triple treat holiday

we're celebrating three holidays at our house today

we have Father's Day

and it's our wedding anniversary

and the big black dog that lives here is five years old today -- or at least this is the day we celebrate her birthday -- since she's a rescued dog, we're not certain of the exact date of her birth, but we were told when we adopted her in August of 2005 that she was 8 weeks old, so we decided this was a good day

here is the most recent picture of her -- I took it the day before yesterday while we were working in the garden and she was on squirrel guard duty

she's getting a little silver around the muzzle -- it shows on black dogs sooner
and we added to her guard duty yesterday

the DH spaded up the rest of the garden area and I planted two packages of wax beans

this morning the squirrels were all over the area -- until the guard went out and barked at them

GOOD DOG!!

I really had in mind that we would get to eat the beans -- not the squirrels!


my plan yesterday was to take it easy since the muscle spasms in my shoulder had returned

even so, I did actually finish some projects!

this is the final center block for the commissioned baby quilt --

I thought it would be done earlier in the week, but when I started to put together the original body part, I just didn't like the look of the block

we spread it out on the table and did some redrafting of the pattern, and we like this version much better

so now the applique blocks are ready to be stitched together, which I hope to get to either today or tomorrow


and the last of the crocheting is done on the Christmas afghan -- who knew that would take so long!!

then it took me about an hour to weave in and clip all of the connecting threads too

the finished size is 48 by 77 -- not exactly standard, but its a good size to curl up under on a chilly night

when I do the washing tomorrow it will go into a load then it will be ready to be entered in the state fair

and in December it will go off to it's intended owner

that means that a new knitting project will be taking it's place in the daily work rotation -- I started a pair of booties when I was last at my daughter's, so they'll probably fill that spot for a little while anyway

and another afghan square is complete too

in fact, this is the last one I needed to fill the latest box, so I'll be getting it ready to go sometime this week


time to go have some breakfast!