Puppy Sitting and Projects

Saturday morning, Jordan dropped off Toby for a day so that I could puppysit while he and Callie were away all day.  They adopted Toby as a tiny, 3-pound pup that Callie rescued from the middle of a very busy street.

While undernourished as a "street dog", he quickly acclimated to the good life and thrived once given the chance.  Toby is now a 6 month old, 21 pound bundle of energy.   Like most puppies, he would love nothing better than for other dogs to romp and play with him.  

Emmi, on the other hand, is kind of a grumpy old lady with regard to energetic puppies.
She is not at all entertained by their running and jumping and nipping at her and she quickly bares her teeth and snarls if they get too close.  I quickly figured out that it was best to keep the two separated by a little distance

and in fact, they both did best when there was glass between them.

In the meantime, I made time to complete a couple of projects that I'd left hanging.  A cup of hot chocolate, my sewing machine and the Hallmark movie channel make for a perfect Saturday while Ron is away.

I finally was able to complete curtains for Callie and Jordan's bedroom (sorry no pictures yet) and repair a shirt for Callie.  I bought a simple black maternity top for her and had planned to have it monogrammed, however, it got caught up in their machine and tore a tiny hole in it instead.   Not wanting it to go to waste, I used a scrap of yellow chevron fabric and a piece of vintage embroidered ribbon to cover the spot.   (it looks a little "wonky" in this iPhone photo, but doesn't in real life)

Good as new!

Another project that I tackled was the February prompt for my One Little Word class.   In addition to creating a page to record reflections from each month, I developed actions I want to focus on in this upcoming year.

Last but not least, I decided it wasn't too late to add a few simple, festive Valentine touches to our living room.   I used gold and silver chenille stems to craft a heart garland to hang on the fireplace

and added a few individual hearts to the mantel itself.

Pottery Barn Lamp Knockoff

I've been coveting this lamp in the Pottery Barn catalog.

Pottery Barn

While the price is not terrible, it is way out of my price range right now, but I haven't been able to find anything else comparable at a lower price. I decided to hit the Goodwill Store nearby and see if I could find anything that could be transformed. I found this for $4:

While certainly not the same unique shape, it could be kind of interesting and it already had a hole drilled in the side of it. I took the top to a glass store and asked them to drill a hole in the lid. I thought this would be a rather simple task, but apparently it must be quite complicated because one day and $16 later----that's right, $16 (I thought I had misunderstood the lady--surely she meant $6?!?! Nope!)----I have this.

Despite the inflated cost of drilling a hole, the total cost was only $37.50----Much better than the $99 price tag at PB!

December Daily--with a twist

I've been following along as Ali Edwards completes her December Daily journal. I've been taking photos, jotting notes, etc. with the hopes of assembling one for myself at some point. However, when I arrived home today after work, I was met with what has become my own "December Daily" just inside my doorway.

Emmi standing on her back legs with front paws waving up and down and cypress needles everywhere! They cling to Emmi like velcro and today seemed especially bad. The cypress needles were all over the kitchen and living room.Not only was there a dirty little dog in the kitchen, but upon closer examination, I found quite a job ahead of me---Emmi HATES having her tail brushed! Even though she really needs a bath, there doesn't seem to be much point in doing that until I get the yard raked. Maybe this weekend . . . . ?