field trip

On a Ravelry forum last week I was made aware of an interesting place near where I work called the Mechanic’s Institute Library & Chess Room. So today I went over for the weekly tour that they provide. If your in the city and looking for something to do on a Wednesday I recommend it… really interesting place with lots of history. I’m seriously thinking about becoming a member.

This staircase goes down five floors.

And chess…

They apparently have a very active chess club. I <3 these old worn tables. Can you imagine the years it took to wear that down?

And their very own chess director. Who knew?

I realize I didn’t take any pictures of the actual library parts. You know, the books and stuff, but I figure you all know what that looks like. Plus, these were the more interesting bits of the Institute. I found it all very intriguing.

On a completely unrelated note, as per normal, someone has been writing on my shiny new chalkboard. We will not be naming any names.

silently sleeping

And I’m back. Again. Aren’t you three just all excited!?

Tonight I finally got off my ass and made it to the Crafty Meet-up that I’ve been talking about and telling Joe that “I really should go” for months.Gah! Why do I wait so long to do this stuff? Besides the fact that I met other super nice yarny/crafty types (hi Alice and Anne!), it was nice to get out and do something I like to do with other people who like to do similar type things*. Fun! With no pictures! Cause that’s how I roll… not even one shot for Instagram. There’s always next time…

On yet another entirely different topic, um besides the fact I need to work on better segues… I think Leeloo is giving Joe and I the stink eye. It may not be entirely unwarranted, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless. Thank goodness we kennel her while we sleep. One can only imagine what shenanigans she’d get into when we’re sleeping as payback. For what you may be asking? Because we are at our wits end with all the barking. It’s not only embarrassing, but a few weeks ago she made some poor little boy cry cause she scared him half to death with her crazy barking self. Something had to be done and none of our training techniques were doing a bit of good. So, at the recommendation of a fellow dog owner I purchased a citronella collar to startle her so she would think twice about barking. Yeah, well, considering everything from the motorcycle that drove by outside to the crazy shake she does (this time inside) sets it off, not really a winner for teaching your dog to stop barking. Could be good for making your dog neurotic, but not much else. So last week I started the search again and found this remote control buzzer with electric shock**, which seems to be doing the job. She hates it, but has been staying fairly quiet even when it’s not on her. She hates it, but quiet wins every time. I kinda hate it too, but I don’t have any better ideas. *sigh*

She just looks so cute and innocent when she’s sleeping…

*Yeah, the long, convoluted run on type sentences are epic around these parts.
** not to be used at our house…

shhh… she’s sleeping

Before we begin… sleeping puppy… so cute!

Fun, fun day today. Even if we did have to move the clock forward. Blech!
The day was spent with good friends, good food, and maybe a few cocktails. What a great way to end the weekend!

I thought it was time to post some updates on the 30 days of lists, so here we go with Day 10: Wishlist.
I’m really enjoying the daily prompts and the time it creates to sit and think about, well, a lot of things.

Day 11: Date Night Ideas
I’m pretty flexible…

Day 12: Weekly Rituals
Made me think that maybe I could get more done if I had a few things that were to be done on a specific day. It’s funny how I like consistency, but when I sit and think about it, I haven’t created any for myself.

Day 13: DIY’s I Want to Try
I think this speaks for itself

resolution update

I think I need some resolution accountability. I mean, it is almost the end of February, right? So what have I done so far…

• Out of the required 12 completed knitting projects, I’ve managed to complete 3. I’m actually pretty impressed with my current progress since I am tend to much better at the starting side of things.
• So, I haven’t actually started a business, but I have one forming in my head. It would be retail. There would be hats. Jewelry. Bags. A fair portion would be handcrafted.
• Meditating has currently stalled out.
• I’ve read 1 of out of the required 6 books so far. That means one whole book leaves the building…
• Podcast? What’s that?
• I’ve been drinking wine, but not actively learning anything. We’ll get to that later.
• Letter writing. Sort of working on this. I’ve been more diligent about writing an actual note on birthday cards, etc. instead of my typical two line sign off.
• Learn French… nope
• Oh the craft room… I so want this to be a lovely space, but I seem to have stalled out at the moment. I’m feeling a giant upending/purge coming on. Stay tuned.
• The writing. This I’ve been doing better with. Like now. I’ve also been journaling more, which I find helps me to focus. I really need better focus.

Obligatory puppy photo… I just don’t understand how she sleeps like this.

i should blog more

I won’t feel like I have much to say for a while, which is fine. Then I do and I still don’t blog. Doh!

So here are a few things I should have mentioned already.

• My friend Emily sent Leeloo these adorable toys!

They are super and Leeloo adores them. Especially their crunchy ears. Who can resist the crunchy sound? Not Leeloo. That’s who.

 

• My parents were here this past weekend and what does it do? It rains. Well, it rained on Saturday. All day. And since they were here for two days that means it rained 50% of the time. Pooh! So I didn’t get to do all of the things I wanted to do with them, but it was so nice to have them here! In lieu of touring the city, I helped Mom make potato soup with shrimp on Saturday and it is delicious. I’ve been taking it to work and eating it for dinner. Yum! I also made chocolate chips cookies, which oddly is the only thing I took pictures of…

Yeah, those aren’t the actual cookies, but my pictures of the actual baked cookies are not so great. Ingredients, that’s what you get.

 

• Um, I’ve been working diligently on my Cascadia sock. So hard to get a good indoor shot, but here it is… getting ready to start the heel. Oh yeah!

 

• I need to stay away from twitter. Why? Cause people tweet about all kinds of cool stuff. Like these. Thanks Ysolda… I just bought two of them. *squee*

 

• Then there is poor little Leeloo. She was spayed yesterday and I was able to pick her up today after work. She is tired. And sad. And probably doesn’t feel to hot. Which is why I feel so bad for laughing…

It really shouldn’t be this funny. Maybe it doesn’t seem funny from where you’re sitting. But she’s so understandably mopy and has that silly cone around her head and it’s so cute… and funny. I keep giggling. And feeling guilty. But I still giggle. It’s not just me, Joe’s laughing too. I’ve taken a thousand pictures, almost.

veggies and fruit, oh my

Today was the first day of my once a month fruit/veggie delivery from Farm Fresh to You. I know, you’re thinking once a month? Why so often? Yeah. Yeah. Look, I want to eat all this good stuff, but I find that it becomes a little daunting and if this showed up once a week there would be lots of wasted food in the trash. The idea is to start off slow and simple and see where it leads. Any ideas?

The rest of the day has been less exciting. Leeloo went to puppy day care today. I found her sprawled out sleeping this evening. She is so exhausted from all the fun!

what are you doing? I’m sleeping over here…

to a happy new year

We had quite a little scare this morning that included a trip to the emergency vet. She’s fine, but we think she may have eaten something bad on her walk. The dangers of city life. Whatever it is, she’s been sleeping it off…

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Year!

please buy my stuff

Still working on my craft room. I’ve been busy posting things to ebay and hoping that they sell cause we all know it’s better to get a little cash then none at all.

Here is a big mess o’ stuff that I’m still sorting through and hoping to get rid of. It may not look like much, but cross-stitch mags and patterns are deceptively small. So much stuff!

Not everything there is going, but a lot of it is.

The worst part is the closet… I shudder just thinking about it.

OK, I’ve seen worse, but I know that almost everything in there needs to go and it’s just so hard sometimes to let it go. So many things just taking up space, but all have some sort of potential or meaning. Ugh!

Then there’s Leeloo. Still trying to get actual in focus pictures of her. She moves so much!

So this evening while I’m fooling with the camera it dawns on me that I always use this camera on auto and maybe I should turn that off and fool with the shutter speed. And there you have it. Picture perfect. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

a good day

What a lovely day! First I got to spend some quality sleep fun time with Leeloo. She looks so innocent, no?

Oh, am I not supposed to be on the stairs?

It seems that the pillow needs to be “taken care of”.

Totally exhausted. Note that it is apparently more comfortable to not sleep on the squishy pillow.

Later Joe and I went out to a late lunch at La Mediterranee in Pac Heights. Yummy! We had hummus, a spinach salad, and a mixed plate. Would totally eat there again. Afterwards we roamed around the neighborhood and stopped in a couple of shops and just generally fooled around. Then Joe was nice enough to take me over to Imagiknit so I could do some pre-Christmas yarn shopping for yours truly.

I bought some really gorgeous Malabrigo Rios. Two  skeins are for my scarf and two are for Joe’s. I’ll let you decide which two belong together.

For Christmas Eve festivities we’re headed over to Yoshi’s for a show. I’ll let you know how that was tomorrow. For now it’s time for a dog walk and dinner.

out of her shell

Our baby is growing up. We went to puppy school tonight a little early for a short puppy play time and she didn’t hug the wall! She actually pounced and chased and acted like an actual well adjusted puppy. I’m such a proud momma. Of course, towards the end the instructor was using her as an example on how to get them to wait for their food bowl (not rush it) and the instructor accidently kicked the bowl and scared poor Leeloo half to death. She wouldn’t even eat yummy treats out of it after that. Oh well, I guess we can’t expect too much after only a few weeks.

I would post some pictures or video of tonight, but we were too distracted by the cuteness. We’ll have to get some next week cause you have to meet the other cuties in her class. Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate with all the puppiness everywhere.

rain

,rain, go away, come again another day… Of course, that’s like wishing for no sand in the desert at the moment. We have rain forecast for the next foreseeable future.

I would have put the 10 day forecast up, but it looks just like this only it takes up more space.  So, with all this rain comes our first real trials and tribulations of puppy potty training. She just doesn’t want to be out in the rain and she hasn’t figured out how that crazy umbrella of mine works. What this actually means is that we go outside more, not less, which is what she would ultimately like.  I hope she figures this all out soon.

On a brighter note, I was able to finish the scarf I was working on and now I’m going to concentrate on the Orchid Thief shawl. It’s definitely an at home project, which means I need to look into another simple traveling project. Maybe a vanilla sock with this beautiful Trekking yarn that I bought way back when I first started knitting because I saw someone else knitting socks out of it. That was back in ‘07, it’s probably time to set it free.

On that note, I leave you with Leeloo.

I know there’s a treat hiding in there…

trash

Phew! Spent some time this evening going through all these random piles of paper that I stack all over the place. I really need to keep in mind that the recycle bin is my friend, but I seem to have this fear that I’m totally going to need that piece of paper that I picked up the craft show with that awesome jewelry designers info. Keep in mind that as far as I recall I have not once gone back to these people and bought something. Yet, I hang on to them incessantly. Oh and that’s just one tiny corner of the random stuff that (mostly paper for some reason) that I hold on to. Yet another corner of the crazy I like to air in the sun from time to time.

In other news, I’ve been able to knit a little more the past few days. I’m trying to get back to it and get some projects off the needles so I can move along to bigger and better things. I have a plan… I hope it works!

Before I go, I leave you with little sleepy Leeloo. She is exhausted from her first day of puppy day care at SF Puppy Prep. I’m a fan!

puppy school, really

Another busy day. Sometimes I feel like my life is a whirlwind of activity. Mostly puppy activity, but we all know that’s to be expected. I mean, it’s not like I got a puppy and thought she would just train herself. Though, that would have been really awesome!

Tonight we took her to puppy school, which is really more for us than for her. I really have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, but feel like I have a bit more of a grasp on this training thing now. I’ll let you know in a week or so if I’m eating those words. Heh.

I’ve actually been able to get some knitting time in, which has been so very nice. Nothing too complicated, my Orchid Thief has been waiting patiently on the sidelines for a time when I can concentrate on all that lace. Tinking back is not much fun on that thing and I speak from experience… No, I’ve been working on a nice simple ribbed scarf that I can pick up and put down as the need arises. Perfect for me at the moment.

In the meantime I’ve been daydreaming about some sort of sweater to knit. So far I’ve found two that intrigue me. One is Collins, which of course the lovely tweedy yarn that was used has been discontinued. I’m sure I can find some sort of substitute, but I really don’t like putting that much effort into these things. Then there’s Paper Dolls, which I saw someone knit with Madelinetosh merino light and it’s just beautiful. The only downside to this one is that I’ve not done any colorwork before and I’m not sure I want to experiment on a sweater.

So there you have my knitting and puppy adventures for the day. See you tomorrow!

why?

It’s late and I’ve procrastinated yet again on writing. My brain is tired and I don’t have much coherent to say so I’m leaving you with a video of Leeloo eating her dinner.

No puppy was starved in the making of this video…

the weekend

It’s been a long fun weekend. We spent time at puppy socials, a people only social, and went to dinner this evening at Zuni Café. I was even able to get in some meaningful knitting time in. I think we’re beginning to figure out our new schedule and able to get back to a semi-normal existence.

Having a puppy is exhausting and a lot of work (I know, duh, right?), but she won’t be this way forever and I’m sure we’ll look back on this with a sense of relief and sadness that the puppy days are gone. Before that happens I’m just going to work on getting a full nights rest!

moving objects

Have you tried to take a picture of a feisty fast moving pup? It’s tough.

More blur.

Finally!

Or you just wait till she’s sleeping.

And just so you, she’s sleeping on my lap right now. It’s hard to type a post with only one free hand…

not much

Do you have any idea how hard it  is to photograph a moving target?

When she does sit still she must obviously be facing the wrong direction. Obviously.

Looks like I will have to enlist Joe for some decent photo ops.

new arrival

Today we welcome our new addition to the family.

Say hello to Leeloo (from The Fifth Element). You may have noticed that we did not go with Peaches as we had originally planned. Minds were changed. Oh, and her full name is Lady Leeloo Van Meter. That may not be Joe approved, but it’s going on her papers regardless.

She’s a super ham.

She may have stolen my heart… now if only I can get her to go potty so we can settle down for the night.