If you haven’t noticed, I Love Rescue Animals is bursting with brand new content in our blog. Not only do we try and have a blog a day up now, but we’ve also got four, count them – FOUR, different series going on that I wanted to take a minute and showcase here. AND we’ve welcome on a new member of the team! How awesome is that? Check out what we’ve been up to!

• Shelter Sketches: I’ve talked about them here before. This is a project that came from the lovely Chelsea Conlin, who is now an official member of the ILRA crew. She gets artists from all over to take part in this weekly project to save pets in need.
• Product Reviews: With the help of our fuzzy puppy product testers, this is a series we’ve started to show our readers what we use, what we like, and what we’d recommend to everyone else. Sometimes they’re sponsored reviews, but more often it’s just because we want to.
• The Truth Behind TFM: By now you should be familiar with my comic The Family Menagerie. At ILRA, we’re going to be writing up and sharing with you the real story behind each comic, sometimes this will even include pictures and videos. This just proves that almost everything you see in the comic is at least slightly true.
• Pet Parent Files: I consider this to be the most important and the most helpful to all of our readers. We have a lot of pets, if anyone has guessed, and while this doesn’t qualify as to be vets, it does give us something of an expert status on how to deal with certain things. These videos are going to be thorough and hopefully helpful to everyone who needs them.

That’s just some of the stuff we’ve been doing at I Love Rescue Animals. Don’t forget to check out our blog and make sure you follow us on twitter: @RescueAnimals. Is there something else you want to see on ILRA? Let us know!

Today’s comic is up and features everyone’s favorite pup: Spunky! You might recognize this cute pup because he’s the mascot of I Love Rescue Animals. He was named after the dog in the Nickelodeon show “Rocko’s Modern Life” and he lives up to his name. He’s also the lover of our family and the animal that gets along with every single other brother or sister. Nobody hates him, everyone loves being near him. He’s our lover pup.

Check out more comics at The Family Menagerie and enjoy!

I don’t write these kinds of posts often, mostly because I don’t want to bore you with details of my personal life. Wouldn’t you rather be interested in art or design or comics? That’s what I thought. But every once in awhile, I figure it’s okay to give you a little behind-the-scenes look into my life and give you an update on what kind of trouble I get myself in to.

Working Away Life: MUST. STAY. BUSY.

My attention lately has become focused less and less on design. This is both good and bad. Good because I am finding myself being drawn back into more traditional forms of art and the outside world, but bad because I still have a few projects I need to wrap up AND because doing freelance design has always been an extra source of income that my large family needs. I’ve started trying to do everything all at once – color this picture now, quick write that post, jump on coding that design now now now get it done TONIGHT – but this ultimately has led to several nights where I want to pull my hair out because I don’t feel like I have enough time to pack everything I want to do in. And then I’ll pass out for several hours and not want to do anything at all the next day but sit on the couch and read. Thankfully, this is going to change.

Where is the Balance: Finding Organization

Que Rachael Acklin, Superhero and Creative Coach extraordinaire. She has started up this fantastic project: Creative Rockstar Coaching, and let me tell you, we’ve only had one session so far, but I’m beyond motivated and inspired by this woman. I managed to get one of the free slots Rachael had going for her Rockstar List (go sign up for the mailing list) and, you can ask her, I was so thrilled I could barely write.

With Rachael’s help, I’m going to get organized and make the time to do everything I want – without getting burnt out. I’ve already started on a schedule of how I want my weeks to go and I cannot tell you the weight that is slowly rising off my shoulders. It feels good, knowing that breathing will be easier soon. I can do this. I can do this. I’m a Rockstar. I can do this.

Traditional Artist: Coloring Orangutans

I love drawing comics. The Family Menagerie is doing well right now and I’ve got so many sketches already finished, I think I’m good on those for a few months. My love for traditional styles is more alive than ever too, since I cracked out my markers and colored pencils. I love pulling out my sketchbook sitting at my drawing table, listening to good music, and just getting into that zone where there’s nothing but me and the paper in front of me. It’s a beautiful feeling and it makes me feel so happy and good. I love working with my hands, and, maybe this is just me, I love the smell of my colored pencils. They remind me that this is ME doing what I LOVE. If I could spend all day doing nothing but coloring and working on art, I would in a heartbeat.

My current project, other than The Family Menagerie, is a series of illustrations for a children’s book a friend of mine is writing. She currently works at a zoo up in Wisconsin and her stories are all centered on the animals that live there. This first book is about Max the orangutan. At first, I almost gave up and told her to find someone else to do this because I could not for the life of me figure out how to draw orangutans. But thankfully, I finally settled on a style and I’m loving my orangutans. I’m pretty good at them if I do say so myself. If you ever need a picture of an orangutan, just call me. *cheesy grin*

Taking Back Life: Breathe Deep, Seek Peace

Of course my life is hectic for other reasons. We’ve twenty three animals that we feed and take care on a daily basis, with several of them currently on medication for one thing or another (mostly allergies). Ash and I are still doing almost weekly (it’s slower in the summer) volunteer runs with Central Texas Feline Rescue, and trying to keep both of our cars alive long enough to get new ones. We’re also talking with a lender about possibly buying a house in a few months and boy let me tell you, that right there is enough stress to have me hiding under my desk. Money is extremely tight, time is limited, and there is always something that needs to be done.

Life is absolutely crazy, but you know what? Things always get better. They always do. Patient is a virtue and I just have to remember the wise words of Thich Nhat Hanh, “Smile, breathe and go slowly.” So now it’s your turn. What have you been doing lately?

Ash and I have been super busy the last few weeks putting more and more content up over at I Love Rescue Animals, and the blog is becoming a virtual hothouse of information for any and all pet lovers. Our newest project: Pet Parent Files! This is the start of our video blogging journey – Ash has started creating videos (with me helping as the cameraman), giving tips from one pet parent to another. Whether it’s about giving panicure to dogs or feeding medication to rats, saving baby birds or talking about kittens, we are going to try and cover it all. Have a question? Please ask and we may do a video for you! Our menagerie currently consists of dogs, cats, ferrets, rats, a snake, a leopard gecko, and some fish (at the moment), so our experiences are varied and we may have an answer for you. Go check out our new Pet Parent Files!

We used to have to struggle to find content for our I Love Rescue Animals blog, but lately, it has come alive with entries not just from us, but from a couple of other people as well. One being the awesomely talented Chelsea Conlin who has taken it upon herself to do, what we like to call, Shelter Sketches. Check out that series – it’s cute and it’s helping animals.

We’ve also started doing Pet Parent Files where Ash and I do a video with tips on taking care of our many animals (if you lost count, we’re up to 23 now, two of which are fosters). It’s crazy, but we figured with our experience, people might be interested in what we do on a daily basis.

Even with the sudden influx of content, we’re always looking for guest posts. Want to tell a story about your rescue animal? Have a great rescue story you heard and feel we should discuss? Let us know and we’ll post it! Head over to ILoveRescueAnimals.org and fill out the content form telling us what you’re like to do or how you’d like to contribute. We look forward to hearing from you!

One year ago today, our Brody was whisked away from us. A neighbor left the door open and Brody, our beautiful little golden pup, took off out the door and was hit by a truck. A truck that didn’t even stop to see if he was okay. I still have nightmares about it, seeing it all happen over and over again. It’s been a year and certainly doesn’t feel like it.

We miss you so much Brody. You were the happiest dog in the world, our Dalai-Lama of dogs.

Okay it was yesterday, but whatever. On April 14th, I Love Rescue Animals turned one year old! One whole year we have been helping puppies and kitties and people find each other on our website. How exciting is that?

Check out the ILRA Blog for posts about what you can do to help. All this week we will be posting about the fun adventures we had at the first annual BlogPaws Conference. Be sure to say Happy Birthday and don’t be a stranger. The next two weeks are going to be filled with awesome surprises and fun games!

It’s Monday and we all know what that means! The Family Menagerie has been updated with some of your favorite characters. Today’s topic? Training (or something like that).

Morgan Niels-Jeske
“The Valentine Baby”
January 1, 2008 – February 5, 2010
Adopted into our family February 14, 2008

She no longer has the burden of an old body, but I’m going to miss her so much. Here’s an excerpt from the journal entry I wrote about her on Valentine’s Day of 2008. The best Valentine’s Day ever.

In my hands was a tiny, beautiful baby girl rat. Seriously, all I did was stare at her for the longest time. I couldn’t formulate any thoughts and I hardly dared hope that she was mine, so I kept asking stupid questions like “Where’d she come from?” and “What is she doing here?” I know I kind of made Ash nervous that I didn’t like her, but I was just in shock. And then when it finally started to dawn on me that this little girl was mine, I began to tear up and almost started crying. She’s so beautiful. She’s mostly white with a dark gray hood with a white line like a scar down her face to her nose and a dark gray spot on her back. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

We love you, Morgan.

There’s a new comic up over at The Family Menagerie. TFM is updated every Monday (regardless of when it’s actually done, I might add), so be sure to check out all the crazy antics that two girls and twenty-two pets come up with. Good times for all.

And who doesn’t love puppies and kittens?

P.S. Don’t forget about the current Poster Giveaway!