Pet-O-Rama!

We have tons of pets all the sudden! How fun! It is especially fun since it is only temporary. We have currently the care of 3 dogs, 3 cats, one bird, and one Guinea pig. Thankfully, the cat's are not on the premisis. I don't think we could handle that with our dogs! So far we are all enjoying our "extra" pets!

Here is a picture of Joey on one of his "outside the cage" jaunts.

Pixie (our inside dog) is jealous of the bird and cried when she hears me talking to Joey. Joey does not like Pixie either and hisses at her if she comes near the cage. We had to use a twist tie to lock one of the doors of the cage because he already figured out how to open it. Smart bird! We are trying to teach him to talk, and I have to admit that we seriously considered the irony of teaching the preacher's bird a bad word, but finally decided it just would not be right. This is Pixie and her pet "Dolphin"

Here is Joey's luxury vacation condo.

Next, is Squirt, the Guinea pig. I am terrified of mice and to me a Guinea pig is just a large mouse without a tail. So I was really nervous about having this pet in our home. Jacob promised to be responsible for him. I had no plans to touch him or hold him. But.... last night while watching him feast on a red bell pepper, I had a weak moment! He was so cute. I held out and did not actually touch him till this afternoon. But I finally had to admit that he is adorable. I have not held him yet, and I doubt I will, but I will acknowledge that he is cute, and not really mouse-like. He sure likes peppers!

Here is Squirt chillin' in his "mobile home."

So that really just leaves the kitties. I don't have any pictures of them now, but maybe I will try to get a few tonight. There is no doubt that I will see Socks. He is quite sociable, we will have to say hello to Beasley because he has to get a shot of meds twice a day, but the mysterious Claire will most likely not make an appearance at all. We have only ever seen her one time in several pet sitting visits. I guess she does not like us much. What's not to like?

Worse...

The only thing worse than the end of a long holiday weekend, is the work week that follows it. That is a direct quote from me. Feel free to quote me in your own blog, or to use my quote in casual conversation with your friends, but don't forget it, you read it here first! Between this and my sock monkey quote, maybe I should publish a book of quotes! Watch out Jack Handey!



This week has been crazy at work. We are closing out the month with very poor sales...again!! Sigh! I am truly puzzled about how to change that situation. I can literally see and hear the frustration on my boss's face and in his voice. It makes me queasy. I suppose all I can really do is work harder and smarter. I did stay late tonight to make a few extra calls.



Next week should be a real adventure as we are pet sitting for 2 families. We are feeding and medicating cats who belong to some friends, Derek & LaDonna. Then we are keeping a Guinea pig named Squirt and a bird named Joey in our home for about 10 days. I am looking forward to having a bird in the house again. I really miss Tweetie-G. I will probably have some interesting pictures of our borrowed pets to share next week, but for now, just reading these words will have to be enough.

Have a good weekend!

Long weekend is over!

I love long weekends! Why can't we function with a 4 day work week? I know I could! I had a wonderful weekend! Friday I got a short trip to Loops with Amy, we did not buy anything, but we got to look at all the yummy, expensive, colorful, soft yarn. Then we made a pit stop at Qdoba for dinner. We had a nice time. :o) Thanks for sneaking away with me for a little while Ames!

Saturday, well my day was used up waiting around for a trip to a small Oklahoma town to look at a truck for Jacob. After waiting all day and putting off plans with Sammy SMOR the trip was cancelled because someone else bought the truck. Ugh! I did sneak in some errands while we were waiting to hear back, and Kim helped me clean the house. Can you believe he mopped the kitchen and swept out the wood floors?? He never, never does that! Wow! Saturday night jacob and I we went to dinner with our friends John and Sheena and the most awesome baby in the world, Grayson. We went to my new favorite Italian place, Napoli's. Yum-o!

Sunday was Church. Fun. Sunday night was a party at the preachers house! Woo hoo!! Hot dogs on the grill, chips, dip, potato salad, Strawberries and pound cake. Oh man, that pound cake was to die for! Amy you did good, girl!

Finally, Monday. Last day. I remember thinking when I woke up, I don't want the weekend to end. How can I stretch this out longer? We went to a movie with our friends, the Stewarts. Funny movie! A Night at the Museum. 2. Then we went to the Stewarts for dinner. Yum-o again. I had 4 straight nights of excellent food, and I did not have too cook! (well, I made potato salad for Sunday) Lucky me! What a nice relaxing weekend it was!

Back to the grind today. At least it is a short week. This has been a long post, but I don't have a picture to post with it. Maybe I will come up with something later. I will have to think it over. Bye!

Happy Birthday Grayson!

Happy first birthday to my man, Grayson! And thank you so much for inviting me to your awesome party! It was a pool party, but the water was reserved for the wee ones! Bella was already in the pool when we arrived. She was splashing and having fun. She was the big kid at the party. After dinner, Grayson joined her, pretty soon, Matt was in there too, then baby Anna and last of all Booker. He was truly the "baby" of the bunch. But they all did pretty good in the water. Jacob was the only kid at the party who would not get in the water. I wonder why? All the babies really enjoyed the water.



After the pool fun, we had delicious chocolate birthday cake. As you can see, Grayson really enjoyed this part of the party. I think he liked it even better than the pool. He got so much chocolate cake on himself, he had to get back in the pool to clean off. He was pretty tired when we first arrived, but after he got in his chair and started with his cake, he really seemed to start having fun. I think he developed a real love for chocolate tonight. That hat looks pretty snazzy on him too!

Here are a few more pictures from the evening of Jacob, Matt, Anna, Bella and Booker. They are good friends of Grayson.

Mmmmmh....Brownies!

This was not a great day. Work....ugh! Well, let's not talk about work. Let's talk about what I did when I got home. Made dinner and then, mmmmmh.....brownies! I feel better. I just had 2 of them, still warm from the oven. That is all I have to say tonight. If you want an interesting blog you have to read Amy's. Sorry.

Lazy day...

I had fun last night visiting with the SMORs last night (minus Sammy :o( ). Too bad the weather cut our fun short. Amy did not get to stay too long, that was a bummer. Anyway, I got in some good work on my coin purses/camera bags... what should I call them? Felted bagettes? LOL! I don't know. Maybe we need a naming contest. All four of you who read my blog could decide what to call them. Here is what I got finished to sell. I have not heard yet from Becky how many if any of them sold. I still say, no big deal either way. I will find something to do with them, regardless. Here is what I took her. Some of these you have seen before.

There is no way I could have gotten as far as I did with these last night without our "crafty night"! I still stayed up till 3 AM putting the zipper in the red one and adding the button. I should have gotten advice on what buttons to use on it, it left here with a double stack white and red button. I think Amy and or Gina would have chosen something more creative.

I just finished knitting a red and black striped purse. I still have to sew up the sides, felt it, and add the zipper. I should be doing that now, but I am taking a break! I dropped the purses off to Becky this morning at 9:30. I have not left the house since I got back from Broken arrow around 10:15 this morning. I had a terrible headache. Probably stayed up too late.

Happy Saturday!

Stress

This has been a stressful week for me. I don't really know why. I feel like life is getting the best of me this week. I don't deal with stress very well either. It seems like it leaks out in odd ways. My skin reacts, my appetite reacts and of course my attitude gets a little wonky. I have not taken any pictures this week either. I think I am just really letting something suck the joy out of my life. I need to re-focus and get back on track. I don't like this person.

So again, I will shop in the archives for a picture to post. Something that makes me smile.

Jacob Daniel Howe took this picture last october. Smile. :o)

Knitting Machine/Graduation wishes

Barely any time to sit down and post tonight. I am knitting like mad. My friend Becky asked me if I would be interested in selling some of my coin purses at a craft show Saturday, so I am trying to get a few made up quick. I have 2 completed, and 3 others felted but without zippers. I will try to do one zipper tonight and I have to buy zippers for the other two tomorrow. Then quickly, knit some more! I think I could knit at least two more before Saturday morning. Only 7 to sell! And how much should I charge for them? I was thinking $10, but just not sure. Would you pay $10??? Really? Don't just say that becuse you think I want to hear it! I need honest feedback here!

Now, what picture to post today? Hmmm, let me go browse. Be right back.

OK, I am back, look who I found! Moriah and Wendy. These two beauties are graduating this year. Wendy is graduating this week and Moriah next week. In the fall they will head off to OC together. Then, watch out world! Love, love, love you both! I am so proud of your accomplishments and I think you are both beautiful, talented, Godly young ladies. I'll miss your beautiful smiles at church every week. I will be praying for you. I hope you both join my old club, Gamma Rho. :o)

Mother's Day!

This is my special Mother's Day blog entry. The day is basically half over, but it has been quite nice so far! Kim and Jacob took me to dinner at Napoli's my new favorite Italian restaurant. Yum! When we were walking in, we ran into a friend from church. He was there alone because his wife is visiting her mother today. So we invited Jerry to eat with us. Of course, as always, the meal was wonderful, and I ate too much. Ugh! Jerry insited on picking up the tab. We tried to resist, but he was insistent. That was a nice bonus for Jacob since today was going to be his treat.

So then Jacob said that I could go to Loops and pick out a present. You know what that means! Wool! Colorful, awesome, beautiful wool!! It was so hard to chose only 2 colors, but I managed, then I walked around and explored the store. They have some awesome buttons. So many and so fancy! The store them in tubes. This is so different from where I usually buy buttons! So amazing! They have a really nice childrens play room too. I guess the only other time I went I did not look around much beause I had two kids with me. Today I was alone so I looked and looked!

My sister has made a special request that I post a picture of the black with roses coin purse, so here it is. No bobble on this one because I messed up and got an invisible zipper and the pull on the zipper foot does not have a hole in it to thread the bobble through. I thin it looks ok without it though.

I hope you had a great mother's day! I did! :o) Being a mom is great.

Saturday...

Well, I waited till almost the last possible moment to post, but I am getting it done. This was a busy day. I made an extra effort to clean my house today, paying extra attention to the wood floors because we had a special guest at the house this afternoon and evening. Jacob and I baby sat for our friend's son, Grayson. What a sweet baby! When he first arrived, he sat in the recliner with Jacob and watched "Bob the Builder'. Seriously, I don't know which kid enjoyed it more! I think they were both enjoying it quite a bit.

Then I got off my throne and made some tasty home made pizza for dinner. That is when the crying started. I think he might have been a little jealous! After about a half hour of grouchiness, he perked up and started having fun. He even took a picture of himself with my camera! John and Sheena came to pick him up around 9:30. Little Grayson was so excited to see his mom. It was quite a pleasure to have a baby around the house again.

Here is an update on my clothing quandry for my mom from earlier this week. My wonderful sister found two very nice shirts, one brown and one black for Momma. Then I went to Wal-Mart Friday night and found some black and brown pants. Wait till you hear how much they were. $3 each!! That is amazing! I just hope they fit her. I also found another pair of pants for $5 and two more shirts for $3 each. So for less than $20 (on my part) and whatever my favorite sister paid for her two shirts, Momma now has 3 new outfits, and an extra shirt!

I finished my day by completing my black coin purse with the red roses. It turned out well and I already have an idea for who to give it to! So fun to make these purses all different, and yet similar. I love making them. Debbie, you need to be thinking about what you want. Maybe we need to go to Loops together to see some of the possibilities. I really want to find a nice turquoise wool. It would look great with a deep chocolate brown!

Good night! Oh, and Happy mothers day!!!

Concert Night!

Tonight Jacob and I joined the Stewart family for Abbey's final orchestra concert. She plays the violin and has for the past four years. The concert was 3 different groups. The 6th grade, 7th grade and the High school Concert group. Abbey is in the third group. It was an amazing performance by all three groups. The last song by Abbey's group was a Santana medley. It was my favorite.

After the concert we went for a icy cold treat at Braums. It was a warm muggy night so the ice cream hit the spot and we had a nice visit with good friends. Doesn't Abbey look happy in this picture? Love, love, love her red hair! I would say that a good time was had by all.

Tuesday, today...

I don't have much to say about my day. So I will show you one of my new projects. I think it turned out well. I still need to install the zipper and attach the bobble, but I like it. The more I look at it, the more I like it.

My next one, partially completed, is a all black with a red rose embroidered on the front. I just have a few more rows to knit. Then I will have to stitch it up, felt it and embroider the rose. The zipper continues to be the most challenging part. If I could get someone really smart to help me with that, I could whip these out really fast. I just don't know how much longer I will be infatuated with these. The best part is the embellishing. So the plain one above is fun, but I miss getting to decorate it.

Bye, have a nice Wednesday.

Early Mother's Day...

Well, it is over again. Another weekend gone. Sigh! I did get a little housework done this time, but mostly I knitted, shopped and played at the mall with the Heinen's.

I did take a little time to stop by the nursing home to visit my mom today. Before I tell you about my visit with her, I will tell you a little about her. Sorry Debbie, you know this stuff already. Feel free to skip to the next paragraph. My dear momma is afflicted with Schitzophrenia. I hope I spelled that right. Oh well. She got only a small amount of time to mother me before we were whisked away from her, for our well-being. I don't question that decision, but I can only imagine how agonizing that was for her. I only recently found out that she fought for us all the way to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. There is an acutal Supreme Court Decision with our name in it. Sad to have had my 15 minutes of fame and not to have even known about it for all this time. Anyway, she fought, and lost. She moved on and did her best, which was sad for her tortured mind. Once, she was a beautiful, smart, talented young lady. But she was never able to meet her potential because of her illness. She has been living in a nursing home for several years now. I feel a bit guilty because I get caught up in my life and often forget to spend time with her. Conversations with her are a true adventure! I am never sure what will pop out of her mouth, or what name she will call me. A talk with my mother would never bore you!

So on with my visit. She was taking a nap when I got there. I hated to wake her up, but I don't get by there as often as I should anyway, so I woke her up. She told me she has a little problem. She is down to only ONE SET OF CLOTHES!!! It seems the laundry eats up, not just her socks (Amy!), but entire articles of clothing. Just a few months ago I bought her several outfits. The cost was reimbursed by her payee. Now I need to get back to the store to shop for her. But she has no money this time, and I have extremely limited funds, so I need to get creative. Last time I bought at a consignment store. There was only one problem, she can't get out to shop with me, and they don't take returns. So what I buy, we keep. I suspect the problem may be the same at a thrift store. So I think I will turn to my old friend Wal-Mart. I will try to get her at least one outfit this week, and maybe next week, one more. Then she will have a whopping total of 3 outfits. But if I try to get her something once a week, maybe she will at least have something for back up when the laundry eats her pants!

I was originally shopping consignment because I thought the quality would be better. However, if they disappear quickly, what does it matter how nice it was? So my executive decision is sweats. Durable, colorful, cheap and comfortable. She told me she does not like sweats, but I think I have to be the voice of common sense here. Does anyone have any brilliant flashes of wisdom to help with this quandry? I think I will get the most bang for my buck at Wal-Mart, so I will scout that out tonight on the internet. I will let you know how it goes. Have a happy week!

Since I've Been Gone...

OK, so I have not blogged in a few days. I have been busy shopping for yarn, and finishing my most recent project. First, the yarn. I had 2 coupons to use at Michael's, so I snuck over to the newly opened Michael's at 71 & I-75 on Thursday and Friday. OH. MY. WORD. It was so cool. Well, mostly just for scrappers or beaders. The yarn department was well stocked but tiny. I was able to get two more yummy shades of wool. I purchased a variegated (spelling??) and another solid. I need one more shade, but I will try to get it tomorrow. Then I will be set for a while. I also had to make a pit stop at Hobby Lobby for a few zippers for my previously felted coin purse. It had been sitting, waiting for a zipper for a few days. When I got home from Bunko last night I put the zipper in. It was actually easier than the first one. I guess I am starting to get the hang of it!

I decided to give the completed striped purse to Emily for her 13th birthday. Today we celebrated her birthday with about 17 of her closest friends. It was a scavenger hunt at the mall. What fun! Chasing 5 girls around the mall while we look for miscellaneous, mysterious things, pose for kooky pictures, and generally run ourselves ragged. I am sure the girls are fine. I am wiped out. It was a lot of fun. I have not spent that much time at the mall in years. The girls were a lot of fun too.

Happy Birthday Miss Emily!