Dogs on Thursday... catch-up!

Am I the only one sitting here shaking my head in disbelieve that it is August already??!! Where oh where is 2007 going??!!

So... in light of 2007 quickly becoming a blur, here is a little catch up post from the past week or so with some photos for your viewing pleasure this Thursday... however the Maine Yarn Crawl will come a little later, after all today is "Dogs on Thursday!"

First up, Miss Bella, now Cotton... I know I'm an insane dog Mommy bad when it comes to doggy pictures, even more so now that we have the awesome digital camera, but I wanted to share a few more from her last couple days with us. She was just such a photogenic puppy and a lovebug...

The "Mommy's hovering treats above your heads in
hopes of getting a group photo (where's Zeus?)" pose...

One of her favorite pastimes while in

our home... wrestling with Lola!

Such an expressive doggy!

The "Proud Foster Mommy" pose... times 2!

Now, this pic below... I just love this one! I'm not even sure how it was snapped so close up and at that angle, but it shows her playfulness... "I give you paw..." and me trying to take more "artsy" photos instead of just snapshots & posed pics...

While Bella was hanging out on the back porch with our kids, Sue & I headed off to the TKGA show and Matt & his Dad did this...

They made great progress on the dogs' fence - 1 side & the back done! Hopefully with another full day sometime later this month (please, please!), it will be closer to being useful. Its been ions a long time since we put those posts in the ground and its so cool to finally see something going on, however the chain link currently stops here...

Once the fence is completed, it'll mean all 3 dogs can be out goofing off and wrestling around together - woo hoo! It'll also mean that Woody & Chucky will hopefully learn to stay outside the fenced area if they know what's good for them (although I'm still not sure if our dogs want to chase them or play with them). I always know when one of them is out grazing. If this is going on...

Alot of this is going on at the same time...

That little blur in the middle of the grass is the chucky you see in the photo above... and the black you see glued to the window is Miss Lola. All 3 dogs fight for a spot at the window and cry and carry on like you wouldn't believe...

Zeus got a nifty new harness last week, which has a built in leash grab and it was on clearance! Keep in mind, it is difficult finding anything to fit Zeus (this one even has some "room to grow" - please no... no more growing), so to find something big enough and have it on clearance too is amazing (guess they're not selling so many of the mungo-huge dog size, huh?).

After we tried it on and I made him model for an hour ten minutes, he decided to give me another pose...

Yes folks, that is the infamous pornodog pose... and no, we didn't teach him that!!! He's been doing that since he was a puppy... I used to watch in horror, now its just the comical "upside down Zeus" trying to get your attention or someone to play!

While he was still in a better posing mood, complete with new harness, I managed to get a few new shots of the three amigos together (sometimes easy, most of the times not so much... as proven above with Zeus missing from the group shot with Bella)!

Happy Doggy Thursday... I promise knitting content very soon. I visited Mom this afternoon and am happy to report that she is resting comfortably after yesterday's (actually last night's - they didn't take her til 7:15 pm!) surgery in which they removed part of her colon. We still don't know much - will know more after the test results / biopsy come back in a couple days. Thank you all for your well wishes, thoughts & prayers! Our thoughts & prayers go out from us to those involved in (and the families of) the Minneapolis bridge collapse ... which eerily happened almost the exact same time Mom went in to surgery.

Quote for the week!

"This one's for every one of those fans in the stands who pull for me every week and take all all the bullshit from everybody else..." -- Tony Stewart after winning Indy on Sunday, 7/29/07

And that's why I love him... you'll never hear any other NASCAR driver be so brutally honest and always say what he wants, no matter what the pr people tell him to say....

So... I haven't had a chance to download the Maine Yarn Crawl pics yet, but will get to that later in the week... a few quick updates...

Mom ~ Thank you all for the well wishes and thoughts for my Mom this week. It really means a lot to me and I can't wait for Mom to get back to her computer and catch up on the blog & your comments! She is doing much, much better and feels much, much better. She'll be in the hospital at least thru the end of the week, as they continue to give her antibiotics thru IV and other things to get her healthy and send that nasty infection away. She had a blood transfusion on Sunday. The cat scan showed that things were clearing up nicely yesterday... yet still no definite cause for the infection at this point. More tests today, including the colonoscopy. Tuesday Afternoon Update... Mom is scheduled for surgery tomorrow afternoon to remove part of her colon, which will then be sent out for testing.... please keep her in your thoughts!

Bella ~ I heard from Bella's new Mom and found out they've changed her name to Cotton. It sounds like she sure is keeping them on their toes! They've enrolled her in obedience classes and things are going well thus far. Bella (sorry, hard to get used to Cotton) even climbed Mt. Tecumseh with them last week!

That's all for now... though I did just find out that I won (yea, I couldn't believe it either!) a contest that my Secret Pal 10 host had at the end of the round... can't wait to see what it is! I promise the Maine yarn crawl post very soon! I will leave you in suspense by telling you that our route was The Knitting Experience Cafe then Purl Diva then Ewe & Me and finally, Halcyon where we had our Double Knitting class!

My Mom

Some of you knew Mom was rushed to the hospital late Wednesday night and admitted to ICU (and thank you for all the kind words, emails, calls, concern and prayers)... I wanted to let everyone know that after being moved to another hospital on Thursday afternoon to have a drainage put in for the nasty, nasty infection on her back, she is doing much, much better now! She's in a normal room now and was given the okay to get solid foods as well, however she will probably have to stay in the hospital for another week or so. She's in better spirits than I think she has been in weeks (my what getting rid of pain does!). We're still unclear of the exact cause, but they are thinking it may possibly be an appendix issue now and will do yet more tests in a couple days...... thank you again to everyone keeping Mom in your thoughts & prayers!

On a side note, I did enjoy a wonderful day in Maine with Joanne yesterday (Mom insisted that I had to go and not "sit and stare at her" all day, esp given that she was quite stable and on the road to recovery as of Thursday evening). I'll blog about it later in the week, but it was one of the best days ever... a great friend, 4 yarn stores, a on fire luke warm credit card, an absolutely awesome Double Knitting class and a little "detour" to Massachusetts on the way home (oops!)........ story & photos to come soon!

The more people I meet, the more I like my dogs...

... and other cute dog quotes for your reading pleasure on this hump day!

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. It is the principal difference between a dog and a man." Mark Twain

"Happiness is a warm puppy." Charles Schulz

"The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too." Samuel Butler

"If there is no heaven for dogs, then I want to go where they go when I die." Anonymous

I apologize for the lack of knitting content today, but the needles have been moving slower than usual this past week. I did cast on my Booga bag last night (at least I think this one is for me ... this was my first one, made for Mom) while watching Big Brother. Any BB8 fans out there? Are you as hooked as we are?

I'll leave with more blogthings fun for today...

Your Inner Muse is Thalia

You are most like this playful muse of comedy.Life is all about laughter to you, and you're a natural comic.You make people laugh until their sides split.And you're always up for some play time!

What Muse Are You?

My head hurts...

Ever had one of those weeks... and its only Tuesday? I think I need to buy stock in Advil this week. Ugh. Knitting night can't come any sooner, nor can my knitting day to Maine on Friday with the Knitting Queen, Joanne! We're going to take a class at Halcyon and spend way too much money check out some other yarn shops along the way. In the meantime, I'll let you refer back to this post to understand how I am feeling today...

And to liven things up, one of those fun little blogthings...

You Are A Good Friend

You're always willing to listen or lend a shoulder to cry on. You're there through thick and thin. Many people consider you their "best friend"!

What Kind of Friend Are You?

So I gave in...

I said I wouldn't, but I did...

I signed up got on the mungo huge waiting list for Ravelry just now...

Found you!
You signed up on Today
You are #19564 on the list.
13031 people are ahead of you in line.
1 people are behind you in line.
32% of the list has been invited so far

Thirteen thousand people are in front of me in line! Holy smokes batman... and 1 lone person behind me (I'm sure that'll change in about 2 seconds)! This blog will remain my #1 focus though... but it appears many folks can and do blog and use Ravelry... go figure! Just please, please, please don't make me catalog my entire stash... that could take days weeks ... yikes!

And no, I didn't sign up just because I found this on the creator's (who I am so sad that I missed meeting at TKGA show..) blog: This blog is where I write about my little life in Charlestown, Massachussetts with my my sweet husband, Casey, and my Boston Terrier, Bob. If you don’t like pictures of dogs, this may not be the place for you. I can’t seem to stop myself. I don't think I could've said it better myself (the part about the dog pictures, of course)!

To save time, I have finally come to realize what a wonderful, wonderful world Bloglines is (you can click on the button under my profile on the right to instantly subscribe to this blog without having to type in the URL)! I had checked it out before, but was too stubborn to realize how great it was. Yes, I was one of those who randomly clicked on all my favorite blogs a few hundred times a day to see if my knitting pals had updated them... time consuming? Yes! Now with bloglines, I just have to look there and it'll tell me who's got new or updated posts... cool! It does seem to take at least a few hours, sometimes a day before the posts pop up as new for some reason... but its still a huge time saver and a way to never miss a friend's post again!

TGI-friggin-F!

Oh I am so happy its finally Friday! Its been a stressful week of sorts ... work hell crapola stress coupled with lack of sleep makes for nearly no knitting... and one grumpy knitter!

I won't complain too much about the lack of sleep because that was due in part to the loveable Bella, whom I started calling Isabella (short term foster Simon's human sister/our good friends' beautiful 15 1/2 month old daughter). If people actually heard me, I'm sure I would've gotten some is she freaking insane??? looks with my "who's a Bella... is-a-bella..." doggy talk, but alas, I thought it was cute & clever. You see, Miss Bella-bell (my other nickname for the cutie pie) had 2 modes -- GO, GO, GO, GO or CRASH. There's really not much in between with this active pup (after all, she is a pup and a terrier!). It was like having a baby in the house who didn't sleep thru the night... she would decide to wake up each night sometime between the god-awful hours of 2:00 - 3:00 am and decide it was time to pounce and play. Even Zeus would huff at her as if to say "hey little lady, its time to s-l-e-e-p!" Again - not complaining too much because she was an absolute joy and love bug. Was... translating to the great news that Bella went to her forever home last night with Nicole & Ryan in Manchester (they're about 15 minutes away)! We were sad to see her go so soon (I'm not sure which is worse - the ones here for 3 weeks before they go or the ones who stay just a short week... we get attached and love them all), but I am happy to report that she went to a perfect home... they are both young & active and like to jog & hike (oh how I remember those days ... about 10 years ago!) which will be great for Bella!

When we arrived to drop her off, they had already prepared a little basket of toys for her - including a hot pink Bobo just like Lola's (only smaller)! There was also a little rawhide bone in there, which Bella promptly found - and claimed - and after a couple minutes of exploring, she plopped down in the living room and began chewing... and chewing... and ignoring the rest of the world... I went to say goodbye and she could've cared less (how rude!)... I don't even think she realized we left. And I was worried about her going to a home that didn't have any other doggies to play and wrestle with... (although Nicole promised she'd bring her to the doggy park)! Should I pout or just be happy she seemed so content in her new home??!!

So back to that lack of knitting this week... I really don't have anything to show. I worked on my tank some more at Joanne's on Wednesday night, but not enough progress worthy of a photo. Speaking of Joanne, check out the A Knitter's Garden listing in the brand new Knitters' (and other) Travel Guide 2007-2008! She has copies of this fantastic resource book at her shop for sale - only $12! I snagged my copy Wednesday night and am impressed - its much larger than I had expected and now I won't be wasting so much time googling yarn shops when I go on vacation.

As part of the Dog Days of Summer Dishcloth Swap, we've been asked to post our favorite handknit item. Mine is not something that I have made, but rather something that I received as a gift last Christmas from Dad & Mom-Sue (Matt's dad & stepmom). Sue made me this absolutely stunning sweater, using Classic Elite Premiere, which means its not only visually beautiful, its amazingly soft and snuggly too!

I wore it when I met Kate Jacobs and she loved it too!

We were also asked to post something that we've seen on a fellow DDSD swap participant's blog that we would like to make. This was fun because it got me scrolling thru some strangers blogs and I came across - woo hoo! - yet another Doggy Mom Knitter's blog, Basset Knitter (omg, how cute is Elsie??!!)! And I'd love to make this cat bed. Yes people, I did just say CAT bed! I can knit for friends' cats too, right?? It looks so soft and squishy ... and definitely looks like a fun knit too... who can't resist a cat bowl? And oh to use up that fun fur that is stuffed somewhere under a bed or maybe inside one of my dogs' beds....

Anyone planning to go see The Harlot at Border's on August 2nd? I missed her last appearance at Webs because we were in Charlotte, but I did catch her there in 2006 and can't wait to see her again. I sent in my registration and am working out the carpool details with Joanne. Sounds like it'll be a fun night, even if it does mean rushing from work to get there... Stephanie is well worth the rush!

Not to bring the mood down, but unless you live under a rock I'm sure you've been hearing about the sad-excuse-for-a-human-being, Michael Vick and his horrendous dogfighting in the news lately. Please take a moment to visit the Humane Society of the US site and tell the NFL to act on this!!!!