A romantic Valentine's afternoon

starts with dosing Sadie with Rimadyl before noon, bundling up for 25° weather, leashing the dogs, and heading out down the hill in the backyard.


From there you enjoy an afternoon together,

 

wandering about in the valleys

 

and on the hills around your neighborhood.

 

You get to see dogs enjoying the snow and their outing,

 

sunflower farms,

 

awesome ice formations

 

bassets snuffling stuff like bassets do,

 

geese overhead,

 

baby trees safe from deer,

 

and the water holding ponds you are grateful for.

 

Then you go out to the road to head home, enjoying your favorite tree in the cow field,

 

tell Sadie she has done an amazing job hiking and she is almost home,

 

and you are thankful that Simon will wait for her so patiently.

 

The last little bit of the afternoon outing includes telling the neighbor dogs hello, even though the beagle/basset mix Paco dog has taught Miss Louie Basset the bad habit of barking at everything and everyone.

 

Then you finish the afternoon off with a Valentine's day gift of a hand knit sock. (With the promise of the other one being done in plenty of time for their poker game on Sunday afternoon.)

A couple of ways to make my Hubband happy.

Go see a most excellent movie (which didn't have a midnight showing here, but we went opening night) and bring home the needed 3D glasses,









and knit him a hat to keep the wind and cold out. This is an excellent accessory for Minnesota wind chill and dog walks. I am not totally happy with the fit; of course, if I had tried it on him while in was in progress, I would have made needed modifications to make me happier, but it didn't come close to his head until it was all finished. He loves it and what else really matters?

It's a Dogs' Life

Chan and Gaylen have been fussing at me for new dogs pictures, even if they are boring, sleeping dogs. So, this is for you two (well, and anybody else that likes dog pictures).

Sadie spends a lot of her time sleeping in the family room while I am on the couch.

 

Though she wakes up just a little bit when she thinks she is getting some attention,

 

apparently having her picture taken doesn't count as enough attention to stay awake for.

 

 

Being a pack-oriented dog, she changes she sleeping spot as we move about the house. The landing is close enough proximity to the computer to make her happy,

 

and this end of the family room works out pretty well for her during dinner. I felt rather sorry for her on Thursday as I was doing some housework and she had to keep moving from the landing to the family room, upstairs to the bedroom, back down to the family room, back upstairs, back to the landing, and such. I kept telling her she could stay in one spot, but she really doesn't like to be that far away from her people. She is much happier when there are two people home and one of them holds still.

Simon starts his day with moving from his spot in the bedroom to a sun spot in the front room. From there he just sleeps and rarely even notices that the sun has moved.

 

 

 

Some things in a basset's life are very important, including having their heads scratched through the posts as we go down the stairs,

 

going outside on the deck (to see if there is any birdseed to eat),

 

and hanging out in the kitchen to help me cook dinner (or perhaps hope for some sort of manna to fall from heaven).

 

Of course two of the most important things in a basset's life after sleeping are food

 

and belly rubs,

 

which should never be interrupted with cameras! (Hubband says we hould have gotten her for half price since she is defective with feet on the top of her body instead of the bottom!)

 

(Now can I go back to the sock?)

Early Valentine's Day present

I got a very nice Valentine package from my brother (aka Mr. A's dad) today. He sent me Earl Greyer Tea and a comic strip to go with it. Since I can't exactly share a cup of tea with all of you, I will share the comic he sent. (Good thing my tea is in a cupboard Oribel doesn't get into!)
Thanks BB!
(OK, so I can't seem to get it to size correctly, so either click on the image to get the whole thing or go to this link.)
Rose Is Rose (Feb 4, 2009)

Everything belongs to Oribel.

 

I know, that has been mentioned before and has been well established. Well, it gets reiterated fairly regularly. The other night Hubband and I were setting up the "photo box" we got a while back. I had been looking at these for awhile and though it was kind of cool. It comes with the collapsible box, two lights, a (marginal) tripod, clips, and a carrying case. Cool, but not worth the prices I kept seeing, but then I noticed that Think Geek had them. We decided to try it for pictures of the socks, and of course we got help. All in all, the help turned out OK, except for the cat hair I had to dump out when she was done.

 

 

When she was bored with hanging out in the box, playing/biting at the Velcro, and trying to steal the socks that were the original photo subject, she decided that her scratching post was trying to run off and needed anchoring. While she was keeping track of her post/perch, she noticed a moving, long orange thing that needed to be attacked. It is often a toss-up as to who comes out the winner when this happens. (Just after this she had a longer run-in with it.)


Don't forget to check out Whiskers on Wednesday!
(Oh, and Think Geek has a ton of other cool stuff, just in case you've never checked them out.)

Socks and Pixel Crumbs

Last Friday I finished the striped socks I was working on, bring me to 3 pairs out of 12. (Brief recap for those that are interested; started on Jan. 27, finished on Feb.6. Noro Sock Yarn.) As I had rather expected, DTY said they were pretty and she would love them well, so they are already on their way to her. I do have plenty of yarn left to make myself a pair as well, which I may do soon.

 

Since I was using two strands of yarn, I had a couple of people ask to see the inside so they could see how I carried the unused yarn up the inside. Here you go, if you want further info, feel free to send me an email and I will give more details.

 

Sunday morning our Adult Ed time had something to do with the Internet, web sites, and I am not exactly sure what all since I was a little bit late and missed the "Introduction" part. My guess is that it mostly started with information about the church's web site and how it is progressing, how it and its pages will be set up, and why we are making the choices we are with it. I am also guessing that there were some folks that were asking why we need a web site, why we send out informational e-mails, etc. When I got there Fr. Doug was discussing some of that sort of information and explaining that a lot of people use the Internet as a way of getting information about churches to visit etc. In his explanations of how people search the web for information about stuff, they also search people's names, and used me as an example. He said that he was sure if one Goggled Barbara S... they would find several hits about me. (He knew I would be OK with being picked and that I would show up, at least on some of the stuff from church things.) I said that one could probably find a fair number of hits related to me, though I suppose most of those would come under the search of "CoffeeYarn" rather than my name. Any way, Hubband and I were talking about this later and how one leaves trails as one goes about the Internet. I said that it seems kind of like Hansel and Gretel, but that we leave pixel crumbs behind us instead of bread crumbs. Of course, I'm not sure I could follow all of my pixels, even though I doubt they have been eaten by any birds. (I wonder if pixels can be coffee colored? Or covered in pet hair and/or yarn?)

I will give you an Oribel story a little later. Right now I need to go get ready and leave for the dentist. I am sure that information will make someone happy.

Passing it on

The ever wonderful Chan has nominated me for this award. (I guess this means she thinks I am creative. I am glad to know I make her laugh and am grateful to know her!)

Here are the official rules:
1. Copy the award to your site (Check)
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award (Check)
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers (Good thing there aren't any rules about "folks that haven't gotten it already" but I guess I will skip "touch-backs" no matter how tempting it might be.)
4. Link to those on your blog (Check)
5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated (Hmmm, Chan may have missed that part, but since she knows I read her blog every day..... Check)

1. Anita She knits some pretty cool stuff and makes very cool stitch markers; right now she has some that look like chocolate chips. (She had an interview with Chan recently and has a great story about being in the Coast Guard here. If you haven't read it yet, you really should.)
2. Gaylen She knits awesome socks and sews beautiful clothes, plus has four great looking dogs.
3. Cass designs her own patterns and is a very creative writer. She also home schools her two teenagers, runs a pet sitting business, and all sorts of other things keeps her from having very much free time.
4. Jessi She spins, dyes yarn, makes bead stitch markers, knits, has kids, and now she weaves! She is also one of the administrators of Whiskers on Wednesday.
5. Jane knits all sorts of stuff (has a goal of knitting 52 items in 52 weeks and is well on her way!) as well as teaches school, spends time with her grandchildren, and runs the WhoDuKnit Group.
6. Nova knits, sews, quilts, bakes, reads, has two beautiful boys, loves books, is there anything creative she doesn't do? I hope she sleeps!
7. Pepperknit designs beautiful patterns, comes up with fun costumes, and knits beautiful garments. She cooks great looking food and seems to have good taste in books.

I am sure you are all wondering

if Oribel is still around here at all. I promise she is, still causing trouble at times; not so much "kitten trouble" now, but more on the lines of "adult, but still young at heart" trouble. (Translate that to "bigger in size, so able to get more places" kind of trouble.) Yesterday morning I woke up to her messing around on top of our dresser. Translate that to, "playing with necklaces, trying to pull earrings off the rack and throw them onto the floor for later, digging bracelets out of the basket to chew on, etc." Last night Hubband discovered that she had knocked a pressed flower/glass hanging off the mantel and onto the floor. Now, we didn't see her do this, but since it has been up there for several years since Hubband brought it home from Cambridge to me without ever having any problems, and she has been seen up there more than once, she is the likely suspect. Last week I heard a funny noise over there and looked to see her dropping a little plastic holder off the mantel onto the hearth, just to watch it fall I am sure. One of her favorite places to take a nap is on the top shelf in my closet. To get there she climbs up the back of shirts on the hanger-rod, onto one shelf, and then over and up to the top shelf. So now I have to check my shirts for blobs of cat fur when I get ready to wear them.
She spends a lot of time hanging out by the door to the deck watching small birds on the deck and in the trees, as well as the turkeys and deer in the yard. Well, she also spends some time in the kitchen window over the sink watching everything as well. Sometimes she runs back and forth from the kitchen window, to the door, to the window in the family room to see if she can figure out where the squirrel has gone to.

Don't forget to check out Whiskers on Wednesday.