Memorial Weekend

Well we discovered some new things about Kona this Memorial Day. She does not like mannequins or marching bands. I'm pretty sure one of the nasty ugly mannequins made eye contact with her so she was fully justified in barking and lunging at the store window. I did hope to actually SEE my youngest daughter play however. Good thing there were two other daughters along so they could take pictures and show me what I missed! Here we have our bass drum playing nun again! She loves doing this! And there marching right next to her is daughter number 4. These are their new uniforms, don't they look sharp?

Here is Kona pretending that she likes her Kong. She is settling in a bit. Now that she feels more comfortable around us it seems to be okay (in her mind) to bark at the cats more. sigh! She is still keeping my exercise program going quite well! ;-)

These are one of my favorite sights at my house. My white violets from my great grandma. Grandma had a teeny little cottage with these growing all around it. To my child eyes it was the most charming place in the world. Grandma was an awesome woman. She always wore jeans, this was before women wore jeans, she gardened and cooked and baked on a wood stove. She could actually bake a cake in that stove, it is still so amazing to me! She attempted to teach me to tat once, but it was a hopeless tangle of knots.

And here we have the --- ta da--- FINISHED Green Dream!!!!!

arrived in time!

The gown arrived in plenty of time for baptism! Is that the cutest face ever? I just had to show her off she is soooooooooo precious and I miss holding her soooooooooooooooooo much! Lucky big brother there who gets to cuddle here any time at all!

Back to the sewing room! Just had to show off!

Saturday!

What a gorgeous day today was. Well, it was Wisconsin spring, which means that one minute it was warm and lovely, and the next it was windy and "brisk". ;-)

Still, I did get a chance to get some yard work done. I got out the little flower bed things, birds and such, and the bird bath, and summer feeders, and I was able to get two more hanging baskets planted for the front porch. I didn't take time to photograph it all but I will try to do that tomorrow!

My first project though was inside. I found out yesterday that we are to be Godparents to MY little Maggie and her 3 year old brother Josh!!! I am so excited and honored I can hardly contain myself! The big problem is that baptism is NEXT weekend in COLORADO! sigh. My favorite cousin wants to just have a proxy do our part so she can go ahead with the baptism right away. Still, I needed to make a gown for my little namesake. If I had more time I would have done some special embroidery on the front, but I need to get it in the mail on Monday so she will have it in time! I think the yellow accents will go good with her lovely red hair!

Another interesting thing I discovered was that blogger was not sending me my comments to approve! I discovered SIXTEEN comments for a past post!! Man, what a bummer! It's like discovering the mail man didn't bother to deliver a bunch of letters. I'm off to reply to them now! ;-)

Catch up!

Oh my gosh, after having 4 kids you would think that getting a dog would be easy! Hah! This is like having another kid!!!

I'd like you to meet my personal trainer, Kona. She is certainly making sure that I get my walking in every day! This is a plus I had not counted on when we discussed getting another dog. She is also on occasion helping me with my upper arm strength. You have to understand, Kona LIKES the cats. Kona REALLY wants to PLAY with the cats. Kona is 10 times bigger than the cats and the cats do not think this is a good thing. Cassie, the 6 pound head of the household is completely ignoring her, while Zeller, the 15 1/2 pound wuss is totally freaked out. There are times he puffs up bigger than a basketball! The dog is currently consigned to the back hall until a truce can be made. sigh!

Here I am with Kona at Doggie school. Actually it's not so much dog training, as it is owner training. I have to admit she is pretty good at most of the things we are learning, I'm assuming she has already had some training. She will "STAY" for a while. She understands Sit, Heel, and a few others. She really is a good girl and we are very lucky to have her.

Meanwhile, here is Cassie who feels that all dogs are waaaaaaaaaaaay beneath her notice.

And here is Zeller relaxing once the dog is back out of the living room! Is he weird or what? I still can't believe he lays on his back like this. It just looks wrong!

I do have a bit of a life other than pets, not much, but a bit. The other day we had a few minutes before a dr. appointment so Vanessa and I went through Goodwill kind of quickly............I got the cute casserole dish for meals for two! Of course I could NOT turn down the Greenapple!!! The itty tea cups are being turned into pincushion holders, the little snowmen guys and the candle sticks came with the cups. oh well, I'll think of something for them. I'm not sure you can see it but I also got a cute shirt that has fish on it to make into a summer totebag, and there is a pair of Chinese looking fabric pants that are going to become a little bag!

And then of course there are muffins! ;-) Blackberry, YUM!

I also made a batch of chocolate chip mini muffins for Vanessa's class because they were all begging for bites of hers from her lunch, but I didn't think you needed to see those............. well okay you asked!

Busy as proverbial bees

Sorry for the size of this picture. I had to "borrow" it from the shelter website because any time I'm with her I have one hand on a leash and the other petting her below the right ear. Anyway..............Here is Kona! The dog fairy came through!! and what a great job she did. Kona is a 3 year old black lab mixed with some other things........ She is energetic, friendly, energetic, housebroken (99.99% of the time as she proved to me tonight) energetic, smart, energetic, partially trained, and did I mention she is energetic? We were pretty used to an older very calm easy going boy. Kona is keeping things lively for us! She just may be the best diet aid ever!
Meanwhile I am trying to work on a few things, in between dog walks and what I call "Lab work" (pee breaks) ahem, sorry, I digress easily! Here are some of my grocery bags. I've made about 14 of these babies so far and they are soooooooooo handy! The one on the far left has a basket in the bottom for my traveling projects, currently Yo Yo's. I'm planning to make some for my older daughters for their own shopping and hauling about. They roll up nicely and fit in the front of the car/van/truck for quick grocery runs. I get nice comments when the bag person at the grocery store is a woman too!
And here is the progress with my needle felting. I'm working on a flower pin. I'm going to attempt to work up to a hibiscus. Did you read that Flori?? Anyway, I'm tyring to get a few things made as shop samples for one of the local quilt shops that has a HUGE inventory of wool fabric. The owner talked to me about possibly teaching a class this fall. Me! Can you imagine that????

Working in Series

I'm off to work in a bit, but I decided to finally post the pictures of my artwork while I was on retreat back in March. I'm not sure where I was going with these, but I did put them up here in the order that I made them. I was really concentrating on the image of living beings connecting the earth to the heavens. My friend Cookie decided that some of them are men and some are women, but I wasn't even thinking about that aspect. Just beings-- connected. And as always I sort of feel like there is a quilt in here somewhere. ;-)

Well it Nakita won’t be joining our family.
It seems that someone else got their application in a few weeks earlier and decided today that they wanted her.
Never mind that SHE wanted US,
never mind that the STUPID Elton John song about Nikita has been playing in my head for 5 days now, yes it's spelled differently but it sounds the same, and I can't turn it off!!

(and did I mention that the shelter director commented on how much Nakita liked US?)
Not that I’m bitter or upset or anything. I’m sure she went to a very wonderful all American family who will adore here and love her forever, and get her a heated water dish and a very trendy dog couch, and organic food.
And really, there is no reason to be sad or upset when there are much much worse things in the this world than not getting a dog.
There are sick people~
there are poor people~
there are people without homes~
there are people that think that gas station cappuccino is real coffee~
It will be fine, someday a dog who needs us will come along, a wonderful charming dog,
Is there a dog fairy out there who can bring us our perfect dog?
I know—“chin up” “ this too shall pass” “ if it’s meant to be then it’s meant to be”
Blah blah blah
As soon as I get over the whole suckingness of it I’ll be fine. I always do land on my feet………….. sometime after I’ve landed on my butt, my head and a couple of sore knees.