Happy New Year: a Year of Dog

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Dear all, Happy New Year!  We had such a huge New Year party in Russian way, that it took me some time to recover. According to Chinese Horoscopes, this 2018 is the Year of the Dog. All my family are Big Dog Lovers. I grew up with dogs and I love to have them around. I sincerely think that dogs combined in them all the best humans qualities. For several years we babysit different dogs (I have several posts about it) , but  we didn’t had our own.  My son begged for that, but with our intensive travel schedule, I was hesitating to have a dog.  However, we always keep saying to him “later, one day, we’ll see”. So, after all trials with different kind of friends’ dogs, we finally decided to take our own.  We simply ran out of excuses for our son.  We came to Atlanta Humane society to find a dog for us. My son saw one, dragged us towards his cage, and we all fell in love with him at first site. Despite the fact he was only 7 months old, he already had a history.  He was found as a baby and adopted by someone, when he was 2 month old.  However, his “family” returned him when he was 7 months old. The same day we met him. He looked very sad and scared of everything. I had a lot of concerns why his family returned him. Maybe he was not house trained? Maybe aggressive?  We didn’t know.  I knew it was risky to take him right away, since you can’t return dog again – it would be really cruel. But we followed our instinct and took him with us.  We changed his name (it was probably fifth time because we didn’t know his previous name, only Humane society one), bought him toys and bed and took him home…

… It happened 3 years ago. Now, our dog is a spoiled baby. We love him and he is a part of the pack. He knows it. He still have a separation issue, and cry when we leave him even for a ten minutes, but we are working on that.  He is our little philosopher, looking at life with his deep dog’s look.

This year is a Year of Dog. I wish you all to be surrounded by people with the best dogs’ qualities: faithfulness, dedication and kindness, by people who love you without any reason, no matter how do you look, and always ready to forgive you. Happy New Year!

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Happy Old New Year!

Good evening everyone! Today is the Russian Old New Year!) …Don’t get me wrong-I know it may sound a little bit extreme and too much for foreigners to understand, but it is true that Russians (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Serbians, etc ) celebrate Everybody’s New Year on December 31, Orthodox Christmas on January 7th, and Old Russian New year (today), not to mention Russians who live in western countries and also celebrate an additional Christmas on December 25, and those who like read horoscopes (it’s a big crowd by the way) and , naturally, celebrate Chinese New Year as well.  All of this is true. Believe me.  I am going to celebrate Old New Year as well.  And I still have a Christmas tree and lights in the house and outside))

For those who didn’t convinced, here is some trusted info from Continue reading “Happy Old New Year!”

Merry Orthodox Christmas!!!

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Today is Orthodox Christmas which is also Russian Christmas!  The biggest surprise that there is -15C (I am serious -15!!!) in Atlanta, and +1 C in Moscow.  Unbelievable, but it’s true.  Yesterday I talked to my Moscow friend over Skype, and she complained that winter didn’t come to Russia yet…And it’s hard to imagine/celebrate New Year and Christmas without snow…Of course, if you live in Africa, you probably finally manage somehow to use a palm tree instead of a Christmas tree… But if you are in Russia-snow at the New Year is a must…  Probably all snow was saved for the Olympics…Who knows…But in Atlanta, it’s opposite-today was a real snow with huge and beautiful snowflakes.  Well, Atlanta is not ready for that.  No one has really warm clothes (I personally left all appropriate outfits in Russia), or skates…or winter loving mood.  School was canceled for tomorrow because of extreme (for Atlanta) cold weather!  It was supposed to be the first school day after the break.  Probably it was a special Santa Claus (Grandfather Frost) present for Russian kids at the Russian Christmas!  Merry Christmas to y’all!