The Maine Coon

http://thegenusgenius.com/felines/maine-coon-cats-and-maine-coon-kittens

The Maine Coon is a very large cat.  They can be anywhere from 9-18 pounds and have a lifespan of about 12-15 years.  Maine coons are very fluffy with big puffy tails and paws.  They can be a wide variety of colors but some common colors include browns and blacks.  The Maine Coon originated in Maine, but it is unknown how it exactly came to be.  It was first recorded in literature in 1861.  The Maine Coons place of origin helps to explain some of its characteristics because the thick fur and big paws would help the cat to survive the cold winters in New England. 

  Maine coons do have long hair and they do shed some.  Their fur can get mats in it but it is not overly common for this breed to be really matted and it can be prevented by brushing through their hair every once and a while.

    Maine coons love to be with their owners and are very friendly.  They love to talk and meow a lot! you will probably find yourself often talking with your cat. Some Maine Coons like to sit in your lap, but most just like to be near you.  Maine coons love to be your friends but they are pretty independent.  They are also a very curious cat and will love to watch and investigate whatever your doing.  Maine coons are a very playful cat and they love to play and interact with their owners.
   The Maine Coon is a very fun, independent, and loving cat and would be a perfect addition to most families.
   

Cats vs. Dogs



http://sakura-pet.blogspot.com/2011/07/cat-and-dog-pictures-gp06.html

    A lot of people label themselves as either cat people or dog people and our strongly opinionated on their preference.  I personally am both a dog and cat person and I like having both types of animals around. There are both positives and negatives to having cats and dogs as pets.
    Cats are a great pet to have around.  They come in a wide variety of breeds and colors and the breeds vary in size slightly.  Cats are usually an indoor animal so that eliminates having to take them outside, which can be nice when it's below zero outside and snowing or when it's raining.  On the other hand though, cats use litter boxes.  These can smell up your house and need to be changed every few days or so and you will need to buy new litter every few months.  Cats can be very friendly and would make a great pet for anyone, but they would be especially nice for people who travel quite a bit and for elderly people.  Although cats are very friendly and cuddly, they also tend to be more independent so you wouldn't need to worry about them as much during your travels.  You also wouldn't need to worry about finding someone to let your animal stay with them or someone to check on them multiple times a day while you are gone.  You would just need to find someone willing to check on them every other day or so and probably just once to fill their food and water and to scoop their box.  A cat is a great pet for someone who is elderly because they wouldn't need to worry about walking them and going outside a lot and this would be beneficial if they had trouble moving around.  Cats love to cuddle and sit in your lap.  As a kitten they may be hyper, but once the reach adulthood they usually are a pretty calm pet although occasionally they can be pretty playful.  Cats want to be your friend and make great companions.
    Dogs can also make wonderful pets.  They are fun, playful, and make great friends.  Dogs do need more of your time and I personally feel that they are not as independent and they get more attached to their owners.  So if someone wants a dog it is probably a good idea for them to have a good amount of time to spend with them.  Although taking a dog outside to go to the bathroom can be a drag, it's not always bad.  I saw my first shooting star while taking my dog out at five in the morning and during Christmas time I get to see a lot of pretty lights when I go out.  Since dogs are usually both inside and outside a lot, it is recommended that you treat them monthly with flea medication.  Dogs also need to be bathed every few weeks or so and this may or may not be an easy task, it just depends on the dog.
Dogs do need to be exercised daily, but this can be fun too.  You can take them for walks, play fetch, play frisbee, or do many other things with them.  Dogs just want to please their owners and be their friends.
Whether you're a dog person, a cat person, or both, cats and dogs make wonderful pets and they definitely become part of your family.
   

Breed of the Week: Border Collie

Hey, how many Border Collies does it take to change a light bulb?

One, and he will fix all of the wiring while he's at it!

http://www.dogster.com/dog-breeds/Border_Collie

    The Border Collie is a very popular breed of dog.  They are a medium-sized breed that can be anywhere from 30 to 45 pounds and they stand pretty high off the ground.  This breed has an average life span of 12 to 15 years. The Border Collie was recognized by the AKC in 1995 as a member of the herding group. They usually have long black and white splotched fur, but the can also be red, yellow, sable, or a mixture of these colors. They also have pointed ears and can have brown or blue eyes. These dogs do shed some, so a daily brushing is recommended to help reduce the shedding.

    The border Collie is a descendent of the Landrace Collie and originated near the Anglo-Scottish border.  This breed of dog was bred for herding animals like cattle, sheep, and goats. 

    Border Collie's are a great breed of dog for an active family.  They have a lot energy and would do great in a house with a big yard.  Exercising your border Collie is really important and can prevent bad behavior from boredom. They need about thirty minutes to two hours of exercise a day and love to do a variety of things from walks to frisbee to sports. Border Collies can be kenneled during the day if you work as long as they get the appropriate amount of exercise afterwards. Border Collies are extremely smart and are easy to train. They love praise, so make sure to compliment them when they do something right in training. They are a breed that love sports competitions like agility competitions, fly ball, frisbee, or sheepherding competitions.  You do have to be in control of your dog though because they will test you.  Border Collies are also great to help out farmers on their farms because of their natural herding abilities.  Border Collies do great with kids and other dogs.  They may not do very well with other pets that aren't dogs, although some do okay with cats. Since the border collie is such an intelligent dog it is also important that you play and challenge them mentally as well so that they don't get bored.
The Border Collie is a great dog and will make a great friend to anyone or family who has an active life style and loves to be outdoors.

infromation from:
http://www.dog-first-aid-101.com/border-collie-facts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Collie
http://www.akc.org/breeds/border_collie/history.cfm
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/bordercollie.htm
http://www.akc.org/breeds/border_collie/
http://www.dogster.com/dog-breeds/Border_Collie

The boy who came back from heaven Review

http://bcnn4youth.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/

     The boy who came back from heaven is a life changing story and is one of my all time favorite books.  This is one of those books where you look at life differently after you finish reading it.  The boy who came back from heaven is a true story about a boy named Alex Malarkey and it is written by him and his father Kevin.  When Alex was just six years old he and his father were in a serious car crash  Kevin was thrown from the vehicle and Alex was medically decapitated.  Kevin recovered pretty quickly but Alex was seriously injured.  Most doctors did not think that it would be possible for someone to survive Alex's injuries.  After being in a coma for a couple of months Alex wakes up and has an amazing story to tell.  Alex went to Heaven and saw God, Jesus, angels, and experienced the city.  He describes Heaven as a beautiful place with bright colors and with things similar to what we have here on earth like trees, lakes, and mountains; except he says that heaven is perfect. Alex overcomes many challenges in his young life. He has had many surgeries, including the Christopher Reeve surgery and he even had to relearn how to talk.

       I love this book and I think that everyone could benefit from reading it.  This story really showed me that we need to put our trust and faith in God.  The family goes through so many hardships in this time period: their son is severely hurt and goes into a coma for months followed by a long recovery,  they have an immense amount of medical bills to pay,  they have to get a van that is accessible to Alex and a lot of medical equipment, they have three other kids that they had to care for, and they had to keep their marriage strong through all of this.  Although the family does get a little down at times , overall the stay super positive and trust that God will get them through everything and he does.  They are asked to sign up for a certain type of insurance and a great majority of the medical bills are covered, Alex gets better each day, a van is donated to them, people offer to fix their roof, and they are still happily married.  I feel that if the family could stay positive through all of this then I can stay positive too.  I think that in general we get negative way too fast over small things in life. Instead of getting negative about things that aren't going our way we should be grateful about all the things we do have and stay positive.  As stated in Matthew 19 verse 26: Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."  We need to put our trust in God and he will help us to do the impossible.

    I encourage everyone to read this book because it could change your life! :)

Breed of the Week: Corgi

http://www.justdogbreeds.com/pembroke-welsh-corgi.html

      As requested of  a friend, this week's breed of the week is the Corgi.  There are two types of corgis; the Pembroke Welsh Corgi and the Cardigan Corgi. The two breeds are pretty similar except that the Pembroke has a short tail and the Cardigan has a long tail.  Both types are small dogs, about 20 to 35 pounds, with short legs. They also have pointed ears and come in a variety of coat colors like black, red, tan, or a mix of the colors often with white incorporated in.  The average lifespan of the Corgi is 12-15 years.
     The corgis started in Wales and were bred to be herding dogs.  Since they were low to the ground they would not be kicked by cattle as easily as bigger dogs.  Corgis were another royal dog and many have lived in Buckingham palace, including Dookie, King George VI's dog.  Pembroke and Cardigan Corgi's were considered one breed of dog until 1934 when they were recognized as separate breeds by the Kennel Club in Britain. 
   As many people know corgis are a very fluffy dog. They have wirey hair and they do shed, but unless you have allergies I wouldn't let this bother you too much because their great temperament outweighs the negative of shedding.  Brushing them daily can help minimize the shedding.
   Corgis are a great family dog.  They are very smart and easy to train, including house training.  They can be stubborn though and may only do what they want to at some times (I find it kind of funny when dogs act stubborn).  They are good with children, except they may try and herd them because of their instincts (they can be trained not to do this).  Corgis are very protective of their owners, so it is important to socialize them especially at a young age. They are usually great with other pets as long as they get used to them by socializing. They are also a very talkative breed of dog and have a loud bark.  Corgi's have a lot of energy so you should exercise them regularly and walks are a great way to do this.
Overall the Corgi is a very friendly, and funny dog that would make a great addition to your family.

Info from:

http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/cardigancorgi.htm

http://www.justdogbreeds.com/pembroke-welsh-corgi.html

http://dogtime.com/dog-breeds/pembroke-welsh-corgi

http://www.corgicorner.com/info.htm

The Importance of Volunteering

http://www.purchase.edu/CampusLifeAndAthletics/service/main.aspx

        A very important part of our society is volunteering.  Without it a lot of the things that we have wouldn't be able to happen.  If we didn't have volunteers we wouldn't have things like elementary school holiday parties, recreational races and sports teams, meals on wheels, and even the red cross.     Imagine your school without volunteers.  You wouldn't have half the funding for your school that you do now because there wouldn't be enough time to fundraise.  A lot of school events wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be able to go on as many trips because there would be no chaperones.  Imagine what our hospitals would be like without volunteers.  There would be a lot less people to help you, people coming to visit patients would get lost a lot easier, and patients would be seen a lot slower because there would be less people checking in incoming patients. Now imagine the world without volunteers.  When a natural disaster struck there would be no one to help the people clean up and put there lives back together.  There would be no one to help package food for starving children. There wouldn't be nearly as many people helping third-world countries.  The world would not be able to move forward, modernize, and be as connected as it is with volunteers.

       Volunteers do a lot for the world.  They give there time and energy to help others.  Now you may be reading this and thinking, "volunteering seems too hard" or "I don't have time to do that much work."  There are many ways that you can get involved.  You can volunteer locally, nationally, or globally.  All are important tasks, so don't feel that just because your only volunteering in your town and not in a country half way across the world that your job isn't important.  We can't help the world if we don't help our own communities.  There is also many different time commitments in volunteering.  You can have volunteer schedules where you volunteer at a certain place for a certain amount of time on a regular basis, or you can just volunteer for certain events throughout the year that you choose.  I personally love working with kids, so I've volunteered for things like a homeless children's Christmas party, a elementary reading camp, and a VBS.  There are many different things you can choose to volunteer for though.  You could volunteer at a hospital, a church, an animal shelter, you could have a bake sale, and  so on.  Volunteer for something that pertains to your interests.  Volunteering can be really fun and may even be the favorite part of your week.  Who doesn't love to do something that is fun and helps others at the same time!

How to have a Bakesale

http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes

     Have you ever wanted to have bake sale, but you didn't know where to start?  I love to bake and last summer I did my first bakesale for an animal rescue.  I found out that it is a lot of work, but it's not too hard. I also found out that it is a lot of fun!

       First you need to decide on an organization that you would like to do the bake sale for.  I picked a no-kill volunteer animal shelter in the community.  Second I would ask your friends and family if they would be interested in helping.  The more hands you have the faster it will go and the more you will be able to make.  Plus, who doesn't love to bake with family and friends, its a blast! 

        After you have your baking team set up you should decide on the place and date of your event. The one that I did was at the farmers market and the shelter already had a booth so I didn't have to worry about this part.  If you don't know where to have the sale maybe call some local stores to see if they would let you have it outside of the store.  You could also see if you could sell at a sports event.

     Next you need to decide on what you want to bake.  There are a lot of things to choose from.  I baked chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter blossoms, frosted cut out sugar cookies, and m+m cookies.  Cookies are a great thing to bake because you can make them in advance and freeze them until the day of the sale.  You could also bake cupcakes, bars, brownies, puppy chow, and anything else you can think of.  If you make something that you need to frost you should wait until the day before to frost, because frosting can get gritty when frozen for too long. Try to use bright colors and decorations on the goodies to catch peoples eyes.  If possible maybe even go with a theme.  Since my bakesale was for an animal shelter I made bone, paw-print, dog, and dog house shaped cut out cookies. 

    After you have everything baked you need to package them.  You can buy "fancier" packaging at a craft store, but ziploc baggies work just fine too.  To decorate them even more you can tie the bags off with ribbon; I used pawprint ribbon.   If your setting up your own table you can make signs and little cards saying what each goody is and how much it costs.  I put 2 cookies in each bag and we priced them from 50 cents to a dollar.

    I hope this helps get you started and remember to have fun and that you can change the world one cookie at a time!

Races For A Cause

      I recently participated in two 5k races that were for a charitable cause.  For those who have not done a race before, you pay about fifteen to thirty dollar to enter into the race and most of that money goes to whatever the cause is.  Usually you run the race and you get little nick-nacks from sponsers in your runners bag, and they provide you with snack items after.  Depending on how you placed in your race (its usually divied into age divisions) you can win metals and trophies. 
    The first race that I did was for the kids against hunger.  I thought that they did a great job putting the race together.  They were very organized and everything started almost right on time.  The had a great course set up.  We ran mostly on hard surfaced roads with just a few small hills.  They had police set up at bigger intersections so that runners didn't have to stop if cars were coming by.  They also had people at each mile to tell you your time so you could see how you were doing and adjust your pace.  After the race they had a bunch of snacks and free stuff from sponsers, you even had the option to package food for Haiti.
   The second race I did was for the make-a-wish foundation. This is a great organization that grants the wishes of sick children. They also did an amazing job setting up this charity event.  Before the race they had a group of cheerleaders perform, they had three make-a-wish kids share their stories, and they had a warm up session to loosen up your muscles.  Then the race started.  It started in the parking lot of a stadium and then circled around the neighborhood and back into the stadium.  The runners got to finish on home plate, and I thought that was pretty neat.  After the 5k race they had a fun walk around the baseball diamond.  After that they had food (hotdogs, chips, bananas, etc.) that you could purchase.  They finished the event with an award ceremony and a goal to make next years race even bigger.

http://www.clker.com/clipart-4309.html

   I think that setting up a race is great way to raise money for a good cause, especially in the fall and spring when the weather is nice.  Participants get to do something fun and accomplish their running goals while helping others around the community, nation, and even the world. I encourage anyone out there who has an interest in running to try a race for a charitable cause.  You will get to do something you enjoy and you will  make a difference in someones life. :)

Breed Of The Week: Pug

http://cutcaster.com/print/801141613

    Of course I would start my blog with talking about the pug.  I will say right now that I am biased because I have a pug named Eva that I absolutely adore, but I still think that I can help you fall in love with the pug too.
      Pugs are small dogs, about 18-22 pounds, with stout bodies and a pushed in face. They have a bunch of wrinkles, a curly tail, and come in the colors of fawn, silver, or black.  They often snort, snot, sneeze, snore, and make other funny noises.  Don't they just sound adorable!  At my house we always say that the pug fell from Heaven, they just tripped on the way down.
     The origin of the pug isn't completely known but they are thought to have originated in China.  They eventually arrived in Europe in the 1500's. Even some faomus people in history owned pugs.  An example would be Josephine, Napoleon's wife. She owned a pug named Fortune that carried secret messages to Napoleon under his collar.  The pug also became a fashion statement in Europe during the 20th century.  The pug was recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1885.
    The Pug is a great companion and is definately a family dog.  They love to always be with you.   My pug will follow me around where ever I go.  They also love to cuddle, play, go on walks, and EAT!!!  Pugs will eat just about anything  (Ice cream and mac n cheese are two favorites of my pug)  and they will eat whenever food is given to them.  That being said you do have to watch their weight because of their love of food. It's not super hard to do, just make sure to take them on plenty walks and if they start to get plump cut back on their treats a little or give them healthier ones.
  My pug loves to be outside and she gets real excited when we take her on walks.  Exercise is great for pugs but just be careful about the temperature.  Due to a pugs smashed face they have a shorter airway and can over heat very easily and very fast! If it is hot out make sure to have plenty of water available and to keep your outdoor time short.
  The pugs main goal is to please.  They will always make you laugh and cheer you up when you need it. They are happy when your happy.  So if you think that a pug is the dog for you be ready to laugh, love, and make a new best friend.