Friendly Fill-Ins

We've reached another Friday. What a feat. To celebrate, how about we have some fun with the Friendly Fill-Ins challenge? If you'd like to participate, we'll share the fill-in statements below. Ellen of 15andmeowing came up with the first two, and I came up with the second two.


1. It is important to learn _________.

2. When I was _________, I was obsessed with _________.

3. I feel _________ about _________.

4. My lucky number is _________.


My answers are below in bold.

1. It is important to learn skills that interest you.
(I really debated what to put for this one. I hemmed and hawed and then finally figured, what's better to learn than what actually interests you? Obviously it's important to learn basic life skills and that sort of thing, but it's also important to learn skills and gain wisdom that truly grip your attention. Life is too short and precious to wish you knew something without actually learning it.)

2. When I was 5 years old, I was obsessed with Barney the purple dinosaur.
(Does anyone remember Barney? I haven't kept up with Barney over the years and so I don't even know if he's still relevant, but when I was growing up in the '90s, he was pretty darn popular. He's a singing and dancing dinosaur whose goal is more or less to make learning fun for kids. I had a Barney stuffed doll as a kid, as well as a Barney sleeping bag that has actually appeared on our blog before. This is because my ancient Barney sleeping bag has become a blanket for the furbabies around here to enjoy. Evan is probably the biggest fan of the Barney sleeping bag, as evidenced below.)

3. I feel excited about the current writing project I'm working on.
(I have always found joy in writing stories, as well as illustrating them. I've at least briefly mentioned my current writing project here on our blog in the past. Though it's still not completed and I haven't spoken about it much recently, I'm still working on this project and am eager to finish it. When I first started buckling down on this writing project a couple years ago, it started as what I thought was a short story, or a short children's book. I thought I would finish it in no more than a month. Then, though, my mind ran rampant with the ideas in the story and I soon found myself planning and writing a novel, which has since turned into an entire series of novels in my head. I'll be the first to admit that my lengthy writing projects are just as weird and wacky as some of the poems and doodles I share here on our blog. I guess that just is what it is. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned all this before, and now I'm just rambling. I have some doodles inspired by my stories in the works, which I'll of course share with you all here.)

4. My lucky number is 9.
(I like odd numbers, but 7 is such an overused lucky number that I've always refused to accept it as mine. As a kid, for whatever reason, I felt an affinity for the number 9. I think this was helped along by the fact that my angel Rosie and her angel brother Sammy were born on the first day of September, which is of course the ninth month of the year. So, 9 became my lucky number. I also really like the number 13, perhaps because I'm not a superstitious person.)

Now it's your turn!

To add your link to the Friendly Fill-Ins Linky list, just click HERE!

You can also click on the badge below to add your link.

You are also welcome to complete the fill-ins in the comments below,

or in the comments on Ellen's blog, 15andmeowing.

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Last week, Eddy's bloopers co-starred a strange sort of someone. Remember this fella?

All of the furbabies here received new little goodies for Easter, and this little guy is what the Easter Bunny brought Eddy. For various reasons, this gnome of Eddy's has been named Chompsky. And Eddy very much likes her pal Chompsky. She loves slapping him this way and that way, she loves throwing him around the room, and she loves chewing on and tearing at him. She especially loves chewing on Chompsky's beard. Eddy even considers him enough of a friend to share her favorite treats with him (prepare for incoming bloopers).

The gnome has not yet expressed his opinion on his friendship with Eddy. Perhaps he will do so in the future, though. After all, this won't be the last you see of Chompsky.

Happy Friday, friends!

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Flashback Doodles of the Day

For the Caturday Art Blog Hop tomorrow we'll of course be sharing a new doodle (and a wacky one at that). For the other upcoming days over the next week or so, though, we'll be sharing flashback doodles. This is not only because I'm hoping for just a small break after creating a brand new doodle for every day in April, but it's also because I want to rehash some of the doodles from last year's April A to Z Challenge. For last year's alphabetical challenge we of course used angel Rosie as the star, but back then Rosie was taking you through an entire day of a busy girl like her.

So, let's start on these flashback doodles from last year. In honor of the fact that it's Friday and the weekend is just around the corner, we thought we'd share a couple of the doodles from last year's A to Z Challenge that showed certain steps of an average work day. Let's start with that drive to work.

After you arrive at work, you count the minutes until you can get back home, right?

And when that clock tells you it's time to leave the office, you run for the door.

And now you're ready for the weekend!

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Tip of the Day

We're admittedly doing some more repeat tips. April was Heartworm Awareness Month. Since each day last month we shared tips relating to our A to Z Challenge, we did not get the chance to share any heartworm prevention tips. So, in hopes that late is truly better than never, we'll now be sharing some heartworm tips. Many of these are repeat tips from multiple years in the past, but this is a significant topic that we don't mind repeating.

We'll start simple and remind you all that heartworms come from mosquitoes, and a dog or cat can become infected if they are bit by a mosquito carrying larvae. This can occur in either indoor or outdoor furbabies. For indoor animals, you can try to keep all windows and doors closed, in hopes to prevent mosquito entry into the house. However, they can enter through cracks, or simply when you open the door. What’s more, it is possible for mosquitoes to be out and about year round, even in the winter. For this reason, our first heartworm prevention tip is to simply ensure that you keep your dogs and cats on preventatives that include heartworm coverage, and that you do this year round.