Happy Birthday Daddy!

Please join me in wishing my Dad a very Happy Birthday! 
 

Lola and the rest of the Lapdogs send lots of sloppy wet kisses to Grampy....

Happy Daddy's Day!

from the lapdog household to yours...

wishing all the dads (of those with 2 legs or 4)...

Happy Father's Day!

The Lapdogs are sending out lots of high-fives and sloppy wet kisses to their Grampy in Gloucester and Grandpa-Dan who is cruising through Norway today...

Grampy (aka my Dad), grilling up a storm



Grandpa-Dan (aka Dad C) feeding Mohan



Grampy & Grandpa-Dan doing some whale watching

Happy Birthday Dad!

Wishing my Dad a very Happy Birthday...



King of The Grill (*when Mom lets him be)



Christmas Day 2010, playing with Emma

TGIF and a Birthday Wish

TGIF! I hadn't planned to have a 3 day weekend, however an unexpected vet visit with an ill-feeling Sophie this morning has resulted in just. I'll spare you the less than desireable details... let's just say she's got some bacteria in her stool and is now on antibiotics and a probiotic supplement (as well as a bland diet of boiled hamburger and rice, though she thinks that's just grand). We'll know on Monday whether there's an underlying culprit or if she just picked this up like a cold. No worries... the Princess is currently ignoring Tut's annoying cries for her to move curled up sleeping next to me.

Besides being Friday, today is also a special man's birthday...

Happy Birthday Dad!

That's Dad in the middle between my Mom and Matt's Dad above, taken during a wonderful day at sea. The kids all wonder if Grampy has any cookies in his pockets send lots of sloppy birthday kisses!

Now its time for a little Fill-Ins...

1. Johnny Weir is enjoying his life and does not deserve to be mocked or threatened for doing so.

2. I have been enjoying the 2010 Olympics.

3. And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud is amongst us once again.

4. Order your very own Lapdog Creations tee at Zazzle or Cafe Press if you get an urge.

5. Having sweet dreams makes for a restful night's sleep.

6. What does it take to be stressfree?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a quiet evening at home with the family, tomorrow my plans include some more Ravelympic knitting and Sunday, I want to enjoy the day!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

He's back to eating all his favorite foods, and giving the unsuspecting waitresses a hard time as always! That's my Dad - a wise-cracking smart ass (if you've ever wondered where I get it from, now you know)!

It continues to amaze me that I have not one, but two parents who have beat cancer*... and I'm still glad to say that Mom battled first because without her experience, I'm not sure my Dad would have gotten his stubborn behind to the doctor so fast!

Happy Birthday Daddy... from your "little" girl!

*ETA: Between Matt and I, we actually have four parents who are cancer survivors... his Dad and stepmom have both beat the evil disease as well! There is amazing strength in this foursome..

FO for a Manic Monday

What a busy weekend... and now we're right into yet another manic Monday!

The AC/DC show was fun, but man did I realize just how old (and unattractive, although that's always been the case) those boys have gotten.... and I think many of their fans haven't been out in public since the last time they toured! I also think beer should only be sold in sippy cups at concerts... why is it that I'm always the one it lands on?

New to this tour was the "runaway train" which blasted in to the set (center in the pic above). Other than that, much of the show was the same as when I last saw them several years ago (I'm thinking it must've been about 10?).

I have a FO from over the weekend... my second Market Bag (and I've already cast on a 3rd - these are quick & easy gifts, especially in the ever growing "Go Green" nation of ours).

For this one I used Sugar'n Cream Confectionary Colors in the very pretty Maple Sugar colorway. I bought one of those super-duper big skeins, so I have enough for at least 3 or 4 more bags from it (including one for me... eventually).

On Friday I received my swap box from the Holiday Theme Swap over on Ravelry...

My pal is from Maine and she raises her own sheep, so I got 2 skeins of her very own "kids" wool, an Oat Couture bag pattern, some candles, Bath & Body works stuff and some holiday trinkets.

On Saturday I we received a very special Thank You note from the Oncology Clinic at Addison Gilbert Hospital...

This card is meant for all of you who knit / crochet chemo hats and sent them for the donation in honor of my Mom & Dad (you can click on the pics above for a larger view)! I am told this was the very first ever donation of chemo caps they received and they were thrilled to have them. Thank you again from Mom, Dad and myself for all your help! Dad went for his swallow test last week, which went very well, and for his PET scan on Saturday. We're now awaiting the results...

Stay tuned for some exciting reviews coming up this and next week... including some new books: Knit Two (sequel to Friday Night Knitting Club) by Kate Jacobs; Bliss to You: Trixie's Guide to a Happy Life by Trixie & Dean Koontz and the Prayer Shawl Companion. My kids I also can't wait to tell you all about the new LL Bean & Planet Dog holiday collaboration gift that all the it doggies are going to be wishing for this Christmas!

TGIF... its Fill-In Time!

1. My blueprint for success includes speaking up, sticking my foot in the door... and dedication.

2. A mini Snickers Rockin' NutRoad bar was the last candy I ate.

3. The best facial moisturizer I've ever used is Estee Lauder Day Wear Plus.

4. Dogs (or animals in general) and knitting can be good therapy.

5. I'd like to tell you about that I recently found out I'm going to be a Great Aunt in April... and man does that make me feel old.

6. Caring is my strongest characteristic - although sometimes I care too much and that gets me in trouble....

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching Ghost Whisperer and knitting on some xmas gifts, tomorrow my plans include awaiting the news from Dad's PET scan and a friend's birthday party with Matt's band playing and Sunday, I want to do nothing, but am hoping to get some stitch markers made before heading out to the AC/DC concert!

From My Dad

My Dad sent this note and asked me to post it for every to see... his wish is my command!

Just a short thank you to all the wonderful people out there that are concerned about my health.I deeply appreciate all the things that are said and to those who have sent my wife and I some gifts.I wish I could thank everyone in person,so that is why I am taking this time to write this message.
I am very proud of my daughter for what she has done in her life.Not everyone is as lucky as I am of having her as a kind and most giving person as well.I know she will go far in her achievements.She has a great partner Matt who I really like and would be always like a son to me.
I am starting to ramble so I am going to say one more time Thank You all for your kindness toward me and my family.

Dad goes for his swallow test on November 5 and then he has a PET scan on November 8 (please keep sending good vibes for a clean PET scan)! My Mom goes in for a follow up CAT scan on November 25...

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

My 25 year old cousin Nikki sent this pic to me of Mom & I at her Mother's baby shower. Yes, cousin Nikki was the baby to be... yes, I feel old.....

Here we are years later... with our men this past July in Essex, Massachusetts.

Update... Mom & Dad came up to visit on Sunday since he was feeling better and up to getting out & about for a bit. He goes in for another PET scan November 12th... please keep sending those good healing vibes!

Happy Birthday Mom... Love You!

Thank You Knitters...

... and crocheters! A delayed big thank you to all of my wonderful crafty friends who have sent hats for the Chemo Cap drive in honor of my Mom & Dad! Please forgive me for being so late in posting pics of the caps, but they are still trickling in and every time I thought I had a photo of them all, a few more arrived!

For those with a keen attention to detail, yes, that is Tut's nose in the bottom of the pic... keeping a close watch over the caps...

I have 28 -and counting!- beautiful, colorful, amazing caps ready to send up! Mom will personally deliver them to the chemo center where both she and my Dad have had treatments in the past year. I still haven't told her just how many I've collected, so I can't wait for her to find this post!

In no particluar order, special thank you from my family to Dianne, Katie, Grace, Chan, MaryBeth, Gaylen, Nancy, Mary, Joanne, Ellen, Cheryl, and a host of blogless Purling Petals; Sylvia, Marlana, Marlene, Pam, Cheryl and Norma! You ladies are all absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for giving your time & energy to this chemo cap drive! The hearts of knitters are simply amazingly large...

I hope everyone will continue to work on chemo caps and deliver them to your local cancer centers, other cap drives, etc. If anyone doesn't have an outlet, please feel free to send more our way and my Mom will glady deliver them. We actually found out that the cancer center in Gloucester does not currently have any group who knits & donates for them, so they are very much anticipating this delivery!

A quick update... my Dad visited his throat specialist today and although he's still in quite a bit of pain, the doctors say things are progressing well. We will know more after his PET scan on Nov. 12th. He is still using the g-tube and is having a bit of a rough time, but I know he'll get through it... after all, he's my Dad.....

I Stood Up...

...did you?

Check out Stand Up 2 Cancer for more information and ways to donate and you can visit the cafe press store for merchandise.

Goobling up Finished Objects

After a nice long weekend, I was greeted at the front door on my way into the office this morning with some gooble-goobles...

The male was literally right in front of the door, all fluffed up and I felt like I was talking to my dogs when I blurted out "could you please move your butt from in front of the door?," just as the female came waddling over to him as if to say "hey stupid, move..." and they waddled out on to the grass to allow me to go in. Too funny! I'm guessing they are the same 2 that we had hanging around for a week back in March, only they're down one man....

I also had an email from my Mom this morning ... "are you okay? you haven't posted anything to your blog since Thursday!?!?" Yes Mother, I am okay... and yes, I am behind in blogging... oops! I guess I got a little lazy over the long weekend? Yesterday, in between starting to clean our oversized walk in junk closet sunroom and playing with the dogs, I got caught up in the all day marathon of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood... and if I didn't adore Tori before, I certainly do now. What a riot... and so truly a down to earth, real girl!

Over the 3 day weekend, I did not get the new stitch markers made that I had hoped to (new fall and Christmas themes), but I did get a bit of knitting done and photoed a bunch of things....

I've been in a no-brainer-knit and finish-it-up mode the past week, so I took my Cross Stitch Scarf (sorry if you're not on Ravelry, but seriously now... if you're not, what the heck are you waiting for?) to Matt's racing on Sunday and got it finished!



Notice the GoKnit pouch in action? Love it! I also love this pattern.... such an easy 2 row repeat, making for great mindless, on the go knitting. This is the 2nd one I've made and will certainly do more for gifts.

For mine, I used one skein of Rowan Colourscape Chunky, which was wonderful to work with... beautiful colors, easy on the hands... My only complaint is that I accidentally broke the yarn about 3 times while knitting with it (it definitely has a lovely, handspun way about it). That might've been my own fault, but if you do knit with it, be careful.

Apparently, this scarf met Teutul's sniff of approval as well...

I have another FO to show you... although it was finished on August 2, I just got around to weaving in the ends and taking photos this weekend. Its the Virginia Shawl, which was done as part of the A Knitter's Garden KAL... except mine resulted in a Virginia SCARF.

I used Mission Falls 1824 wool, which was a dream to work with... so soft and lovely... however, not the right drape for this project! Mine came out about 1/3 the size of blogless Cheryl's, which is absolutely gorgeous! After I hemmed and hawed, Joanne suggested that it would make a great neck wrap/scarf ... and she was right! It really is the perfect, soft wool for wrapping close to your skin! My big guy didn't even seem to mind modeling it for me!

Last night, still in finish-it-up mode, I began working the 3rd skein in to my Fallish One Row scarf. I will definitely have this one ready for the cool, crisp days that are beginning to come up on us. (no updated pic, sorry)

I put my Ravelympics project, the Offset Wraplan baby sweater, aside for a bit, but it is almost finished! Although I got discouraged when I had to rip back a nearly finished sleeve and didn't finish it for the deadline, I feel I accomplised my Ravelympic goals of knitting my first real sweater. I don't have a baby in mind for it just yet, but I picked up the cutest little pink elephant buttons for it last week.

I'm working on the Eyelet Chemo Cap from Knitting For Peace. I need to get this finished up so I can send it up with all the wonderful chemo hats that so many of you have graciously made and sent for the Chemo Cap Drive in honor of my Mom & Dad. I took photos of the hats yesterday and will post about them this week, as I just received another today and want to make sure I get them all in!

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend and I hope all of our friends in the South are safe after Gustav rolled through!

Sunday Quickie

This will just be a quickie Sunday post due to... 1) I'm starving and need to go get some late lunch, 2) I want to go sit and watch more of the NACAR race, 3) I really need to go work on my Ravelympics project and 4) I can hear thunder in the distance and the sky looks like this as yet another frigging a thunderstorm is rolling in...

The kids were lounging out on the porch when I heard a couple very distant rumbles as I was taking some WIPs out there to photograph... No sooner did I get a few pics snapped, a rather loud distant rumble came and I've never seen 4 dogs run so fast to get inside in my life!

Here is the said Ravelympics project, the Offset Wraplan baby sweater which I cast on an hour ago (and really should have started 2 days ago but got a bit sidetracked)...

One of the things I was sidetracked with was a square for Luke's blanket. Silly me tried to get extra creative by casting on with fingering weight yarn on size 2 DPNs for this...

With a super busy weekend, and 2 days in to the square, I quickly realized I had to forgo this square for Luke's blanket and instead cast on something that would knit up much quicker, as they needed to get it in the mail quickly to Michelle. With that done, I have decided the above square will be the first of many to be knit over several years months to come and will result in a Barn Raising Quilt (for those not on Ravelry, the pattern is in the Knitalong book). I'd been thinking about doing something similar with leftover sock yarn, so this is a perfect ongoing project (and I'll always have Luke to thank for getting me started).

My other sidetrack is the chemo cap project for which many of you know about. If you haven't heard yet, I've put out a call for chemo caps (deadline August 25th) through my fellow knitting friends, the Purling Petals and the Multitasking 9-5 Ravelry group. I'm collecting as many as possible to bring up for my Mom & Dad to donate to the hospital where they have both received chemo treatments over the past year. Again, not to do a simple and quick knit, my first one cast on was the eyelet chemo cap from the Knitting for Peace book.

As you can see, its still in progress. I'll finish this one, as well as some simple caps too. My Mom made one for a special older lady who's going through treatments for brain cancer, but quickly realized a need for them at this hospital. Hopefully we can fulfill that... at least for awhile.

Quick Dad update... he has one more week of radiation treatments (two times per day) and then will meet with doctors to discuss status. If the tumor in his neck has not shrunk enough for the doc's liking, surgery may be the next step. His throat has been very sore from the treatments and he is using the g-tube now, despite his stubborness. Thank you to everyone who continues to check in, send good vibes and keep both of my parents in your thoughts.

We can still hear the thunder, although we don't seem to be in the direct path for this storm... but there are plenty more showing on the radar map to come. So with that, I leave you for today and will be back tomorrow with another review & winner announcement from the Pampered Paw gifts review!

Last Row

TGIF! I went to see Bon Jovi last night (love them!) and am a bit tired today, so this will be a quick post. The show was fantastic, as always, but I don't think we could have been any further from the stage...

Seriously, we were all the way on the other side of the arena, straight back from the stage, up in the balcony... last row. These are not the awesome seats I'm used to for seeing Jovi! Ah well.. we still had fun anyway. Jon got a little bit closer to us for a couple songs...

I'm also happy that I choose right when I picked getting tickets for the second night in Boston ... we got the longer and better set! Songs they didn't play the night before and were "must hears" on my list included Raise Your Hands (my fave Jovi song live!) and Bad Medicine w/ Shout. Plus we got Jon's impersonation of Mick Jagger when they threw a little Start Me Up in to Sleep When I'm Dead and during I Love This Town, the crowd went nuts when they plastered clips of our Boston teams on the big screen! We even got to sing Happy Birthday to Richie when they brought his cake out onstage and an extra encore song - Twist & Shout!

Since I have no knitting content to show you (did I fool you with that Last Row title?), I wanted to share a couple of family photos from last Saturday's belated Dad's Day lunch up in Essex, MA (mmm... fried lobster tails... fried clams...). It really means a lot to me that so many of my friends continue to ask about Mom's colon cancer (she was declared cancer free in May) and who have been checking in as my Dad begins treatment for his squamous cell carcinoma. His treatments began on Monday and he is currently undergoing radiation once per day and chemo once per week. Since they expect the radiation to cause throat pain and difficulty swallowing, he did have the g-tube put in so he will be ready. So far, so good... and all are in happy spirits!

Here's my Mom & Dad...

Matt's Dad & Sue (aka my "momsue" not to be confused with my Mom, Sue)...

We had a wonderful time... and no, I didn't take a picture of the fried lobster from Woodman's... sorry!

Leaning to The Left

OK, I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but yes... my hometown is Gloucester, MA. The Cape Ann town (an island really, connected to "mainland" by only 2 bridges) that is famous for this (these too) and this and even some Whoppi. Gloucester is where I was born, raised and lived until moving to NH 7 years ago. This Gloucester... the one that's all over the news today... the butt of late night jokes... even in Time. Now, just what the hell are these kids thinking? I know there's not always a lot to do on "the island," but come on now... and um... parents, where are you??? I digress...

Yesterday I learned that my Dad's cancer is squamous cell carcinoma, the second most common form of skin cancer. I'm still awaiting some clarification from Mom on this, since she was previously told "Head & Neck Cancer" until I forced her to push for an actual name. He had the infected tonsil removed last week and will begin radiation treatments on his neck July 6. UPDATED 7/9/08 - leave it to me googling to get the information wrong. While this is the 2nd most common form of skin cancer, it is also the name used for the most common form of head & neck cancer, which is what my Dad has.

Later yesterday, I learned that my very dear friend Chan lost Pop. She and I have made a pact... Chan will keep leaning to the right and I'll lean left, that way we can continue to help keep each other afloat....

On another note, remember the nesting Mama from this post? I'm happy to report that I spyed some hungy little babies last week in the nest...

It's been a long week and I don't think I've been happier to say this... TGIF! I need a break!