Thursday Thank Yous
Here are three things that I love:

1. Dog bone collar charms. I have a weakness for beautiful handmade lampwork beads to begin with- my coworkers will attest to this, as I risk my earlobes every Christmas wearing big gingerbread glass earrings to work because I LOVE THEM SO. So if you take a glass bead, then make it something adorable like a dog bone- or a dog face- or the chickens- I am in love. Seriously, check out the chickens! I’ve never seen such cute poultry. *love* She made me love chickens, and that is hard to do.
I haven’t even told you the coolest part. The talented artisan who makes these? Is a vet. No joke! Who knew I had such talented colleagues? Feel free to out yourself in the comments if you wish, you multitalented person, you.
2. Best bully sticks. Brody loves bully sticks. If you can get over the gross out factor, they are awesome treats. Best Bully Sticks- one of my Twitter finds- offers a huge selection of bully sticks (and a bunch of other treats as well) for unbeatable prices. At the risk of sounding like a paid advertisement (it’s not), seriously, the bully sticks are a steal. They also are sourced from free range grass fed cattle, so you can feel good about letting your dog eat em up.
3. Cloud K9 jewelry. Cloud K9 has a really cool mix of vintage style jewelry in many, many breed varieties. I’m eyeing one of the antiqued lockets for pictures of Emmett and Mulan. And seriously, where else on the web would you find hand painted dog Christmas wreath brooches? I need one of each for my lab coat.
I like supporting small business e-tailers in general, but these three did something particularly special that I want to acknowledge. I put out a tweet a couple weeks ago asking if anyone could donate something for a raffle my daughter’s school was having to fund all the things the state is no longer helping with- like pencils. All three stepped up. They don’t live anywhere near me, and didn’t ask for me to plug them here or for anything in return; they just did it out of a sense of community. So thank you, guys, it is so truly appreciated. And I’m plugging you anyway. And for everyone else, I wouldn’t put them up here if I didn’t love the product as well as the seller- I’ve seen the stuff, and whoever wins the raffle will be a lucky person indeed.
And my kid won’t have to learn to write her name on a grocery bag with an old lead pencil. It takes a village.




