heylucy

two quilts in one month

I did it. I'm kind of tired, but the two quilts are done and on their way to the publisher. Thanks mom for quilting the one with the crosses! I put the last stitch in the binding last night around midnight. But now I get to enjoy my day today, which is great, since it's My Birthday! I'm off to have a big messy hamburger and fries for lunch, because you can't eat healthy every day.

Winston was pouting this morning because I was taking pictures instead of paying attention to him.

He's a little smartypants, though. We've been training almost every day, and he's very good at sitting. Down is a little harder, and stay is the hardest of all. He's starting to understand 'Shake', and will give me his paw about half the time when I tell him to shake. I got a book of dog tricks, so we're going to work on learning lots of fun tricks.

music to quilt by

I have entered phase two of my new healthy living plan. That's right...exercise. It wasn't easy to find an activity that I enjoyed doing, that I could fit into my day, and that wouldn't involve spending large quantities of money, but I finally figured it out. I'm going swimming a few times a week, on my lunch hour, at a nearby rec center pool. Before now there were occasional walks, and visits to the tiny gym at work to use the elliptical machine, and I even use the stairs rather than the  elevator a few times a day, but I knew it wasn't nearly enough. So now I've gone to the swimming pool several times, and it feels really good. The only thing is that I am so very tired at the end of the day. I thought exercise was supposed to energize you, when does that start happening?

I'm going to pretend that these are my reward for exercising and eating better, even though I ordered them weeks ago, and they were on back order. They just arrived, and they're just as cute as I thought they would be:

See how big my feet are? Still, with art by Camilla on them, they look pretty cute.

Quilting continues in earnest, and I thought I'd share some of the music I'm enjoying right now, to get me through. I love the new Rogue Wave album, particularly this song (I couldn't embed this one, so you have to click the link).

I can't get enough of this song, and the video is so great too:

Here's a conversation between me and my brother:
"Have you seen the video for (some random song, I don't remember now)?
"Oh yeah, that was really good, I found it on youtube.
"Wouldn't it be so cool if there was a TV channel that played nothing but music videos all day?
Melancholy silence as we remember what MTV used to be like.

This song is for all of you peeps who still have snow on the ground. I really, really hope Spring gets to you soon. "Hello blackbird, hello starling, winter's over, be my darling!"

I think this is now my favorite Bright Eyes song. It was recommended to me by my 3 year old niece, who has the best taste in music. We should start a music column somewhere and call it "Mimi's Picks". I'll have to talk to her about that.

My favorite verse:

So the doc came with his black bag
I said you know doc I don't feel swell
If you had a blue bag I think I'd get well
So he came right back with a blue sack
He said will this do?
I said why not, yeah

The whole thing is so clever, just watch it, please.

you can't handle the cute

First of all, some extreme cuteness, I hope you can handle it:
 
Friday was a Holiday, so I took Winston to the vet for all his shots and then we went to dog beach. Winston was a little overwhelmed by it all, and I think he was probably not 100% after all the vaccinations (I think he had 3, including a rattlesnake vaccine), so he spent most of the time like this:

That's my knee his head is resting on. Oh well, it was a beautiful day, and it's always fun to go there and watch all the dogs running around and having fun. Afterward, we went to the dog wash. Winston is not fond of baths, but we made it through and then went to a dog-friendly place for lunch. He got a lot of compliments for his good behavior.

I've also been feverishly working on quilts, and I just might make it in time, thanks to my mom who is helping out by doing all the hand-quilting of one quilt, while I do the other. There may even be pictures in a week or so.

I also thought I'd try coloring some Easter eggs. Here's what you get when you start out with brown and blue eggs:

I like how the speckles came through on the yellow-y egg. Now I just have to figure out what to do with a dozen hard boiled eggs. I love deviled eggs, but there's only two of us, I don't think we can eat 24 deviled eggs.

One last bit of cuteness:

Lucy always has to get involved when I take the camera out.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to have much time for writing the rest of the week, but I'll try and post a few photos here and there. Happy Spring!   

the super gigantic never-ending to-do list

Does your to-do list ever get completely out of control? Mine seems to have developed a mind of its own, but I'm showing it who's boss and whipping it into shape, although I may soon collapse from exhaustion. I may be exaggerating a little, but still, sheesh, I have a lot to do right now. I even had to add 'clip fingernails' to the list, because I kept forgetting and I just don't do long nails, and they were getting annoying.

I did take a little time out for a couple nice activities, however. First of all, I took some pictures of the ornamental plum trees at our post office, which are currently fully in bloom. I think I'm going to send one of these to my sister for this week's Photoshop picture, and see what she comes up with. I played around a little with giving it a cross-processing effect, which I kind of like.

Before:

After:

I like them both. The sky was so brilliantly blue this morning, it was just perfect for taking pictures.

I also needed to make an Easter bunny egg cozy, because I didn't have one.

The pattern is from an Yvestown/Cherry Menlove collaboration. I used a felted angora sweater, which I thought was apprpriate. And notice the egg cup matches Yvonne's (from a previous Christmas swap). My bunny is quite startled by the fact that he has an entire egg inside him.

You can see more bunnies in the Flickr pool.

So now, for the rest of the month I have to buckle down and finish two quilts for a new book from Lark. I was just looking at their website, and the one with my little yo-yo quilt is coming out soon and it looks really good.  Two quilts in one month? No problem. Heh.
   

Winston Lucky Churchill the bouncy bearded collie, aka Buddy

You all are really great at naming pets; I liked all the suggestions, thank you so much! Shortly after I finished that post I was looking at lists of pet names, and I found Winston, which was also mentioned in the comments a couple times. It fits him very well, being English and all, and he seems to like it. I loved Henry, but my grandfather’s name was Henry, so I couldn’t use that. Funnily enough, I had several beta fish while I was in college, and they were always named Fred. I thought Ned and Charlie were so cute too. Ned makes me think of Nancy Drew's boyfriend, and is a great dog name (no offence to Nancy Drew). Buddy is a nickname I always call animals, so that will undoubtedly be used regularly. I think his middle name should definitely be Lucky, because according the pet rescue lady, he came from a shelter with a four-day limit before animals are put down. Lucky also, because although I’m sure these pet rescue people have the best of intentions, I’m not so sure they really know what they are doing.

Caution: mini-rant ahead.

We adopted our cats from the Helen Woodward Animal Center. I can’t recommend that place highly enough. They take excellent care of the animals, and will not adopt out any pets that aren’t in perfect health. Petey and Lucy both had ringworm when they arrived there, and underwent six months of treatment before they were eligible for adoption. When we wanted to handle various cats they made us wear gloves and wash our hands in between playing with the various cats. At the time we thought all these precautions were a little excessive, but we took home two healthy cats, so we didn’t complain. Paperwork and adoption fees were all very straight-forward, and while they asked a lot of questions to make sure we knew we were committing to a lifetime of care for these cats they weren’t overly intrusive.

The pet rescue people, on the other hand, set up a bunch of pens in front of the pet store and have two or three dogs in the pens together. People are constantly walking by, petting one dog and then another. A couple dogs, including Winston, had diarrhea. The lady cleaned it up right away in each case, but still, it wasn’t a good indicator of the health of the animals. It was so busy that it was hard to find out about the dogs, let alone be able to spend time with them. When I came back with Mr. Heylucy it took forever for the lady to give us a straight answer on the adoption fee and for her to give us the paperwork to fill out. She kept telling us the same story over and over, about how he was at a shelter in San Bernardino, she had to have him neutered, she had him groomed, but he got muddy, how handsome he was right after he was groomed, she needed to cover her costs for the trip to Los Angeles and the neutering and the grooming, blah, blah, blah. Finally, I went inside to buy him a food dish, and Mr. Heylucy told her to cut the drama and tell us what the fee was, let us fill out the paperwork and take the darn dog already. He has a soft heart when it comes to animals, but no patience when it comes to getting the run around. I was starting to feel like we really needed to get the dog out of there, to rescue him from the rescue operation.

Yesterday I took him to the vet to get all checked out. He’s healthy and perky, but of course he has kennel cough, is susceptible to getting a doggie cold, and has a pretty nasty parasite. All of the above are the result of too many dogs being too close together. Of course, now Bear and Reggie have been exposed to all these things, so we may be paying the vet another visit. It may not have been so wise to bring Winston home so quickly, but at least I know that we will take care of our animals, and make sure that they get healthy as quickly as possible if they start showing signs of any illnesses (just an aside, if you live in East San Diego County, the Singing Hills Animal Hospital is an excellent place, I highly recommend them!). I just don’t know if people should be in the business of rescuing pets unless they are committed to keeping them healthy and have the facilities to isolate those that are sick. I find the whole thing really frustrating. So, just be aware, and if you go to Petco while they have a pet adoption group out front, don’t bring your dog in the store with you (our vet said that just walking by a dog with kennel cough is enough to catch it, it’s that contagious), and don’t even look at those poor animals unless you are prepared to take them straight to the vet’s office and have them treated for one or more illnesses. I don’t want to knock someone for wanting to help animals; I just want them to do a better job. It seems that if you really love animals, you’ll do what you can to keep them happy and healthy. Okay, that is the end of my rant for today.

Isn’t Winston cute? I know this picture is fuzzy, but Winston is fuzzy, so it's a good representation. He also got a bath yesterday, and he cleaned up so nice, even if he didn’t enjoy the bath all that much.

I think I should get a tattoo...

across my forehead that says, "Sucker". This little guy was in a pen outside Petco this weekend when I dropped by to pick up some cat food. I called Mr. Heylucy and asked him to tell me no, I cannot bring home a dog. Unfortunately, he didn't. Then I called my sister-in-law. She told me to get the dog. I went all the way home, and Mr. Heylucy said we should go back, if I really thought he was a nice dog, and bring him home.

He's three years old, and a sheepdog or bearded collie, or some combination, and seems to be settling in just fine. He doesn't have a name, so suggestions are welcome.