Another Day

We are not going to Baltimore because Mom fell yesterday.  She says she didn't fall but won't say how she got on the floor. She didn't feel well all day. I sat there yesterday until 3PM while she slept and came back at 7pm.  This morning I called her and she said she was dressed, nothing hurts and she just feels sleepy. It gives us three extra days to get ready for the puppy and Christmas.

Getting ready for Christmas

All my shopping is done and the house is nice and clean(that is because we hosted the Lions Christmas party on Sunday). Now all we have to do is set up all the beds and mattresses for 16 overnight guests for Christmas.  They will start arriving on the 19th of December.  Unfortunately we won't be home because we will be in Baltimore on the 19th for daughter Amy's graduation with her master's degree. By the 21st almost everyone will be here. We will also be picking up our new puppy that we will be raising for Leader Dog. We will name her Mindy. She is a black, Labrador-golden retriever cross. The dog we raised last year, Penny is almost finished with her training and in a month will be assigned to a blind person. We are very proud of her. Honestly we didn't think she had a prayer. That day is also my Mom's 96th birthday, but we will celebrate on the 22nd. So it looks like a busy season with a 7 week old puppy.

Obedience Class

We took Penny to the Leader Dog obedience class, like we do every Tuesday night. She was slightly more distracted than usual as the class was outside. The teacher had brought a singing frog  as a distraction for the dogs,  All through class Penny had only one goal - KILL THAT FROG. After class the teacher told us we had done a wonderful job with a difficult dog and not to take it personally when she is career changed.  (That is the nice way they put it when she flunks out.)

Quilting

I have made close to 50 quilts in my lifetime and most of them have been hand quilted.  I have been trying to learn to do machine quilting.  I have a beautiful Bernina machine with a stitch regulator but it is not as easy as it looks. I tried a baby quilt that I want to give as a shower gift but it just didn't look right so I ripped out the machine quilting and I will get out my hoop tonight.

Penny Eats Everything

Penny turned  one year old last week. She is a really good dog and can be very well behaved, except, she eats everything. Anything that falls to the ground disappears immediately. There are the usual, napkins, paper towels and Kleenexes. She also eats any scrap of paper, or plastic.  We have removed from her mouth wine corks, bottle caps and Swifter dusters. (well she swallowed the Swifter duster and we had to bring it back up. ) In my sewing room she has swallowed straight pins and enough fabric to make a small quilt. Hubby thinks the colored poop is funny. We cannot let her run even in the backyard because 3 times now she has eaten something toxic and goes through a few hours of vomiting and diarrhea. We have cordoned off the rhubarb and we know she isn't eating the rhododendron or hydrangea.  I personally picked all the toadstool out of the front yard today.

Snow on the Mountain

Hubby worries a lot that Penny will never live long enough to become a Leader Dog. That is because she will eat anything. I am sure if we gave her a bucket of nails and dirty Kleenexes for her dinner she would finish the whole thing. Yesterday she ate some Snow on the Mountain.  We had gone through our whole garden with the list of toxic plants.  Hubby even put chicken wire around the rhubarb.  We don't grow Snow on the Mountain, but the neighbors do and nothing can control that plant. Penny really felt bad. Even though I took it away from her right away, penny was really feeling bad.  She was salivating heavily and acted like she had a tummy ache.  Today she is fine.

The Farmer's Market

Today we went to the Oakland County Farmer's Market.  We bought our vegetable plants for the garden.  In Michigan it is a standard rule not to plant before Memorial Day because of the danger of frost. We had been to the market earlier this spring and bought the hanging baskets for the front porch and the fuchsia for the humming birds, but those I can bring in if need be. Today the market was very crowded.  We took Penny and she was pretty good.  I walked her up and down between the flower vendors while Hubby picked out the vegetable plants.  We then went to Telly's nursery because Hubby had a question about his roses and the rose lady there is tops. Then we made a quick trip to Uncle Luke's Feed Store and got home in time for the roofing contractor to give us an estimate.

True Green

About a month ago my neighbor had True Green spray her lawn for weeds. Well, they got a little carried away and sprayed my lilac bush and killed it. I called the company and they were so nice and sent a manager out to see the damage. Today they came and planted a new lilac bush and took the dead one out. I am very pleased. He said when they make mistakes they like to take care of them immediately. I am impressed.

Civil War Remembrance

Today Hubby and I went to the Civil War Remembrance at Greenfield Village.  It was really neat.  The fife and drum core was amazing and they had all sort of tents where people who were in the reenactments camped.  They all wore period clothing and cooked on campfire with period utensils. It was fun talking to the people who were so proud to have ancesters who fought in the civil war. It is a little surprising to think that it wasn't that long ago. One of the tents was a dressmaker's store and they had a fabric sale. Now that hasn't changed in a hundred years.

Mike and Marilyn's Anniversary

My brother and his wife celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary next weekend.  Since their children gave them a vacation on Mackinac Island as a gift, I brought their gift from me to them yesterday.  Hubby and I took them out to dinner and I gave them a quilt.  Since Mike and Marilyn have moved to their new home they have been quite interested in birds. I hand dyed the sky material and got the shape of the tree from the Master Gardeners book "How to trim a pear tree." I appliques the blossoms on and almost 30 different birds.  I worked on the project for 3 years.  Back 40 years ago I got together with one of my girlfriends and introduced my brother to her cousin. That was a good thing to do.

Sewing for Granddaughters

I finished a stack of clothes for Sofie and Molly. Now I want to wait until they try them on. Sofie wears a pattern size 1/2. She has shorter legs than Molly.  Molly's clothes are size 2 and I am really worried they will be to big for her. The pattern says it is for babies 34 inches tall  but they look awfully big to me. Sofie will be here to visit the first week of June and Molly the first week of July.  Oh, their mothers will come too.

Handicapped Parking Tag

Today I took my Mom to get her handicapped parking tag.  Of course she dosen't drive but we need one when we take her to the store or restraunt. They insisted that she have a doctor's signature that she needed one.  (Being 95 was not a large enough criteria.) The doctor signed that she had a permanent disability. (old age).  When she got the tag, the expiraton date was 12/21/17. I said to her, " did you notice the date?" She said,"Yes it's my birthday."  I reminded her the tag expires on her 100th birthday.

Penny and Sofie

Last week I spent several days in small town Ohio babysitting my grandchild, Sofie. Friday Hubby and Penny came down for the weekend. It was a little hectic. Penny understood "leave it" when it came to toys on the baby's play table, but Sofie. 13 months old, would hand the toys to Penny and she just couldn't resist that. It was a fun weekend. One of the things we did was go to the Cleveland west side market. They had everything there. Mary who loves to cook had a marvelous cookbook called "1000 Mexican Recipes." This morning we had chili rellenos with scrambles eggs and bacon. Marvellous.

Bad Puppy Trainer

Today we took Penny into Costco, which we have done several times before, only this time she did a big dump in the center aisle by the wine. I had all my cleaning supplies with me and even used a Clorox wipe on the floor. The manager was there and called out the big cleaning machine, Hubby called it a Zamboni. On top of that we were so shook up we forgot the wine. The night before, at obedience class, our puppy counselor talked to us about Penny's behavior at the vet.  We knew she had been terrible, but didn't know the vet wrote a long email to our puppy counselor saying the dog was out of control. I came home and went off of my weight watchers diet and had 2 glasses of wine.

Penny Update

Penny, our puppy we are raising for Leader Dogs for the Blind,is getting much bigger.  She is a 45 pound golden  retriever. She is a real challenge.  I think she is settling down a little more.  She walks on a loose leash beautifully unless she is distracted.  She goes down and sits nicely, unless distracted.
Housebreaking was a breeze. We have had some trouble with her being "mouthy."  When she gets excited or distracted, she tends to bite our hands, never breaking the skin.  She also eats anything she can get her mouth on, furniture, plants, especially pieces of cloth, Kleenex, or napkins. She also barks when she gets excited or distracted.  Did you notice the frequency of the word distracted? We take her to obedience class every Tuesday where we are often the focus, as the other dogs in class distract her. We have her until September 1st of this year, by then it will be terrible to have to give her up.

Happy New Year

Wow, I didn't realize it had been that long since I posted. I guess I will have to add a New Years Resolution to post more often.  Every year I make the same New Years Resolutions.  You know, lose weight, exercise more, play the piano more, read more, the usual. I am certainly not bored, but maybe boring. Maybe I will make a New Years Resolution to think of a more exciting resolution.