General

There’s something about 7 AM dentist appointments – you’re still too sleepy to care, and there’s still plenty of time after to make coffee, eat breakfast and read before going to work. :)

Last night we picked up a Bissell Little Green steam cleaner to well, take care of a couple of puppy accidents. I can’t wait to try it out – if it works, it will save us a fortune in emergency three-days-before-a-party carpet cleaner calls. OK, I agree, it’s pathetic that I can’t wait to try it out. ;)

Four more days until Harry Potter 5! (It may be a little while before new craft projects get the attention they deserve – but there are new projects, of course!)

I hate to do things that make me look like a jerk, but I had to. If you directly link to any of my images from somewhere else, you’re going to get an image that looks like this:

I had to do it, because in the first few days of the month, I’ve gone through as much of my bandwidth quota as I normally do in an entire month. And, after nicely requesting that the person who was stealing my bandwidth simply copy the image to his/her own server, that person instead linked the same image in a different location – like I wouldn’t be able to find it. Hello? Referrer logs?

Anyway, the plan was just to do it for that one referrer, but since it kept changing, I did it for any requests for my images that don’t come from my server. Please let me know if for some reason this messes up the images on my site – as far as I can tell, it hasn’t. And if you ever want to use my images, copy them to your own server, link back to me, and everyone will be happy. (And if you ask me first, I’ll be even happier.)

I’m still feeling icky, so I ended up spending the weekend crafting, drinking green tea as though it were going out of style, and watching movies (I’ve watched almost everything on the Tivo already). I did manage to get outside long enough today to finish some gardening. And no, the pool isn’t open yet. Grr.

But check out all of the progress I made on the christening gift! And my new project has a page, too.

Guess what? It’s June 1st. Which means…in 20 days Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix comes out!!! I’m so excited I can hardly stand it! I actually pre-ordered the book, and only Denis’ sanity – and the fact that I’m getting too old to stay up that late – will prevent me from standing in line to get the book at 12:01 AM. (Yes, I know, this makes me a total geek. So what?)

The fence plans are actually no longer stalled! A few more details to iron out, including getting a call back from the village code enforcement officer (sounds so…official…) about what’s allowed and what’s not. The earliest they can schedule the work is early July, which is later than I wanted but earlier than I’d hoped. In the meantime, I’ll keep my fingers crossed. :)

Either my allergies exploded, or I fell prey to a terrible (but thankfully short-lived) head cold yesterday. Ugh. It was the kind of sick feeling where you can’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes, so I didn’t even manage to do very much crafting. I pretty much sat in the chair and watched Tivo all day.

And I missed rehearsal for band – with the concert two weeks away, that’s bad.

You know what? Even a five-day-long weekend isn’t long enough! I had very ambitious plans, most of which didn’t even get started. Oh, well. At least most of the gardening is done. I still need a handful of annuals and I’m going to have to do some back-breaking labor to clean out the back garden and fill it with something other than weeds. I managed to gain a little control over the weeds out by the pool – since the landscaping I want done is very obviously not going to happen before we open the pool, I decided to make it look at least marginally better. We didn’t open the pool, since it rained most of the weekend. At this rate, we might manage to get it open before the end of the summer.

And I started another craft project. But it’s for a Christmas gift, so that makes it ok, right? (No more frantic knitting the night before gifting something – that just takes all the fun out of it!)

…to me (and Denis)! We’ve been married for four years – seems like longer…er…you know, like we’ve known each other forever…um…I’d better stop before I dig this hole any deeper! ;)

We had a “date” day today. We both took off from work to do “first-date” type things. First, we went to breakfast at IHOP. Then we went to Chase-Pitkin (ok, so home improvement stores aren’t typically first-date places, but what the heck.) At this point I had to stop into Wegman’s for a single-use camera…I foolishly left my camera home. Then the real fun began: a game of mini-golf, followed by skee-ball, air hockey and pinball. We won enough tickets to get a slinky-dog keychain! (And I beat Denis for the first time ever at air hockey!)

After the arcade, we went to see the new Matrix movie. Eh. I liked X-Men 2 better. After eating pancakes and popcorn for the day, we decided a walk along the canal path with the pups would be a good idea – and found out that Murphy is ok with regular bikes, but scared out of his wits by bikes with trailers and jogging strollers. :) Other than that, they both did very well, and one little kid commented that Murphy looked like he had a tuxedo on, because of the white streak on his chest. Very cute!

Finally, we went to Mario’s via Abruzzi for a lovely dinner. They had someone playing piano, and the owner came around with roses for all the ladies there. Mmmm. Such a lovely way to end the day!

I give up. Not only have I lost the battle with the weeds, I’ve completely lost the war. There are more dandelions around the pool than brick chips. The backyard consists entirely of those nasty prickly plants, dandelions and crab grass – with the occasional tuft of nice soft normal grass here and there. Even the dogs walk gingerly out there. Poor puppy paws. I’m finally giving in and getting the whole thing chemically treated all season for some exorbitant price…just as soon as I check out the stuff they’re using with the vet. After all, we take the dogs outside a dozen or more times a day, and the lawn company’s assurance that it’s safe in an hour or two just doesn’t make me feel very confident.

I’ve also decided that I’m a very impatient person. (Yes, I knew this already, but this situation is just reinforcing it.) When I decide I want something done, I want it done now. Not three or four weeks from now. Just now. I’m all about instant gratification. Which is why it’s driving me crazy that after 6 weeks I still don’t have the plans for the fence in hand. Can’t get a permit without a plan. Can’t schedule the work without a plan and a permit. Grrr. At this rate, it will be winter again before I have a fenced-in yard. (At least the weeds will be gone by then.) If the landscaping company hadn’t been so highly recommended, I’d just look elsewhere…but I’m sure that they are all very busy this time of year.

Instead of enjoying my yard, I’ve spent every outdoor moment stressing about it. Wait, let me focus on the good…at least this year, for once, my rosebushes don’t have black-spot…yet. Knock wood!

The past three or four times I’ve used my credit card (in an actual, non-online store) the person behind the register has commented on how neat my signature is. And, it really is – I never figured out how to scrawl my name so that it’s completely illegible. I guess I should be paranoid, because it would probably be pretty easy to forge my signature, and now I get nervous when signing credit card slips, because I’m worried that if I just muck up the bottom loop of the “y” or something, the cashier may think it’s not me.

Doesn’t anyone else have an easily readable signature? What does it say about me? (And no, I’m not a total neat freak – just come to my house when I’m not expecting company!)

The jewelry was a big hit – nobody guessed that I had made it! Actually, my mom liked it so much that we spent the afternoon and evening making more jewelry…I think I’ve created a monster. :)

I just realized that since I’m a godmother, I should have celebrated mother’s day, too! Plus, I’m a puppy mom. That should count for something. Actually, my mom gave me a mother’s day present – a book about quilting and a pretty little pillow wallhanging that is dripping with ribbon embroidery and lace.

Oh, and that little tiny ball of gray yarn was enough to finish the top part of the shawl. I think I ended up with about two yards to spare. So, now I just have to pick up 339 stitches along the bottom edge and knit the border – which ends up being 691 stitches when all is said and done. Yikes!