Design advice

I should know these things, but when it comes to my own home I can never make a decision.

This is an empty space in my bedroom. What should I put here? I don't need any more furniture and storage is not an issue (really, it's not. I have a 13' closet).



I took this picture while sitting on my bed. The door to the left is the bathroom and to the left of that is the wall of closets. The door to the right leads to the hall and if you squint really hard you can see down the hall into the living room.

Unsettled

Lulu is feeling a bit unsettled. How do I know this, you ask? Because she is wandering from room to room. She knows that I normally go to bed around now, but things are all topsy turvy with Gus gone. She's come into the room and gone into the closet a few times. Even though she's only had a couple of accidents in the house, mostly when I'm not paying attention, I'm always paranoid that she's going to pee. So I say to her "whatcha doin', Luli?". How does she respond? By laying down and licking the carpet.

Weekend update

Kristin came to visit this weekend and she brought Ellie with her. Lulu and Ellie got along just fine, which was a relief. Here they are, this morning, taking a nap. When Lulu lays like this, her back legs always make me think of chicken quarters.



On Saturday we drove down to the outlet malls and walked all over creation to see the Pottery Barn outlet and the Crate & Barrel outlet stores. Finding nothing we couldn't live without, we moved on to the Coach store. Kristin spent most of the time in that store talking to El Hombre on the phone (twue wuv...they're on the phone all the time!) but that was cool because it gave me plenty of time to browse and determine exactly which over priced purse I wanted to purchase. After that Kristin bought a super cute skirt at Ann Taylor. It looks so good on her and will be in style for years to come.

We drove back to Austin and had a late lunch at
Opal Divine's, where we shared the cracked pepper fries (on recommendation from the Chippie) and a quesadilla. Then we browsed BookPeople for a bit. I managed not to purchase any books, which is a good thing, since I have about 8 sitting on the shelf that I haven't read yet.

Kristin went to get her hair cut/colored after that.



Overall it was a very nice weekend and now she's gone and taken Gus with her (sob). I miss him. I think I could cry and Lulu is sulking in the dark on my bed.



ps...if you ever are craving Lulu photos, I have a zillion on my Flickr page.

Lulu's new food

This is Lulu's new food. Ingredients contain: Dried Potato Product, Hydrolyzed Chicken Liver, Potato Starch, Soybean Oil. Plus vitamins, minerals, etc.

My brain hurts

Ow. Why does my brain hurt? Because I just spent the last 5 minutes figuring out how long Lulu's new bag of dog food is going to last.

The bag of food is 8 pounds. She eats 1/2 cup of food a day (yes, the vet says that's plenty since she also gets treats). So if 1 pound = 16 ounces and 1/2 cup = 4 ounces then the bag of food should last 32 days. Right?

16 x 8 = 128

128/4 = 32

ow ow ow

I'm having flashbacks to school now.

Food issues

Lulu started a new food yesterday. The vet thinks she might be throwing up (couple of times a week) because of a food allergy. I don't think that's why, but I'm willing to try. The new food might be good for Lulu, but oh my god does it stink. Seriously, I think _I_ might throw up!

I remembered!

The name of that yarn store I was trying to think of is Yarntopia. But it's in Katy, not Houston, so not really near where I'll be. My cousin does live very close to Yarns 2 Ewe, so I'll make sure to stop in there instead.


pssst....I didn't really remember, I just googled until I found it

Bad mood

Did I wake up on the wrong side of bed this morning or what? My mood was a little gray as I came into work and then some stuff happened to make my mood turn darker. But then a bright spot! I checked my personal mail and had an email from my friend Karen. Only I hit the wrong button and deleted it before I could read it! Arrrrgh.

So now I'm really pissed off. It's been foul mouth city over here for the past 20 minutes.

Gus & the cone vs the possum

This is a good example of why it's not a good idea to try to jump the fence in your quest for the possum. You will fail and do a face plant in the dirt.

Don't worry, he's fine.

Houston, we have a problem

A few months ago I read a couple of blogs about a new yarn store in Houston and now I can't find them or it! It's not Ewes 2 You and it's driving me crazy that I can't remember. I'm going to Houston for a couple of days in August to visit my cousin, who is also a knitter, and I wanted to check it out. We're also going to see a quilt exhibit at the museum. And of course, I'll be doing some shopping at Ikea and Penzeys.

Gus is leaving me.

Gus will be going home to Kristin this weekend. I’ll miss him, even if he does shed like crazy, hump Lulu and make rude noises licking his tail. Speaking of his tail…it’s gotten worse. So this afternoon we went back to the vet for more meds. The doc thinks he has an infection in his tail. Doesn’t that should pleasant? Since the afternoon was getting on and I have plenty of work waiting for me at the office, I decided to save 20 minutes and note drop him off at home.

It was unofficial take Gus to work afternoon. I wish I’d had the camera with me because he looked really cute all sprawled out in my cubicle, taking a nap.

Blue tail

Gus started licking his tail again the other day and this morning it was a raw bloody mess. Since I had to go to Petsmart anyway, to replace Lulu's bed, I searched their shelves for another rememdy. I bought a stick that looks like it should be a deoderant and some self adhesive bandage. The stick thing will be returned because the label clearly says that it has a bitter taste so it will taste bad and the dog will leave the hot spot alone. Not Gus, he licked anyway.

So far he has not messed with the bandage and he's been wearing it for 15 minutes. Of course, he is out of my sight now so who knows what he's doing. Let's pretend he's sleeping in the living room.

3 minutes later

The tree is gone!

Before


After


If you want some firewood, c'mon over!

Bad dog!

Today Lulu and I went to a reunion for the Dachshund rescue group and Gus stayed home. He was not happy that he had to stay home.

I had left Lulu's bed drying on top of her crate after I washed off her puking last night.

When we got home Gus was in his crate, with the bedding all scrunched up, and surrounded by stuffing.



That's Lulu's bed on the upper right hand side. It wasn't until after I let him out and was trying to remove the bedding from the crate bars that I realized exactly what he'd done. He was able to reach through the bars and pull Lulu's bed towards him and then he shredded it. I'm just glad he didn't get out of the crate (he's done that before) because I'm pretty sure he was mad enough to really do some damage!

Nearly complete quilt top

It just needs the two borders which I am hoping to do tomorrow.

Lulu and I are off in about an hour to attend a reunion with the Central Texas Dachshund Rescue. It is for people that have adopted dogs through the organization and the people that foster the dogs. Should be fun.

I have a feeling that we'll be late though because it's about 30 minutes from my house and I haven't even had a shower yet--and I need one, I mowed the lawn. I'm waiting for my friend's husband to show up to chop down my tree.

I love the Chippie’s blog. She loves chips and uses her blog to rate the tastiness of all varieties of chips. So when I was shopping at Central Market yesterday, and saw these bags of popcorn, I just had to be a dork and get them to blog about. The two flavors I bought were smoked Gouda and Romano with pesto. I’m all about the cheese popcorn.

I opened the smoked Gouda flavor first. Upon first bite I could definitely taste the cheese. Sometimes these flavored cheese popcorns can have a very fake taste, but not this one. After a few more handfuls the smokiness starts to kick in and there is a subtle note of pepper. Just a bit. Good stuff. I had to put the bag away so I didn’t eat it all at once.

The Romano with pesto is a whole ‘nother bag of taste. Now I love basil and I love pesto, but this popcorn is just not right. Too herby or something. The dogs also love popcorn so maybe I’ll give some to them.

The fridge

What's on your fridge? I have an assortment of magnets from places I've visted (there are more on the right hand side), recipes, and pictures.

Show me what's on yours!

Looky what came in the mail!

My ACL music fest ticket! Kristin's came as well, since she didn't know where she'd be living when we bought them. If I was a bad sister, I would totally sell them on Craigslist and make some money.

I'm so excited! I hope it won't be as hot as last year. Who am I kidding?!

Are you watching.....

Project Runway on Bravo? I love this show! One of the contestants on this season has worked for Mattel to design Barbie clothes. How awesome is that? If I had known about that job when I was a kid I totally would have wanted it since I was always making clothes for Barbie. Until my junior year of high school it was still a toss up between interior design and fashion design. Then I decided that I didn't like to sew enough. If only I had known how much drawing would have been required in college. I can't draw to save my life. And that's why I love autocad.

Anyway, I digress.

Not happy with tonight's outcome at all. No sirree.

Not much to say today

It's too hot to think and I've been too lazy to charge the camera battery or do anything crafty so I have no photos to share. Blog posts without photos are kind of boring, aren't they? So here's a photo from May. It's one of my favorites.



Wait! This is from a few days ago. It's so cute.



Most of the time, Lulu does all the licking and loving, but last night I caught Gus snuffling Lulu's ears and licking her head.

Too damn hot

Just now, while I was out shopping for work (I was, seriously), my car said it was 107 degrees. Is that actual temp or just what it feels like? Either way, that is too damn hot.

When it's this hot, I am easily angered. For instance, I got an email about the birth of a former coworker's baby. The email contained a link to Snapfish. Not some easy link either, but one of those with so many numbers and lines that it wraps around and then you have to copy and paste it into the browswer. Shayeah. Like that's gonna work. I tried about 10 times. Seriously, I'm totally Pavlov's bitch. Anyway, it pissed me off so much that I just gave up.

I have got to get out more!

You know what's sad? The most action I've had in nearly a year is watching Gus try to hump Lulu.

Why is it?

Warning: this post if full of rambling generalizations.

Why is it that there are so many blogs on blogger written in Spanish or Japanese (maybe it's Chinese or Korean, I plead ignorance here)? What is it about blogger that draws them in? I often hit the little "next blog" box at the top of the page and it never fails that the next blog is in a language I can't read (which would be anything except English). Some of them look interesting and I like when they have pictures.

Kristin and I were talking about that the other day because she's found a couple of interesting blogs that way. So far all I find are people writing in foreign languages, political fanatics and teenagers. She must spend a lot more time hitting next than I do.

How cute is this fabric?

I think I must have it.

Behold the blocks

I need a nap

Saturdays wear me out. Seriously. I don't know if it's because Lulu doesn't know the meaning of weekend or because I have therapy on Saturdays, but my energy level is so low today. I would like to take a nap. My bedroom is nice and dark and cool, unlike the other rooms in my house. note to self: get some curtains for the living room already! But if I take a nap now, I won't be able to go to sleep tonight.

I am so lame.

Quilting time

Just so you know, I have the song "Hammertime" stuck in my head. Don't ask me why.

The first quilting class was tonight. It was a lot of fun, even though I have had heartburn and felt like puking since this afternoon. I'll post a photo of a block tomorrow so you can all worship in my fabulous color choices.

I might not know much, but I know color, dammit! I didn't get a degree in interior design for nothing.

Too bad I have to go to work tomorrow because I would much rather just piece out the rest of my quilt.

Speaking of work...I got a class catalog in the mail from the local community college. They have a whole series of AutoCad courses. Part of me wants to take the classes because I would totally rock them and then I could feel all smart 'n shit. But since I do cad work all day long I don't suppose that is necessary.

What will yours say?

Huh. Why does the first paragraph not surprise me.

'What" will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Thanks to Lyndsey for pointing me in the direction of this silliness.

Is it Friday yet?

All day today I kept thinking it was Thursday. Yesterday I thought it was Wednesday. Why am I off a day? How could I lose an entire day?

Better yet, why isn't it Friday yet?!

Chop shot

Sometimes it's really hard to take your own picture. I got my hair cut today. Isn't it cute.

Here's what it looked like in May, after I had it cut and colored.

Sale!

The new Hobby Lobby at Lamar & 183 (north Austin) opened today! It's right next door to the old location but they took over the old Mervyn's store and wow, is it great. Big aisles and so clean.

But the best thing is that sooooo much is on sale. Most of the scrapbooking things are 1/2 off, as are quilting notions, and so are all of the Yarn Bee yarns. Wheeeee!

I'm proud that I only spent $40 and half of that was on 2 magazines (of course, those weren't on sale!), one knitting and one sewing.

28 days later

Have you seen this film? I'm only several years behind on films and watched this one on tv today. It's not your normal zombie flick.

I hope I don't have nightmares.

Grillin & chillin

The Menu

Lemon Grilled Shrimp

Couscous

Green salad

Turtle brownies ala mode

I'm smart. S...M...R...T..

Finally, I'm moving my computer back into the craft/office/guest room. Lulu is disturbed by all this movement. Here at the Lazy house, we don't move around that much unless food is involved.

And, I'm smart because I'm letting my pizza (it's not delivery, it's DiGornio!) cool down before I eat it so I don't burn my mouth for once. You'd think after 30 years of feeding myself I'd figure out not to do that.

Poor pitiful Gus

He won't leave his tail alone

So he has a cone

I'm a poet

Don'tcha know it



Even stealing a kong, treat loaded even, from Lulu didn't cheer him up.

Sushi

Ever since watching an episode of last week Good Eats, I've been craving sushi. So tonight while I was running errands I stopped at Whole Foods to pick some up. It didn't hit the spot though. I hate it when that happens.

Have I lost my mind?

I typed up an entry this afternoon complaining about my headache, but blogger didn't post it, so never mind.

Then, I could have sworn that I had an email from Caro about remodeling my bathrooms, but I can't find it.

So I must be losing my mind. If you find it, please return it to me. Thanks!

Possum vs dogs, part 2

There's a rather large possum visiting my yard again. I think it may be Mr. Possum. It could be one of the babies grown up, who knows.

Anyway, this morning Gus pulled it off the fence and I had to grab him by the scruff of his neck to drag him inside while I carried Lulu in the other. This possum isn't as fiesty as the other one because he was visibly shaken and it took him some time to amble across the yard and up the fence back to his hiding spot.

Tonight, the dogs were in the yard, in the rain no less, and the possum was back. He was scared stiff on the fence and not going anywhere. Gus is kinda doped up right now due to his tail itchiness, so his vertical leap is a bit off. He was jumping up but not getting close to the possum and making the strangest sounds. I wish I could record it for ya'll to hear. Anyway, that possum wasn't going to move and the dogs weren't going to leave it, so I had to go out there and poke the possum with my rake so it would move along.

That's right, I poked it and that's all I did. No beating, no cursing. I've come to peace with the possums.

Color dilemma

I bought this quilt and pillow shams today, plus a chocolate brown dust ruffle. The walls are going to be painted a light tan. It's going to look terrific, if only I could decide what color the curtains should be. Either the dark brown or the turquoise. Help me out readers!



I love that the quilt I'm going to make will work so well color wise. Can you believe I just stumbled upon this while browsing Bed Bath & Beyond?

Mulching by mistake

Do y'all know what happens if you mow the lawn and then don't empty the grass catching bag and then it rains? And then it gets hot? And then it rains some more? Rinse and repeat about 3 times.

What you get, when you finally empty the bag, is gag inducing sludge. That's what I found when I finally got around to mowing the lawn this morning. And yes, I did empty the bag this time.

Who doesn't love Lulu

This afternoon, Lulu, Gus and I went to Petsmart. Gus is still chewing on his tail so I needed to get an e-collar for him and also wanted to check out itching remedies.

That will not be happening again. Gus nearly pulled my arm out of socket and snapped my wrist in two. But he had a great time sniffing everything while all the people loved on Lulu. Even the groomer that gave her the shave came out to say hello.

In other news....it's damn humid out ya'll. And there's a 60% chance of rain, so I am lazy and haven't mowed the lawn in quite sometime. I believe that is why Lulu chose to pee in the house. She is too delicate and a pretty pretty princess and didn't want to plant her tushy on tall wet grass.

Inappropriate Peeing

Last night and again this morning, Lulu has come in from the back yard and promptly peed in the living room. What is this all about? Could she have a urinary infection? Diabetes? (I think not on that, she hasn't been drinking more than usual). I really hope it's just her being pissy (ha ha) and not something horrible. I'll be calling the vet on Monday morning.

Fabric

Today I bought fabrics for the quilt class I'm taking in about 2 weeks. Since discovering Amy Butler, like everyone else, I've fallen in love with her fabrics. I was a bit disappointed in the selection at the store. When I asked they said that their supplier dropped them and they don't have a new one yet. What will I do for Amy's fabric then?! Other than that, they were very helpful when it came to deciding which fabrics to get for my quilt. I think it will be very pretty.