Needlewoman East and Updates

Had a lovely trip to downtown Falls Church, Virginia the other day to visit The Needlewoman East.

This is Liz, the proprietor of Needlewoman East.  She's being very professional, ringing me up, and then she looks up to continue our in depth conversation.  Liz looks a lot different - she's lost more than 100 pounds.  She looks wonderful.

My reason for going to TNE was to get some yarn to stitch the hunt scene needlepoint that I was given a month or so ago.  Liz pulled some Elsa Williams and I'm all set to go.  Here's a progress pic:

Just the two colors, blue for sky and green for grass.  This photo was taken a few days ago -I've done about as much more since.

And I have reached a point with the baby's birth sampler that I am just waiting for the event to happen and I will fill in all the details:

I will either add or remove triangles on the sides as needed to fill in the date and place information.  I just sent the kids a boatload of baby towels and wash cloths that I picked up at Target and a cute few pieces of clothing for my granddaughter.  I'm hoping that if I can send something for her each time I send something for the baby, we might keep the sibling rivalry monster at bay.

These are the border strips for the Anniversaries of the Heart sampler.  I have finished stitching them as much as I can on the scroll bars.  Next step is to cut them apart and sew them onto the sampler.  Then I'll finish stitching the corners of the borders - that way I can adjust the design as necessary to make the turns.

This is my Dick and Jane quilt top.  I started it about two years ago and then had trouble figuring out exactly how I wanted to finish the outer edge.  Decision made, this weekend I put the finishing touches on the border.  It's all ready to go to the quilter.  It's probably a twin size quilt top.  Anyway, I intended for it to be for my granddaughter, but she's a pink and purple fairies and princesses kinda girl and I don't think this will work for her.  I am going to finish it and then just hang onto it.  You never know what will happen.

Finally, this is just something I love.  I adore the way hens & chicks (or cats & kittens) look.  I always have, ever since I was a child.  So the last few years I've had a pot of them in the house.  This spring I put my pot of them outside (intending to transfer them to the garden), but they got sunburned and died.  My fault.  So, needed a new one for this winter.  I picked them up at the nursery and also the urn.  Now, the urn is kinda cool.  It started out as one that was plastic, and terra cotta colored.  You know the kind I'm talking about - they look really really fake?  So I got this one (they come in two parts that you sorta clip together).  And a can of black plastic spray paint.  Took it out in the back yard and sprayed the heck out of it.  Now it looks like cast iron instead of fake terra cotta and my hens & chicks are very, very happy as you can see by all their growth.  Even better - they don't have to be watered too often!

So that's the round up for today.  Gotta go check out the Pioneer Woman website.  I saw her Christmas show and made her brussel sprouts for Christmas dinner.  Boy, were they yummy!  Hope you enjoyed.

Well THAT Was Interesting

When I wrote my post about pictures of ourselves I was concerned that I might really make a bunch of people mad.  I should have had more faith in my blogging buddies.  I am really amazed though at the comments I got.  Several people explained to me why they use images that are not their faces.  I appreciate and understand all of them.  Surprisingly, the explanations made sense - except for the frog.  Maybe there's something I'm still not getting on that one?

One thing that lots of you said was that you're the one that is usually behind the camera and so there aren't many pictures of you.  OK, I really understand that.  I am the only woman in a household full of men - including the dogs!  And my men are not all flowerdy in their speech.  I get the occasional "You look nice." but I have to really, really, really look extraordinarily nice to get that.  There are some days when I look in the mirror and think - hey, not bad!  So what I do on those days, if I can, is hand the camera to either my husband or son and say, here, take a picture of me.  Sometimes it will take several shots because they don't pay attention to the blender on the kitchen counter emerging from my shoulder or the telephone pole on the side of the road coming out of my head.  But, we usually get to where I can not only be happy with the shot - but IN the shot as well.

This is not done to soothe my sense of self.  Somehow I think we women sometimes think we're being too full of ourselves to want to be in the picture or asking to have a picture taken of us.  It is just the fact that we're in so few!  I think that the 30's and 40's were the highpoint of us gals having photos done of ourselves.  Back then I think they went to the photographer's studio on the corner and had the shot done "for the folks back home".  But, they still had that photo, no matter who it was "for".  When we're gone, if we've allowed there to be no or few photographs of us, what will our children or future generations have to look at when they want to know us? 

So, if you don't have many pictures of yourselves don't get them taken to put on the web (if you don't want to) but DO have them done for your families.  It's important. 

Glenna did a great job of taking a picture of herself!  I love it!  And Daisy is just a cute thing in her pic!  Glenna did mention something about identity theft that I want her to expand upon.  I've noticed that a lot of the icons are gone and am hoping that new pictures are being generated as we speak.  I, in fact, realized that I've been sporting a new hairstyle for the last six months and haven't had a picture taken of it so I'm going to work on that later this week (when I've washed my hair again!) 

Now, has anyone been noticing something weird about the photos in my posts?  That there are giant ghost images that are duplicates?  Something weird has been going on.  I don't see it on my computer, but it was mentioned to me.  I went into the HTML and that's where I found it.  I've been having trouble getting the images to post.  So, I save a draft then go back into it and post the picture.  What appears is one normal sized picture.  But, apparently the code is done in the HTML that duplicates and enlarges the pic.  I think I've gone back through the posts and fixed this, but if you see it again, can you let me know?  I haven't seen it on any of the blogs I follow so I'm not sure if it's just me it's happening to.  Hope you enjoyed!

A Fond Farewell

At the beginning of this month, our 14 year-old Jack Russell, Nehi, was diagnosed with colon cancer.  We don't believe in chemo for dogs.  They don't understand it and it is very difficult for them.  I've seen a dog go through it before and swore then that I'd never do that to a dog of mine.  We were told what to watch for and that it could be sooner or later; it all depended.  This past weekend, he began to be unable to keep food down.  I called the vet and we agreed it was time.  I kept him comfortable until my husband could be present, which was today; he'd already planned to take the day off.  The waiting was very hard.  I think I'd rather be in the moment, with a sick animal and have to make a decision then; than to wait for nearly three days before it happened.

Nehi as a Puppy

Nehi was born in August, 1996 and we brought him home when he was 8 weeks - October.  His mother's name was Pepsi and we decided that he should be called Nehi (like Nehi Grape/Orange soda).  He was a bundle of energy from the very start.  One thing he never had to be taught was how to play fetch.  When his eyesight was still good, he was incredible at catching; even taking on full-size frisbees.  He came home and played right away - a blast of fun for our then four year-old son.  And he always loved going for a ride.  I made him a doggie seat out of a dairy crate.  The bottom of it was slanted to counteract the slant of the front seat of the car.  I'd buckle it in, pop him in it and he'd go for a ride along, sometimes sticking his head out the window, sometimes not.  When we got the tractor, he fell in love.  He'd be all over us to let him out and he'd stand, wagging his docked tail until we'd pick him up and either hold him in our laps for a ride on it, or put him in the cart to go around and work with us.

Going for a Ride

Nehi thought that he was a Great Dane.  Size did not matter to him.  At our old house we had a mail slot in the door.  It was very difficult to teach him not to attack the mail when it came in.  Even more difficult to teach him not the attack the mail man who Nehi perceived as a threat to me.  He didn't like it when my husband and I cuddled and horsed around - he would dance around our feet growling, whining, and barking.  He knew he liked my husband, but didn't like what he was doing to me.  We would always have to take a minute to calm him down and tell him he was a good boy. Several years ago he and I were out walking - Nehi was on his leash - when a neighbor, who owned a lab, opened their door.  The lab came bounding out and straight away attacked Nehi.  I couldn't believe it!  Nehi stayed between the dog and me, protecting me, but getting injured.  He had a separated ACL.  The problem, the surgeon later explained to me, was his congenital knee defect.  He'd been born with luxating patellas - screwy knee grooves that allowed the ligaments to pop out.  If the surgeon repaired one, the stress on the other would detach that ACL.  He'd have to have surgery on both legs, at the same time.  I found out then just how much I loved that dog.  When he came home with both hind legs in casts, I would take him out and actually lift his leg for him so he could pee.

Nehi poses as Confucious

He also had weak eye muscles - another congenital defect, they told me.  His pupils did not decrease in dialation in bright light.  So, bright light was uncomfortable for him.  And even so, he LOVED the sun.  As he aged, Nehi got arthritis; pretty bad in his wrist.  It would give him a lot of pain in the cold winter months.  He slept with me - I called him my little hot water bottle because I'd lay on my side and he'd stretch out butted right up against my back.  When we went to bed he'd wait until I pulled the covers back and then we'd get in and he'd take up his position.  He liked the heated mattress pad.  But, his favorite, between bed, sunny spot, deck, his absolute favorite was to be stretched out on the hearth of the gas fireplace.  He'd shove himself right up against the grate and go to sleep.  That sucker was too hot for me to put my hand on, but if you turned on the fireplace, Nehi would jump up on the hearth and lay down right next to it.  He literally was a HOT DOG.

He was also an escape artist.  This talent occasionally went awry.  Usually he'd paw open the sliding glass door and scoot out.  Then a neighbor would come knocking at the door - was I missing a dog?  Nehi usually escaped and went up to visit with her dog.  This happened with such frequency that we got him a tag with our phone number on it.  Once I got a call from a woman, she had my dog.  Just for an instant I thought she'd dognapped him from the sound of it.  But, actually, she'd been strolling with her baby and heard a shusshing sound that got her curious.  She'd gone over to this townhouse to check out the sound.  It was my escape artist - he'd fallen down a window well and the shusshing sound was him jumping, trying to get out.  With those bad knees though, Nehi was never much of a jumper.  If she hadn't come along, I don't know what would have happened!  When we moved out here to the country, the very first day we were here, he went off like a shot chasing a squirrel.  And disappeared into the woods.  I called and called and he didn't come back.  Oh, my goodness, I was so beside myself there were two of me!  Two hours later, as I sat and watched those woods, he popped out into the field that's beside the house and came running back to me at top speed.  He must have scared himself silly that day (or found ginormous squirrels in those woods), because he never again, in six years, did he wander off the property.

All his life, he was a very naughty dog.  Very, very smart, loyal, and naughty.  Did what he did when he wanted to do it.  He also had a highly developed pallet and sense of frugality - he ate his own poop (I guess he thought he was saving kibble money) as well as stink bugs.  Doggie kisses from Nehi was not something any of us were EVER interested in.  When he was younger, before the arthritis, he'd figure out ways to climb up on things - especially the dining room table - and help himself to whatever we were foolish enough to leave behind.

Table Games

My husband once pursued him into his kennel after a dinner roll and Nehi showed him, by biting through his thumbnail, that coming into his kennel was not a well thought out plan.  He was keeping that dinner roll and that was all there was to it.  He loved Milkbone cookies and Greenies (a weekend treat) but eschewed other dog treats as being beneath him.  Why have that crap when he could get dinner rolls and the like?

Nehi's last photo - October 2010

 I will miss this wonderful, stupid, amazing dog for the rest of my life.  Love you Nehi.

Shoe Personality

My mother used to love shoes.  I remember when I was small, she had a pair in the closet.  They were Spectator Pumps.  Not usual ones either.  Hers were a medium brown and cream.  They were SO pretty.  It took her years to get rid of them.  I think that they were part of her working wardrobe back during the war and she kept them because they reminded her of when.  I haven't been a shoe hound.  But, every now and then I notice a pair of really nice shoes.  Like I did when I watched the premier of Covert Affairs.  I noticed those red soled shoes she was wearing.  So, I did a Google to find out about those shoes.  And what I found was interesting.  More than just the little black pump.

Well, if I wasn't the size I am, and if I was 30 years younger, and if my feet didn't already hurt so much, and I hadn't ruined one ankle back in 2001 - well, then you'd see me wearing this shoe -

LOVE the red, white, and black color combo (what a surprise!), love that HIGH heel, and the leather.  And then that houndstooth check brings it all back down to earth again.  It is designed by Christian Louboutin and can be seen at this website; where it does a little pirouette for you to see its every advantage.  It's only $1,200.00.  WAY out of my price range, but a girl can dream; right?

So, do you have a shoe personality?

A Funny Thing

I don't know if all of you will appreciate the humor in this - be warned, some of it might offend you.  This was passed on to me by a friend at the Historical Society.  I hope you enjoy it.

Why Women Shouldn't Take Men Shopping

Like a lot of women, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Walmart.  Unfortunately, like most men, I find shopping boring and prefer to get in and out.  Equally unfortunately, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse.  The other day, she received the following letter from our local Walmart's manager:

Dear Madame:

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store.  We cannot tolerate this behavior and are now forced to ban both of you from the store.  Our complaints against your husband are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

January 8:  Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

January 29:  Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

February 15:  Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the  women's restroom.

February 29:  Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, "Code 3 in Housewares.  Get on it right away."  This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted in a Union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

March 14:  Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a  bag of MandM's on law-away.

March 25:  Moved a CAUTION - WET FLOOR sign to a carpeted area.


April 1:  When a clerk asked if they could help him, he began crying and screamed, "Why can't you people just leave me alone!?"  EMTs were called.

April 23:  Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

April 29:  While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

May 4:  Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the Mission Impossible theme music.

May 5:  In the auto department, he practiced his Madonna Look using different sizes of funnels.

May 30:  Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled "Pick Me!  Pick Me!"

June 8:  When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed "Oh, no!  It's those voices again!"

And last, but not least, June 15 he went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, "Hey, there's no toilet paper in here!"  One of the clerks passed out!

Please, don't either one of you ever come back to our store again!  Sincerely, Management.

a few of these had me laughing spasmodically!

First Full Day of Summer

Although yesterday was the Summer Solstice, today is the first full day of summer.  It will be really hot and humid here; about 97 degrees with oppressive humidity.  Hope the power doesn't go out.  This is what I found on the window overlooking the deck this morning when I put the dog out.  A Luna Moth taking it easy on the morning of the first full day of summer.  Ahhhhh.

Something I Found Amongst the Hydrangeas

I went and picked some blossoms today from the Hydrangea bush.  Something was on my wrist and when I looked I realized I'd disturbed a very special nursery.  Took the baby that I'd "snatched" back and looked for more.  These babies will grow many times their current size and then eat all kinds of bugs in my garden.  YAY!  It seems they hatch every year around the summer solstice.

When looking at the picture, see the top center flower in the group?  Just to the right of that, on the edge of the next flower cup is the "baby" I'm talking about.