Cattywampus

A Month Later...

And here I am, and not feeling guilting at all about the month delay - thanks for reminding me that I didn't have any obligation to keep to any kind of schedule, so I mentally removed the one I had placed on myself and I'm going to blog at will.

I have been busy.  I will continue to be busy.  I do like being busy, but this is a bit much I think.

Where to start?  

I was in Hawaii

Which is beautiful but far too hot.

 

Also, there is a VOLCANO there!  So freaking amazing.

There are many more pictures, which you are welcome to flip through on Flickr

Also, you all know I'm doing this whole photography thing.  I got lost posting my weekly photos, but I am still posting them over on google+, so if you are over there, and you care to see my pictures, circle me!  If you can't find me, let me know in the comments, I'm there under my "real" name so I may not pop up depending on what you search for.

I joined a super cool club-thingy over there on the google plus - "drink and click", which meets once a month for happy hour, takes pictures on a theme and then has dinner at the end.  That was crazy fun.  I didn't take many good pictures, I was having too much fun chatting and making friends.

There have been thunderstorms

Sunsets

and Rainbows

More sunsets than rainbows, but I keep looking for them!  I have to say, when we were looking for a house with a roof deck, I didn't even think about all the great things I would get to photograph!

The puppy is almost grown up at 11 months old (though he's still super insane, if completely adorable and sweet)

There are fresh tomatoes (roof deck!) and fresh herbs, and Iggy thinks they are all his personal salad bar.

Pix is fine and chugging right along, she just isn't as comical as he is, so less photos of her.

I'm playing with black and white

The color theory has a lot in common with colorwork for quilting and fair isle - who knew? 

And finding alien fruit

And I am knitting, but no pictures at the moment.  Not much gets finished in the summer...it's just too darn hot to think about putting anything on my body that is non-cotton or linen and thicker than one of those scandalously see through t-shirts that no one over the age of 16 should wear.

Did I mention I'm going to China for work for two weeks?  I'm leaving in just over a week.  I can't decide if I'm excited, anxious, or some combination of the two - but heck, I don't know if I ever would have gone if it weren't for this work thing, so off to China I go!!

I hope you are all enjoyed the fourth & stay cool in this heat wave!

What to do?

It's been over a month since I've posted, I have 7 weeks of pictures that I haven't put up - not for any particular reason, it's just that I've been busy (work has been crazy), and life seems to just keep getting away from me.

I am trying to decide if I should just kill the blog.  I know people have been saying that Ravelry was the death of knitting blogs, and I do agree, but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing.  There is so much community on Ravelry, and so much knowledge in one easy to access place, I would feel a bit lost without those resources.

I don't know if I am thinking this because it's truly time to move on or because I'm feeling guilty that I haven't had the time or inclination to keep up with posting...

What are your thoughts?  Not about my blog in particular, just about losing blogging ambition, etc.

Here is week 21:  Action

Another shot from the same time frame - they are sooo cute.

Annnnnnd Fixed!

Small miracles can be accomplished with just a teeny bit of extra effort.  Behold - Laika! 

I am sooooo happy with this, completely practical, completely work appropriate, I will get tons of use out of it.

I removed the hood and made the button band narrower, but other than that - well, other than that and the sleeves I had to shorten by 5" - I didn't make any changes to the pattern.

J'adore.

____

In other news, there was a snowstorm the last time we were in the Poconos (seriously, WHEN is spring coming???) and the pups got out and played in the snow.  

Sweet unsuspecting Pixie has NO idea that she is about to be pounced upon in the most typical little brother fashion.  Iggy adored playing in the snow, Pixie...not so much.  She likes the snow, but not really rolling around in it with him.

They really are friends though and SO cute when they cuddle.

Cuter Puppy Shots & week 9: Depth of field

I was feeling bad about putting up such pathetic phone pics of the dogs, so here are two much better ones.

The sweet Pixie, snoozing on a chair

And Iggy almost napping

Really they are both depth of field shots, but I used the one of Pixie because of the visible background.

7 weeks in

Things have been going well with the puppy, we've had him for 7 weeks, I can hardly believe it.  He is just over 7 months old and almost, almost old enough to no longer need a walk in the middle of the day.

He and Pix have come to be friends.

 He still attacks her more than he cuddles on her, making her suspicious of his attempts to cuddle, but it does work every once in a while.  Of course, sometimes she attacks him too...more than just sometimes.  She picks up his toys and taunts him so he will come after her.  It's adorable actually because when she does that we know that she wants to play with him and doesn't resent him.

Sorry for the blurry pic, they are hard to snap when they are playing, and my cell phone camera definitely isn't the one I should be using to try...I'll get one with my real camera at some point and post it.  

He goes to doggie camp on Wednesdays and spends a solid 10 hours romping with other neighborhood pups and she gets a break and gets to stay home that day.  When I come home I get her first, then we walk together to go get him.  When we get to the block that dog camp is on she pulls and starts wagging, then when he comes out they do a little doggie happy dance together, each of them sniffing and pawing and happily greeting the other.

It seemed touch and go there for a while, but now we know that this is absolutely what Pixie needed.  He is still a little too rambunctious for her sometimes, and she doesn't want to play as much as he does, but she is much more active and engaged than she was before, and if you are the kind of person who believes that dogs have emotions (I certainly do), she is happier.

He himself is doing well too, he is learning commands, he is very eager to please and likes to train.  He has gained a few pounds, last week he was all of 23 lbs, his long legs make him look a lot bigger than he really is.  His coat is shiny and his nails aren't peeling and chipping anymore, he has regressions back to his old scared self every now and then, but he is turning into a content, well adjusted puppy.  (and he even sleeps through the night 4 or 5 days a week now - progress!)

Personally, I think he's just adorable...even in a grainy camera phone shot.

Thing 1 and Thing 2, really, just Thing 1

Having a puppy in the house again has been an awakening experience.  I got both Duke and Pixie when they were much younger than Iggy, 16 and 12 weeks respectively, but it was a long, long time ago, and oh how much we forget!

Things are going quite well, really.  Iggy is having less and less accidents in the house, chewing on less and less things he isn't supposed to, learning the commands we are trying to teach him (so far we only have "sit" down pat, but we're working on "on, off, down, drop, leave it, wait", and the real toughies - "stay" and "come".  

He is adjusting to the rhythms of our lives, adapting to our little pack, and just thriving in the freedom of our house and the attention and love he is getting.  He now very rarely looks scared that he is going to be hit, we are trying very hard to remember that for him a raised voice isn't just "trying to get your attention", it triggers a whole different set of emotions/reactions.

He is a seriously mischevious little guy, the kind of dog who will grab the ball of yarn you are currently knitting out of because you are paying more attention to it than him, and run sneakily away, all the while watching to see if you are going to chase him and then wag frantically when you come to retreive it from him.

Also, I believe he is what would be labeled a "heavy" chewer, he is going through a crazy amount of toys - if he is awake, he is eating/destroying/chewing something.  I hope he's still teething, if he's going to stay like this we are going to need to buy stock in a company that makes rawhides.

What would be awesome is if he would SLEEP.  At night, I mean.  I have had no more than 7 hours of sleep/night (sometimes significantly less) since we brought him home, and I have to tell you, it's adding up.  I am short tempered, bleary, and I have the attention span of a gnat.  It's super adorable when he wakes up at 5 a.m. and wants to play, but FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE the dog needs to sleep through the night.

So, enough about my puppy woes, he's a doll, and he will slow down, and sleep, and that will be FABULOUS.  For now, the cute will have to make up for all the puppy issues.

He and Pix are getting along reasonably well.

He likes her a lot more than she likes him, but as with many things, the puppy attacks should calm down as he grows up.  

Even with her keeping her distance from him when he is in high crazy mode she is more active than she was before we got him.  She is barking again (she stopped barking when we lost Duke), she is staying up with the rest of us instead of going to bed immediately after dinner, and when given the option to stay home for one of the 18 gazillion walks we go on, she would rather be out.  She also goes looking for him when she loses track of him, so even if he assaults her regularly, they are bonding.

We got him a backpack to try to drain some of his extra energy, so far we only have 1lb total in it, but based on his weight we can go up to 4lbs if it seems necessary.  We'll go up to 2lbs next and see how that goes over.  We don't want to strain him, just drain him.

He's a little...unsure...if the backpack is something he should really cooperate with.

And last but not least, he cuddles, OH does he like to cuddle.  I was napping on the couch yesterday and woke up to find myself being used as an Iggy armrest.

He's a bitty thing, only up to 21lbs, but his legs are soooooo long, he is very pokey with his feet.  I don't think that is what is meant when the book talks about the Pokey Little Puppy.

Ah, and of course, he needs a sweater.  

Quiet thoughts with fuzzy linings

Since we lost Duke last year it has been a journey for all of us.  The immediate sense of loss, the quiet house, sweet, depressed little Pixie being lost and forlorne.  Onto Doggie Camp, where she perked up a bit, and day by day we got used to the quiet house, and I got used to being colder at night because the living, breathing fuzzy hot water bottle that had kept me company for the past 11 years wasn't there anymore.  

Eventually, we got used to NOT worrying about him, NOT having to care for him, as anyone who has nursed a sick family member for a length of time knows, there is a lot of time and energy that goes into the concern, constant fear, and trying so very hard to do the right thing all the time.  The trips to the doctor's office, the pills at different times of the day, the side effects you have to worry about.  Suddenly, that is gone, and there is a strange sense of freedom combined with how you would give almost anything in the world to have it all back, screw the freedom.  I won't ever say he was "just a dog" because he was part of my family, he was my buddy, my sweet boy, my companion, and my cuddler, but I can't imagine how someone who has nursed an ailing family member for years through a long illness brings themselves back into "normal" life - so many things have been given up to accommodate the illness, and you wouldn't change a thing if you could - but where do you start?

Then the house on the market, and the move, but still, there's lonely Pixie, bored and a bit lost without her her bossypants.  She is a dog's dog.  Not that she really loves hanging out with other dogs, but she doesn't really understand how to interact with us, and we don't really understand how to interact with her.  We thought that maybe we could connect with her now that it was just the three of us, and we have a bit...she sleeps on the bed now (aka traps me in one position by laying behind my knees, so even though we have a king sized bed, I can only sleep in the position I fell asleep in, NO TURNING OVER!), and she plays with us a bit, and she's learned that dinner time is exciting, and she demands treats by doing tricks and then staring at us and waiting for us to respond, which is really funny, btw, she seems to miss the basic premise that we should be asking her to do the trick not the other way around...she misses a lot in the world because she is not human-attuned.  

Duke apparently served as the translator, he was very aware of what a lot of our motions and actions meant, and he would react appopriately, so then she would too.  We would play with Duke, and Pixie would play too, we just never realized that all she was doing was following his lead and playing with him, she was happy, we never thought too much about it, until suddenly there we are trying to figure out how to play with a dog that doesn't play tug, doesn't fetch, rarely chases, and doesn't rough house, she simply wags around in circles being very excited and confused by anything at all you do to try to engage her.  

But look at this picture

We were visiting my dad and stepmom and they have a cat, Scooter.  Scooter was very suspicious of Pixie, but Pixie thought that he looked like a really good playmate.  They spent a good deal of time stalking each other, Pixie not understanding why Scooter didn't respond to her repeated play bows and definitely not understanding why he hissed instead of tussling...all weekend.  She woke us up at daybreak both days and didn't nap once, she just watched and waited and tried to play.  This is when it really hit us that she's not old and sleepy, she's really and for true just bored and lonely.

We miss having another furry face around the house too.  I, especially, miss the cuddliness - to say Pixie is not a cuddler is an understatement, she is like a cat.  She will come to you when she wants to be petted, and if you try to pet her when she hasn't asked for it she will move JUST out of arm's reach and stare at you like you are crazy.  We miss who Pixie was when we had a translater, watching her play and rough house and be her doggie self with a creature who thoroughly understood her and who she understood completely.

So, after approximately 1.7 days of calm after moving, unpacking, and the holidays, we have an addition to our little family.  We have been VERY, VERY careful to make sure that this new face is someone that Pixie will get along with.  Careful research, screening, and introductions to make sure the chemistry is there between them and to ensure that we are getting a dog that won't harrass her to no end in her old age.  It's a lot of work, it turns out.  We couldn't just go to a shelter and pick someone that WE liked, we had to find someone the right size (Pix is freaked by big dogs), the right temperment, get "approved" (because we were going through private adoption agencies), set up a meeting, hope that they liked us for doggie parents...and then if all THAT works, then we hope that Pixie likes that pup and that we see some play motions happening between them on the introduction.

So we met three different dogs on Saturday, and this little guy had the best mix of playfulness and a laid back personality and when he jumped on Pixie, she told him in no uncertain terms that she did not like that, and he backed off, something we were definitely looking for.  

Here they are playing during the evaluation period on Saturday.

So we took him home, and promptly left for a wedding.  Which wasn't the best...but he had arrived from a high kill shelter in SC earlier that day and the woman who runs the rescue said that he was so beat he would just sleep and it would be better for him to just go home with us and beghin his new life.

He is a bit nervous around DH, but only when he's standing up and makes sudden movements, so something bad definitely happened to him that had to do with a man, but he seems to be getting over those fears fairly quickly.  

He is 5 months old, so he is mouthy, but he is semi-housebroken, which is more than we were expecting, so that was really good to learn, and he entertains himself by chewing on squeaky toys.  

He and Pix are doing okay...not great, she's a bit freaked by the whole thing, which I assume is normal, but she slept in her normal place last night, and they laid near each other on the couch today without any fussing.  She has snapped at him a few times, and he just walks away when she does, which I assume is the the point, so that's all fine.  I do hope that once they get their relationship figured out that they can be buddies, but I imagine that takes a lot more than 24 hours.

I do feel odd twinges of guilt, like somehow I am trying to replace Duke, which I'm not, so I just keep reminding myself that there is enough room in my heart for many, many fuzzy creatures.  Loving one and loosing him certainly doesn't mean that the next one replaces him, he just fits in the spot next to him in my heart.

He seems to be almost 100% Italian greyhound, so he won't get much bigger than he is now, whatever he is, he's darn cute, and sweet, and responding to praise and "nos" already, and sort of responds to his name.  

So that's my big news...world, Iggy...Iggy, world.

Color Affliction

I finally finished my Color Affection shawl, I'll update with a posed pic once it goes below 85 outside, it's too hot to wrap oneself in wool, no matter how pretty said wool object is.  Mine is bigger than most because I simply can't read and/or follow directions properly.   When the short rows start there is a line that says 'Knit 3 stitches past the wrapped stitch, wrap and turn", except I knit 3 stitches past the last knitted stitch, not wrapped, and when I finally realized it I was about half way in so instead of 16 sets of stripes, I have 22.  I had plenty of yarn, so I just kept knitting and figured it would just be a little deeper and longer on one end.  

Pixie doesn't mind being wrapped in wool though, she laid down right on top of it (of course, what did I expect when I laid it out on the couch to look at it?), and i couldn't resist wrapping it around her.

I love the colors, and I am VERY much looking forward to the sort of weather that will welcome a vast expanse of wool to wrap around myself.

I also finished a pair of socks - I started these in November of 2010...yeah...not so much with the sock knitting lately.

I am glad to be done with them finally and quite happy with how they turned out.  They are a pattern I made up myself with a twisted stitch on each row to make faux cables.

I have one unfinished pair of socks still ONT, probably also from 2010, they use Japanese cable techniques and each cable round takes me about 30 minutes, so I imagine it will be a while before I have those to show off...but I'm not stressing about it, they will be done when they are done.

Almost

I swear, absolutely swear, that there will be knitting later this week!!

Until then:

A bee I caught coming out of this bitty flower.  This is one of those tiny little bees, I bet he wasn't a half inch long.  I love that you can see the individual granules of pollen.

Here is Pixie jumping for her treats.  I was practicing capturing motion.

A gorgeous marigold after a rain storm.

Enjoy!

Of cuteness and temptation

1.  Seriously.  I know she's my dog, and of course I think she's cute, but I just can't stop taking pictures of her.

2. Stephen West is doing another Mystery KAL - and where am I?  I am all on board the KAL train.  I just couldn't jump on fast enough.  I LOVE the one from last year's KAL, and I love his designs in general.  Here is my yarn choice:

I'll be honest, I didn't even TRY not to join.  I know I'm trying to knit from the stash, but some things just require the "perfect" yarn, and I didn't own it.

With ever so much thanks to the fabulous Lisa Souza for helping me choose my colors via email.  She has awesome yarn and is really great to work with, not to mention VERY reasonably priced, if you haven't tried any of her yarns, you should!  (yes, I'm a pusher, sorry...can't help it)