When I was a kid, pre-teen, my cousin had a collie named Mellon Collie.

Pat in Rockport, TX who loves puns.

Here we have a Shaggy cat (named after Scooby doo). She is sick right now. She is our first cat one of my patients wrote on her will "give Shaggy to Rachel's little boy Elijah" (hospice nurses can't accept presents, I thought I was safe) Then we rescued our collie Molly Collie Kitchen. Her previous owner had a rotwieller and a doberman and they weren't letting her eat. When we got her she was really sick and very underweight. Now she is our baby. One sleeps with Alex the other with Elijah. They sleep under the covers and all. They are our little girls.

Lynn,

I also have a Shiba Inu. You are so right about the breed. It took a full year for her to trust us. It is so worth the wait. She is a love and has a very funny personality. She looks like a red fox. What color is yours?

Way back in the 1970s, I named one of our quarter horse foals Frodo Baggins.

Pat in Rockport, tX

Pat those kittens will have to learn their way around your treadles! They sound so cute, I miss having a kitty...
When I was in HS, my sister's best friend got a Collie & named him Gandalf

Florence

Our doggie (Ken Shin, a Sheba Inu) is a FreeCycle doggie. Sweet, but strange. He has some very skittish habbits - I really think before his previous owner, he came from a Puppy Farm in Missouri. Sad, but true. Now that he's alive, he deserves to live, so we just love on him alot.........and hope someday he decides he can trust us!

Well, my DH has proven again that he's a keeper. Yesterday we went to look at 3 black kittens that were on FreeCycle--the lady had had them on for a couple of weeks, and this week the ad said that she was going to take them to the animal shelter (which does NOT have a no-kill policy) if they didn't find homes--so we thought maybe we could save one. Hah. There was no way we could pick just one of them. We now have three little black kittens in the upstairs bathroom. They had never been in a house before. As I took them out of the carrier, I put them into the litter pan, and they all three used it as intended immediately. They have not had a single "accident" since arrival. The lady said they were about 8 weeks old, but they look to be 5 or 6 weeks old, really. Being a big Lord of the Rings fan, and since they're very small and have hairy feet, I've named the girl Rosie Cotton, the larger of the boys is Meriadoc Brandybuck, and the little boy is Peregrin Took. Our Arwen (also a LOTR name) is seriously miffed about the new kids.

Pat in Rockport, TX

I have a motto that runs around in my head once in awhile..."too much togetherness is NOT a good thing!" But I do appreciate DH and his many talents. I do not know how true retirement will be, when he's always around, but I do remind myself that it's good to have him around in a crisis, and I wouldn't want to be "going it alone!" Let's face it, they probably think the same thing about us...

You know, I too, have one of those really wonderful guys who is very non-critical and loving - although sometimes all in his own world (as I am in mine!)

Once I accepted the fact that he has severe ADD - and began to be able to laugh about it (although not ALWAYS!) things became much better. We've been married for 43 years now - although we are not NEARLY old enough to have been married that long! ha ha ha

I think I'll be really happy, tho, that he doesn't want to come into my sewing room and help me cut, etc. He can't stay on track long enuf to finish even his own projects.........I don't want him 'accidentally' re-designing my quilts! Even tho it might be magical to allow it, I'm NOT GOING THERE!

Like my separateness.......and then also the togetherness!
Lynn

Frances and all, I know my issues are small everyday I thank God that they are the way they are and not larger. I am just a dealing with my stubborn pigheaded personality. I have always been extremely one of those get in there and get it done type people. To see something just setting around not getting done and knowing that it could be done if only ... Just drives me nuts That is why my hubby wanted to hold off on getting the trees in the back yard cut. He knew that I would have a hard time just letting them set there until he and the boys could get to them. He was right . I started working on getting rid of the branches as soon as it was safe to work around them. Even the guy cutting the trees down was yelling at me (he's my brother's best friend and knows my history). Anyway Yesterday DH called my sister (who he seldom speaks to) and invited her over for dinner. Just to keep me busy. All day long I had company out of the blue : because of him and those trees. Rachel who is behaving and just recived a call from a friend who is running late : in rainy NY

Oh, Rachel, I know how hard it is to be an invalid. I dealt with that for close to four years after being hit by a drunk driver. And my DH didn't have it much better. Doing much of anything with my right hand made the pain worse. Which meant that I couldn't do much of anything. I'd be ok for a while then I'd get depressed because I couldn't do anything and he was the closest person to yell at. The Lyrica helps with the pain now so I'm sewing again and much happier. But it is so hard to take it easy while the body takes longer to heal than we'd like it to. Just know that they care for you and have your best interests at heart.
Frances in Austin where it stormed like crazy last night.

Kathy and Brink your hubby's are great. Mine took alittle longer to get on board but he did. You see like I said before he is a wood craftsman. I had to remind him one day when he was being extremely cranky, that it was me who bought most of his wood and paid for over half of his second scroll saw. After I did this he at first was conviently forgetful of those memories. Then I reminded him of the trips to where it is that he buys his wood and who the accounts were under. OH YEAH All of a sudden we were supportive, stopped complaining and started heelping me with things I needed. Although I did gget yelled at by every male in this house yesterday... We had three trees cut down in our back yard in the morning. By the time the boys came home from school at 2:30 I had one cleaned up and was working on the other. My oldest called his father and he came home and read me the riot act. Now I am grounded to the couch and the heating pad. Actually I am just grounded to the house . The couch and heating pad are my idea because I HURT! Rachel who is pigheaded and sick of being an invalid

I Love to read the nice stories about all the supportive Husbands out there, now you know You are Loved!
I am also one of the fortunate ones,my DH is so close to being perfect, ((He is my sweet Angel)).
Dh checks out the fabric ilse in Wally World often for me when he is out and about. He brought me 60 yards of fabric home last week, all solid colors. The only thing is that he don't always bring home cotton,We go over this ritual pretty often that he doesn't know cotton from cotton mixed with pollyknit. He always says; I thought I did good. I'm like you did do good honey, "Thank You, Hugzzz & Kisses! Well, I now have a pretty good collection and He sat it with the collection and he says;I don't know what you will make with all that and he says; maybe it will work for some craft some day. I'm like yes, I'm sure I can use it on something some day,maybe curtains or table cloths. I always tell him just wait for me to go to help him pick these fabrics out but he wants to surprize me, and he does!
He has came home with lots of nice cotton fabrics so I really hated to complain, it's like why ruin a good thing! LOL! Though "I have to stop him" because I now have an extra stash standing four feet tall in bolts,10 yards on each of the bolts. He will continue no matter what I say he has for several years now with our same ritual.
He helps me cut my fabrics patterns out and helps me place patterns out some times and he chooses some quilt patterns. He is so supportive in all I do so "I sign his name beside mine on all my quilt lables.
Most of us quilters own more fabric then we will ever sew in our life time yet we continue to build our stash, an addiction to beautiful fabrics.
Kathy who counts her blessings every day

You're funny, Brink. I think it is good when we can all laugh at ourselves - he did when he called me And you're right - it is a good thing to be telling good stories about our hubbies