her out in the pasture, no matter what we tried she still would come in bumped and scratched.

Little did I know, I only had another amazing year left with my LadyBug.

When we brought her that terrible winter day only a few weeks after the passing of my grandfather her left hind knee was swollen to the size of a small watermelon, but it was draining fluid so spirits were high as we waited for my vet to arrive. Those spirits did not last long, her joint sac was infected from a pin tip sized hole that went all the way to the bone.

My choices were to try and save her life; though it was only a 50-50 chance, with surgery and IF she could be saved she would be lame totally unable to ever be anything more than a pasture pal, but most of all she would be in constant pain and agony from the lack of fluid around her joint.

Or to humanely euthanize my best friend.

The choice was hard, but it was clear in my mind. I had to do what was best for the mare that had given me so much in two short years.

I hugged her neck, and told her I loved her one last time while the vet prepared the needle. But when the time came I couldn’t be there, couldn’t remember her that way and I hid in the office as everyone else at the barn told her goodbye as well.

She’s buried somewhere in the 200+ acre pasture where sh spent all 14 years of her life. Sometimes I try to just go back to the property, though they no longer run a boarding barn and its private use only for the family and their horses, just to visit her.

Even knowing all the pain of my choice to love that horse, I would not change any of it for the world. She was a blessing to me and will never be forgotten.