Suzanne Earley

Firing up the quilting machine and embarassing the dog

I haven’t even been able to get to my quilting machine for most of the last week, but today I finally reached the bottom of the piles and started trying to catch back up on some quilting.  This little cutie was a quickie.  It was made by a young lady whose grandmother brought it to me to quilt.  I think the quilter was in the 8-10 year old range, but I’m not positive. Freehand allover swirls (in lime green thread!) were easy to do and helped hide the little bit of waviness around the edges.  It was actually pretty well pieced:  I wish my first quilt had been that nice.

I’m not really sure how this happened:

There was Mark, taking off his work shirt, and there was the dog, wanting attention, and the next thing I knew, we were sticking her arms in the sleeves and I was running for the camera.

Sooooooooo hungry

Katie had an ear infection, and we’ve been glooping her ears up with ear goop for the last week.  Wednesday was her recheck, and there was a possiblity she might have to stay and have her ears flushed, so…no food or water after 10 PM Tuesday night.

Which meant that Cocoa didn’t get to eat, either, first thing in the morning, because…trust me, it’s easier this way.  We figured she could survive until 9AM when Katie either returned and they ate together, or…I returned and fed her on her own.

It turns out that Katie’s ear infection is gone, however her ears are still completely clogged, and the vet didn’t want to risk hurting her trying to get the gunk out without softening it up first. So…now she’s on a week of ear wax remover drops, and another recheck next Wednesday.  Whoopee.  She just loooooves having her ears messed with.

The vet said something about how we must have noticed that she’s probably been ignoring us because she can’t hear very well.

Um, yeah, we hadn’t really noticed any difference from her normal I’m-a-princess-and-am-not-paying-attention-to-you behavior.

The picture is from right before I took her to the vet. Don’t they just look like they are wasting away from hunger?

Begin as you mean to go on

So, for Katie, that means she ought to spend plenty of time in 2010 cuddled up on someone’s lap on the couch, right?

I just hope the fact that I spent part of the day doing inventory doesn’t give me any bad luck.  I did spend time quilting one of my own quilts today, so that should bode well.

The return of the daily photo

I don’t know what happened, I just quit taking pictures every day.  I don’t have really willing participants, except for maybe the dog(s), but I can only take so many pictures of the dogs.  I’ve been missing this, though, and had decided to start it back up tomorrow, the 1st of June.  But there I was, sitting out back, knitting in the wind, and the dogs were laying out in the grass and it was so pretty, I was compelled to take their picture.

Only, I had to go inside and get the camera first, and by the time I got back, Katie had moved on.  But Cocoa was willing to lay back down, and the trees and grass and sky hadn’t changed, so I went with it.

I did end up getting a couple of shots of her before we went to play Frisbee and Chicken*.

She was the victim of a recent haircut.  She hates haircuts.  But after a haircut and a bath, she’s like velvet, which means she gets more cuddles, but I don’t think she has that much of a sense of the future.

I’m at a bit of a loss for a sewing project at the moment.  Everything’s either waiting for binding, waiting for quilting, not a stage where I can easily sit down and just sew…sounds like time to start something new, right?  Maybe I’ll just go knit. Or do one of the other many things I ought to do, like clean.  I vacuumed for awhile, and wanted to mop the kitchen floor.  OK, I didn’t WANT to mop, I just thought maybe it was probably time.  Only, I can’t find the fancy-shmancy micro-fiber thingy I stick on the end of the mop to clean my wood floor.  I can’t really fathom where it would have gone, so…the urge has now passed, and I probably won’t get back to wanting to mop again for ages…

TTFN-

Suzanne

*To Play Chicken, you must have a really obnoxious rubber-chicken toy that squeaks when you squeeze or shake it.  You then throw the obnoxious rubber chicken as hard as you can, and Cocoa will chase after it.  We are just thrilled that she actually wants to PLAY with something.  Whilst she’s distracted, chasing the Chicken, Katie chases the Frisbee.  If Cocoa notices, and can get to the Frisbee first, though, all bets are off.  Poor Katie doesn’t stand a chance…

73 pounds of Cocoa

We’re all still getting to know one another, but Cocoa seems to be fitting in pretty well.

Speaking of fitting, Katie can actually walk underneath Cocoa without having to duck.   20 pounds of Katie looks pretty tiny compared to 73 pounds of Cocoa.

This one didn’t have anything to do with the dogs, though that is Cocoa’s head at the bottom.  I just thought this was a nice one of Will, especially with the tree bokeh in the background.  I did have to use Photoshop to whiten his teeth, though.  Apparently it’s time for another “How to Brush Properly” lesson.

HOpe you are having a nice weekend.  Apparently my new Sunday ritual is a long nap in the afternoon, followed by not accomplishing very much.

Look! Green grass!

Oh, and a cute kid plus a dog, too.

Last weekend, Mark got to babysit Wrigley, his sister’s dog.  Does that make him our nephew?

Wrigley got to come over to our yard for several hours and the boys had a blast playing with him.  They were really thrilled that he let them lay down on top of them, and I think that I heard that it was even funnier when he was laying on top of them.  (Katie pretty much ignores the boys and wants nothing to do with them.  Unless one of them is are sitting on the couch, and then she’ll decide that he is her new best friend and jump up to sit on the couch with them…)

Will took this picture.  I have a whole bunch of pictures that the 2 boys took of Wrigley.  Unfortunately, many of them are of Wrigley’s backside, as we was walking away from the camera.

And we won’t even talk about the series of photos in which the poor dog’s privacy was invaded while he was, um, answering the call of nature…

Mark’s been keeping his eye on the swap sheet, looking for just the right dog that needs a good new home.  I’ve given the 3 boys my blessing, but I’m trying to stay out of it.  I’ve told them to go ahead, but they shouldn’t

expect me to fall in love with a new dog.

Yeah, I don’t believe me, either.

Post April Fools

The boys were watching Tom & Jerry cartoons for awhile before going to bed.

While I was trying to take their picture, Katie was whining at me, wanting to jump up into my lap.  By chance I caught her tongue:

Did you have a nice April Fools Day?  I tried to be pretty careful baout what I read online yesterday, I got caught by one blog post on a digiscrapping blog I read.

After school:

Joe: I got 3 marks today.

Me: YOU GOT THREE MARKS IN ONE DAY?!?!?!?!?!

Joe: April Fools!

(They get marks for forgetting things, not turning in homework, etc.  One is bad, 2 is dire and 3 in one week  means a trip to the principal, lunch with the principal, and they don’t participate in the quarterly “responsibility” party….)

He got his Dad too.  I couldn’t watch (my face would have given it away) but I could FEEL the anger emanating from Mark as he got wound up…it was pretty funny.

My evil sister-in-law got me too.  She works at the bank and called me yesterday afternoon.

Evil SIL: Hey, I’m working on overdraft notices and I’ve got one for one of your accounts.

Me: WHAT??!?!?!?!?!?

Evil SIL: Or maybe it’s just April Fools.

I swear, my blood pressure went up about 20 points.

Mark is already contemplating ways in which to get her back.  She should be very afraid.

I finished appliqueing the words on the Life, Liberty & Happiness quilt, I’d show it to you, but it looks just the same as the last picture, just sewn down.  I feel a bit of a let down when I finish a quilt top lately, I don’t know for sure when I’ll get to quilt it (I’m a little bit behind right now) and I really just want to throw it on and get it quilted!

Repeating myself

I’ve been blogging long enough that I could probably just start posting links to old posts when I do something stupid.

The last time I lost my wedding ring it had slipped off when I was loading the washing machine.

Yesterday, when I went to put it on, it was nowhere to be found.  Yes, my wedding ring went missing on my anniversary.

I looked in all of the obvious places, but I couldn’t do too much pounding around and tearing of hair and throwing of clutter, because of the sick man trying to sleep.  You know, the man that BOUGHT the wedding ring…

He was actually pretty unconcerned when I told him it was missing, but then he was still hazy from whatever virus had knocked him out.

I had tried retracing my steps, but the only specific memory I had of my ring from Sunday was at church:  I remember it clicking on the piano keys, so I knew I had it then, but the rest of the day was a complete blank as far as the ring goes.

Fast forward to this morning, I’m giving Katie her treat and closing the gate (she stays in the basement when we leave the house) and suddenly I knew exactly where my ring was.

See:  it’s all the dog’s fault.

She needed a bath on Sunday, and Mark needed me to help as Katie does not particularly LIKE having a bath.  Well, shower, anyway.  We have a shower stall in the basement — and right before manning the showerhead, I took off my ring, set it on a shelf and thought “I’ll have to remember that I put that there.”

I’m pretty sure the moral of this story is that I should not be involved with giving the dog a shower anymore.

An Exciting Anniversary

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary.   I’m going to celebrate by going to the shop in order to finish cutting and shipping a boatload of fabric.  (Sale!)

Mark is going to celebrate by hibernating.  He gets sick about…once a year, and when he does it really seems to wipe him out.  I guess it takes a really strong bug to bring him down.  (He’s not like some men who turn into babies when they get sick.  He just…checks out…and sleeps a LOT.)

The last time he got sick was Christmas 2007 when we were visiting my sister and her family.  He was so sick he actually consented to go to the doctor, which required a trip on the train into New York City.

I’m not sure how the boys are going to celebrate — today is a professional development day for the teachers.  They were going to have to spend the whole day at the shop, but since Mark is here, I might leave them with him for part of the day.  Between reading books and playing video games, they can do a pretty good job of entertaining themselves.

Though, I will need them for my photography class assignment later!

Have a great Monday everyone!

Suzanne

p.s.  I was looking for a photograph of mark to use for today’s entry — this one is from Jan, part of my daily photo project.  Originally I was going to use one of him from several summer’s ago, but when I looked back through the blog, I found that that was the photo I used when I posted about our anniversary LAST year.  I wrote some really nice stuff about him last year.  It’s all still true, too!

Attack of the something or other

We know for sure that Will had strep throat — the positive culture at the doctor’s office said so.

We’re pretty sure that when Joe spiked a fever last night, he’d finally succumbed.  (Joe, does your throat hurt? No.  Well, only when I swallow…)  Actually, we knew even before we saw the thermometer — Joe got COLD, and put on his sweatshirt, and Joe NEVER gets cold.  He wanders around here in our 60-62ish house temperature with barefeet and short sleeves…

Me?  I don’t know what’s wrong.  My throat is a LITTLE sore.  My stomach hurt a LITTLE bit this morning, and my head hurts just a bit, too.  On the other hand, everything’s dry, and I often have a bit of a sore throat, and gee, my stomach is always betraying me, and the fact that my neck is in desperate need of adjustment, just might have somthing to do with the headache.

Whatever’s wrong with me, it got me out of going grocery shopping.  Ha.  Mark had to go, and all by himself, couldn’t talk Will into joining him.  I stayed home and snoozed, read my book, watched the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica (and cried at the end), and sewed.

And I seem to be feeling better, so I should probably go to bed NOW so that I get plenty of sleep and continue to feel better…Rather than staying awake until all hours playing with Photoshop, even though I’m dying to do so.  I’ve already learned some really cool stuff from my new book — I want to keep going!

Of course, it would be nice if I had some decent pictures to work on.  Every single one I’ve taken in the last 2 days has been blurry.  The least blurry picture I took was one of Katie.

Yes, indeed.  The one somewhat-not-blurry picture I took is of the dog licking herself.  There’s a lesson there, somewhere, I’m sure.

Good night.

Suzanne