Birthday Beagle!

In the fall of 2005 before we moved to CA, we adopted a little Beagle named Trouble from the local humane society. She came to us in not the greatest shape. She was suffering from heart worm and was so severely overweight that her trachea had collapsed and she had trouble breathing. Her first night with us she was so tense she spent it staring at my husband, unable for hours to relax enough to go to sleep.

Over the next few months we taught her that she wasn't going to live tied up outside and that going for walks was fun (Riso, our other dog taught her not to try to steal his food). In turn, we learned that even Beagles with very short legs can run really, really fast and that when Charles Schultz drew Snoopy doing the celebratory Suppertime Dance, well, he wasn't exaggerating. Meal time for Trouble is quite the party!

Here she is, on one of our first adventures with her, at the top of Putney Mountain, in Putney, VT.

When we got her, she weighed over 40 pounds; her goal weight, according to the vet, was 25. Fortunately, she loves to run and go for walks; that harness she's wearing in that picture is long gone - it's way too big. Here she is now, down to a svelte 27 pounds.

"See how adorable I am? Don't you want to feed me?"

And clearly she has learned how to relax.

Tuesday is Trouble's 9th birthday. Happy Birthday, little pointy-nosed girl! We're glad you're part of our family.

Grumpy And Glad About It

This Thursday was a tough day at work. Nobody did anything nasty or wrong, but it was one of those days where everything was slowed down for stupid (and mostly technical) reasons. I spent the day running around like crazy, and accomplishing very little. Everyone has those days, and I'm usually able to laugh it off, especially as they don't often happen. But this time I was irate and frustrated. I realized late in the day though, that due to the craziness, I'd had to bail on my planned workout. And that pissed me off. And then I realized, I think I was grumpy because I missed exercising. A milestone! I celebrated by kicking butt, both at work and working out the next day.

Bad Pictures, Good Progress

Black yarn just doesn't photograph well. But I'm making good progress on Ariann; I finished the body yesterday and will start the sleeves this evening. I love the Colrain; it's soft and shiny (ooh! shiny!) and not very splitty. I highly recommend it.

Ariann so far is a great pattern; I'd learned the hard way that Bonne Marie's patterns often will give instructions for a few paragraphs and then say "...in the meantime, work the increases...." so I read ahead and didn't end up having to frog or fudge anything. It took only a little while to memorize the pattern, so it moves along pretty quickly. If I could only remember that yarn over after the ssk near the sides, it would move along even better (ahem)!

I'm also making progress on the Haruha Scarf - though as it's my car project, it's going a little more slowly:

Picture #1 shows progress. Picture #2 shows the color more accurately. The Lana Gatto VIP is awfully nice stuff; super soft (that would be the cashmere content) and not splitty at all.


Let The Games Begin

We have our first zucchini off the vine. Judging from the amount almost ready to pick and blossoms on the plants, we'll be playing "see how fast we can run away after leaving ungodly amounts of zucchini at our neighbors' door" very soon.