Belated Blogaversary To Me

No, I have not fallen off of the face of the earth...LOL

Yesterday was the anniversary of my blog...1 year! Does it still count if I really only wrote for about half of that time? :) My life got busy and it impacted everything.

About the time of my last post, I started a new job after almost 2 years of not working. It was with an agency that does school-based therapy (I'm a mental health therapist...not to be confused with just being a mental therapist LOL) and since the school year was almost over, I got to start at the beginning of the summer program the agency does for the kids to ensure that they keep receiving the services that they need until school starts again. I thought I was going to die by the end of the summer! I am the kind of person who goes inside in late April and doesn't come back out until October or so. Not this year! We went swimming every Monday afternoon, and every other Thursday we went to a local water park for the afternoon. I am not supposed to be exposed to direct sunlight due to one of the medications I am taking, so I stayed sunburned for a good part of the summer. Despite all of that, it really was kind of fun. I came home so tired from the heat and the kids that I didn't get to stitch much, and my blogging and blog reading suffered for it.

Well, as of about 2 weeks ago, I am once again unemployed. I was still in that initial probationary period, and they decided that "it wasn't a good fit" for me. I think that means 2 things really...one is that the director is one of those people who is kind of fake and I'm one of those people who is definitely real and I don't think she liked that, and the other reason is that the hospital that the agency is affiliated with is cutting staff and since I was one of the highest paid therapists (due to my 15+ years of experience)...

I was really hurt by all of that because I really liked the job. I had a really good interview on Tuesday of this past week for another agency and I'm am hopeful about that. This agency does not have much in the way of benefits, but it does pay better so I'm hoping things will even out in the end. The guy who interviewed me said that there has been talk about putting together a benefits package and offering it but that this is not something that will happen anytime soon. The hours are much more flexible but it's a contract job where you are paid by the billable hour instead of by salary and I have never done that before. I have been thinking about it and there are a lot of positives so I guess I'll wait and see what happens. Keep good thoughts for me.

I have had time to start stitching again though. I am currently stitching Midnight Watch by Blackbird Designs and also a small freebie that I got from The Sampler Girl's blog a while back called Quaker Boo. Autumn is my favorite season, and for some reason I'm into Halloween this year as well. I always like it for the memories of my childhood and just for the spirit (no pun intended) of it all, but this year I'm into stitching Halloween designs as well. I also have a larger fall piece started that I will get back to by the end of the month and then in late November it's time to start stitching Christmas stuff...my favorite favorite season!

I hope to do better about writing here and reading the blogs that I follow...I do go catch up on them periodically but I rarely have time to comment.

So hopefully...I'm baaaack!

Question For Other Blogspot Users

Blogspot is really messing with my OCD! Does anyone know why it seems to randomly changing the spacing in posts and how to set the spacing you want? For example, my posts are usually single spaced, but then suddenly they will seem to be spaced at double spacing or more frequently, one and a half spacing (between single and double spacing). This is driving me crazy! Help me fix it!

The only pattern I can see to it is that after you insert a picture, everything after that picture will be spaced wrong.

ANY ideas?!?

Some Pictures

I am so behind in writing! I have had lots of stuff going on, and hopefully I'll have time to update things shortly...

Meanwhile, here are some pictures of recent finishes.

Irish Coffee by The Sampler Girl:

Hippity Hoppity by SanMan from their newsletter:

Bunny Tuck by SanMan:

I bought the fabric this one is stitched on from a remnant basket at my LNS and then found that it was just perfect for this!

I have some other pieces that I am just about finished with (some only need charms sewn on, etc) so look for more pics coming soon!

Happy Gotcha Day Rose!

I can't believe that it's been 8 years since I got my darling Rose!!! Daisy had gotten sick and had to be at the vet's all day. I went to pick her up, and being Daisy, she would not let anyone reach into her cage for her. They asked me to come back and get her, and on the way, I passed a cage with Rosie in it. She looked amazingly like my dog who had died about a year previously, and although I thought about it a week, I went back for her. I had been looking for a playmate for Daisy, and this dog needed a home (the vet had been keeping her for the city animal control since they were out of space there) and the rest was history. I remember going to meet her for the first time on Saturday after considering it for a week, and when I sat down on the floor of the vet's office, she crawled into my lap and sighed. That was it. I guess it really wasn't unexpected, since I had bought a collar and leash to take with me! LOL

I love you with all my heart, Rose. Thank you for 8 wonderful years, and here's looking for many more!

A Dog-gone Good Easter Egg Hunt

I have not been posting due to issues with my computer...I can be typing along, and suddenly the cursor moves to another line or part of the page for no apparent good reason. That was irritating enough and then the monitor on the laptop went out. So I now have a laptop with a screwy cursor that makes it hard to type AND I have it hooked to an external monitor that won't sit in front of the laptop so I have to keep turning around to see where the cursor went next. Sigh. The next time I have disposable income, I'm going to replace this stupid system.

However, today was just too good not to write about! An animal rescue organization here did their Fourth Ever Dog-gone Easter Egg Hunt. This involved the "hiding"of 3000 treat-filled eggs in a local park. Then, when the organizer yelled "Go!", a pack of dogs went running for the treat-filled eggs. This was the most fun I've had in a long time.

My friend Cathy and I had planned to go; I sent an email to my friend David (he of the Christmas photos fame) earlier in the week, but didn't hear from him and really didn't expect he'd want to go. The Christmas photo excursion is about all the dog fun he needs for the year. So Cathy and I decided to take Rudy, because he's great fun and would love to hunt out and eat eggs, and Rose, because she is such a sweet little soul that she can easily get overlooked in the shuffle and gets less time with me than the others because she acts out less and demands less. So I really wanted to do something fun for her. I thought she'd love to sniff out treats...heaven knows she loves to eat them. I felt really bad because Daisy would not get to go, but there was no way I could manage an extra dog. So when David called last night and said he was going too, I was really excited. He volunteered to take Daisy, who is not always friendly and who can be fear-aggressive at times. She used to hate him and would try to bite him every time she saw him, and then suddenly, for some reason known only to her, she became his best friend. She usually does well away from home turf though, so 3 humans with 3 dogs set out to get the eggs.

This is how the eggs were "hidden":

I had wanted to keep track of how many eggs each dog found, but we quickly lost count. Rudy had the best time of all. He found and ate one egg (the treat and was working on the egg itself) before the beginning of the hunt, and that only got him interested in getting more. He found about 7-10 I guess. I was trying to leave some for other dogs since there were big knots of people all in a similar area, but apparently I was one of the only ones to do this. The idea seemed to be like little kids - grab as many and as fast as you can! Cathy and Rose got about 10...she said that Rose was not really interested in looking for the eggs, but was really interested in the treat inside once it was opened for her. David and Daisy found about the same amount...I'm not sure how interested she was in finding the eggs either. I had really thought that since they both love to sniff things out that they would be into it.

They had plates of cookies out on tables with signs by the plate that said "These are dog cookies" or "These are human cookies". The dog cookies were so colorful and had been dipped in icing of some kind and looked so good that it was hard to tell the difference without the signs! There were buckets of dog treats of various kinds all over too. Before I had thought of it, David had started a collection for a "doggie bag" for Bosco, who did not get to go. He is untrained and undisciplined and an incredibly strong 75 lbs so he had to stay at home. I looked in our Easter basket at one point, and was surprised at what all David had collected for him! There were metal garbage cans filled with these decorated cookies, so we brought quite a few home...not to mention the treats from the eggs, and some kind of little drop cookies and something that looked just like Pepperidge Farm Chessman cookies.

There were contests for owner/dog look-alike (and the announcer said that you could pick whichever end of your dog that you wanted for the contest lol), an Easter parade for the dogs who were dressed up, and some other contests that we did not stay for. The dogs had a wonderful time sniffing new dogs and new people, and got lots of pets.

And Rose got her picture taken by a photographer who was covering the event for the local newspaper and has her picture on their website!

Speaking of photos...there was a wooden board with the Easter bunny painted on it, and the face was cut out so you could have your dog's picture made as the Easter bunny! I won't get the official ones until next week, and then I'll have to find a way to scan them in to post them, but in the meantime here are some that Cathy took while the photographer was taking the real ones...

Easter Rose:

Easter Daisy:

Easter Rudy:

This was so much FUN!