Give and Take

Another busy week has flown by, and it included taking the pups to the groomer so she could give them their haircuts. When we got back I took this photo. 

Sandy is a little bigger than Dusty now, but not as much as it looks like in this photo on our front porch. Dusty sat and stayed where I told him, but Sandy scooted forward a bit. I rearranged the dogs, but I liked this photo best, so there he is, bigger than life.

Before we took the dogs to the groomer, though, we took the time to stop at the off-leash area at Ponderosa Park. We like to get their energy a bit depleted before they have to sit still for their haircuts. They had fun chasing the ball, and there were some other people and dogs for a little while, so they had some vigorous play time.

They were very calm that evening, after such a busy day. They really enjoy lying in front of the fireplace on a cold night.

We took several nice walks during the week, and Sunday lived up to its name, so we took the pups to Good Dog Loop for an off-leash hike. We found the river again, and managed to hike for a little more than three miles, round trip.

While we were doing that, Peter's family was hiking in the Tillamook National Forest. They got rained on, but it only lasted a little while. That's life in the great Northwest.

We found out that Peter was featured in an article for Alumni at The Ohio State University, where he got his Master's degree. You can read it here, if you're interested in computer science or animation.

It was a very busy week, but I managed to take the time to knit a bit on the Oregon Autumn Cardigan. This view shows one of the sleeve steeks. The white waste yarn is holding the underarm stitches. There's one on the other side, too, of course. I'm doing the decreases at the center front now. It will be a V-neck.

I noticed that I only have about one more week to finish adding family members to my trees in Ancestry without paying for a membership, so I decided I had to spend some time doing that. Charlie's mother, who came from Finland, had made up this tree for us in 1988. 

I've learned so much about my own ancestry from information other people had given on the website that I wanted to give back what I could, so I'm trying to enter all this information before my free trial membership runs out. My mother-in-law was one of six siblings, so there's a lot of stuff. It's also not that easy to read. Those two factors work together to make it a daunting task, but I only have one branch of the tree to go, and all of it will be entered,

The account "Friends of the Pine Ridge Reservation" on Spoutible occasionally asks for things for our indigenous communities in the West. They wanted yarn a while back, and I sent them a big box of leftover yarn from various projects. This time they were asking for books for kids. Right up my alley! One set is on its way to California and one to Nevada.

I also mailed off Daphne's birthday present. It should arrive today.

Charlie decided it was time to take the winter cover off the RPod, and that was a two-person job. We hope to go camping soon, and we need to get her ready.

Over the weekend, the Daphne and Zachary were in Milwaukee for a big dance competition. They did well, of course!

Finally, I had to give some extra time this week to Spoutible, my go-to social platform since Twitter stopped being––um––Twitter. Post News, which is another platform I tried out and have an account with, announced this week that they will be closing. I found out about it when a lot of new people from Post showed up on Spoutible, looking for an alternative. Those of us who have been on the platform for a while needed to give some tips to the newcomers and help them take it all in. That provided some fun moments. 

Happy Earth Day! Give some thought to all we take from our Mother Earth, and help us minimize our impact!

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still working on the Oregon Cardigan.

What's on my loom: Still in its corner under the windows, waiting.

What's on my sewing machine: Still binding for Daphne's quilt, waiting for the quilter to get done.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Good Friends, Nico comes to visit, with Pam at his heels. He has big news for the other dolls. This is an all-new story from #TheDollsStorybook

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to After Death by Dean Koontz. Also still reading Elfen Königin by Holly Black, translated from English.

What's in my wine glass: A special treat. Madroña Petit Verdot, 2019. We've never had a bad wine from this vineyard, so it's our favorite!

We had it with spinach ravioli topped with mushrooms sautéed with onions in olive oil, halved tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh garlic, Parmesan, salt and pepper, and some cucumber pickle and corn salad on the side.

What's my tip of the week: Do you have leftover tea that has been sitting for a few hours in your teapot? You can use it to water the plants, especially if you used filtered water, so they don't get the chlorine. They don't mind the tea at all, and maybe it perks them up a bit!

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook is available from the BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Moving Along

The Oregon Autumn Cardigan is moving along. I've passed the armholes, where the fronts are divided from the back. You can see the motifs on the right side are a bit higher than on the left. That's normal with knitting in the round. (It's called a jog.) When I cut the steek and pick up stitches for the button and buttonhole bands, they will line up. If I were knitting a pullover with these motifs, I would have the new round start under the arm, where it's not too obvious.

I put the body stitches at the armhole on waste yarn and cast on new stitches for a steek above them. I'm about 1" above the waste yarn now, but I have all the stitches back on one needle now, so it's harder to get another good photo.

Meanwhile, the new book is moving along. I wanted to include Pam, the new character, in it, so I did a photo shoot this week to add her to an existing story I plan to use in it.

Stay tuned for more information about that.

Charlie's brother, Jim, came back from Arizona this week and stopped in 

Bend on his way to his home in Florence. He arrived on Tuesday and left the next day to stop to visit a friend who lives north of us. While he was here, we took the pups to Good Dog Trail for a hike and some off-leash time. We finally found the easy way to get to the river.

The current isn't too strong there, and the pups went into the water to get a drink. (It's so much tastier than the filtered water we bring from home.) It isn't warm enough to swim yet, though.

This part of the trail is really beautiful, and it was a lovely day.

I had my Walk for a Dog app running, but I must have accidentally paused it. When I realized it was paused, we had already gone on, so there's a gap.

Jim was keeping track of our hike with his watch, though. When we got back to the car, it said we had gone about 3.3 miles. It also keeps track of steps. That reminded me that my new hearing aids have that capability, too. I just have to remember to turn on my phone and the Bluetooth before I take my hearing aids out of the charger.

Jim has moved along, but we're planning to have a joint camping trip or two this summer.

We had some spinach ravioli this week. We have a new basil plant, so I cut some leaves up to sprinkle on top with some tiny tomatoes, a splash of olive oil, salt and pepper, and a little Parmesan.

Also moving along are our bulbs. These are the hyacinths. (The fence needs to be replaced. One of our neighbors drove over it when everything was covered with snow and he was trying to help us with his snowblower.)

We have dwarf/miniature daffodils, too. We think the squirrels ate our regular daffodils.

The tulips are coming up, but it's a bit early for them to bud yet. Our lilac bushes have little leaf buds.

I did get the binding strips for Daphne's quilt sewn together and pressed. I'll be all ready to sew the binding on the quilt when it's ready. I didn't get her doll sent off yet, but I have it all ready to go, and there's plenty of time. I hope to do that today.

Meanwhile, Zachary is enjoying his new quilt.

You can just see a bit of his head sticking out at the top.

Now moving along to finish Charlie's T-shirt quilt.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still working on the Oregon Cardigan.

What's on my loom: Still in its corner under the windows, not warped, but dusted, at least.

What's on my sewing machine: Binding for Daphne's quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: We needed warming up, so this week's story is about how the weather gets hot in the summer. Why is that? What can we do to cool off? Here's Heat Wave.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Listening to After Death by Dean Koontz. I'm still reading Elfen Königin by Holly Black, translated from English.

What's in my wine glass: SpiceRack Zinfandel 2019. We've had this before Nice!

What's my tip of the week: As we're in an election year, we're beginning to get requests for money disguised as polls. They tend to go through a series of questions designed to get you to say "yes" (i.e., "Do you agree that....) and then they ask you for money. Watch out for polls that are actually dirty tricks, though. You may get a poll that starts out just asking you about yourself (gender, race, age, etc.) and if you plan to vote, which candidate you would vote for if the election were held today, and so on, like a normal poll. That's fine, but then they might go on and ask if you would be more likely to vote for Candidate X if you knew (list of admirable things about the candidate) and would you still want to vote for Candidate Y if you knew (list of unsubstantiated negative charges and rumors). This happened to me, and I reported it to the campaigns of X and Y, as well as to the local political parties. Then I complained directly to the polling agency. This is a cheap version of mud-slinging commercials. Don't fall for it! There are also artificial intelligence recordings that duplicate the voice of a well-known person or candidate telling you not to vote or not to vote by mail. These should be reported, as well.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook is available from the BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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