Going to the Dogs

Monday, the pups went to the groomer. They came home looking clean and handsome.

Very handsome indeed, but it doesn't last. They always get into the dirt before too long.

We took some walks and had some off-leash time...in the dirt.

The weather has been a lot warmer, so I wanted to be able to walk the dogs earlier in the day, which means I'm on my own, since Dr. Nightowl isn't usually available until after 10:00 AM. Lately I've been attaching the leashes to my fanny pack, because my back gets tired when I hold the leashes out in front of myself. I decided I needed one of those hands-free leashes that fasten to a belt. Some allow you to walk two dogs at once without getting tangled up, so we ordered one of those. I'm really liking it so far. The dogs don't get tangled up, because there's a swivel where they attach to the main leash.

While we were putting the shelves up in the R·Pod which is still in the RV driveway out in front, Dusty and Sandy watched us from the backyard.

Because it has been so much warmer lately, I took the dogs out for a walk before 8:00 AM on Sunday. We only had one problem, and that was when a dog barked at us on the other side of the fence as we were walking the Larkspur trail. Sandy ran to the fence to make friends, and when I dragged him back to the trail, he had a bunch of foxtails all over him, including his ears! We had to sit down and pick them out. I combed both dogs after we got home and got a few more. Note to self: Carry dog comb along with poopy bags this time of year. This was our route. We could have continued back along the trail in the other direction and completed another mile, but it was already getting too warm, and I hadn't brought water. I have a pouch on my leash belt, but I need a cup holder.

When we got back I made Banana Oat Waffles. Yum!

The waffle iron is still going great. It will probably outlive me, and it was a wedding present. They don't make things the way they used to.

This was a Madroña week, when we have our wine-drinking party. We always have a great bunch of people. The wine isn't bad, either. Charlie and I had pizza. I use the Costco frozen cheese pizza as the foundation. I sprinkle on Penzey's Frozen Pizza Seasoning. Then I top the pizza with whatever I have, like sliced tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, avocados. We had my Easy (frozen) Corn Salad with it.

I made some progress on the Oregon Autumn Cardigan, working my way down the sleeve.

While I had the rolled oats out to make cookies last week, it occurred to me that I hadn't made granola in some time, so I looked to see what kind of ingredients I could put together and made a batch this week. The recipe made enough for four large cookie sheets, and I only have two now, so I cut it in half.

We've been eating it. It was tasty. On Friday I went to the store to get more nuts and seeds for the next batch. I have dried cranberries on the list, because I used up the last of them. We still have raisins, and dried apricots, which I cut up into small pieces.

This will be good to take when we go camping.

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: Put away for now.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story is the first part of the story of how Emil came to join the family, How Emil Came to The Doll's Storybook, Part One. Charlotte figures out how you can tell if someone is honest by what they say in a letter.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished listening to The House on the Cliff by D. E. Stevenson. It made me realize how Stevenson's novels have influenced me over the years. Then I started On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service by Anthony Fauci. He narrates it himself, and he's good at it. He doesn't seem to have had a ghost writer, so he's a good writer, too. It's like listening to a novel. I also still have Elfen Königin by Holly Black, translated from English. Didn't get to open it up this week.

What's in my wine glass: FranckMassard Syrah, 2018, from Spain. Nice.

What's my tip of the week: Brown sugar as hard as a rock? If you're in a hurry, you can put it into a microwave safe bowl or measuring cup, cover with a damp paper towel and zap for 20 seconds. Break up the lumps. Repeat until all of it is soft enough. If you have a few days before you need it, you can add a used (still damp) tea bag or two to a container of brown sugar and close tightly. Check in a couple of days. 

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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Winging It

The Oregon Autumn Cardigan is coming along. I hit one snag during the week, though. I had about 1" of the sleeve done when I realized my gauge was noticeably tighter than the body tension, so I frogged it back to the pick-up round and started again with larger needles. I'm happy with how it looks now.

We picked up some halibut at Costco. It was fresh, so rather than freeze it, we decided to cook all of it and freeze what we couldn't eat at one meal.

We should be able to get two more meals out of what's left. Some of it broke up on the grill while cooking, but it was definitely tasty. I'm guessing the other two meals will come while we're camping.

We had this tasty French Potato Salad, a recipe sent me by our daughter-in-law Alexa. I made it exactly according to the recipe except that we didn't have any champagne vinegar, so I used white wine vinegar, and we had to settle for curly parsley instead of Italian, but it was still delicious. I'm not sure how different it would have been, as this was the first time making this recipe.

We had a tossed green salad with it, with lots of fresh greens, along with tomatoes, mushrooms, small sweet peppers, sliced onions and avocados, with my homemade dressing, which I make using a Good Seasons dressing bottle. See tip, below.

Sunday I made my meatless loaf, which we had with green peas and frozen corn salad.

While that was in the oven, I mixed some dough for oatmeal cookies. I couldn't fit them all on my two cookie sheets, soy about 1/3 of the dough went into the freezer.

We had flag day this past week, on Friday. I put out the flag when I got up in the morning. Before writing this blog post, I decided to refresh my memory about how to care for the American flag, although I still remembered what I learned of the basics from Girl Scouts when I was a child. I found this set of guidelines, which has more specifics than I remembered. (I'm sure we got a simplified version, because we were, after all, just kids.)

The flag went out again on Sunday for Fathers' Day.

From time to time, I get friend requests from "men" on Facebook or Spoutible. (On social media, you don't really know who they are or if they are even human.) Let me say here that I don't accept friend requests on Facebook from anyone I don't know personally, unless they are from the doll groups, where I post my stories. Sometimes I get comments to my posts on Facebook from people who claim to be older men, in the military (?) and either divorced or widowed. The wording is pretty much always the same: "I like what you write, and you seem like a nice person. If it isn't too much to ask, please send me a friend request" or "I've been trying to send you a friend request, but it doesn't seem to go through." 🙄 On Spoutible, I allow anyone to follow me, but I don't follow back unless I have some idea of what they're about, because that's what I'll be reading. If they send me a message trying to make contact privately, I tell them I'm not interested in interacting privately. If they persist, I simply block them. Someone on Spoutible shared this, so I "stole" it to start using when someone (I call them "mashers") tries that, and I've already used it twice...for the same person both times.

This undoubtedly stems from the topic that went around social media recently, about women walking in the woods, and would they rather come across a man they don't know or a bear. The bear was generally viewed as a safer bet. I wonder if there are any people who fall for the approach these "men" try.

When Charlie has yard work to do, I sometimes have to walk the dogs alone. I've been attaching the leashes to the treat pouch belt, but I'm thinking about getting one of those belts with attachments for leashes. This was our (the pups and my) walk on Friday. We went alone, just the three of us.

It seems to take me about 10 minutes less to walk this same route alone with the dogs. I think Charlie, who's usually in charge of Dusty, let's dawdle more than I do. Sandy is all business and ready to get to our destination, so he can turn around and rush to get home. I usually have to make him wait for the others to catch up.

We took a slightly different route on Saturday, so the pups could have some off-leash time. I think Sandy looks like he wants me to catch up. "Hey Mum! Are you coming?"

Dusty missed out on the photo, because he was busy producing something I needed to go pick up.

The pups had to go to the vet for some routine immunizations, etc., on Thursday. Our vet commented on what good temperaments they both had, and Rocky had, too. He wanted to know if they were from the same breeder. Yes! They both came from Ash's Mystical Poodles in Pahrump. They have their quirks (don't we all?), but they are good-natured sweet dogs. I thought it was strange he would suddenly ask that, when we've been going to him ever since we moved to Bend. Then it occurred to me that it might have something to do with the dog we encountered in the lobby when we arrived. A woman was there with a maybe 7-lb. little dog that looked like some kind of chihuahua mix. When we came in, the dog snarled, barked and lunged toward us. We kept our dogs away, but the poor woman had a hard time keeping control over her dog. I think our vet may have a story about that.

For some cuteness, her are the Portland boys at their cousin Leo's 8th-grade graduation.

For Fathers' Day, Karen posted this cute photo of her family.

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: Nothing.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In this all-new story, Jolena returns from another ski trip, this time to New Zealand, where she learned all about that country in Skiing with Kiwis.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished listening to After Death by Dean Koontz. Now listening to The House on the Cliff by D. E. Stevenson. Also still reading Elfen Königin by Holly Black, translated from English.

What's in my wine glass: A nice Madroña Riesling. Not too sweet, but just right.

 2023

What's my tip of the week: Here's my easy recipe for salad dressing. Fill with balsamic vinegar to the V line (blue arrow), add red wine vinegar to the W line (green arrow). Put in some seasonings to taste: salt, pepper, chopped or minced garlic, and a choice of dried basil, thyme, tarragon or dill, then add olive oil to the O line (red arrow). Don't refrigerate it, or the oil will congeal almost like butter. It won't spoil sitting out on the counter. It's well preserved.

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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