A story of a dog and her 18 lives.

This dog has many, many lives and has this latest life to thank from one little 3.5 year old little girl who "LOVES Freya so much! Smooches!"

She had two names before landing at our house at only just over a year old. Let this be a lesson before adopting a rescue dog. Research. Spend time with the dog. There sometimes is a reason why she is in rescue, it isn't always the people.

Nope, I always thought it was the people. People that just weren't good dog owners. Any dog is trainable.

Ha.

There was a most unfortunate incident in the house last week that has prevented me from progressing on my quilt. I know, people may have thought I would have had it done by now. And under normal circumstances I probably would have.

But no.

THAT dog was in the kitchen, mooching around the table for scraps. (She has put on 20 lbs since landing at our house...). I was running up and down the stairs sewing strips of blocks together all happy like.

When CRASH!

I turn around and see the dog bolting from under the table and somehow grabbing the cord for the sewing machine with her and sending my beloved Viking Huqvarna tumbling to the tile. Yes tile. Dangerous for little baby teetch and sewing machines alike.

I haven't found anyone who thinks they can fix - i.e., bend the machine back into shape... yet. And I am not sure if I find someone, if it will be worth it or not. Or if I should just pony up and buy a new sewing machine.

Destructo dog.

Lucky for her she has a 3.5 year old who loves her like no ones business.

No rescue dogs EVER again.

If it isn't one thing...

It's the other.

So I bought all my fabric. Washed it. Ironed it. And the other night while watching "Covert Affairs" I cut 118 seven inch squares.

Then I did a quick calculation. Round up to 120 and that makes approximately a 10 square by 12 square quilt. Or 60" by 74".

Or so not a king sized quilt at all.

A king sized bed is 76" x 80". And I like some overhang. I like lots of overhang because I have a tendency to wrap myself like a burrito.

Back to the fabric store I will go this weekend!

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The chandelier arrived! I ended up going with the slightly more rustic one. AB liked it best. (I liked the Pottery Barn ones best.) AB liked the price of the more rustic one best mostly I think. I can't blame him. It was half the price of the PB ones.

It arrived, we set to assembling it this weekend and got it most of the way done. The next task at hand is to remove the old one and wire and hang the new one. I don't think it will take more than 30 minutes to do. It all looks quite straight forward.

I am not terribly far off my schedule, though it is slipping.

And I have had another interference come up.

We will get the chandelier hung and then we can decide on paint. But I am pushing back the paint date for a few reasons. One of them being that AB has grand plans to take a few days off next week as well as the Labor Day weekend (4 days for him) and replace the nasty flooring in the big bonus room! We are leaning towards a bamboo laminate flooring.

I am very excited to get this done. It needs it bad.

But how does this affect the dining room?

I may get my flooring for the dining room. Our big bonus room is large and square and very forgiving. AB wants to test out the flooring install there. If it goes well then we are thinking we may go forth with replacing the flooring in the dining room as well. And no way we would paint the walls before doing that.

So the dining room redecorate is slipping. But it isn't going away. It just may get better is all!

Looking ahead

Awhile back… ok, years ago… Vargasgirl got me into cross stitching. It had always struck me as an old lady type of thing to do. But when I saw the things she was making and the options for patterns out there, I quickly became interested. They weren’t all cutesy scroll country kischey things! There were some really nice contemporary patterns out there.

I started in slow, became hooked and then quickly had more patterns on my hard drive then I knew what to do with.

I started on Chat Noir.

Then I had Leif. And Chat Noir went on the shelf.

I have this great desire to get back to crafting of some type.

Two areas constantly pull at my heart. Sewing and cross stitching.

I want to make my daughter a pillowcase dress before she grows too big and laughs at me for even suggesting she wear a pillowcase.

And have you even seen those summer dress patterns out there? I am way too sure that the fabric for those dresses are even cuter. But I wouldn’t know since I am not allowed in fabric stores. Self imposed ban and all.

I foresee my February goal getting my house to a point where I need to stop for awhile because the next step would entail large sums of money that I am not envisioning having at that point. Additionally I envision March being a busy month with it being our 10th anniversary month and Skadi’s birthday.

I am thinking I am going to take a side trip for the month of March and explore a personal goal…
Start sewing…

Or tackle The Orange Tree…

Crafty Craving

Leif has been asking for a new blankey. He still loves his current one that I made him sometime before his first birthday. Around the house he is blankey attached hauling it everywhere with him.

My little Linus.

He used to occasionally haul it to school with him until the day a year or so ago when I got a note in my box telling me not to allow him to bring it anymore from his former teacher. So now it doesn't leave the house except when we go somewhere to spend the night.

He has been asking for a Star Wars blankey to go with his new Star Wars bedroom in the new house.

I am sure I can find Star Wars fleece at JoAnn's.

I just need to mentally prepare myself for this trip to JoAnn's. Fabric stores are my serious undoing.

I will go straight into the store and walk straight to the fleece. Pick out a Star Wars fabric with a grey fleece for backing and go straight to the cutting counter. Anyone have a pair of those horse blinders that race horses wear? Can I borrow them?

I will not walk by the embroidery floss and look at the fabulous colors and all the neat cross stitching gadgets (I have been aching to cross stitch big time).

I will in no way go look at yarn and knitting needles along with a "How to Knit" book to satisfy my current need to learn to knit cute little hats and scarves and maybe mittens too.

I would never flip open a pattern book to the page of cute little girl summer dress patterns.

And no I don't need any funky buttons for my old Pea coat that I just dug out.

And the last thing I need to think about making is a new quilt.

...

Maybe it is best if I just found Star Wars fleece online and ordered 2 yards??