December, A Review.

Hello person reading my blog! How are you? I forgot to tell you, I decided to take a month off from my blogging to rejuvenate. I've spent the majority of my time planning out my creative goals for this blog. I have lists, Venn diagrams, bar graphs, and even a few laminated signs. 2011 is guaranteed to blow your mind, so stick around!

Not really though. I've just been epically lazy.

But I'm back!

It's sad that I haven't posted because I discovered a lot of new things in December. While searching for Christmas presents on Amazon, I discovered a quilting book, which led to a quilting blog, which led to a colorful quilt that I love, which led to me jumping head first into a quilting project. Look at all the fabric I have! Ack!


Then I went to the lake house where I got to see my baby cousins Chandler and Dylon. I think 11 months old is officially my favorite age.


I did some baking which is no suprise. I made some Christmas themed cake balls for peoples at work! I also baked cookies for 2 of my coworkers' birthdays. It involved cookies spelling their names but I didn't take any pictures because baking and decorating cookies is effort enough.



I had also been working on a knitting project for a long while. I had absolutely no time to work on it, but was finally able finish it on Christmas Eve. So glad I got it done before Christmas - I made it for Stephanie; hope she likes it.



oh! oh! I also discovered dog parks. Okay... I've known about dog parks for a long time now, but I've never taken my dogs to one. But Toast absolutely loves the dog park. She was jumping in the ponds, running as fast as she could, barking at swans, running under people doing push-ups, and just, in general, drawing a crowd of admirers. People are fascinated by really small dogs. Teddy sticks pretty close to me when we go but he enjoys running about as well.


So that's about it for my December. How about you, dear blog reader?

Woah!

I went to visit Grandmommy and the rest of the family last weekend. I’m working the day after Thanksgiving so I knew I wouldn’t be able to make up there for a while. I brought Grandmommy a present in the form of a world map puzzle! How cool is that? The oceans are regular puzzle pieces, but the rest of the pieces are the actual shape of the countries! (I think I may have been way more excited about it than anyone else.)

Saturday morning, while Grandmommy slept and Jane took a road trip with Melissa to Austin, I took a nice long run down the bayou near Jane’s house then I baked the always delicious chocolate covered cheesecake. I sent a few pieces home to Grandmommy the first time I made it, and she had been asking me when I was going to bring her more. Grandmommy and I then worked on the puzzle and discussed knitting patterns. She let me borrow this really cool knitting and crochet book that has all kinds of different patterns that I want to try out. I haven’t yet ventured far from the comfortable knit and purl. We visited Melissa that evening and I got to see Carter’s baby room. Melissa is huge! After dinner I watched A&M beat Nebraska (Whoop!) with Thomas, then stayed up late chatting with Jane and Grandmommy. Perfect Saturday, no?


On Sunday, Jane and I drove over to Shannon’s house to witness Dylon’s first haircut. His Mimi had to, of course, take pictures of the monumental occasion. Dylon was a star, sitting nicely for his trim as his parents tried to keep his attention so he wouldn’t move. Afterwards there was a little bubble photoshoot in their front yard. Look how cool they look!


We ended the weekend by making cake balls! My work had a potluck lunch on Monday, and I signed up to bring a dessert. I may have got a tad stressed and been overly critical of Jane's ball rolling, but we finished it up and she let me borrow a pretty basket to display them in! (She's a great assistant by the way, I would highly recommend her if you are looking for free help.) Everyone at work seemed to like them. I saw a couple of people grab 3 or 4 bags!

Cable Rib Dog Sweater

I knitted something! I have this book called Stylish Knits for Dogs. It is full of amusing puns related to dogs and fashion (Vanity Fur, anyone?), but it is not full of good patterns. I started knitting the cable rib sweater but the instructions only had me doing one cable when the sweater clearly had 5! It turns out the book has at least 3 incorrect patterns, but I luckily found the corrected instructions on the publisher's website. Here is the pattern if you want to try it. On to pictures!

In the works:

I took this picture when I was done with all of the cabling. I didn't know how to proceed since I had to increase stitches. (Can you tell I'm a knitting n00b?) Anyway, I figured it out and I finished it!


I actually finished it about a week ago. I didn't post it sooner because I didn't have the photo I wanted. You know, the one where one of my dogs is actually wearing the sweater. But it turns out, it doesn't fit my dogs! It's way too small. (It was pretty hilarious trying to put it on... though, the dogs didn't care for it.)


I don't know if I just have really tight stitches or if size "small" is only for newborn chihuahuas. Oh well, I had fun. I might try it again in medium.

p.s. I don't know why the color looks so different between photos. They were taken on different days and at different times ... and ... and... I'm also a camera n00b. :(

Juries, Dogs, and Yarn

Hi there!

So, I have this post-it note. And on it is written a list of things I need to do. There's stuff like, "clean rat cage" and "give the dogs a haircut" and "go to Goodwill." But all of these things are crossed off and finished. There is only one thing left on my post-it note. And it says "Blog." So here I am!

Last week I had jury duty. *boo* *hiss* It was really just jury selection, so I had to listen to lawyers for 4 hours ask everyone a bunch of questions. I didn't say anything, just sat and played with my little number paddle. When the defense attorney started cracking jokes I made sure to keep a straight face... you know, let him know that I wasn't going to play along with his little games. I also said "don'tpickmedon'tpickmedon'tpickme" over and over again in my head when they were making their final selections. I think all of these things played a very significant role in my not being chosen. (By the way, you can borrow my tricks the next time you get summoned.)

On Thursday, my BFFs and I had craft night. (Why yes, we are cool, thanks.) Casey made bows for headbands, Stephanie crocheted, and I started undoing a blanket I had started months ago. I never finished the blanket because it was looking like a trapezoid as my stitching became tighter and tighter. I've decided to knit sweaters for the dogs. Hopefully I can figure out how to make them; it's a cable pattern. (yikes?)

Saturday was spent crossing off my to-do list from my post-it note, but Sunday was fun! I dragged Stephanie to Waco to spend a day at the ASCA nationals. (ASCA stands for Australian Shepherd Club of America.) We saw stock dogs herding cows, sheep, and even ducks. We also caught the final conformation awards and a little bit of the agility. I was going to take pictures of all the pretty dogs we saw (and there were so many!!) but I was too self conscious. I took one picture:
Ah, well! It was fun anyway, and now I want one of these dogs more than ever! (I also want to learn how to work stock. Am I too much in the city for that sort of thing?)

Okay there. *crosses off item on to-do list* I'll try to bore you again real soon! Byyeee!