We went to the pound. They had no puppies. We decided we wanted a puppy because we had no kids, but were planning on having them. We didn’t want a dog with an unknown history. At that point, we went to the old Craigslist, Pennysaver. There was an ad there for an Australian Shepard/German Shepard mix. To this day, I swear she is a Border Collie mix. It’s very funny that we ended up with a long hair dog, because our one and only rule was no long hair dogs. We paid $50 and named her Lucy because we wanted to come home from work and say “Lucy, I’m home!”.

Sixteen years later, its funny what you miss about a family member when they have left you. Lucy was the smartest dog in the world (we can argue about your dog later). She found a way, in her old age, to wake me up in the middle of the night so she could go out and relieve herself. That takes smarts. She would come into my room, and separate the vertical blinds and shake her head. Wow, that was a noise. It’s hard to believe I would miss that. Last night was the first full night of sleep in about 6 months. I know it couldn’t have been nice for her either.

Things change so much. We have a beautiful ten-year-old daughter. Having her, I believe, added a good 5 years to Lucy’s life. She was wonderful with Bella. She put up with the worst things. Tail pulling, tongue pulling, riding her like a horse, tugging, poking and annoying. Lucy never even looked sideways at her. She took it all and played with her when asked. Who could ask for anything more.

This morning, I woke up from a full night’s sleep (which I am not sure I liked), and went out to get my soda in the kitchen. There was no dog in the hallway right next to the front door, guarding us, like usual. This, I will miss.

Lucy, I appreciate everything you did for us. I thank you for the happiness and memories you gave us. I hope you feel better now and can sleep through the nights without having to go out. I love you and miss you. I am so sorry you suffered as long as you did and hope you can forgive me. Goodbye.

This one is a present for Isabella’s friend. She is going to the party on Saturday.

This one is a bracelet for my niece in her high school colors. I just need to add a clasp to this one. This is done in peyote stitch which reminds me a lot of knitting. I am getting more into wire work too. It really is a lot of fun.

Next is a chain I made from jump rings I made myself. Isabella wants to learn how to do this and she can. It is quite simple. The classes are offered from Sympoz.com. I believe this month, the classes are being offered at half price which is $29. Well worth that money but I’m not so sure if I would pay more. They have a knitting class and a few crochet classes and other crafty things, as well as financial classes.

Also, I am publishing this post from my new iPad 2! Yup, thats right! My review is it’s amazing. I would go into it in more detail but I really hate typing on this little keyboard. That’s my next purchase for this, a Bluetooth keyboard so I can have all my keys and everything else I am used to. This is the only thing I don’t like. I have nearly traded in my laptop for it at this point but that has a lot to do with the fact that my laptop was broken and in the shop for 3.5 weeks and this beauty came during that time. I had learned to live without it by the time it came back. I’ll still use it for photo storing and editing but who can live without Angry Birds? I’ll type more about this when I get the keyboard I need!

I have lost about 53 pounds since all this depression and pain management crap started but since I started therapy and prozac, that weight loss has leveled off. I have signed up for my work out group again for the entire year this year! Yes, that’s right! I committed to a year of working out. Whether I work out or not, it will cost me $105 per month so I better get working out, right? I took some photos of the group for my trainers last year in October and here are a couple just for your information. This is a great class! If you live anywhere near Tustin, I highly recommend it. The class is called Rough Fit. I have two trainers, Greg and Jenni. They are helpful and friendly and they truly care about their classes and the people in them. In this class, they have started a weight loss challenge. I have joined. If I lose the highest percentage of body fat of all the people that joined, I win approximately $600. Nice, right? The class is a high calorie burner so it should be easy, right? The class gets us warmed up in the beginning for 20 minutes. Usually, people run and that’s the photo that is first. There is a trail around the park where we meet every day and we walk or run around that trail. The workout is always outside in the park and it’s just beautiful and you get fresh air and sunshine all the time (unless the weather doesn’t cooperate). The second portion of the class is core work. That includes balance and posture and abs. It seems like it’s easy but you get very sore it seems all the time. The third portion of the class is focused on whatever they have decided for the day. Yesterday was endurance. For example, we had a circuit we had to complete. We used a jump rope and followed cones. The first set of cones, we did reverse lunges until the second cone. The next set, we had to weave in and out of the cones while jumping rope. The third set, we had to hold the rope over our head, balancing on one foot and winding the rope over our head for the count of twenty. We switched feet and repeated. Then we jumped rope (I walked because of my back) up to a pre-determined location at the bottom of a hill at the park. There we did another balancing act thing with the rope and then we ran up the hill. Then we repeated the whole thing. I did this about 3 times total. It was very exhausting yesterday, I have to say.

In addition to the regular class I am taking which is 3 times a week (but I can take it more if I want), I will be training for the Bataan Memorial Death March at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on March 27, 2011. I will not be doing the full marathon but I will be doing the 15.2 mile walk. My husband’s grandfather did this march originally in the Phillipines twice and it is a moving and wonderful tribute to those who have fallen. My family and I went last year and watched while my sister and brother in law both did the marathon. It was so moving and touching and motivating that we (my husband, my daughter, and myself) will be doing the 15.2 mile march this year. Chris (David’s brother) will be doing the marathon again this year while wearing a 35 pound pack! What are you, crazy????? Honestly!

Training for this event is being lightly supervised by my trainer at Rough Fit, Greg. I am asking his advice and talking to him very regularly about it. I am paying him enough, after all! I am very excited to do this event. I was so moved last year while simply watching that I can’t imagine how emotional it will be to actually participate!. There were three soldiers at the event last year who participated in the original march in the Phillipines. They didn’t march or anything since they were like 95 years old and all, but their presence was very powerful. We hope they will attend again this year but it’s not guaranteed. I will take pictures while we are there and keep you updated on my progress of the weight loss challenge and my training regimen. Soldiers are always hot!

As far as crafting goes, I am a serial crafter and have gone crazy with beading, weaving and spinning lately. It’s been a blast and I will post some pictures soon.

This is the crust of the pie as written in the recipe. Nilla Wafers and butter. Easy, quick, and super yummy smelling while it bakes.

No need to comment on these, I’m sure you know.

Ok, so this one is a bit bigger because, holy smokes, it’s salted caramel covered bananas. I couldn’t have these displayed all small and tiny.

This is the next layer of the pie. Vanilla pudding is on this layer. The pudding in the recipe calls for flour which I don’t like to put in pudding. I find the texture a little odd for me in pudding. I used milk, sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, and corn starch. I find this texture much more pleasing and smooth. I added some vanilla and butter at the end.

This is the finished pie. Yummy! I made three of these. One for my in-laws house, one for my mom’s house, and one that stays here. Given the amount of work I did last year, this was a much better year. Let me know if you try it and I will sure let you know how it goes over.

Here are the colors for your amazement. The yarn was soft and cotton and so easy to use. There was a little fluke with the amount of yarn I got from Purl Soho. I thought I had 3 skeins of each color in my shopping bag but it turns out I had 6 of each color! Can you imagine?! Yes, I ran right down and returned the extra 3 skeins of each color of yarn. My conscience couldn’t stand it at all for even a couple of minutes if I didn’t. I really enjoyed the pattern and the colors. Here are the finished pictures.

So I finished within a week and really enjoyed the speed and color of this knit. So I had some stash yarn and a very good friend’s birthday coming up so…..what do you think happened? I knitted another one. Yep, that’s right. This next one took me a bit longer cause I had other stuff going on in my life (who’d have thought). The yarn was Debbie Mumm in Pine Tree colorway. It was super soft and very nice. I really enjoyed using this yarn as well. The colors are my absolute favorite in green and I bought this for myself to make something warm and toasty. However, this is what happens in life. Her birthday was coming up and I needed to get something done for her so she wins. Here are these photos of the Pine Tree Simple Shawl.

We went to the park today for some bike riding, a picnic, and some fun with my friends, their daughter (my Goddaughter), Isabella, and me. We spent the day laying in the grass, eating sandwiches and chips and looking at the sky. It was a wonderful day. I have found my old supermodel and found a new one as well. Here they both are:

So you can find my recipe here. I whipped the cream to lighten the mixture since the yogurt has been drained. This made the entire dessert very rich. I did the calorie count with non-fat and low fat yogurt and the difference is less than one calorie per serving. I actually made it with the low-fat and my husband can’t stop eating it. The tang from the yogurt is still there but is really balanced nicely with the flavor of the peaches. I used three jumbo peaches from Stater Brothers on sale this week. This is really a delicious dessert. Not only that, but you don’t even have to turn on the stove to make this frozen delicacy! I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Today as I was grocery shopping, I thought Isabella might enjoy munching on some grape tomatoes and small boconcini, which are small, dime sized fresh mozzarella balls. I thought I could toss them with some salad dressing and a little basil and she would enjoy this healthy tasty snack after her homework was done. I was wrong! I told her what I had gotten for her to munch on and she said, couldn’t we just bake them Mom? Oh, I guess we could.

So, on Isabella’s recommendation and suggestion, we started on this new recipe that is completely credited to her.

1 pint grape tomatoes
1/2 cup boconcini (small fresh mozzarella balls)
2 large basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste

1. Slice tomatoes in half lenthwise. Remove all seeds. This was easily accomplished by sliding your thumb along the flesh and the seeds popped right out.
2. Season the tomatoes as you like with salt and pepper at this point.
3. Roll the basil leaves up and slice them into tiny ribbons.
4. Distribute the basil leaves into the cups of tomatoes.
5. Place a ball of cheese into each tomato.
6. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on each tomato with cheese.
7. Bake at 450 for 7 minutes or until cheese is melted.

As these pictures show, quite a bit of moisture will be released by the tomatoes and can easily be directed away from the tomatoes by putting the tomatoes on a rack before baking. Another incident we experienced was the flexing of our cheap cookie sheet that caused our tiny tomatoes to jump around and toss their cheese onto the tray. It was tragic, but still edible. We had a great time and they were delicious. Enjoy Isabella’s recipe! We sure did. I am the proudest Mom on earth today! Thanks Isabella!

Jose Cuervo Christmas Cookies

1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup or brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila

Sample the Cuervo to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo again, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add one peastoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it’s best to make sure the Cuervo is still ok, try another cup just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy.

Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the frigging fruit off the floor.

Mix on the turner.

If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaters just pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the Cuervo to check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Who geeves a sheet. Check the Jose Cuervo. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table.

Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.

Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.

Don’t forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Cose Juervo and make sure to put the stove in the wishdasher.

Cherry Mistmas !

This picture is in focus and the other picture shows the actual size of the thumb for this mitten on the ruler. Laugh all day people! It is very funny!

On to more pleasant things: I would love to discuss some Christmas crafting but since so many of my recipients are not on Facebook and other online places that attach to my blog, I can’t do a lot of it. However, I am working on one I can totally share. I will take some pictures tomorrow but I am knitting a wrap for my mother in law (she can’t even turn on a computer) from merino/bamboo that I ordered way back in March. I am thrilled with how the yarn came out and now the knitting is looking lovely as well.

I have a couple of woven objects that I would love to talk about but I can’t. I can say, however, that my first and second objects made on my Kromski Harp have really turned out nicely. I can’t wait to do my after Christmas blogs to show you all. I am proud and pleased.

I firmly believe in having a photo in every blog post. My dilemma is that I haven’t been taking any pictures, so I have to go all the way back to Halloween to get a shot of Bella to show you all. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before you hear from me again. Happy Holidays all!

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Secondly, I spun this specifically to sell in my shop as sock yarn, however, with 264 yards, I don’t think there is enough yardage for full socks. Perhaps you can knit anklets or something but it’s very nice coloring and a good fingering weight. I tried to spin this as quickly as I could and I did it in about 4 hours. Not bad, eh? Here are some more shots.

I will be posting shorting about the finished coverup for my step niece. I finished it in plenty of time and she wore it at the beach but I just haven’t blogged it yet. Have a great weekend all!

The fiber I am spinning here is 2 pounds of merino mohair that I bought for a meer $32 on ebay. It is soft as silk and I love it. However, now it is hindering me cause it’s been on my wheel for months. I have decided to hurry it along. Last week I had one full spool of this and I wanted to start my Christmas spinning. Damn! I have to finish this before I start. I have split this up into 6 piles of evenly weighted fiber so I can finish it into a 3-ply for my Dollar and a Half Cardigan (Ravelry link). Now that I have started spinning again, I am so excited to do it. I am not annoyed with this fiber for getting in my way. I am enjoying spinning as I always do and kicking myself for having set it aside for months. I should spin at least once a week but now I am obsessed again. Now I have 4 full bobbins and only 1.5 or so to go before I finish.

Now for the fiber I was itching to spin. Christmas is right around the corner (well it is for knitters and spinners). I ordered this fiber in March for my Christmas project for my mother in law. She has told me in the past about the colors she wants for anything I might knit for her. She asked me for black with jewel tones. I e-mailed Amy at Spunky Eclectic and asked her advice. She recommended this fiber. This is a blend and it’s very soft. She explained, though, that the colors wouldn’t dye up very saturated which is what I had asked for. This is the softest nicest fiber and I can’t wait to spin it. However, the colors don’t really go together as I had hoped. Amy tried to steer me in another direction I think but I ordered this anyway. Here is the plan:

A 2 ply finished yarn. I have 8 ounces of the black (more gray). I have 4 ounces of the red and orange. I have 4 ounces of the blue and green. I will spin it all the same and ply one black strand with each of the others. This should give me a few skeins of black with the green and black with the orange. Then, when knitting, I will knit portions with the one color and then portions with the other. I think it will end up working very well. I haven’t picked a pattern but I think the pattern will also play a huge part in how it ends up working.  I do love how the colors turned out alone. They are all so beautiful and the tones are exactly what I had hoped even though they don’t work together. I was hoping the saturation would be deeper but I am thrilled with this end result anyway.

He brought his step-daughter-in-law with him and step granddaughter, who is 5. They left this morning (hence the time to blog). We went to Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, parties, the beach, and other local haunts. I took 5000 pictures during their one week stay. I won’t bore you with all of them but some are quite nice. Her dog is an outdoor dog at home so she was so pleased to hang all over our dog, Lucy, who is very patient and tolerates everything very well. We will give her extra love this week as well.

Harleigh’s mother takes as many pictures of her as I do of Isabella so it’s hard to capture her in her natural habitat. I was lucky to get her her concentrating very hard on my sister’s Nintendo DSi.

Amanda is my first niece and turned 17 this week. She takes the most amazing pictures.

While the family was all here, we went to the park to take some pictures at the park. Here are a few that I liked. Oh yeah, and I bought here this dress for her birthday. Isn’t it great on her?

Here is a random picture from my flickr photostream to keep you entertained. I feel it’s illegal to post without a picture. This is the best dog in the world just after her haircut for my dad’s visit. She is tired! It’s tiring to get embarrassed when they cut all your hair off and leave you naked!

First practice this summer. Cracks me up.

This time I made a real effort to take a pretty finished object picture.  This is my favorite shot from the bunch.  It’s very very hard to photograph your own foot.  I put a ball where my foot was supposed to go and focused, pushed the button and placed my foot and hoped all went well.  Well, it didn’t go well but I like the result.  This shot has a bit too much lens flare and glare but it makes the photo look misty and magical which I do like.  The focus is a bit off but the depth of field is nice.  Most of the shots were out of focus and yucky but I have a few that show enough detail to do a finished object post.

As I said before, these socks were the easiest thing ever to knit.  It was so fun and quick.  I love the color and the fit.  I went through all the details of these socks in my previous post about them so I won’t bore you with that here.  It took me so long to finish them because I had too many other projects on the needles (who knows about that?).  I will do other finished object posts about that other stuff later.  Here are some of the other shots that are acceptable but not great.

You know I could say that I planned that long pretty piece of grass (weed) between my ankles there but you know I didn’t.

The next item up for discussion is free fiber from Diva Knitting. I got second prize in her 4 year blogiversary contest and received 5 ounces of hand dyed fiber which happens to be in my favorite colors ever! Thanks Cheryl! I believe this is destined to be a self striping single for a pair of socks for me. I never had a fiber tell me so quickly what I should do with it before but this stuff screamed self striping socks for me and noone else! I am very excited and I hope I can get to it soon. Now for the excuses: The photos seem muted but when I was editing them up in Lightroom they were spot on a beautifully saturated with accurate color. I don’t know what happened and I even calibrated my monitor again to see if that would do it. It didn’t. What’s a girl to do. Here’s the beautiful optim:

First from the left is Heather sporting her very own handknit beanie.  She found the pattern on Ravelry and made it her very own self.  She is a scientist and can’t handle knitting on the fly or even knitting loosely.  She cracks me up!  Next in the lineup is Stacy.  She is embroidering in this shot but most of the time she crochets at Craft Night and it is always held at her house.  She wants to learn to knit so I think we are going to teach her.  Next in the lineup here is Sandi.  Anyone who has read my blog before knows Sandi.  She is my sister-in-law and she has branched out so much that she currently is working on three projects right now!  Can you believe it!?

Last night was our regular craft night and there is a new yarn store opening up in Costa Mesa called Knit Schtick.  We decided to get together today and go down there when the store opened at 11 and then have lunch across the street at a Peruvian restaurant called Inca Grill.  Well the yarn store doesn’t officially open until tomorrow so this was called a pre-sale.  It really was a lovely store.  There are two large tables set up with about 8 chairs each set up around them to knit at with coasters for your drinks and holders for your patterns if you bring one.  There were two love seats in the front of the store with coffee tables loaded with magazines and books to browse.  Don’t even get me started on the yarns!  They were all beautiful and in some gorgeous colorways.  The owners were not only knowledgeable but they were helpful and wonderfully kind and obliging.  Heather wanted to buy yarn for a sweater and they spent a good 10-15 minutes helping her determine what to buy and how much and they are even going to make a special effort to get her a pattern from a sample in the store.  Don’t get me wrong, this place was packed with people.  When we got there, there was a line out the door waiting to get in!  The place was packed and I don’t think anyone there had any trouble getting their questions answered.  Heather got some beautiful Malibrigo in a brown and purple and gold colorway that is amazing.  She has never made a sweater before so I am very excited for her.

Now, on to what I got!  I never bought Malibrigo before so this is my first skein ever.  Isn’t it so pretty!?

I have no idea what I am going to do with it.  I love how the blue runs into the gold and the purple.  I got the extra skein of just the blue to really pull that out in the project that I make that is yet to be determined.

The prices at Knit Schtick were really quite reasonable.  I wouldn’t think they are high or particularly low but right where you might expect them to be.  I would certainly make the trip down here for any project.

I am open to ideas for this yarn.  I have two skeins of the Mariposa which has the green, brown, tan, blue, and purple and one of the blue totally about 600 yards of worsted.

After we left the store we went and had a lovely lunch.  We then dropped Stacy off at home and dropped by Joghurt for a refreshing treat.  This lovely yogurt place has a Tuesday Morning in the same parking lot so who were we to not go in?  That’s where I found this:

Which I got for $3.99.  Can you even believe it?  So after I got back and I was talking to Stacy on the phone, she wants to go there.  I may end up back there tomorrow!  Well to top off the weekend, I didn’t go through all my mail yesterday and I found this that I still haven’t looked at:

I have never knit anything from this magazine but I surely will.  These are always some of the most beautiful and fashion forward patterns I have ever seen and I love to get it whenever it arrives.  I can’t wait to finish this blog so I can look through this magazine!

There you have it.  All the news that’s fit to print and boring enough to share with you all.  That’s what you get when you don’t blog for a year and a day (or a couple weeks anyway).

Postscript from the other day:

For those of you who read my previous rant and plea for advice here is an update.  Bella and I met with the Girl Scout troop leader and it went very well.  The leader had spoken with the girls and the girls assured Dawn that noone had said or would say something like that about Bella.  The girl who said it voluntarily confessed to saying it and the other girls chimed in that it wasn’t true.  Dawn explained this to Bella.  Dawn went on the ask the other girls what Bella could do to make better friends in the troop.  The troop made a few suggestions for Bella to hear and Dawn told Bella what those were and they were good ideas.  We took them to heart and will apply them where necessary.  Overall, I think it was a good meeting with her and Bella was pleased with the outcome.  The bottom line is this troop has been together since kindergarten and Bella just joined this year.  This was part of the problem since they don’t know her as well.  I think everything is going to go well from here on out as the girls have promised to make a better effort with her.  Alls well that ends well.  Keep your fingers crossed.

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I told them it would have a slit up the side.  They loved this idea.  The rest is my idea.  I would design Catrina’s as a tank dress and Bella wants hers to be a caveman dress with the tank strap over on one side.  Here is my project so far.  I will be writing this pattern up and we will see if there is any interest.  I might sell this one for a buck or two.

There is some minor shaping at the waist.  I am having trouble trying to figure out the tank straps in a circular knit but everything else is going well.  I love the eyelets at the bottom and the rounded shape of the slit.  The gradation of colors will play into the pair of dresses.  Bella’s will be orange at the bottom and graduate to yellow at the top.  The slit in this dress is about 6 inches but for these girls, it’s from the knee almost to the hip.  They are very excited about that.  Any other ideas you all have to help me out with this would be greatly appreciated.

Contest link: http://www.divaknitting.com/blog/2009/05/15/4-year-blogiversary-must-be-time-for-a-contest