I am Honored

I wasn't going to post this until I had time to take some pics of my own, but I just can't keep it to myself... I feel so loved! I popped over to the po box today on my lunch hour in hopes of finding my Winter Doldrums swap package and some beading supplies I ordered... neither of which was there, however I did have the most wonderful surprise of all from Chan! This incredible, gorgeous "Warm Lace Wrap," which was my Pay It Forward / belated birthday surprise!


Isn't it absolutely stunning?!?! You can see a couple more pictures of it here. Chan tried really hard to get me to guess which item was for me after this post and although any of the gorgeous knits she posted about would have been fabulous, I hard secretly hoped it was this blue wrap and ... ta-da!!!!!!! The wrap is so me... the color, the alpaca/silk yarn, the style... its going to go fabulous with jeans, as well as with more dressy stuff and I am so honored that Chan knit it for me! She even gushed about it being the first handknit item she truly had a hard time parting with... I'm so honored! I promise to post pics of me with it soon. Thank you Chan, it truly is perfect! Now, I really need to get my Pay It Forward items finished up and shipped off to Ally and Criquette.... I plan to work on them this weekend ladies. I can't promise mine will live up to Chan's stunningness, but I hope that you will like what I'm working on.

Crapola

I thought I'd share this (courtesy of our local news) for those of you I'd like to smack I've heard mumble and grumble about not getting enough snow this winter...

More snow on the way tonight into Saturday. We are rapidly approaching record levels of snowfall here in New Hampshire, and with more on the way I thought I'd recap the records for you...

As of right now, (in Concord where the official records are kep), we are at 102.2" snowfall so far this year..... that has us in 2nd place for highest snowfall in an ENTIRE SEASON since 1900.

How about ALL TIME? For that, we're currently in 8th place, but should be moving up that list a bit by tomorrow, depending on how much snow Concord receives. Here's the list for all-time snowfall that goes back as far as records have been kept.

1) 1873-74 122"
2) 1872-73 115"
3) 1995-96 113.2"
4) 1886-87* 111"
5) 1887-88* 111"
6) 1898-99 103.2"
7) 1874-75 103"
8) 2007-08 102.2" ----- so far this season

So, how much will we add to that? Snow will move in tonight (between 9pm and 1am) and will continue heavy at times overnight and into Saturday. As a secondary area of low pressure develops off the Maine coast, the system will slowly lift away through the afternoon and Saturday night. This will leave most of us on the colder side of this storm, meaning mainly snow. Expect a big chunk of the state to be in the 5 to 10 inch range, with a few spots (as always) perhaps seeing a bit more if you're in and around mountainous areas....

So, how's your weekend looking? We're supposed to be heading in to Boston tomorrow late morning for the Bruins game with friends... assuming we do get there, I suspect pure hell in trying to find parking.

Happy Leap Day from our home to yours...

Snow, Dogs, Sick and more SNOW...

Greetings from sickville and Happy Yappy Thursday. Teutul's been keeping an eye on all the snow...

As mentioned a few posts back, for those of you who might not have been following Operation Bring Charlie Home, he is Home! There is a great video from CNN here - Operation Baghdad Pups that is a must watch and so perfect for a Dogs on Thursday post. Enjoy! Sophie was very intrigued by the video and thinks all doggies need to find a loving home (and a nice blankie wouldn't hurt)...

So yes, I'm still sick. I'm no where near as bad as I was over the weekend (feeling like my ass was kicked by a mac truck), but I'm still sinusy and coughing.... and tired. I've been really worn out and going to bed quite early. As a result, no knitting has taken place in over a week! Zeus thinks Mommy should just stay home from work and hang out on the couch...

I had taken last Friday off to venture West with Joanne. We had great plans to hit the Peterboro Basket tent sale, stop by her friend's mill for a tour and check out a yarn shop in Keene. Sadly, we didn't make it to any of those stops thanks to the daily dumping of crappy white stuff snow and me being sick. Instead we opted for a short trip to Hub Mills, which turned out to be not so much on the short side. I think we left Joanne's around 10:00 am and I didn't get home until almost 5:00 pm. The driving was slow going with the snow, plus we had a little unexpected detour, then we stopped for dog food and I stopped to buy out CVS' cough medicine aisle on the way home. Despite being sick, it was fun! We both scored some good deals at Hub - Joanne found some beautiful chunky yarn for her vest (which I wouldn't doubt is done by now), among other things. I found yarn for a felted bag (gift for a friend), knitted bunny (birthday gift), socks and more. Of course, our timing was slighly off as they were starting their winter sale on Tuesday - 20% off all yarn and sample sweaters! Oh well... better luck hitting the sale next time, right?

So back to that wretched white stuff that just won't end. Just what the hell is it with all the snow this winter??!! Neverending is beginning to sound like an understatement, as it seems to fall on a daily basis lately. I never even saw snow in the forcast for yesterday, yet we got another 4" or so overnight. Enough to have to snowblow the driveway and clean off the cars before work... but the assanine town/state decided they didn't need to plow, so the roads were a sloshy mess this morning. Oh the joys of New England winters! Lola has smartly settled in for a long winter's nap once again...

Enjoy the rest of your day... and oh yea, we're supposed to get hit with another storm tomorrow night. They're saying "about 3 - 7 inches, but we really don't know yet..." Oh the joys... but at least I think I finally got a half way decent shot with Miss Sophie...

Please remember to grab my new button (over on my sidebar or scroll down a post or two) if you haven't already!

Happy Spay Day!

Its Spay Day in the USA!
Check out this video with Ryan Newman....

Don't forget to spay & neutur your pets... and please remember to vote for our kids in the HSUS Spay Day photo contest (links at top of the blog)!

Pasting Sophie 101...

Yes folks, while recovering at home (while I am doing better today than the past fews days, I am still not well enough for work) I decided to finally update my blog header & button by pasting in Miss Sophie's sweet face. This took some time - esp with the button.... you see, the original was done with a single photo of the 3 dogs (Zeus, Lola & Tut) and since I've yet to snap a great pic of all 4, I opted to just cut & paste Sophie in. What do you think? You can grab the new button here or from my sidebar - please just be kind and save it to your own server, thanks!

While home sick, I also learned that sign ups for International Scarf Exchange 6 are now open! I decided to dive into this swap for the spring edition! I also noticed that sign ups for the next round of the yummy coffee exchange open March 20th - I can't wait for that one! Speaking of fun stuff, a few weeks ago Chan asked me about designing a button for those of us who multitask while at work... well, I thought she just wanted a button, but this has since turned in to a quickly growing Ravelry group! Won't you come on over and play with us? You can also grab the button below and add it to your blog as well!

I'm heading back to the couch now... Zeus has been cuddling with the blankie Grammy made him and I think I'm going to go find a blankie of my own!

Winter Is Kicking...

my ass! I've been out of commission for a few days now... sicker than I can remember being in quite some time... but I think I'm knocking it back now. At least, CVS thanks me for buying out half their cold medicine section on Friday........

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Did everyone get to enjoy the beautiful Lunar Eclipse last night? The dogs and I had a perfect view from our front door. The so-called photos I managed don't even come close to doing justice to just how perfectly we saw it... our digital camera simply doesn't like zooming in on a black sky (and don't even suggest the "night" setting - that made for ghostly blurbs that I could've probably sold to the National Enquirer as "UFO Visits Southern NH" photos). Here's my time line of photos from about 9:15 until 10:20 pm last night...

The dogs loved that Mommy wanted to keep popping outside last night, despite the arctic, hell-froze-over bitter temps. They didn't understand why the heck I was pointing the flashy thing up in the dark sky though, so in between trips outside we took pictures with their Valentine's from the Dogs on Thursday valentine swap. Thank you to everyone who sent my kids a card! Here's their loot...

Which Inspector #1 and Inspector #2 promptly had to sniff out...

They each picked a favorite to pose with. This was Lola's pick and that's her nosey brother sticking his head over it doing the "take a picture of ME" thing...

I think Sophie has a secret crush on Chan's Mugsy... she kept trying to kiss him!

After getting in Lola's picture, Teutul

sniffed out this one as his favorite...

Zeus picked this one... Think he's

got a thing for chic little doggies?

Sophie had to take a peak too...

maybe she had a previous couture lifestyle?

Even though it is doggy Thursday, I wanted to share my Clapotis progress. I worked on it some more at knitting guild last night...

I'll leave you with this Thought For The Day: Has your knitting blog gone to the dogs too? I have noticed that I get more hits & comments on Thursdays, as opposed to any other day! Even when I post long knitting content, there are just a few comments. I think the furbabies are taking over! In fact, as I'm flipping thru my recently uploaded photos on Flickr, I see that I have at least several months days worth of new dog photo content... but I'll keep that to share with you later. I'm battling some awful sneezy, achey, sore throat cold again and figure this post is already long enough, right? Happy Woofy, Yappy Day... now go give all your furbabies scratchies!!

Clap On.... Fetch Off!

FO ALERT!!! I finally got my Fetching mitts off the needles yesterday! For those of you non-Ravlers, I used 1 strand each of Zitron Ecco & Heirloom Alpaca held together, which made for a very dense, soft fabric that I'm sure is going to be quite warm! Some pics... first a couple from the second mitt in progress during my snow/ice day last week...


Coffee, Rachael Ray and knitting... what could be better? Now for the finished product...

With Fetching off the needles, I cast on my Clapotis for the Fashionably Late in '08 KAL (have you signed up yet???). Nothing really much to see here just yet, but its a start. You can see the yarn (SWTC Amerah in Vineyard colorway) I chose and my new Peace Fleece needles (I needed some new size 8's and I just love these needles... what better excuse?).

Of course, I didn't need to cast on yet another wip, as I still have plenty, but since I did sign up for the KAL. Speaking of wip's, I picked up my Cabin Fever tank a couple weeks ago for some Wednesday night knitting. I'm still in the never ending ribbing from hell section... not too exciting.

Then there's the Loopy Ewe Celebratory Socks...

There's plenty more of UFO's stashed all around my living room, but that's it for photographic evidence today (I've had a slight case of startitis again). Instead, I'll share with you another FO, just of a different crafty variety. I took a beading class on Saturday and made this gorgeous set...

You like? I'm wearing it today... Not only was it a fun class, it was a great Saturday afternoon spent with wonderful ladies, yummy food, good coffee and beading! Of course I couldn't not pick up a few new things (including those Peace Fleece needles above)... Wanna see something yummy??!! When Joanne had her girls shorn last year, she got their fleece spun into some fantastic yarn that she is now sharing!

On the left is the 80/20 mix of Josie (jacob sheep) and Bonnie & Gracie (angora bunnies) ... and on the right is 100% Harriet (shetland sheep). Aren't her girls gorgeous? She has a limited supply available at the shop and is planning to have more spun later this spring after their next shearing. I already have a fun project in mind for my yarn, but will keep it to myself until I get started... hee hee!

Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday... and thank you to everyone who has voted for the dogs in the Spay Day photo contest! Please keep the votes coming (you can vote using as many different email addresses as you have/know)! I just downloaded a bunch of new photos of them, but will share later... in the meantime, Charlie is Home!!! I've been following Operation Bring Charlie Home for some time now and could not be happier for Charlie and Sgt Watson - please read the article (the first link)!

Congrats Ryan!

Congratulations to Ryan Newman for winning the Daytona 500 yesterday!

While I surely would have loved to have seen Tony win, I'm also a huge Ryan fan & supporter! Ryan & his wife Krissie run a fantastic foundation that supports something near and dear to my heart - homeless animals! They are truly down to earth, class acts and so deserving of such a great start to the 2008 season! Congratulations!

Happy Heart Day!

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Dogs on Thursday!

I can certainly speak from experience in that Love is definitely Rescuing a Dog! Being their temporary foster, their saving grace or their new forever family.... I was reminded of that love with some updates from not one, but two of our fosters this past week! Trixie's family sent several new photos of the 'ole girl, but they arrived by snail mail which means I have to scan in a couple to post. In the meantime, here is the little star of our foster family, Dustee!

Not that I don't love all of our fosters, but Dustee will forever remain extra special in our hearts. It is so uplifting to get updates from his Mom! I hear he and sister Kaia are still getting in to little tiffs, but as you can see, they always work it out! I love their bandanas.

Reminder: Lola wanted to ask everyone to see yesterday's post and please, please vote for her, Teutul & Zeus & Sophie in the HSUS Spay Day photo contest.

They're itching to win a prize! If you tried to vote earlier and were given some trouble by the website, please note that their script issues appears to have been fixed! You can vote once for each dog... but if you have more than one email address, you can log out of the site and go back in and vote again using as many other emails as you can come up with! wink, wink

While you're web surfing, be sure to hop on over to the DOT site and check out Chan's beloved Mugsy in the spotlight! After that, take a hint from my baby girl in this wicked winter weather spell and take a nap if you can! Enjoy your Valentine's Day!

Vote for The Kids!

I've entered a photo of each of the kids in the HSUS Spay Day USA 2008 photo contest and am hoping you will vote for them! Each person can vote for any dog once, but can vote for as many dogs as they want (i.e. you can vote once for each of our dogs, as well as any other dogs you want... and you can tell all your friends to vote for each of them too).

You can vote for them by clicking on each of their names below. The links will bring you to their exact page where you will just need to click on the "Vote For Me" button (I also listed their ID #'s next to each name just in case).

Sophie ~ ID: 1003108704
Lola ~ ID: 1003108758
Teutul ~ ID: 1003108771
Zeus ~ ID: 1003109069

You can also vote by going to this page and using the search feature - search by Last Name if you know mine and you'll see all 4 dogs on one easy page. You can also search by State (NH) and find all 4 dogs next to each other. ***UPDATE: all links seem to be working now ***

There will be a celebrity panel of judges to pick the 36 winners, however the top 500 vote getters will each win a prize from one of their sponsors, so please ... VOTE FOR OUR PACK!

They have made these campaign promises to everyone...

We will never lie to you.
We will never flip-flop.
We will never pretend to be who we are not.
We will never renege on our promises.
We will never bad talk the other doggies in the running.
And most of all, we will never ever increase your taxes!!!!

Please vote for us!!!
Woofs, kisses and high-fives,
Zeus, Lola, Teutul & Sophie

KAL to Defeat The Winter Doldrums

This week's Defeat the Winter Doldrums Swap topic is...
For some of us we get the doldrums and others don't. For the ones who get doldrums what helps you get rid of them? For the ones who don't get the doldrums, what helps you keep them away?

Well, I can start by saying today is Monday and I hate Mondays... esp ones like today when it is biterly cold and the wind is howling something fierce! bbrrrr!!!! What would I like to be doing to defeat the doldrums? Sitting at home, on my couch with a nice big cup of coffee, my knitting, magazines... watching some guilty pleasure daytime television with a dog or two (or four!) curled up next to me. But I digress and realize that I must go to work... I do have the nice big mug of coffee on my desk and I am surrounded by photos of my furbabies, so that's a start. I'll get to the knitting later tonight......

Speaking of knitting, are you like me and the boatloads of other knitters who've been meaning to cast on a Clapotis? Do you need a swift kick in the arse to do so? Then why not sign up for the Fashionably Late in '08 Clapotis KAL? I just did! I've been poking around Ravelry to see what yarn might work and think I might go with Patons SWS. I have to check my stash tonight and see if I have enough skeins of any one colorway........

So, being that it is almost Valentine's Day, Zeus was wondering if you've bought something special for your sweetie yet? If not, you have a couple days... he says hurry up and thinks this card that his Daddy bought for Mommy last year would be suitable...

And a Snowy Friday too

Yes folks, its snowing... still, or again, or whatever you want to call it. Just flurries, so nothing too major, except to muck up the roads, cause the elderly to drive at turtle speeds and cause the annoying men in their F150's to tailgate and almost rear end you... yes, I had a lovely drive in to work this morning... and now I get to go out on the road for the rest of the day... yippy friggin skippy!

For those of you enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee or tea in the comfort of your own homes today, please knit some for me and Grommit too...

While you're at it, head on over to Bark 'n Knit for a fun little Valentine's Day contest and please do tell her I sent you.

I bet all my fellow NASCAR fans are psyched that we're back in action this weekend, right?? The Bud Shootout is tomorrow night... go Tony, go!

Let's go racing boys........... TGIF!