Artsy Fartsy

I don’t remember planting this.  It’s marked “Tarragon” maybe I should change it to “Terrier”.

She was scratching at the door all morning, I’d let her out and she’d go five feet off the deck, turn around and sit in the garden facing the house.  Weird little dog.

Remember my completely lame post about my new lamp wherein I forgot to take a picture of my lamp?  Well here it is.  So what do you think?  I think I’m getting used to the size of it and I like it again.

And while we’re talking about the past, look!

On Friday our deck railing was delivered.  Yay!  Somehow I expected the railing for a 40′ x 14′ deck to be in a bigger box.  It’s really only 33 lengths of cable and some hardware. See?

The posts have been ordered and if all goes well, Luke might start putting it together this weekend!

On Friday we also had to say good-bye to our good friend Megan (the shorter one with the glasses) as she ventures off to a wonderful new adventure as Programming Queen of Philly, or whatever her new title is.  It was bittersweet seeing her go but knowing how awesome this new job will be for her.  What made it a little easier was the always adorable Miss Jane.  And of course, it was nice to see her mommy, too.

On Saturday I was taking pictures of the wildflowers growing in the yard.  I am obsessed with the native woodland plants and flowers in our yard and I am determined to one day find a Ladyslipper.   No Ladyslippers spotted Saturday, but I did see one giant dog.  Oh, wait, I recognize those ears.

She’s so nosy.  And the Toad Lilys are a-sprouting everywhere, they’re so pretty.

And now we’re back at the present where it’s raining and it’s cold and it’s raining some more.  Boo.  Looking ahead…  I can’t believe it’s almost May.  Exactly a month until my birthday!  Hint, hint!

It seems like I’ve been working on the house and painting the walls so much lately, I haven’t been doing anything artsy-crafty in my studio lately.  I keep buying fabric for projects-to-be not making anything out of it.  Well, I’m happy to report that the craft drought ended this week.

I have been looking for buttons to spiff up the wool coat I found at the Salvation Army for $7.  I love the coat but the old fashioned buttons on it were falling off and worn out.  Since it’s a peacoat, there are 12 buttons to replace and the only buttons I liked were $2 each - yikes.  If I’m cheap enough to buy a used coat for $7, am I really going to spend $24 to replace the buttons?  The answer is no.

I have a set of three gorgeous embroidered buttons that my friend Karen made hanging on the wall in my studio because they’re too pretty for me to decide what to do with them.  I was looking at them the other night while I was ironing and I was suddenly inspired.  I remembered Karen telling me how she made them with a button cover kit, so I went to Jo-Ann Fabric and found a kit of my own.  Monday night I sat for an hour watching Dancing with the Stars and making my new coat buttons.  How fun -and easy!  I can’t wait to make new buttons for everything in my house.

Then last night after screwing up everything else I had tried to make - including dinner - I decided to try out another tool I bought at Jo-Ann’s: my new bias tape maker.  I’m in love.  I didn’t even know that there was such a thing or how much I needed one until I got this book for Christmas and I was enlightened.  What a cool tool.  No more folding and ironing tiny strips of fabric and inevitably burning my fingers.  Now my bias tape maker does all the work.  See what it made last night?

The bias tape maker folds the fabric perfectly so I can iron it into neat little strips of bias tape which I put back-to-back to make Miss Molly a pretty new collar.  It’s even reversible.   The back has a contrasting fabric which I also used to make a loop to hang Molly’s ID tags.  I tried to get a picture of it, but a certain sleepy dog wasn’t cooperating and all I got was a fluffy ear instead.

Making her collar was so easy and I really love the way it came out.  I’m thinking I might make some more and put them in my Etsy shop.  Oh!  Maybe I could make dog collars with covered buttons.  How perfect would that be?

Molly received this outfit from our friend Lauren and I promised to take pictures of her in it.  I wanted to do it before her haircut while she still had rockstar Tina Turner-style hair so yesterday was photo day. She hated me, but hey, I got some really funny pictures so it was worth it, right? Enjoy!

I’ve been meaning to share this website with all of you pet-owners out there:
www.PetProductsontheWeb.com

I used them last year to buy Frontline and Heartguard for Molly.  The company is in New Zealand, so shipping takes a while (about three weeks in my case), and they only accept Paypal, but that’s not really an issue.  It’s worth the wait.  The prices are amazing, far better than PetMeds, and about half the price of my local vet.  For example, Sunday I bought six months of Frontline for Molly for $92.  Pet Products on the Web’s price is $49 with free shipping.  Kind of wish I planned ahead but Molly’s already collecting ticks and we needed Frontline ASAP.

Last night was not fun. It’s never a good time at the emergency vet’s at 10 o’clock on a Sunday night.

The three of us spent the entire weekend outside, working on the deck, cleaning up the yard. Molly was in pup heaven, frolicking outdoors all day, sleeping soundly at night. Then last night around 7:30, I noticed that Molly was awfully fidgety and scratching at her eyes a lot. Our house is always dim and I couldn’t see anything bothering her, but I felt something on her eyebrow so I brought her into the bathroom where the light is brighter and noticed immediately that her poor puppy face was completely swollen. It wasn’t something on her eyebrow that I felt, it was her eyebrow, all puffy and big. Her eyelids were swollen into tiny slits, her lips and nose were so swollen, she looked terrible. I called the emergency vet and asked if there was something at home I could give her, rather than go to the emergency clinic where I know the fee is double after-hours. She told me that they might be able to prescribe Benadryl, but then again maybe she’d need a steroid shot and so she booked be an appointment at 10pm. From 7:30 to 10 I watched her and poked her to make sure she was breathing. The swelling got worse about a half hour after I got off the phone with the vet, but then I put cold cloths on her face and she settled down and fell asleep and the swelling seemed to level out.

At this point I should mention that I cannot stand to look at someone who is swollen. In an emergency, if you gave me the choice of looking after the person who was missing and arm and bleeding all over, or the person who was having an allergic reaction and swelling like a balloon, I’d choose the bleeder. I get faint looking at a swollen face (or arm, or leg…) I can’t explain it, but it’s rather annoying. Particularly with a husband who is allergic to bee stings, and now a dog who may be as well.

That reminds me that at this point in the evening, I had no clue why Molly was swollen. Did she eat something? Did she get stung or bitten? I was trying desperately to remember what was she was doing before we cam in for the evening, but she has free run of the yard. I don’t always know what she’s doing or what she’s getting into. I was terrified.

So 10pm rolled around and we were at the emergency vet’s. They were very nice, and sadly, they were very busy that night. A dog in the back was yelping and screaming, that wasn’t good to hear and didn’t help my trying to tell molly that everything would be fine. The doctor checked her over and diagnosed her as very sweet and extremely cute and probably suffering from a bee sting. She got a shot of Benadryl and a steroid and we went home where Molly flopped on the couch and snored, and I felt relieved knowing that she was mostly OK, still looking swollen and sad, but able to breathe, at least.

I wanted to take a picture of her mid-swell, but due to the afore mentioned swelling aversion, and the fact that my heart broke into pieces whenever she looked at me through swollen lids, I just couldn’t. Take my word for it - it was both terrible and sad. This morning she’s much better. Barely swollen but still groggy from the Benadryl. Thank goodness my pup is OK.

So what did I learn from the horrible experience? Well, 1.) bees are out in March - who would expect that? 2.) when fearing for the life of your beloved pup, an emergency office visit fee of $95 will sound quite reasonable, 3.) the same Benadryl you take, yourself, can be given to your dog (21-lb Molly gets 25mg every 12 hours), and 4.) Molly really is the best dog ever. She kissed the lady who took her temperature, she kissed the lady who took her in the back to have a shot, and she played (swollen-faced and all) with the ladies at the desk as I payed the bill. She’s so sweet. If I were her, I would have definitely taken someone’s hand off at some point last night.

Behold my fur-children in an often witnessed, rarely photographed moment.  The cat usually likes to act like she’s too cool to be seen with Molly.

They both like to sit there on the rug and look out the glass doors.  Sometimes they lay there in the sun together.  One of them also likes to sit there and meow loudly to go out, the other prefers to scratch at the wood when she has to go.

Who? Me?

When I was at my sister’s this weekend, I took this picture of Molly.

It reminded me of another picture I took of her when she was just a little pup, so I dug through my pictures and found it.  Brace yourself for the awesome cuteness of puppy.

I can’t get over how little she was!  I mean, she’s not huge now, by any means, but look how teeny she was.

And look at this face!  I can’t stand it.

OK, one more, and I promise I’ll stop.

HA!  I love that one, she was so busted.

If you want to see more, I’ve started adding her puppy pictures to Flickr, here’s the rest of them: Molly’s Puppy Pics

I heard that it was going to be in the 40s today which does cheer me up slightly, but still, I’m really tired of this snow.  Friday we took a long walk by the river in the midst of the storm and I tried really hard to find something good about the snow.  Something pretty, something that made me happy.  The only thing I found was this:

My tiny snow-loving pup.  If she had the ability to shout “woo-hoo!” she would have the moment I let her out the back door on Friday.  She almost jumped with joy.  She runs and darts and slides and chases flakes and jams her head into the snow to sniff.  She’s hilarious.

I wish I could share her excitement.  She even broke through the ice at the bank of the river at one point and plooped her backside in the frigid water, then scrambled back out and continued to run around for half an hour.

I need to learn a bit about snow appreciation from her.  Right now I’m thick in snow loathing while she stares out the window and begs to go out again.   Twenty-five more days till Spring.

Molly and I have been watching the Westminster dog show for the past two nights, and when I told people that Molly actually “watches” they didn’t believe me, so I had take this terribly grainy picture last night to prove it.  And yes, I see that my lampshade is crooked.

There’s Miss Molly, sitting at my feet, her attention focused on the TV.  I think that was the ginormous Tibetan Mastiff that I was in love with, but sadly he didn’t win for the working breeds.

We were on the edge of our seats when they announced Best in Show.  Who knew a dog show could be so suspenseful?  I was 100% rooting for Uno, the adorable beagle, but Molly seemed to like the Weimaraner the most.  She perked up when he was on the screen.

[A little sidenote here, why does spell check have a listing of "Weisenheimer" but not "Weimaraner"??]

Yay for Uno, he won best in show and made history for being the first Beagle to do so!