Hounds and the dog days of summer...

I have officially begun the search for another wolfhound. Preferably an adult in need of a loving home. And a little girl who will call him a little brother, like Zeep-y. Zeep's human 'Mama' just let me know they're hoping for a spring litter...there may be a baby in my future.

Now for the dog days of summer...kind of. School is about to start, the tourists are going home and I get to enjoy the warm, sunny days of September sitting on a quiet beach and swimming in water that's still pretty warm (compared to what it was like in June.) And BL will have all the beach toys to herself (if they haven't been locked up yet.)

Aaahhhh.
I love where I live, but when I visit a 'tourist town', I sympathize with them.

Update

9 of the 10 puppies made it through delivery. 3 girls, 6 boys. Please keep those fingers and toes crossed that the next few weeks find these little gentle giants thriving.

Finished one of Bubba's mittens and couldn't resist starting one of mine. Actually, it's a hand-warmer, not a mitten, because my house is getting chilly and my hands get really cold. Hand warmers mean I can still knit my evenings away while watching CSI and Bones.

I'm painting Bubba's new room today, green walls with a blue ceiling to match her new bedding. It's so cute...I even painted two lamps red and put rick-rack trim on the shades to match the trim on the bedding. We have to move her back into the center of the house to keep her warm this winter. Last year she had windows and was over a room we don't heat, her little space heater ran 24 hours a day to keep the room comfortable. Needless to say, our budget will not tolerate that this year. So....we're moving her into a room with no windows and it's over the living room, so she'll be warmer at a lower cost.

Time...

Summer is melting away faster than an ice-cream cone in Bubba's hands. It started out so slow and wonderful and now I don't have a free moment of time. We're off on vacation for a few days at the end of this week, we're camping at the seaside. It will be Bubba's first camping trip...keep your fingers crossed for me.

I've been knitting off and on this summer. I'm still working on my white v-back sweater...it's a lot of stockinette on size 5 needles. I'm down to the sleeves (two at a time) and let me tell you, it's boring. Very boring. But the sweater will be beautiful in all white linen-drape (Rowan yarn my mom found on eBay for me...it's what the pattern called for and it's discontinued. Thank you and much love to you, Mum.) A good Mum will let you take your time in a yarn store. A great Mum will spend hours on the internet to find a yarn that's been discontinued for 3 years so that you can have the ideal sweater for summer. A great Mum will also understand and encourage your little fiber addiction. I like to call her the enabler. Her stash is still bigger than mine. I just finished a little sweater for a friend's new baby girl. Big sister will get a coordinating hat in the leftover yarn. I can' t very well not bring something for her (she got hand-knit socks for her last birthday...I know her Mom appreciated those little beauties.) Started another Rowan pattern in a hand painted rayon boucle yarn I got at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. Not my usual colors (shades of peach-pink and olive-army-forest green) but I thought it was too pretty to pass up. It will end up a simple cap sleeve shell with a banded bottom (what's on the size 3 needles.) The band is about 30" of k1p1 ribbing on size 3's. Ugh. It's the kind of thing I take along on long car trips 'cause it's mindless and boring. I also got some 4-ply 100% cashmere in ivory that is destined to be these gloves. Aren't they delicious? I saw this book (Knitting New Mittens and Gloves) when it first came out and didn't buy it, how many gloves and mittens can one person actually knit? Then I found that yarn and I figured it had to be fate...the gauge was "close enough" according to my memory of the pattern and thankfully I was correct. Sent man out with Borders coupon to fetch said book. Great man, like Mum will go out of his way to enable my little habit. Bubba has also found a pair of "elfin" mittens that she wants and there's another pair that make me think of hot cocoa that I will most likely make.

I also just finished knitting this. The pattern is, what else, Rowan's Alpine Shrug. I couldn't afford the Big Wool, so I used Blizzard (extra bonus-my local yarn store had a 20% off coupon in the paper!)

When I have the patience required to seam it, it will hopefully look like this:
On the non-knitting front, I've got more lettuce in my garden than I can eat. Lots of peas, carrots are coming along nicely, tomatoes are on their way, and I'll have more pumpkins this fall than Linus. My kitchen now has drawers to put things in, my porch ceiling is sky blue, and the old bathroom has been ripped off the house. The new bathroom will be framed out by tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to afford to put the fixtures in next spring...we'll see won't we?
The woman I was hoping to get "my dog", Irish Wolfhound for those not in the know, from didn't get the litter she was planning on, and she put me in touch with another woman who just bred. Keep your fingers crossed for me...I find out mid-August if there will be a puppy for my birthday this year. Visit here, Shanachie, to see her beautiful dogs.

Missing

Between working full-time, a million birthday parties, and Thanksgiving, I've been busy. BubbaLou recently turned 3, so a party was required. 8 (maybe 50?) small children running around my house. Their parents, some Aunts, Uncles, cousins, friends...I had a party with 25 or so people (4 days before Thanksgiving.) I just love a challenge, and birthday cake. Red velvet with the most amazing frosting in the whole wide world. I could eat it by itself in a bowl, and I'm not really a frosting girl. Just give me the cake.

Bubba's favorite gift, a REAL, pink guitar. I can't tell you how many renditions of
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" I've heard.

I've also been busy on the sewing front. Here's a scarf I just completed with some extra fabric from a quilt I'm doing for the couch. It's a super-soft flannel in beautiful holiday prints. A little whimsical without being childish. The quilt and scarf have exposed seams on one side that get clipped and then fray in the wash, making a little fringe around all the blocks. I saw the quilt in progress at the local quilt shop and even though it's a little too "country," I thought it was pretty and it gave me a good excuse to buy the flannel I had seen on my last visit. Yes, I need an excuse to buy fabric. This is a taste of what 336 quilt square blocks looks like. I think I actually cut out closer to 400, but only needed 336. My kitchen looked like it was covered in a film of fuzz after I was done. Well worth it, though. I just think these colors are so soft and pretty. And it will be nice to have something seasonal on the couch to snuggle up in.

I do not need an excuse to buy yarn. In fact, my local shop was having a coupon sale...how convenient. I bought some wonderful washable wool for a new hat for my Dad, and some bulky, 100% silk yarn in a beautiful, shimmery silver. Perfect for a holiday scarf. Taa-daa. As if I've got nothing better to do.

The holiday baking season has begun, after all. And my darlin' Sy gave me the three BIG King Arthur Flour cookbooks for my birthday. I told him I might as well just paste the pages to my thighs. These cookbooks have centerfolds, for crying out loud. I wanted to lick the pages, it's baker porn.

Abbie, do you want some more pumpkin whoppie pies? I can't be the only one eating this stuff.

So much for that...

I tried to refuse to have a 3-year old in diapers. She won. Bubba and I butt heads frequently, and sometimes I just don't listen as well as I should. She just isn't ready. I'm okay with it. I think peer pressure was getting to me (damn, I thought I left that behind with high school!) I need to thank Ann for her reassuring words that it's not just BubbaLou that loves her diapers, and no matter how well spoken and mature she is, she's still a very little toddler.

On the home front, Sy has started to side the front of the house! Hurray! I love finishing touches the most. Even if it means I will spend next spring and summer painting.

My painted floor-cloth will be finished this weekend, just have to polyurethane it. Three times. I made it to coordinate with another rug in my kitchen so that I can have one in front of my cooktop that can be mopped off instead of washed. I think I did a pretty good job for my first attempt, but it is a much more involved process than I was led to believe (2-day project, my ass Martha.)

It's about 3 feet by 7 feet. It was all supposed to be stripes, but I don't have a lifetime to wait for paint to dry so I can waste more painter's tape. I like the dots a lot.

Excuse my scatterbrain, but my camera's working again, so interesting things are just gonna show up here and there.

This is what is behind the siding on our 1870's (?) farmhouse. Very old newspaper. Useless insulation, but fascinating artifacts. And in surprisingly good condition. We can't wait to take the siding of the rest of the house.

Abbie, I'l have to see if he's willing to part with any for you!

Effeciency

It is amazing how much you can get done when you're home alone.

BubbaLou officially started pre-school today and Sy is generously letting me take the week off. I haven't had more than a few hours to myself since BubbaLou was born. Let me tell you, I will enjoy these three days! Just today I finished the sweater-vest for T (I already know I'm going to have to do another one for BL), finished the painting in BL's new room, repainted a decorative box for my bathroom, and helped Sy install the railings on the front porch when he got home. Oh, and I CLEANED the master bathroom. Hands-and-knees cleaned.

Tomorrow BL doesn't have "school," so I'm taking her to the Montshire for the day with Nana. Today was her second full day at school without me and neither day has she napped. I'm glad she's not there for more than 2 days at a time so she can get some sleep in between. BL is a 2-hour nap a day kinda girl and gets pretty cranky in the evening without it (not to mention she doesn't sleep as well at night if she's over-tired!) I hope she gets into the swing of things at school by next week.

Thursday and Friday she'll be in school, so my to-do list is the length of my arm. I'm hoping to finish the waist-cincher sweater from Knitting Lingerie Style...it just needs seaming and the stitches around the neckline. I'm recreating my wonderful kitchen rug in 3 painted floor cloths so I can sweep and mop them off instead of machine washing! I need to sew a special blanket for BL to take to school for nap time (hopefully she'll start taking them there.) And to top it all off, on Friday I have to move everything off of and from underneath my kitchen "counters" and remove the counters so Sy can install the new cabinets and part of my countertop. Very exciting. To have a surface I can actually clean! Like my upper cabinets, they won't have doors (or drawers) but its a start. Sy doesn't want to do drawers or doors until he can do them all at the same time in an assembly line. I can understand that.

As soon as my camera is working again, I will post new pictures of the house. The porch looks so wonderful with the railings up. They're really simple and classic, but they make a statement and anchor the porch. Next is the ceiling and the paint...then something will be really finished around here!

Our house is a very, very, very fine house....

Well, it is on it's way to being a very fine house.

For those of you who don't know, Sy and I bought a 1870's -ish farm house last May and in July ripped half of it off and started rebuilding. Let me just say, going without a kitchen for 4 months with an 18 month old is not something I would recommend. Unless you're crazy, like us. What we ripped down was an addition to the original house (22'X16' one floor) that contained a kitchen and dining room. As we were tearing down, it amazed us that it was still standing.

Bye-bye kitchen/dining room. Hello all-in-one bathroom and fridge in my living room!

Throughout the monsoon-like rain of last summer we had a new crawl space excavated, new foundations poured and Sy (almost single-handedly) built a 2 story plus attic, 22'X24', addition containing my kitchen/dining room, mud room, new stairway, laundry room, and master suite.

It's a start. The foundation is actually concrete on this one!

Getting there. Sy doesn't have to worry about the rain anymore.

In early November 2006 I had a functioning kitchen back, and by December I had a dishwasher and washer and dryer installed (HOORAY!!)

I just love a blank slate. So much potential. I've never ever had a kitchen this big.

Now, more than a year later I can say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It's a dim light, for sure, but it's there. The master bedroom is done, except for some trim and small touch-up details, the master bath is perfectly functioning, but the walls need to be finished, trim put it, and permanent vanities built. (Sy is custom building almost all of the cabinetry.) As of a couple of weeks ago, I have all of my upper kitchen cabinets installed (except doors), the base cabinets are almost all built, my double wall ovens are in (and work like a dream) and the best part of all....MY HARDWOOD FLOORS ARE IN, UP AND DOWNSTAIRS! Until you've lived on plywood sub floors for a year, you will never appreciate real floors as much as I do. I can finally sweep and mop and make a difference. BubbaLou will not go through the bottom of slippers quite so fast!

This weekend Sy built the roof on our front porch. No railings yet, or "real" stairs, but they're coming....hopefully before winter. At least with the roof I won't have to shovel the entire porch off! We're also hoping to get the siding on before winter, but we'll see. With Sy going back to school and me going back to work, there's not a whole lot of time to get things done. I'm really hoping that within the next year we can call the new addition "done". And then gut the original house. Hey, I won't have to give up my kitchen again! And since we're just gonna gut it, we can do it one floor at a time (in theory.)

Today. The porch will be stunning when it's done. And the barn has fallen down. And the original house isn't yellow (we're going traditional white, red doors, sky blue ceiling on the porch.)

Am I Out Of My Mind?

This is what I'm thinking of starting. I have the yarn on hold so I can decide if I'm completely crazy or just a little mad. The photo doesn't do it justice. The bottom 2/3rds of this top is LACE. Beautiful, colorful lace. I've been doing miles upon miles of stockinette stitch these last few months and it's killing me. Please, give me some yarn overs. Yet another Rowan project. I can't help it. It's like crack, I just can't get enough and I'll go broke buying yarn and magazines. Thank goodness I work for a yarn store...I think.

I do love this top, though. It makes me think of the ocean. The lace pattern has such a pretty wave, almost like seashells. The color doesn't hurt either, but I'm having a hard time deciding between the blue in the photo and a pink/red/white combo that the yarn comes in. Damn. I wish all decisions were this hard. And that I didn't just get my credit card bill with the nasty balance from Home Depot I just transferred. I think I will be dead before it's paid off, and before this house is done. I wonder what will kill me first, the interest I'm paying or the remodel?

There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home....


Bull. Give me a nice hotel.