Gone Camping

gone-camping-post

For a while my blog is going to take a completely different slant. Several months ago I made the decision to travel full-time as a volunteer at different parks across the country so all projects at home came to a halt as I prepared the house to sell.

The house is sold, the travel trailer ordered, and starting in mid June I will be on the road for (hopefully) the next few years. This is a big change so no telling how I’m going to feel about it until I am deeply into it.

I will still be posting to the blog, still sewing dog cot slings for people who don’t sew — there’s no way I’m going anywhere without a sewing machine. I have already mentally designed window covering for my new trailer home and they will be my first project. In truth — I have a long list of things I plan to do to my new much smaller home to make it livable.

I have never wanted to talk about it because it was too painful, but I have now lost both yellow labs you can see in the posts about the PVC dog cots. Nikki died February 21, 2014 after surgery to remove a spleen tumor the size of a volleyball (no exaggeration — they showed it to me). It was a long shot to do the surgery and she bled out (a complication of surgery) at home alone with me and Ellie. It was a traumatic experience that made me appreciate the wisdom of euthanasia to prevent suffering.

Ellie died December 14, 2015. She had developed a bad limp that took months to get diagnosed as bone cancer and I made the decision at her age to spare her the pain of amputation and chemotherapy and had a mobile vet come and put her to sleep at home while I petted Ellie and told her how much I loved her and was going to miss her. I like to think Nikki and Ellie are together now watching over me and waiting me to join them someday.

Both dogs were just short of 11 years old when they died. Way too much cancer going around for everyone on two and four legs as far as I’m concerned. For a while I will be traveling alone, but plan to get another yellow lab when I settle into my new way of life. Dogs are too much fun to live without them.

So I’ll still be the DIY girl, but maybe should change it to “traveling diy girl”, “wandering diy girl”, “crazy diy girl”…

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