Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard several people lament how early it’s getting dark these days. They’ve all said something along the lines of “I can’t wait for the first day of winter to get here, so it will start getting darker later.”

I had good news. In Atlanta, sunset starts getting later tomorrow, several days BEFORE the first day of winter. In every city I’ve checked, sunset starts getting later BEFORE winter’s start. Anchorage is the latest I found to join the party, coming in on Dec. 20. Of course, in the Southern hemisphere, they’re enjoying their longest days of the year. I’m not at all jealous.

So, yes, the days still get shorter until winter starts, but I find those extra few minutes of daylight at the end of the day make a HUGE difference to me. What about for you?

Go visit Time and Day.com and tell us when the sunset starts getting later where you are. Please? I’m completely interested.

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In November 2001, my friend Sarah and I visited a lady named Marlene Anderson. I visited her because she breeds Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, the breed I’d fallen in love with after looking through a book on dog breeds. I’d never met a Cavalier, however, and Marlene graciously allowed us to come visit her. I fell in love with those dogs. Instantly.

I knew I couldn’t afford to buy a Cavalier puppy, nor was I really interested in a puppy, but hoped I might be able to rescue an adult dog. Marlene suggested I contact all the AKC breed clubs in the metro Atlanta area. She also suggested I contact the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club of Greater Atlanta. And then she warned me that Cavaliers don’t come up for rescue often.

I went home that afternoon and sent about 20 e-mails. I expected to wait months — if not much longer.

Ten days and a bunch of phone calls and e-mails later, including one tearful call between the foster family and me after she misunderstood something I’d written on a message board related to the costs associated with pet ownership, I met this guy, who had just come up for rescue with the Greater Atlanta Cavalier group.

It’s Toby!

And here we are the night I met him, while we were still at the foster family’s house.

(Both photos taken from the Wayback Machine Internet Archive’s search of the CKCSC of Greater Atlanta site.)

He’s always been a laid-back guy, as you can see. The foster mom told me later that she decided he was mine for sure when he came into the room, saw me, immediately came into my lap and exposed his belly for me to rub.

This is Toby today (literally). I woke him up from a nap, which explains the slightly dazed look. :)

Today happens to be the 8-year anniversary of my adopting Toby. I didn’t realize that until I did some research earlier today. :)

This lap dog now goes on hikes. (Not to worry. He still sits in PLENTY of laps.) This shot was also taken today.

My life would be vastly different were it not for him. The biggest? I wouldn’t have met Ed. Yay for Toby!

Happy Toby-versary to me. I know we won’t have another eight years together. But I’m going to enjoy every bit of time we do have.

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Today, I met Jennifer McKinney, better known in the blog world as MckMama, and her family, including her youngest son Stellan. Some would (will) wonder why I and dozens of other folks would go out in 45 degree weather — and in 45 degree RAINY weather, no less — to meet people “from the Internet.” Different people will have different answers to that question. Here’s mine.

In late July of 2008, I happened to see a comment on a post at Confessions of a CF Husband. A woman who went by MckMama commented, saying, in part, the following:

If you would pray for us, we recently found out our newest baby (I’m 23 weeks pregnant) has serious heart issues and I am going in today again to have his little thumper checked out.

That led me a post in which MckMama had a hand on her 23-weeks-pregnant belly. That post, called 23, baby!, mentioned that that she was going for her baby’s “first weekly heart check.” That same day she was admitted to the hospital, because her baby’s “thumper” wasn’t doing so well.

I’ve been reading the blog ever since, and I’ve blogged about Stellan a number of times. The first time was on August 3, 2008, when I encouraged all of you to pray for Stellan. She was still in the hospital and had been told that her baby wouldn’t live. He did. On October 29, 2008, he was born seemingly perfect. Four months later, the problem he had in the womb came back. In April, he had a procedure called an ablation to try to fix the problem. It didn’t work. Two Mondays ago, hours after he flat lined, he had the same procedure with a markedly different result. The problem was fixed, with only a 1% chance of the problem coming back. Ever. And this is just the short version of the story.

Through all that, I’d prayed. I’d worried. Truthfully, I sometimes got more emotionally over-wrought than I should have, considering this was a boy that I’d never met, and one that I might never meet.

But today? Today I held this boy. (I wish I’d given him a big hug, but I didn’t somehow.)

I hugged his mother.

I shook his father’s hand and talked with him a little about the miracle that is Stellan.

I watched their other kids eat and drink and be silly.

And I saw Stellan, precious Stellan, look at my husband and, absolutely fascinated by his beard, reach out and touch it.

My husband, who has probably never read Jennifer’s blog but who has heard countless stories — and who has asked me countless times, “How’s Stellan?” — got to see for himself that Stellan is very well indeed.

Stellan is an example of prayer answered. Parts of their life that they do not tell us much about are examples of prayers answered. Even with a different result from Stellan’s ablation a few weeks ago (even if he’d died), his life is still a miracle. Those are reasons enough to have wanted to meet this boy and his family.

It was very good indeed to meet these people that I’ve prayed for so much in the last 16 months. And to meet some of the hundreds of thousands of others (if not millions of others) who have done the same was pretty great, too.

I hope we’ll get to see each other again some time.

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If you don’t know Anissa, she’s a blogger who lives in the Atlanta area. She had a massive stroke on Tuesday and then another stroke at some point thereafter. Since then, lots and lots and lots of folks who hang out in her corner of the Internet have been rallying around her in various ways. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a story about it. Anissa is 35. She and her husband have three young children.

Today Anissa’s husband Peter wrote on one of Anissa’s blogs, telling us some of the details. I wrote a lengthy comment, which I’m sharing here, because it pretty much sums up my best memories of Anissa.

I’ve not been SAYING much online about this, but I’ve been PRAYING and thinking of you so much.

I may have run into Alli Worthington (who I’d met before) first, but Anissa is the first person I met at Blissdom this year. My memory is that she was a little nervous about the whole enterprise, because it was her first conference. Looking back, I can’t believe that OUR Anissa was nervous, but I think that was the case.

She asked me where I am from, and when I told her, “the Atlanta area,” she told me you were moving here soon. We ran into each other a few more times over the weekend, but didn’t talk much more. At some point during the weekend we started following each other on Twitter. I’ve been enjoying her Tweets ever since.

On Monday, she Tweeted about “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” I told her I loved that movie and she said, “I love it MOAR!!” Loved that.

Thank you for the post. It helped me to know more of the details, though you were, of course, under no obligation to tell us any.

Much love…

Rebecca

I’m praying she gets better. And soon.

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Earlier this spring, Ed and I went to a bridal shower where neither of us had ever met the bride. I didn’t think much of it a) because I knew the groom (it was a Jack and Jill shower) and b) because I’d had my gum surgery 8 days earlier, so I had bigger things to worry about than not knowing the bride. Things like chewing.

Today, I’m going to another shower, this one for my cousin Wesley’s bride. It’s a girls-only event. I’ve met the bride once, briefly, about six months ago. Yesterday, I was talking to a male future relative of the bride. He’s also met her once, briefly, and remembered her as a “young, blonde, attractive woman.” I told him I wasn’t sure I’d recognize her. He said, “Well, you might not recognize her on the street, but you probably will in context.” I asked him if he’d ever been to a wedding shower. He said, “No.” When I pointed out that she probably wouldn’t be the only “young, blonde, attractive woman” there (she’s in her early- to mid-20s), he realized that I was right.

My only hope is if she has a flower, the somewhat traditional demarcation of guests of honor. THEN I might have a shot. :)

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On the way home from work today, I came thisclose to getting in an accident. I was heading into the shopping center where Curves is. A car leaving the shopping center got confused about how the parking lot works and was trying to turn left onto the main road using the lane for people turning in from the main road — me, in this instance.

I got new tires about a month ago. I’m convinced if not for them, the other car would have hit me head on. I did stop hard enough that my cell phone, which was tucked under my hip in the driver’s seat, flew off the seat and onto the floor board all the way under the accelerator.

The accident would have been the other driver’s fault. But my car is a 2001 Ford Focus and would have almost certainly been totaled. Affording a new car would be extremely problematic at the moment. Thank you, Jesus, for good brakes and new tires.

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I hate the shorter days of the fall and winter, but I love the beautiful sunsets I seem to capture this time of year, going no farther than our driveway.

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The first Sunday in October, I saw in the Publix sales circular a buy one, get one free offer for Atlanta Braves’ tickets. It was the last day of the regular season, but I let it slide (no pun intended), because the circular had come out the previous Wednesday.

Then, I saw this in the Publix sales circular in today’s paper:

Maybe they’re just getting a REALLY early start for next year?

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Today, we took a road trip to work with Fox’s trainer. (She’s helping us with the fear issues I mentioned last week.)

As we were waiting for the trainer to bring out the dog we’d be using to work with Fox, Ed and I had this conversation:

Me: Is the sun hitting me? I’m afraid I’ll burn.

Ed: No, the sun isn’t hitting you, but do you want some sunscreen? We have some in the car.

Me: No, I’ll just sit with my back to the sun. I’ll be o.k.

And if I’d had nothing to do all morning but sit with my back to the sun, that would have been true. Clearly, however, this wasn’t the case.

How many times will I get a completely preventable sunburn before I finally learn? Wait, don’t answer that.

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