cherry tomato

how NOT to behave in a crisis situation

Thank you for the kind welcome back. It's nice to know there are still people out there interested in checking in on me. It is much appreciated.

This past week was filled with odd occurrences, not the least of which was my darling puppy getting her right eye scratched by one of our cats. The event went something like this:

- cat runs up to dog and scratches her eye
- dog lets out agonizing whine
- dog's eye starts dropping tears
- Mary looks at dog's eye and FREAKS OUT
- Mary's freaking out scares the dog even more
- Mary starts running around the house trying to get her brain to function because, apparently, in trauma situations, Mary loses all brain function and ability to breathe.
- Eric arrives home and calmly assesses the situation.
- Mary continues to freak out because she can't breathe
- Eric calmly calls vet and finds out what we need to do
- All to go vet
- Mary cries the whole time

As you may be able to tell, I don't handle crisis situations very well. The good news is Zoey has a good prognosis. I'm still extremely worried, fussing over her at every opportunity, but she should be okay.

Poor little girl:

Now, I'll leave you with some photos from a walk in the neighborhood over the weekend. Spring officially begins this week, and the signs of its arrival are everywhere. I couldn't be more pleased.

 

snow days, birthdays, holidays

they days fly this time of year. so many commitments: so many birthdays: so many parties. it's hard to keep from feeling run down. how does this always happen? it's september, i blink my eyes, and i'm suddenly near the middle of december! how. does. this. happen?

december 1st was our first snowfall of the year, and while it only lasted for about 24 hours, it was sublime. zoey was crazed with excitement at the cold, white frost covering everything in sight.

i think it's safe to say she loved it.

I have been working on a few projects I need to share with you, but for now, I'm leaving you with a couple more photos from our snow day.

i haven't forgotten that i promised you some photos from my trip to my mothers. i'll share them with you in my next post. i was able to capture some interesting images i'm looking forward to sharing with you.

be well, friends.

Zoe

My apologies for the extended absence. As predicted, work has been keeping me busy during most evenings, and those evenings when I haven't been working, I've been much to tired to do much of anything.

Oh, and then there's this:

We've been talking about getting a puppy for awhile now and have been casually looking for a good fit over the past couple of months. We knew we didn't want to buy from a breeder as there are so many dogs out there that need good homes. We found her just yesterday (!) and she's already made herself part of the family. The cats' distinctly different personalities have become magnified by the addition of our newest family member. Vedo, as ever, couldn't care less. He's most concerned about her food and is constantly slinky around her food bowl. Madison is the most territorial and seems to feel a sense of betrayal. He uses intimidation to accomplish his means: establishing dominance. Sophia, well, she can't stand dogs and stays 20 feet away from her at all times with a puffed up tail and steady growl. As I type this, Zoe is sitting by me, and the cats are all clustered together like they're some sort of street gang hanging out on the corner. They usually don't get along well together, but when there is a perceived threat, suddenly they create an indestructible bond. Zoe, of course, just wants to be friends and play with them.

Zoe is a darling. She's a 3 month old Boston Lab. We have only had her for half a day, and we're already exhausted. This is all so new to us, but we're both really excited about all of this and look forward to settling in with her. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

when cats rule the house

One of the myriad projects I've been putting off is making new beds for the kitties. We're fortunate that our cats don't scratch up our furniture. However, we recently bought a new-to-us but old mid century sofa. The upholstery has reached the end of its life, and we're going to tackle reupholstering it this fall (we're still trying to find the perfect fabric). For some reason, the cats seem to know the fabric is on it's last legs, and they've taken to clawing at it - not much but just enough to irritate me. So, we've had to set some new rules around the house, and the cats are no longer allowed on the sofa. I feel so mean, but I don't want to do all that work to reupholster the sofa, only to have the cats destroy it within weeks.

So I've been feeling pretty guilty about it, and I feel so bad when I kick them off the sofa, that I felt like I needed to tempt them away from the sofa by making them some squishy, soft new beds. I remembered some black plush fabric I bought years ago at a thrift store, and was so happy to see there was plenty to make them some beds. I tested it beforehand to make sure they would like the fabric.

They approved.

Then I used some fabric my mom gave me for the bottom, loosely filled them with stuffing and scraps of the plush fabric, and arrived at kitty-heaven. I put one of the beds into a doll bed my grandfather made me when I was a child. I haven't used it for years, but the kitties seem to approve. It took them less than 10 seconds to discover and claim the new bed.

Now on to reupholstering that sofa. If only we could find the right fabric...

lazy days of summer

Things are feeling pretty hectic around here, and I’m beginning to wonder if it will ever slow down. My life has been disheveled for so long, that it actually feels odd to have the time to do normal things. Eric and I had the most wonderful weekend of just staying home and being sickeningly domestic. We sat out in the yard in our lawn chairs and watched the sun go down until we finally surrendered to the bites of the mosquitoes. We made pesto, mowed the lawn, picked some of our ripened blackberries, barbecued fresh wild salmon, hung clothes on the line to dry and sat on a blanket in the yard.  It was like we tried to cram every summer cliché into a single weekend, and well, I think we succeeded. I’m so glad we did too because it has been dreary and grey here the past couple of days.

Last Thursday during my weekly trek to Kinokuniya, I found what I believe it is a new Lotta Jansdotter book, Lotta Jansdotter Handmade Project (it's much less expensive at Kinokuniya). It’s published in Japanese with easy to follow directions. Finding the book was an unexpected delight. It's just the sort of treasure I hope to find every time I go there. It is filled with some great little projects and ideas including instructions for printing your own designs onto fabric. Her patterns are simple and beautiful, and the book is filled with images from her home. I’ve looked through it many times now, but I still haven’t been able to commit to a project. Instead I’ve opted to work on a design of my own.

I’ve had so many ideas caught up in the design phase. So much so that I’m starting to feel out of sorts about not being productive. I worked on my studio on Sunday and got it in a condition where I can at least accomplish some work in there even if it’s not quite where I want it to be. I’ve begun work on a new stuffed, and I’m already feeling more calm. If all goes well, I should have it finished by the end of the week and promise to share it with you (if it turns out okay).

I'll leave you with a cute photo of Vedo. I was trying to snap a picture of this plate I bought last week, and Vedo had to make sure there wasn't any food on it for him. So typical...

drumroll please...

last week i promised to show you a glimpse of my studio. the weather has been gray and dreary, so i haven't had an opportunity to take any decent photos until today. even these photos are less than desirable, but they'll have to do for now.

and there you have it. it's nothing spectacular, but it works for me. of course, the room, as with everything else, is always a work in progress.

and speaking of works in progress: i still haven't finished the baby quilt, but i'm still plugging away at it. eric and i are doing a lot of work on the house right now, including getting the outside all prepped for a new paint job. that's been taking up most of my time these days. today i'm working on the bathroom. eric and i make a great team because he's great at the carpentry, and i do the painting (however, i won't claim to be "great" at it). eric put in some new trim and spackled the walls over the weekend, so now it's my to turn to go in with my brush and get the job done. i know most people hate painting, but i actually really enjoy it. i think i love it because it's quick, easy and takes so little effort and expense to make a dramatic difference.

anyway, i should get back to the painting. i'll leave you with one more photo from the studio. this one is of sophia and vedo basking in the sun. vedo pretty much lives on top of that cabinet these days.

i think they like it here too...

sugar is good

Ooh, what a splendid Friday it is. I'm watching Rear Window, working on a quilt and eating smarties. It's not wrong to eat smarties for a meal, is it? I certainly hope not because I can't stop eating them! They're just too yummy for words.

Here Madison is monitoring the progress of the striped blanket.

He approves. I think he thinks I'm making it for him. I suppose in a way I am. Everything in our house somehow eventually gets taken over by the kitties. Occasionally it bothers me, but I can't really stay too upset. After all, these are our babies, and with Madison thinking he's a person and all, we couldn't very well get rid of them.

Short post today. Just wanted to drop by and say hello. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

I'll leave you with a photo of one of my most recent thrifting acquisitions. I squealed when I found this, which completely confounded Eric. But I don't care. I adore it.

just chillin'

Here is my darling Vedo relaxing on a Saturday morning while a flurry of activity surrounds him. Eric and I have been packing for the big move tomorrow, and it feels like we will never be finished. Usually, when you're packing up, it means you're moving to a new place right away, so the task seems slightly less tedious. Since we're just packing up to go into purgatory, we're a little less thrilled about the move. The cats are well aware that something is up, but they have no idea just how bad things are going to be for them in the next month. My grandparents have a strict "no animal" policy at their cabin, so while I'm staying there in September, the cats will have the misfortune of having to stay out in the garage. I know, I know, many cats have it much worse off than that, I just feel a little bad that they are so unaware of what lies ahead for them. I'll just let Vedo chill on the sofa for as long as he can without a care in the world except when he'll get his next meal.

In addition to the packing, Eric and I have been doing some work on the house. Eric and his friends replaced the gutters last weekend, and neither of us could believe how much better it made the house look. We were doing it for practical purposes, but we got the bonus of a much cleaner looking house. I did some digging in the garden. I've sort of been the landscape architect. We had a completely blank canvas, and it's been fun to create our backyard space. I mean, it's a lot of work, but it's been nice to see the transformation. Of course, it won't be "finished" for awhile, but we have the basic layout completed.

The beginning:

Beginning of the herb garden:

It doesn't look nearly as nice as it does in my head. I can't wait for everything to get settled in and a little overgrown. I can't wait for it all to come together the way I can so clearly see it in my head.

I'd better get back to the packing. So much to do...

you take the good, you take the bad...

Some people say you for every good thing that happens, something bad has to happen. I tend to be a pretty optimistic person, and don't really subscribe to that idea. Nevertheless, I do know that without bad things happening in life, we could never fully appreciate the good.

I haven't said anything about it here because I didn't want to jinx things (not that I'm really superstitious, but just in case, ya know?). Eric and I have been casually looking for our first house for the past month or so, and seriously looking for a couple of weeks. We found the perfect house this weekend. I first saw it posted in the multiple listing service on Saturday morning, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. By that evening, Eric and I drove over to look at it to make sure it really was as great as it looked. On Sunday, we were the first people at the open house, and we were there for  2 1/2 hours going back and forth between the house and our car trying to figure out what to do. There was no doubt in our minds that this was THE house. The housing market in Seattle is utterly insane and shows no sign of slowing down. We knew we had to act fast because this house was almost too good to be true: a nice little project house, built in 1915 in one of our favorite neighborhoods. We got our offer in that night and by last night we found out our offer was accepted. We knew our offer could not have been the strongest, but I wrote a letter to the sellers telling them how much we love the house and a little bit about ourselves, and that letter was the clincher. We are overjoyed and feel so lucky. Here's a little peek of the front of the house:

Now onto the bad:

This is Andy, a.k.a. Andypants. He was our friend and neighbor's kitty who lived outside. In the past two years we have lived here, we spent so much time with him that he felt like our own. He was probably the smallest full grown cat I've ever seen, but he had a tremendous meow. We always called it the old grandpa meow. That was because when we moved in here, Andy was 18 years old. Everytime Eric and I woudl go outside, he would come down the stairs to greet us. Everyday when we got home from work, he would run out to our car to lead us down the pathway to our house. The picture above is one of him leading us down the path.

Andy died last night at the ripe old age of 19.

I knew I would miss him when I got home today. I went and sat in the back yard as usually, and out came my next door neighbor's new kitten to greet me. It reminded me that life goes on. Andy is gone, and now we have a new little wipper-snapper coming around. No kitty could ever take his place though.

 

r.i.p. andypants.

good time animal swap

i'm feeling much better than i was earlier this week, but i'm still completely wiped out. after getting a nice full night's sleep last night, i had to take a 3 hour nap this afternoon after engaging in one simple activity: going out to eat lunch. i'm not kidding when i tell you the dark circles under my eyes go all the way down to my cheeks.

i haven't done much in the way of producing anything this week, but i had a fairly productive weekend last week and thought i'd share with you some of what i worked on.

i had to finish preparing the goodies for anna's good time animal swap. it was so much fun to put this together for what looks to be a very sweet dog. the kitties were intrigued by the items and were kind enough to model a couple of them for me.

I knit a collor and leash using green twine on a child's knitting dolly. My mother tells me I used to knit using one of these when i was a child, but I have no recollection of it. It was perfect for making a nice sturdy collar and leash. I also thought it would be nice to add a little crocheted flower (my very first!). it took me several tries before i got it right. i used debbie bliss cashmerino aran so it would be nice and soft for my secret buddy. of course the bunny is just a little toy for her to play with. i'm sure it will only be a matter of seconds before the button eyes are ripped out, but lets hope those few moments are filled with joy.

the kitties received their swap package yesterday, and were so excited, they beat me to the box.

the present was from anna, and what a thoughtful gift it was. the kitties received a little catnip mouse, three patchwork catnip squares, a lovely crocheted mat for lounging, a pom pom and a little felted ball with a bell inside. As soon as I opened the box, madison helped himself to the little mouse.

Sophia got busy with one of the catnip squares then took a break on the mat.

Vedo's favorite thing by far is the felted ball. vedo is very odd in that he doesn't really like to play with toys. the only thing i've ever seen him play with longer than 5 seconds was a little candy rootbeer barrel in a wrapper. he played with that thing forever until i finally had to throw it away because the wrapper was disintigrating. however, he has been playing with the little felt ball all day. i think maybe he llikes the little bell inside.

thank you, anna!