Misty's Day at the Doggie Spa

Last Saturday, Misty went to Bark and Bubble in Sturbridge, MA for her first haircut.  Her hair was getting very long and out of control.  They told me that she was great for her first time.  She is just not a big fan of the hair dryer.

Here is a picture before:

And here is a picture after:

She looks so different!  She feels like a soft lamb with pure white fur instead of ivory fur.

Just to update you, she is almost 7 months old and weighs 24 pounds.  She is pretty much house trained, with an occasional accident.  Her newest thing is she loves to jump up on everything, people, counters, furniture and Hershey.  Plus she loves to bite.  We are working really hard to break her of both of these bad habits.

Puppy Love - Meet Misty

I know it has been a while since I have posted anything here on my blog, but this is worth sharing.  

We bought a puppy, a sister, for Hershey!

Meet Misty:

Misty is a 4 month old keeshond poodle mix.  She weighs 18 pounds and is mostly fluffy fur.  They are saying that she should be about 35 pounds full grown but I have a feeling that she is going to be a little bigger.

Here is a picture of her after her first bath:

She is mild mannered, sweet, gentle and even lazy by normal puppy standards.  She will run around and play with Hershey and after 10 minutes, she is laying down relaxing.  She has been meeting our neighbors and their dogs and she is more than happy to meet everyone.

Here is Misty meeting her brother Hershey for the first time:

Hershey is really taking to her and they are becoming great friends!

I am so excited that we finally found a sister for Hershey!  She will make a great addition to our family!

Look What We Did!

I mentioned in my last blog post that I have a new job, well actually, my position was eliminated after 23 years.  Thankfully, I found my new job in just 4 days!  I did receive a severance package along with my unused vacation time for the rest of the year.

 

Here's what we did with it:

 

We have been wanting to add a porch to the front of our house for several years and now we had the money to do it without adding more debt.

 

Here is a side view of it:

 

It is 8 feet wide by 26 feet long, almost half the length of the house.  The flooring is made of Trex decking and the railing is all vinyl.  It is pretty much a maintenance free addition!  We even added recessed lighting and a ceiling fan.

 

Here are a couple more pictures with everything done around it:

 

Instead of putting lattice around the bottom, we used the most plentiful resource in Wales, ROCKS!  We feel that it gives a more rustic look to the porch.  I also moved my flag pole to the outside of the porch and put my new flag on it. If you can't read it, it say: "A Spoiled Rotten Dog Lives Here". It is quite fitting!

 

As requested by emerci, here's one with Hershey!  Hershey is doing very well and he loves the new porch too!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my blog readers!

From Diane, Jason and of course Hershey!

New Craft Room Closet - Grand Finale!

Okay, today is the final step to my new craft room closet transformation.  Are you ready???

Here's Jay installing the new orange shelves that we bought from a packaging company in Palmer from Craigslist.  They are painted orange because we used leftover paint from our bedroom instead of buying more.  It is in a closet anyways so I did not care about the color of them.  Plus orange is nice and bright and cheery!

Look at his cute assistant, Hershey!!!  He just had to get involved!  LOL!

Now, the final result.  May I have a drum roll please???

Starting from the bottom, shelf 1, 2 and the stacked containers on the left of shelf 3 are full of quilting fabric.  The tote on shelf 1 on the right is filled with completed projects.  So when I need a gift or people at work have asked me to bring in stuff, it is easily accessible.  The rest of shelf 3, 4 and 5 are totes filled with yarn, organized by yarn weight.  On shelf 6, I have various shaped totes up there with filled with muslin, stablizer, embroiderable items, 4 quilting project boxes and my bag of accessories to assembling my knitted monsters.

You can barely see it but there another shelf above shelf 6 about 10" high to the ceiling.  I put my packaged quilt batting, pillow forms and stuffing for my knitted monsters.  I do need Jay to get it for me since I am still too short on my step ladder.  Lol!

Also, there is about 11" of space to the right of the shelves.  Jay and I looked at Lowe's for storage options for that space but it is tough with the closet door in front of it.  So I have empty project bags and my sewing maching cover in there.

I am very happy with the results!  Now I do not have to clean out the entire closet to make a quilt or to go digging for specific yarn for a knitting project.  Thanks Jay for all your help and inspiration for making my craft room better!

This completes phase one of the craft room renovations.  Stay tuned for the results of phase two and three!

New Craft Room Closet - Part 2

On Saturday morning, I emptied out the closet to get it ready for Jay to bring the shelving upstairs.  It looks like my closet threw up! LMAO!

Here's the first half:

And the second half:

Look, it is empty!

I will be sharing the final results of my craft room on Friday!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

New Craft Room Closet - Part 1

I wanted to share this weekend's project with you.  If you know me personally, you know that it is not like me to be unorganized.  Well I have proof.  Here was the inside of my craft room closet:

This is the left hand side of the closet.  All the stacked totes contain quilting fabric and all the tied bags are filled with yarn.

This is the right hand side of the closet.  On top of the gray tote are various quilt kits from Connecting Threads that I NEEDED to have!  To the right of the totes are bags upon bags of MORE yarn.

This is the top shelf of the closet.  More tied bags of yarn, cotton quilting batting and items to embroider like finger towels, baby bibs and fabric napkins.

Check out my blog tomorrow for part 2!

My First Quilting Retreat in Waterville Valley, NH

This past weekend, I went to Waterville Valley, NH for my first quilting retreat at The Valley Inn, sponsored by Little Pups Designs.  I went with my neighbor Denise and my co-worker and old boss, Joanne.

Denise and I left 7 am on Friday to head up to meet Joanne at Keepsake Quilting and Patternworks (for me) which was on the way.  OMG, these places were wonderfully overwhelming!   I only bought enough material to make only two 20-minute table runners that Denise taught me and some yarn for a few more smaller monsters.  We arrived at the hotel about 2:15 and got set up for a weekend of non-stop quilting.

I could not get over the small group, a total of eight people.  We had plenty of time to get to know everyone, get some assistance and get some work done.  Denise and I were even rebels and stayed up until 11:30 on Friday night and were up and quilting at 7:15 on Saturday morning.

The food was wonderful!  There was a suite were Michelle and Connie were sleeping that also had a full living roon, dining room and kitchen.  Connie prepared all the meals for us.  We never left hungry!

Here are some pictures of us working:

 That is Joanne!  And here is Denise, yeah she found her glasses:

Here is a group of all the retreat attendees:

This was the whole group of  us.  They are (from left to right in the back): Susan, Mary, Connie, Denise, Me, Michelle and in the sled: Joanne and Kathie.

I'll post some pictures of some projects in a couple of days!

Baby Shower Pictures

This past weekend, Jay and I traveled 5 hours up to Waterville, Maine to be with my cousin Jessica for her baby shower.  She had no idea that we were coming!

When we got to her apartment on Saturday, my aunt and uncle went in first while we waited in the hallway.  Dave, Jessica's boyfriend, said she was in the bathroom getting ready.  So I went in, put down my gifts and walked to the bathroom and said "Are you freaken ready yet?"  Jessica shreaked and gave me the biggest hug ever!  That alone was worth the 5 hour drive up to spend the weekend with them!!!

Here are some pictures from my cousin, Jessica's, baby shower.  She opened gifts from the family at her apartment before heading over to Dave's mother's house for the shower.

Jessica meeting Jerry the Monkey:

With all of the baby washcloths:

Opening up her quilt:

When she read the quilt label, For Pig Rolls, she almost cried!  I am so glad that Jay thought about putting that on the label, it was perfect!

Here are the four of us (Dave, Jessica, Me and Jay):

Here are Dave, Jessica, Aunty Dee and Uncle Bob:

We had such a wonderful weekend!  Thank you Aunty Dee and Uncle Bob for letting us stay with you so we could spend some time catching up with you.  While we were there, we were also able to Skype with my cousin Jeff, his wife Alicia and his two year old son Julian who live in Virginia while we were there.  Man, when did I get so old???

Friday's Chuckle!

Here's another Friday chuckle:

I thought this was rather fitting since we are going camping in Vermont for the weekend.  I'll keep my eyes open for bears!  LOL!

Our Ohio Vacation Purchases

We were on vacation in Jefferson, Ohio last week.  We had a very nice and relaxing trip.  It was Hershey's first vacation and first camping trip.  He was very good and is a very personable dog to have at a campground!

While we were there, we went to Middlefield which was the closest Amish community to us.  While we were there, we stopped at a quilt shop called Tiny Stitches (I thought it was a cool name for a quilt shop).  Jason feel in love with this quilt:

He loved the camping related squares and the colors match our camper perfectly.  It is 50" x 55" so we have it drapping over the couch in the camper.

On our way back to the campground that same day, we saw a shop where someone carved things out of trees.  We bought this bear:

Also while we were out there, we visited the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame, Great Cleveland Aquarium and Cleveland Zoo, toured the covered bridges of Ashtubla County and rode 20 miles on the bike path.  My only complaint is that there were not many choices for restaurants near the campground except for McDonald's and Subway so we made sure we ate lunch or an early dinner where we were for that day.  Unfortunately, we are both back to work now!!!

Destroyed Craft Room

Check out this "surprise" that I came home to a little over two weeks ago:

AND

Total craft room destruction!  I had a very rough day covering in Accounting while the controller was out on medical leave and the accounting manager left a month prior.  All I wanted to do was come home and work on the quilt I started over the weekend.  Thankfully, I took the shams I made over the weekend to work to show them off or those may have been shredded too.

Apparently, Mr. Hershey escaped from his crate in the kitchen and had a major party!  I lost 4 knitting magazines, 3 knitting books and 2 skeins of yarn.  I did not take a picture of it but one skein of yarn was pulled from the other bedroom, down the hall, into the living room, around the coffee table and was placed on the couch.  It wasn't shredded or broken, just pulled.  That never happens to me, that's why I wind all my yarn first!  LOL!

Needless to say, his crate has been moved into the other bedroom (with the door closed) and it has a padlock on it.  Since his crate has plastic sides (except for the front and back), he was able to push up the top to unlatch the top part and squeezed himself through the opening while keeping the bottom part latched.

I fixed him and I replaced two of my knitting books with digital copies on my iPad!!!  As long as he does not get at that, I am good!

Hershey Update

Things are going very well with Hershey! We are on day #8 of no accidents in the house!  Yeah!

Here are some new pictures of him from Christmas:

Hiking in the woods with Daddy on Christmas Eve:

And here is my favorite picture of him:

I love those big brown eyes!!!

2012 Resolutions

Happy 2012 Everyone!

Here is a list of my things I want to accomplish in 2012 (in no particular order):

1. Loose 20+ pounds
2. Complete my UFOs (unfinished objects) - I have only 2 projects to complete but they are haunting me!  LOL!
3. Use more of my stash yarn and buy less
4. Knit this sweater for myself
5. Knit more Danger Crafts monsters
6. Knit more socks for hubby and I
7. Learn to crochet socks
8. Learn to crochet doilies
9. Learn continental knitting
10. Work on my scrapbooks
11. Read 50 books (I read 40 in 2011)
12. Try reading different authors

Cool Christmas Presents

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  I sure did!  Here are two gifts that I received from hubby that I had to share with my fellow knitters:

Shirt #1

Shirt #2

I also received some gifts cards for iTunes, Amazon, Applebees, Longhorn Steakhouse and Macy's along with some sweaters, scrapbooking supplies, candles, bath soaps, baking stoneware and bluetooth speaker for my iPad.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Meet Hershey!

I have been meaning to introduce you to Hershey, our new puppy who is a 14 week old chocolate labradoodle.

This picture was taken on the first day we brought him home.  He has been a wonderful dog!  He is so stinken smart too, that's the poodle in him!  He has already learned sit, stay, come, to play fetch and is working on how to stand up on his hind legs.

Here is a picture of him hanging out with me on Monday:

I am so glad that he is a part of our family!  He has helped both of us heal from the loss of Simba.

Happy 39th Birthday to Me!

Wow, I can't believe that this is my 39th birthday.  Where did the time go???

Here is a picture of Jay and I with two celebrities whose birthdays are also today:

This picture is from our trip to Walt Disney World from last year.  Jay took me there for my birthday so we could celebrate it together!

Yarn Tree

I was biking along the bike path in Northampton, MA on Sunday with my hubby and came across this:

If you look closely on the left above my head, you can see that even Underdog had a role in this:

Here's a picture of the tag on the tree explaining it:

Isn't this is neatest thing you've ever seen??!!  Only in Northampton, home of WEBS!!!

Tornado Destruction

On Wednesday, June 1, 2011, Western Massachusetts was hit with several EF3 tornadoes.  Thankfully, our town was saved but the two surrounding ones, Monson and Brimfield were destroyed.  Here are some pictures:

These things aren't supposed to happen in New England.  Please keep the families affected by this disaster in your thoughts and prayers as they rebuild their lives!