Cocoa, an update

Posted on October 3, 2009 by Suzanne

If you come visit my house and sit down, you have to be prepared to have a big brown dog set her big brown head on your lap. And then she’ll stand there for absolutely as long as you can possibly bear to continue petting her head.

She sleeps in our room, and many nights she’ll try to join us in bed. Mark will go sit in HER chair, which usually gets her interest, so she hops down and joins him.

Last night she was sitting on the floor looking at us, and I said something to him about the big brown dog staring at him.

“If you don’t make eye contact with her, she eventually goes away.”

Sure enough, she wandered away after a few minutes.

Sometimes we do let her climb in bed with us, but never if we actually expect to sleep. If she isn’t being petted, she wants to know why not and does her darndest to get our attention, up to and including making use of a really big wet sloppy tongue. And then, when she is getting petted, the big tail starts thumping.

Most of the time, though, she is one of the calmest dogs I’ve ever known, and since she’s such a big girl, that is something I’m grateful for. She seems to have fit into our family quite nicely, and even Katie, who might pretend otherwise, seems to like having her around.

Radiant Star Part 3 — Houston, We Have a Block

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Suzanne

Only 19 more to go. It took longer than I had thought it would, but I was only doing the one, when I’m working on a bunch at a time and doign some assembly line work, it’ll all go faster. Plus, I was still trying to figure otu what the heck I was doing, there’s a LOT of pieces to keep track of!

I’m still working on a post about half-square triangle units, and how I cut out some of those funny shapes, but it’s like Grand Central Station around here, and my family thinks they need my attention and…you know how it goes.

Yesterday’s photo:

I took the boys to the pool, but had enough sun after about 2 hours. My sister-in-law and her kids were there, so I just left my boys in her capable hands and came home. She brought them home a few hours later and when they tried to leave, look who hopped in the car! (She did go in through the door, they closed the door for the picture. When Mark saw this, he was worried that she had jumped in over the top…)

TTFN-

Suzanne

Daily photos plus poll results

Posted on June 6, 2009 by Suzanne

The boys were playing baseball and I was trying to take some pictures of them in action. Unfortunately, not many of them turned out very well, but one of my furry helpers just about knocked me over trying to get close enough to me. What a face. You can’t really see it at this size, but the darkest spot in her eye is actually my reflection.

It was raining today. What a mess. And the concrete steps didn’t quite come out the way we’d hoped they would. The two bottom layers were poured as one solid chunk. The top layer was separate. They ended up completely demolishing the top layer, and leaving most of the bottom two, but that’s OK, because that gives us room to build a deck over top of it.

We headed to Lowe’s to pick out some new light fixtures to go on eithr side of the door, and we looked at decking material. It’s not going to be cheap, but I think it will all be worthwhile in the end.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a Radiant Star update, but first, here’s some of the results from the poll that a bunch of you kindly voted in a few days ago:

Do you cut absolutely everything you can before you start piecing? 31% (9 votes)

Do you cut enough to make a single test block, sew that, and then cut everything? 7% (2 votes)

Do you cut as much as you can before it makes you crazy, start sewing, and then cut some more later? 48% (14 votes)

Does it depend on the quilt? 3% (1 votes)

Does it depend on the position of the planets? 10% (3 votes)

I’m glad to see a few of you voted for that last one. Some days, that’s my answer for just about everything.

TTFN-

Suzanne

The return of the daily photo

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Suzanne

I don’t know what happened, I just quit taking pictures every day. I don’t have really willing participants, except for maybe the dog(s), but I can only take so many pictures of the dogs. I’ve been missing this, though, and had decided to start it back up tomorrow, the 1st of June. But there I was, sitting out back, knitting in the wind, and the dogs were laying out in the grass and it was so pretty, I was compelled to take their picture.

Only, I had to go inside and get the camera first, and by the time I got back, Katie had moved on. But Cocoa was willing to lay back down, and the trees and grass and sky hadn’t changed, so I went with it.

I did end up getting a couple of shots of her before we went to play Frisbee and Chicken*.

She was the victim of a recent haircut. She hates haircuts. But after a haircut and a bath, she’s like velvet, which means she gets more cuddles, but I don’t think she has that much of a sense of the future.

I’m at a bit of a loss for a sewing project at the moment. Everything’s either waiting for binding, waiting for quilting, not a stage where I can easily sit down and just sew…sounds like time to start something new, right? Maybe I’ll just go knit. Or do one of the other many things I ought to do, like clean. I vacuumed for awhile, and wanted to mop the kitchen floor. OK, I didn’t WANT to mop, I just thought maybe it was probably time. Only, I can’t find the fancy-shmancy micro-fiber thingy I stick on the end of the mop to clean my wood floor. I can’t really fathom where it would have gone, so…the urge has now passed, and I probably won’t get back to wanting to mop again for ages…

TTFN-

Suzanne

*To Play Chicken, you must have a really obnoxious rubber-chicken toy that squeaks when you squeeze or shake it. You then throw the obnoxious rubber chicken as hard as you can, and Cocoa will chase after it. We are just thrilled that she actually wants to PLAY with something. Whilst she’s distracted, chasing the Chicken, Katie chases the Frisbee. If Cocoa notices, and can get to the Frisbee first, though, all bets are off. Poor Katie doesn’t stand a chance…

73 pounds of Cocoa

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Suzanne

We’re all still getting to know one another, but Cocoa seems to be fitting in pretty well.

Speaking of fitting, Katie can actually walk underneath Cocoa without having to duck. 20 pounds of Katie looks pretty tiny compared to 73 pounds of Cocoa.

This one didn’t have anything to do with the dogs, though that is Cocoa’s head at the bottom. I just thought this was a nice one of Will, especially with the tree bokeh in the background. I did have to use Photoshop to whiten his teeth, though. Apparently it’s time for another “How to Brush Properly” lesson.