Kinda wonder what she's up to...

        

And no, I don't know how it got there.  So, because of that, and the fact that I've been lax on taking knitting or spinning pictures, I'm going to just post this



and be done with it. 

Jesus Lady everyone. 

Thank you. 

Good night. 

Please don't forget to tip your waitress.

        

Only 22 lbs of alpaca remain in my living room.  Thank goodness.

Unfortunately though, I have three pairs of socks and  a baby sweater still on the needles.  And I've got spindles upon spindles of fiber I've been spinning, with no place to put them.  Though I did buy 2 more niddy noddies tonite so I can wind some of it off of them.  What the hell is wrong with me?

You think I'm the one thats tired right?

Wrong.





I'm pretty sure that sometime in the 1980's I was promised that I'd have a jet pack or a hover car by now.  Or at least by 2010.  Sure hope they're working on those.  I expect at least one promise to be kept.  Its not like I'm going to have the benefit of social security, right?

        

Phoenix, the dog from my last post died over the weekend.  Apparently her kidneys couldn't take it.

They're currently offering a $3000 reward to anyone who helps put the asshole/s who did this away.

Should I still go forward with a raffle to raise money for her bills, etc?  Please let me know.

        

No excuse for it.  None.

Yesterday evening there was a local news story that had me sobbing uncontrollably.  Someone doused a 2 year old pit bull with lighter fluid and set her on fire.  People stood and watched the dog running in flames down the street AND DID NOTHING.  A police officer was the one to put out the flames.  And the dog lived.  She has 3rd degree burns over 90% of her body and they took her into the shelter and she looked at them and WAGGED HER TAIL!  So they decided to try to save her.  If she was going to fight they were going to fight with her.

I cried myself to sleep last night.  What kind of evil is in people to do something like this?!  (You can read the newspaper story here.)
 
I spoke today with the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter where she was taken originally.  She is still alive and fighting.  They've moved her to another animal hospital in Pennsylvania.  They're taking donations in to help pay for her initial care.

With the help of some of my Friends of Piddleloop riends from Ravelry I"m going to be putting together a raffle (knitting related of course) to hopefully help raise some money.  We raised more than enough when we did one for Vinnie, so I'm sure we can do it again.

In the next day or two I'll blog again with details.  And try not to cry.

        

Not really.

I'm ready for the rain to stop now.  KTHXBAI.

It made working at Tess' Designer Yarns booth a bit muggy and soggy.  Especially today.  Which was worse because I had my hair cut and colored yesterday, so I can't get it wet/wash it until tomorrow.  So I spent most of the day entirely covered by a raincoat.  But it was actually busy.  Surprising, considering the rain.

I DID come back with a bit of a haul.  Weird, considering I wasn't planning on buying anything and really didn't WANT anything.  Until I got there of course.

I'm going to share the most important stuff now, and I'll tell about the rest later.  But lookie.




A MOOSIE.  I was lucky enough to contact them about any available orphans and I scored this one!  Its a crappy picture, but she is beautiful.  Of course, I had to find something perfect to spin on it, so I found this.




Two silk caps.

But I was still having a bit of a Bosworth jones.  So little Miss Mahogany came home today too.





(Insert big cheesy grin RIGHT HERE.)

My knees, my back, my feet...they're killing me.  Apparently I'm not as young as I was this time last year.  But on the nifty side, I got to have a great conversation today with Amy Singer of Knitty.  We were matching up some silk lace-weight at Tess' for her.  It was fun to play.

I picked up some other stuff, like a jumbo flyer for my Hitchhiker that I got last year, beeswax hand cream.  My mother not only bought the Moosie for me, but also some size 4 circular glass needles from Sheila and Michael Ernst, which makes pair #4.  They're in the Lime and Violet color.  No picture I took does them justice, so you'll have to imagine them.

I'm going to bed now.

        

This is Charlie.

 

Charlemagne Foxy Brown Bear, to be exact.  She's our new rescue.  Charlie is 17 months old and is making up for a lot of lost puppy time.  We picked her up on the 11th of this month.

Honestly, I wasn't completely ready, but Conan was very depressed, even the vet commented about it.  I just couldn't let him be unhappy, so I contacted Sydney's foster mom who is now the co-chair of East Coast rescue for Cavalier Rescue.  And then I cried about it and thought about it, and when we met Charlie I kind of felt like she'd be ok.  She has much the same background as Conan.  Puppy mill dog, sick when little, never socialized to humans or other animals, crated for waaaaay too long every day.  Within 15 minutes of her coming home with us she had climbed into Conan's toy bin and pulled out EVERY toy, and de-stuffed or de-squeakered 3 of them.  Needless to say, she now has her own toys and toy bin.   You'd think that'd solve Conan's issue of her touching his stuff.  But no.  She still goes into his toys and chews the ears off of them.

They do play together though.  Usually tug-o-war, but sometimes Conan will even chase her or run around the yard with her.



Don't let the qte-ness fool you.  She's 13 lbs of pure energy-drain.  The only way to REALLY tire her out is to have the neighbor's hyper kid come and play with her for a while.

        

In chocolate.  Seriously.  Theresa and baby Mr. Chuckleface came over to see me and Conan this eveing, and surprised me with a bag of sympathy chocolate and yarn.  I may not have a ton of friends, but the ones I do have...man-oh-man, they're priceless.  Be it luring me out of the house with Starbucks and sock knitting, to sending me surprises, to chocolate delivery, I wouldn't trade any of you for the world! 

Theresa and the baby were the first people I've had over since Sydney died.  I'm glad they came by, baby-time always helps.  And there's a reason (besides the fact that I will not name my friends' kids on my blog, they can, but I won't) that I call him Mr. Chuckleface.  What a beautiful happy boy.  He just keeps growing.  Mr. Chuckleface likes dogs, so he was having a good time watching Conan and trying to grab/pet him.  It was even better when we took him next door to Peg and Jerry's.  He was belly-laughing at Molly and Emma.  That's the way to cheer me up, baby laughs make almost everything ok.

Oh, and here's the yarn. 



Its fromIntention Yarn, the colorway is called Joy.  It really is beautiful.  I need better lighting in the living room.

Warm-fuzzy Wednesday.  I could definitely use more of them.

        

Its not the greatest of pictures, but can you see why she is so special?  Its from a picture of Sydney and her youngest son that is one of my favorite pictures.  She had it made so I can have Sydney with me everywhere.  I'm still kind of at a loss for words to say how great she is and how very lucky I am to have a friend like her.

Oddly, it was a reasonably good day all around.  I got some nifty goodies while at a customer.



So, um, yeah.  Its a pig.  And a keychain.  And a coin-keeper.  And a pirate.

And because I actually needed them....



Some new USB drives.

Now this last one, my customer actually gave to me.



Don't hate me because I have an R2D2 backpack and you don't.  I can't help it.


All of today's goodies aside, it really is starting to get easier.  I don't cry every day, or each time Sydney's name is mentioned.  Once or twice I'll tear up here and there, and at least my eyelids are no longer peeling from all of the crying.

People are coming out of the woodwork with support.  Last week I got a surprise package from two of the Friends of P gals, Becca and Kristy, just because they were thinking of me.  It was filled with super stuff.  Check it...


Some handmade stitch markers (not sure which one of them made them), a little folding scissor (which I actually need!), some alpaca sock yarn (oh, so very soft, and in my favorite color too - GREEN), a nail file/ruler, sock blockers that Kristy made.  She needs to sell them.



A super-rockin'-awesome little sheepy notions pouch, and a bag from Loopy Yarns.  Tell me I didn't feel special.  You'd be lying.

I've gotten an amazing amount of sympathy cards, e-mails, PMs and comments from all over the place.  Thank you guys.  I can't say how much it helps to know that I'm cared for and that Sydney was cared for.  I want to hug each and every one of you.

        

I really don't grieve well.  I don't like it.  I actually feel grief, physically.  When its a breakup I'm mourning, for example, my skin burns.  When its a loved one its full body pain.  Like I've been beaten with a baseball bat.  Its taken a bit, more than a few days I'll admit, but its getting easier.  For both me and Conan.  I know it helped me to get Sydney's ashes back.  It feels like he's home.

I really want to thank everyone for their thoughts, be it here, on Plurk, on Ravelry, on my phone.  Its so touching to know how many peoples' lives my little man touched, even over the internet, and how many people care about me.  It helped a lot.  While cleaning off my desktop computer's hard drive the other day I came across some pictures of him and Conan when they were younger.  It made me smile.  I'm going to have to post some of them here at some point.

So really, other than coping, I've been doing my darnedest to stay busy.  Not so easy in this economy, but I'm going to keep trying.  I have been knitting away rather diligently on my Lady Eleanor stole.  How come no one told me that entrelac was fun?!?  (I know Heather, you did.  I just didn't listen.) 

Anyway, thats my update for right now.  Sorry its not so detailed or anything, but I really just wanted to thank everyone for being so supportive.