Hide your disappointment for my dog's sake.

Because today I present... the owl bag!

In a photo essay, narrated by Winston.


I can't believe she's making such a big deal out of this bag.


I mean, so it has an owl on it--who cares? It's not even comfortable to sit on!


Mother says I have to mention the three owls on the other side and the long strap for wearing shoulder-to-hip across the body.


For this you kept everyone in suspense for a week?


My mother is so embarrassing sometimes.

A big news day!

In big news...

I'm excited to announce that I'm part of a great group blog for debuting authors--The Debutante Ball! I've been a fan of the debs since their very first book release in 2007, and I'm excited to be the first YA author on the roster.

Here's the link to the official announcement: Announcing the Debutante Ball Class of 2009

So starting in early September, I'll be posting there every Tuesday on a variety of topics. Please join me there. It's a fun group, very interactive. Even as a commenter, I was welcomed from the day I started posting, which was neat. And my fellow 2009 debutantes have some amazing books coming out. I'm honored that my little ghost story is part of the mix.

I also get to be the techie gal, which for some reason has me slightly geeked (that's a good thing).

Also in big news, you can now pre-order BAD GIRLS DON'T DIE on Amazon.com!

Buy it at Amazon.com

Buy it at Amazon.ca (for the Canucks)

I'll announce other outlets and add the link to the "purchase" page as it appears (Powell's, B&N, Borders, etc.).

Can I take this opportunity to remind you to check out the shopping page at GoodSearch? It's called GoodShop, and you select a charity from their list and then click the link to whatever site you wish to shop from. (Amazon and B&N are definitely included.) A great opportunity to give something back.

In small news:

* Winston is fine. Not 100% fine, but when does that ever happen? Yesterday at the beach, he was maniacally chasing his frisbee and he landed funny or pulled something and acted like his left leg was totally lame for about 10 seconds. I scooped him up and ran him back to my friend's house, and by the time we got there, he was fine. Apparently this sometimes happens to couch potato dogs who chase things maniacally. The only thing he was upset about was having to leave the beach. He did recover well enough to win the "tricks" contest at obedience class. Represent!

* Still no digital camera, and therefore no owl bag. I'm getting worried that this owl bag is waaay overhyped, LOL. I should probably embellish it or Bedazzle it. (I was going to add a link to a Bedazzler website, but the official site immediately starts playing a horribly loud video, and I can't do that to you.) For Mary Whitsell: a Bedazzler is a small contraption used by people who feel their clothing needs more rhinestones.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

k.

Owl bag and Superdog

This will be quick, since I'm late for work (as usual--just kidding, bosses, if you're reading this... uh... heh).

I told Adrienne I'd post pictures of my new owl tote that I made. This is a great tote. I used a couple of new techniques to sew it, and it's a very useful bag--assuming you can be vigilant about not tipping it over, because it's fairly shallow for how big it is.

Sadly, I can't find the digital camera, so the photos are going to have to wait.

In other news, Winston decided to play Superdog on the 4th of July. He took a flying leap off a 5 1/2 foot retaining wall and landed chin-first on a small cement curb around a planting bed. Needless to say, he was whisked off to the emergency vet, where he was determined to be fine. He still seems a little sore. He's on an anti-inflammatory. I haven't yet taken him back out to the yard to see if he's acquired a sensible fear of heights (or at least leaps). I guess I'll get to that before too long.

Other than that, I'm revising like a maniac (Project X) and enjoying So You Think You Can Dance. Now I can add "look for the digital camera" to the list.

Happy Thursday, all!

PS - Have you seen this video? It gave me the happies.

Winston's ear surgery went fine.

I spoke to the nurse. Winston is fine, and he's coming home tonight.

Thanks for your support and kind thoughts.

k.

Winston's latest

Bad monkey = me. I'm all backlogged on comment replies and even getting around to everybody's blogs. If you ever read the Little House on the Prairie books and remember the book where Laura's too busy partying it up at church socials and competing in spelling bees to study, that's sort of what my life has been like lately.

But please excuse me for one more day, and also please send some happy thoughts/vibes/prayers (however you roll) for Winston, who is having a minor surgery today for an ear polyp that was discovered over the weekend. It's not the polyp I'm worried about (I'm told they're mostly benign, and you could really drive yourself crazy speculating otherwise), but general anesthesia always carries a risk.

I'm also a little worried that this could affect the hearing in his left ear, but considering he's not a very good listener, I'm not going to lose any sleep over that for the time being.

It began when he gave a big old yelp at about 4 am Saturday, and then later that day proceeded to yelp whenever anyone touched his left ear. We went to the vet and they found the polyp.

So, I have no actual reason to freak out, but I still hate to have him put under. He's such a little guy.

I should put "little" in quotes, though, because he's back up to almost 20 pounds. (The container of sugar cookies he managed to find and decimate the other day certainly didn't help.)

Thanks, everybody. I'll post an update when he's out of surgery.

New Winston video!

I must say, two of my videos have been flagged for copyrighted content by UMG (Universal Music Group, I assume), and they've been very cool about it both times. Which is so smart and realistic of them. Because if someone likes the song, they're going to go buy it, right?

Anyway, it's nice to see someone behaving like a human being in this day and age... even if it is a massive corporation!

Feet first.

I have been writing some gargantuan blog posts lately, so I'm going to try to rein it in a little. Good heavens. God bless all of you who have made it this far without a peep of complaint!

The first and most important order of business for the week is that Winston stepped on a thorn and had to go to the vet to have it removed. It was quite sad, and it got me thinking about how awful it is for animals when they're hurt. "Owwwww, my foot! This is terrible! My foot hurts so bad--WAIT, WHY WOULD YOU BRING ME TO THIS HORRIBLE PLACE?" It's sad to think that dogs will never see the vet's office as a place of caring. They just see it as the place with the cold thermometers.

Big W is fine, and I must say cuter than ever. We call him Thumper because of the sound his bandaged foot makes when he trots around the house: click click click thump click click click thump --

And so on.



In other news, I emailed the first draft of Project X to my Amazon Kindle, which I feel like I keep promising to blog about and not actually doing, and started reading. It seems rather smooth at the present time, although I know thar be rough waters ahead. In the book's defense, I am more overwhelmed than ever with how much of a crush I have on one of my characters, which I realize is kind of creepy.

And... scene.

Ultimate nerd confession bonanza!!! + a little rambling.

(Winston photos dedicated to Tom; please note that they do not reflect the tone or content of the preceding and successive paragraphs.)



First of all, I lied a little, inadvertantly. I did finish the draft yesterday, but then this morning I went back and re-finished it. I figured it doesn't break the two-week wait rule for revisions because it was the end. It turns out Tom was right, and less leprechauns needed to be squashed than I'd previously believed.



I ended up adding a thousand words, but seriously, don't ask me how. But now, it's done. For real. For real real.



The party last night was cool. The young woman being feted was turning 24, and being around a bunch of 24-year-olds reminds me how easy it is to feel old. Like, "when the timer runs out and the kitchen light goes out, everybody scream! AAAAHHHH!" I am young enough yet to appreciate the high-spiritedness that prompts this behavior, but too old to actually join in the screaming.



I ended up leaving rather early, mother-in-law in tow, which worked out nicely. Although it's so windy here! I hate this kind of wind. It feels spiteful. And Winston spent the night at daycare, because I had no idea I'd be such a party wuss. So I missed him. Apparently I am a pack animal.



Happily, the giant tree next to our bed didn't crash into the roof (it never does!) and the pieces of destroyed hot tub in the backyard did not fly through our neighbors' living room windows, so that's cool.



The husb had told someone I was late coming to the party because I'd finished another book, and the very kind recipient of this information congratulated me heartily, which made me feel like I was cheating. It kind of feels like I've finished clearing the rubble at a construction site. "Congratulations! You did it!" It's kind of like, well, I made this mess, I had to clean it up eventually.



But I do appreciate the sentiment, for sure.



Now I shall confess my ultimate nerd-dom, and for anyone who wonders what it takes to make someone complete a whole novel, I say: make yourself a chart.

What? A chart? Yes, a chart. Preferably with some graphs and some mathematical functions.

Be ready. Put on your pocket protectors.

Here is my chart.

Column A is the date.
Column B is total word count.
Column C is the number of words I wrote on any given day (Excel does the math for me)
Column D is the average number of words written at any point, based on the final daily average word count, which can be found at the top of Column C

The first graph reflects both actual words written and the average slope of words written (column D), and I still don't totally understand that violet line, but the husb wanted to see it. And I am nothing if not accommodating. The second graph is words by day.

Let me tell you, nothing will motivate you to write more words more effectively than seeing that your word count for the day looks like a ranch house next to a bunch of skyscrapers.

Okay, I'm feeling a little loopy, so I'm going to go now.

Making, making, making... (kind of)

I have quilt pictures to post, but I have to mail the quilt off first. I don't think the recipient reads this blog, but just in case, I'll wait a few days.

In the meantime, we didn't get our family Christmas card out this year, but the night after that big photo shoot, we did a little one with Winston for our annual Winston Alender Calendar. And of course, the calendar made it out the door while the Christmas cards fester in iPhoto.

Here's a link to the photos, if you're interested in checking them out.

Dog show and book are really pressing down on me lately, but both of those should be lifted by week's end... Hope everyone is happy and healthy in the new year!

A lump of coal for me!

Let's just acknowledge that I get an F for blogging and move on with our lives. Okay? Okay.

In the plus column, I get an A+ for crafting. I have been very productive lately, making several Christmas presents. From Bend the Rules Sewing, I made a lined tote bag for my sister-in-law out of some very cute monkey fabric. I also made an apron out of a similar monkey fabric, and a very odd little trivet out of still more monkey fabric.

I helped the same sister-in-law make some very cute little teacup cozies for her mother, and then I hauled out the serger (rethreaded it myself! only took an hour) and made some coasters for the in-laws' rental properties. Many moons ago, I made a series of crazy quilt squares using four pieces of fabric sewn together and then cut with a 6.5" square stencil. Now I piled those together with pieces of flannel, old sweatpants, or old towels, traced a 4.5" square on them, and serged together coasters. It was extremely cathartic and highly addictive. Only two broken needles brought my fun to a stop... fifteen coasters later.

I'm also working on a quilt for a baby (6 months late--the quilt, not the baby), some totebags for the baby's big sisters, and some late Christmas gifts for a rather understanding segment of my own family.

I have to put the finishing buttons on an infant dress I made a while back, kind of for the heck of it--it's the perfect gift for a baby due any day to some friends in Europe. And I also took a look at my fabric stash yesterday and saw a lot of possibilities for some very hilarious baby dresses, which I will make for my own amusement and then put on Etsy or something.

As you can see, I've been fitting in quite a bit of workshoppy time, when I'm not working or taking the dog to the vet. Yes, I was tossing the tennis ball for Winston the other day, and it beaned him right in the face. His eye swelled up intermittently for the next 24 hours, always returning to normal the moment a vet visit was mentioned and then swelling up once the threat of medical care had passed. It turns out all that was needed to cure it was $81 and a useless half-hour at the vet's office, during which time they confirmed that absolutely nothing was wrong.

I hope you have all had a lovely holiday. Try to capture a bit of the Christmas spirit and take it with you into 2008. I'd love to say I'll be blogging again before then (and hey, you never know), but perhaps as part of my New Year's resolutions, I should try to be more realistic.

At any rate, I'll be posting pictures of many projects before too long.

Thith oneth for you, Tom.

Tom, 365 days seems like a really long time to do something without being certain of the results. Perhaps I'm just lazy (or maybe I'm biased). ;-)

So anyway, there is zero craftiness happening in this home right now. The pants were a total bust, in that I didn't finish them. I think they'll be fine, except that the crepe-backed satin doesn't sit flat at the seams, so the pant legs look like they're collapsing inward on themselves. I'm thinking about ironing on some hem tape to hold them flat.

In other news, Winston is sick. He ate something over the weekend, and as I was in Long Beach for the dog show, no amazing hydrogen peroxide trick was employed. So he'd been a little sick (upset tummy) all week, and on Monday, the vet told us to give him antacids, but yesterday things came to a head and he was admitted for some more x-rays (I will have a glowing green dog by the time they finish all of his x-rays) and for fluids, because the poor baby was very dehydrated.

I'm waiting to hear, but it's looking like surgery will NOT be necessary, which is good, because not only is there a dog show to be produced (post-produced), but there is a manuscript to be revised, and sanity to be maintained. Barely.

I made a discovery the other day: I can go without craving craftiness for weeks, but the second I'm supposed to be revising my book, I start immediately trying to procrastinate by sewing. Unfortunately for Evil Katie, Virtuous Katie put her foot down in this instance.

Oh, Lordy, I'm tired. I'm so behind on blogs, but I promise I'll catch up.

Hope everyone is well!

PS - I didn't re-sign-up for this round of Wardrobe Refashion... more on that later.

The big beautiful blue bin.

With all the fires and traffic and abuse of the foster care system and panther sightings, my estimation of the fair City of Angels has been rather trampled on this week.

But I'll say one thing for this city:

We sure can recycle!

Our big blue bin (30 gallons larger than our black trash bin) has a list of items printed on its lid, and I always thought the variety was pretty great. All types of paper, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, etc. We recycle as much as we can, including paper towels (which Winston then pulls out of the kitchen recycle bin and shreds, at which point they go back into the recycling bin).

But last week, I caught a glimpse of a notice on the side of a garbage truck that said plastic bags can now be recycled! This is very exciting to me, because I'm one of those people who saves every single plastic bag in hopes that I'll someday remember to take them to the store and shove them in the already-overstuffed bag recycling can. For two years, I have forgotten to do this. And now I find out that I can just put them in my own blue bin.

Heavenly.

Intrigued, I went to the LA City website and looked for a list of what is and isn't recyclable.

Here's the link. Styrofoam! And soup cans! And wire hangers! And laundry baskets, which puzzles me... who goes through laundry baskets that quickly?

So anyway, I'm happy because now LA has at least one checkmark in the plus column, which has been achingly empty this week (writers' strike... construction at every stage of my commute...).

I have to admit, I'm kind of obsessed with recycling. Throwing something away that could be recycled gives me the heebie-jeebies. And visiting other communities, where recycling isn't a part of the lifestyle, shocks me. If my cold conservative heart is weeping with every landfilled Dasani bottle, Al Gore must be a sobbing mess.

Happy Friday! TGIF, and I can't think of the last time I meant that so sincerely.

Oh! New Winston video up at Youtube:

Fun book find & Halloween

At the thrift store adjacent to my office (which got a monster donation of sewing patterns and magazines the other day, properly culled through immediately by yours truly), I found a 1983 book called "I Haven't a Thing to Wear!" by Judith Keith (her quotation marks, not mine).



I got it because there were illustrations (and because paperbacks are 35 cents), but it's actually a very good, timeless book of advice. Apparently Ms. Keith, beginning in the 1950s, traveled all over giving presentations to women about how to dress and how to build a classic wardrobe. There's a section discussing body types and what silhouettes work and don't work, a little bit of color theory, and just a lot of all-around advice.

You could probably find a used copy if you looked.

And yesterday, of course, was Halloween! With the work schedule, I've hardly had time for sewing, but I did manage to put together coordinating Halloween outfits for myself (Sew U skirt, Built By Wendy) and Winston (McCalls 4686).


Sorry I haven't been blogging much... who knew work was so much WORK?

Little happies

I have to spend the whoooooole day writing, so I thought I'd do a little post while I finish my coffee... just a few things that are making me happy these days.

Heat-sensitive wallpaper, via CRAFT magazine... I guess this is still in the experimental stages, but I love the idea of sitting down to hang out with friends and a flower garden blooming on the wall behind us! Oh well, just feeling whimsical.

This idea resonated with me immediately and deeply and I can't imagine why it's not a bigger deal -- birthday stockings!!! I mean, come on! Imagine how fun it would have been as a kid to wake up on your birthday and have a stocking of little stuff waiting for you. I'm all about family traditions and I think someday I'm going to have to make these for my (someday) kids.

This skirt at "knick knacks & ric rac"... something about the neutral tones with all that color just sort of grabs me. Of course, I'm still on Wardrobe Refashion, so I would have to make my own.

We finally (after two years!) got a spark arrester on our chimney, so we can use our fireplace without worrying about burning down the neighborhood! Hurrah! We live in the hills, so wildfires are a huge concern... everyone in our neighborhood has their own firehose and we have a special sensor in our house that alerts the fire department if any smoke or steam molecules are detected in the air (and there's no calling them off if they decide to come... the guy we bought our house from left the bedroom and bathroom doors open one day while taking a steam shower, and when he came out, wrapped in his towel, there were firemen in the house... whoops!). The weather is perfect for a cozy fire and I'm so glad to be able to have one (and so glad Winston is past his "eating the rocks from the fireplace" phase)!

Also fixed, our dishwasher! Six months of handwashing come to an end. And the best part is, as I was showing the handyman all of the things around our house that needed fixing, I explained that the dishwasher drain thingy just drained all over the counter instead of into the sink, and he pulled the cap off and tightened the inside part and that was that. Fixed. I heart our handyman.

**EDITED TO ADD: D'oh! How could I forget the Brainmonster hat? This is enough to make me want to learn to knit.

Okay, I have to put this nose to the grindstone, but I hope you're all finding little happies everywhere around you!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Not before the wedding!

I'm pretty sure Winston just tried to deflower my pressing ham.

Hmm.

The husb and I are having a fairly magical day, listening to "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and pausing it to discuss approximately every 30 seconds. However, we experienced this interesting development after making some orange-water and sharing a bit of orange with the dog:

ME: Man, he really liked that orange.

THE HUSB: Yeah.

ME: I wonder if oranges are bad for dogs?

(Fifteen minutes of iPhone Googling produces no results.)

ME: Well, I guess he's okay, since he... (pauses) ...Why is he licking the wall?

THE HUSB: I don't know.

ME: That orange was kind of squishy.

(I know from March that fruit that sits too long becomes alcoholic. I probably could have figured this out for myself but I didn't have to because I learned that the Cedar Waxwing, a migratory bird that looooooves to eat fruit, can sometimes eat fermented fruit and get drunk and -- ulp -- die. So it is not outside the boundaries of reason that a slightly softish orange could make an 18-pound dog tipsy. I am sure that a more science-oriented person could speak with authority on the subject. I mean, after all, the husb and I also drank the orange water, and I am not licking walls... that I remember.)

Here is a Cedar Waxwing, and let me tell you, these birds are cool. They stopped in our yard for a day during their migration from Canada back to Mexico, a whole bunch of them. If you click the picture, you can find a picture with more of them somewhere in my Flickr gallery. I am sorry to say I don't have the energy to look it up myself.



The moral is, did I get my dog drunk?

I don't know. We're going for a W-A-L-K to see if we can walk it off.

PS - Here is something that blew my mind from Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle": baby carrots are just shaved down big carrots. I felt like yelling, "SHUT. UP." at my iPod. I think I yelled it at the husb instead.

PPS - Here is another random and mildly interesting thing I found about oranges. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not going to change your life.

Things I couldn't do if I tried.

I'm sorely tempted by Wardrobe Refashion. Basically, you pledge for 2, 4, or 6 months not to buy clothes from a retail establishment. The idea is to work with what you have (dye, alter, etc.), to make clothes for yourself (buying fabric is okay), or to buy stuff in thrift stores and either wear it or make it into something.

You're allowed to buy ready-to-wear work clothes (but my work clothes are the same as all my other clothes), undergarments, shoes, and one item of clothing per month, but you have to post on the blog and confess.

I haven't been buying much lately in general, and I am definitely in favor of cutting back on (1) cheap items of clothing that everyone else in the world owns, and (2) items of clothing made in less-than-ideal conditions, say, by the fingers of tiny Chinese children. (No, I don't know who makes my fabric, but I'll look into it eventually.)

As for #1, one of the most surprising moments of my life was when I showed up to a wedding wearing the exact same dress as another girl. And it wasn't your basic black shift, either. I actually got really embarrassed and annoyed, a much stronger reaction than I would have thought I would feel. Erica B. blogged about this and proves that pictures are worth a thousand words. (Here at katiesews, we get the 1,000 words.)

We have a family wedding coming up. I don't want that to happen again.

I'm also trying to keep an eye on trends, since fashion is all of a sudden fascinating to me after having ignored it for, oh, 30 years of my life. And in doing this, I learned that for Fall 2007, purple is the new whatever-was-the-new-thing-last-year.

That is why I bought purple fabric to make the new and improved, smaller and all-around better pineapple dress (that's what it will always be called, no matter what fabric goes into it). I labored over this new dress with the help of my dress form, Katie Jr., adjusting pleats and pinning and basting and safety-pin sewing and trying my hardest to be worthy of wearing the season's hottest color.

When the husb got home, I tried it on for him, even though there's still no zipper because Sue made me promise not to do to this dress what I did to the last one, and that means I have to wait for her to come over and show me how to sew zippers.

He said, "Maybe you should wear that to the party."

"I want to wear it to the wedding. Purple is the new hip color, and I want to wear purple."

"You could wear that to the party, though..." (wait for it) "...and get something... nice for the wedding."

Grr!

Especially because I went to the website of the company where I bought a dress last year for a different wedding, and no lie -- out of six pages of dress options, two items are pantsuits, two are knee-length, and the rest must be stapled to the poor model's underpants. They are so. so. so. short. You can't show that much thigh at an outdoors Pacific Northwest wedding. I'm pretty sure it's just not done.

I do have another pattern and another fabric that I'm going to try to whip into a garment. This one doesn't have a zipper so it doesn't depend on Sue's whims and/or schedule. It's a really stretchy, heavy knit, though, so perhaps my next blog entry will be about my nervous breakdown caused by dealing with a stretchy, heavy knit.

Speaking of refashioning, here's an old picture of Winston wearing his tough-dog sweatshirt. It does have a heart, but it's still a tough-guy shirt because, cough, whoever appliqued the heart did a really terrible job. The actual shirt is the cut-off leg of a pair of sweatpants I cropped to be capris.

Clearly, he loves it.

Winston is a real man now.

Note: Winston is completely unharmed.

Winston got in a FIGHT yesterday! A co-worker brought her Miniature Schnauzer, Peanut, to the office, and they ended up brawling over the idea of Charlee Bear treats, which are apparently made with doggie crack. When I say "the idea" of these things, I mean they got into it about three feet away from the counter on which the treats were sitting. No humans were making any gestures that even hinted at actually giving these treats.

I must say, I was shocked. Up until now, I've always said, "Winston is a lover, not a fighter." Mostly to explain his tendency to pursue romantic relations with anything made of fabric that comes within two feet of him.

But now what am I supposed to say?

So Peanut awoooo-woooed and snarled at him, and instead of rolling over and showing his belly, Winston decided that Some Things Are Worth Fighting For. So he kind of snarled back, and then both of them backed off for a millisecond like, "Are we going to do this for real? YES!" and then they were back at each other, snarling and slapping and pulling each other's hair and squealing, "John Tucker is MINE!"

They were separated without having the chance to injure one another, which is good for Peanut because she would have been laughed out of the vet's office for fighting with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a breed which, on the scale of dog-to-wolf, ranks somewhere behind "Beanie Baby". I made Winston lie down on his side for a minute, and then I forgave him and had to hug and smooch on him for a while. The co-worker took Peanut back to her cubicle and demonstrated the following hilarious trick:

CO-WORKER: Baaaad girl, Peanut!
[Peanut's ginormous rabbit ears droop... pause... spring back up!]
CO-WORKER: That was very naughty, Peanut!
[Peanut's ginormous rabbit ears droop... pause... spring back up!]
And so on.

Here we are -- I look prouder than I ought to, don't I? (And strangely tan.)


In secondary news, we had an earthquake last night. It was enough to wake both the husb and myself, but not Winston.

Minor earthquakes are scary on many levels. The actual shaking happens rather quickly and then ends. We didn't have anything fall off of anything. (Although if anyone asks, the sewing room was immaculate until that durn quake hit! All my hard work organizing and keeping the place pristine, and one little quake just turns the whole place into a regular pigsty!)

The really scary part is that you suddenly realize all the common-sense preparations you blithely ignore on a regular basis. Such as finding a way to keep the glassware from dumping out of the kitchen cabinets. Getting the earthquake supplies out of the garage, into which you cannot currently go if the power is off in the house.

That kind of thing is what keeps you staring at the ceiling after the quake.

Then again, it could have been worse: Tornado Hits Brooklyn. Geez.

In writing news, the Delightful Editor's notes opened up a couple of really interesting doors in ye olde brain. I think I've found a way to make the story tighter. So hurray! This weekend, I'll be collecting all of those thoughts on paper. And next week... time to dig in!

Have another girl cheese sandwich!

The other day I came across this absolute gem of a website: I Used to Believe. It's a website where users submit beliefs from their childhood. Looking over the highest-rated submissions had me literally crying and shaking with laughter at work the other day.

I also learned something from the Common Beliefs page. I am not the only person who thought that:

Getting fired meant they set you on fire.

They handed you a baby on the way out of church after your wedding.

You lived to be exactly 100 and then died.

You can get sucked down the plughole (the tub drain).

I also thought that bathing suits were called "baby suits" and grilled cheese was "girl cheese" and boys weren't allowed to eat it.

Ah, youth.

On a totally unrelated note, we went shopping yesterday for a birthday card, and Hallmark has an entire section now devoted to cards that play sounds! They have tons of them, everything from music to dialogue from movies and TV shows. The husb wouldn't let me listen to many of them because he thought it was embarrassing to stand in the store and make all that noise. So we moved on to Shoebox, the old standby. But apparently some people ARE allowed to listen to cards in the store, because two of the cards at the party we went to were of that variety.

I never get to have any fun.

We went to the beach prior to joining the party, and Winston had a marvelous time. He started out digging for a giant rock and barking at it, then moved on to chasing the tennis ball down the beach, then keeping the tennis balls out of the water (which involves barking at the water), then chased tennis balls into the water.



For such a little dog, he's a pretty good athlete. He is majorly addicted to playing at the beach. In fact, when it was time to go, the husb said, "Let's try letting him walk without the leash," which we've done before (it's not near any roads or cars or anything), and it's usually fine because he's so tired. But this time he just kept running back down to the beach and making all the people down there catch him and bring him back up to us, which was embarrassing. So I put him on the leash.

Today he has major play hangover. I think we all do. I'm so sore. But I'm going to the fabric store and Sue is coming over and we're going to try to sew a skirt.

I want to know what you used to believe when you were a child. Bonus points if it makes me snort coffee out my nose.

Sing with me.

If your dog eats things he shouldn't,
clap your hands!
If your dogs eats things he shouldn't,
clap your hands!
If your dog eats things he shouldn't,
and you really wish he wouldn't,
If your dog eats things he shouldn't,
clap your hands!

If your dog eats sandwich baggies,
clap your hands!
If your dog eats foil-wrapped cheese spread,
clap your hands!
And if not just once but twice now,
he has eaten bees and said "ow",
If your dog eats cardboard matches,
clap your hands.

If your dog eats things he shouldn't,
clap your hands!
If your dogs eats things he shouldn't,
clap your hands!
If your dog eats things he shouldn't,
and you really wish he wouldn't,
If your dog eats things he shouldn't,
clap your hands!

Clap clap.

On today's menu was bee #2.

The world's most expensive dental flossing.

Winston looooooves sticks. He loves to carry them around when we go outside. It's freaking cute, although when he was a puppy, his "this is not a stick, it's a cigar!" technique always terrified me. Now he's older and he has never once stabbed himself by carrying his stick as if it were a cigar, so I have had to stop worrying.

And it's so cute, because when it's time to go back inside, he politely drops his stick right outside the front door and leaves it there without complaint.

So yesterday we went out, he grabbed his stick, and I ran into someone and stopped to chat, which gave Winston a few extra minutes to chomp. We came back to the house, left the stick at the door as usual, and went to the kitchen for a t-r-e-a-t. That's when I noticed he was making chewing motions although he had nothing in his mouth. I made him drink some water (bribed him, actually: put a little splash of cream in the water bowl) and gave him a t-r-e-a-t, and he seemed okay.

Later, though, he got super mopey and sad, and he was working his mouth the way you would when you had a sore or something (assuming you didn't have the manners not to make weird faces in public). So I called the vet, took him in, and discovered that Einstein had gotten a piece of stick wedged behind his molar. The vet couldn't get it out with her tweezers, so they had to sedate him and pull it out when he was all groggy.

$210, folks!

Yeah, so. That's the price you pay when you own the World's Cutest Dog Who Is Also Completely and Totally Insane.

It was cute, though, because they had to shave his leg to put the IV in and then he got one of those colorful wraps, and I love my dog so much.

Not cute: getting up at 1:30, 4:30, and 6:15 am to the sound of his whining. Also not cute: him getting outside and looking around the front door like, "Where on earth is my STICK?"

"It's about my dog," she said cavalierly.

First: next Saturday March 3 (I think) at 8 pm on Animal Planet is the Portland dog show. Which we just finished like a day ago. This is the quickest post-to-air show we've ever done (not counting the live ones, har har!).

Why is this important? BECAUSE, silly, Winston and I are in it. If you watch almost to the end, midway through the Hound Group (bred to hunt game by sight or scent), you will see a Eukanuba Vet Tip, and therein you will see Winston and me. I am not the one talking -- I am the one sitting at a computer and following my dog around like a creepy dog stalker.

Second, inspired by Linz, assuming you have all seen Winston's Youtube videos, I present:

THE TOP 10 MOST INAPPROPRIATE SONGS TO EDIT WINSTON'S NEXT VIDEO TO

10. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
9. Big Boned Gal
8. The Boxer (ho ho ho!)
7. I'll Make Love to You
6. Streets of Philadelphia
5. Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover
4. Fernando
3. Jesus, Take the Wheel
2. My Humps
1. Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat

Winston and Katie, TV stars

Next Saturday, March 3, at 8 pm, the show I just finished is airing on Animal Planet. If you make it all the way to the Hound group (the last one in the show) and watch the Eukanuba Pet Tip, you'll see Winston and me. I'm not the person talking -- that's Katy Nelson, the Eukanuba vet. I'm the one who somehow got roped into sitting at a computer and pretending to do research, and then I follow my dog around and pet him like a pyscho (why am I petting him while he's eating?!?)...

The German Shepherd Dog who costars is also named Katie. So there were three Katies on set that day.

Anyway, I know I look like a nutjob, let me be clear about that.

Shameless non-writing-related Motherpride.

One of my favorite sites these days is I Can Has Cheezburger.

And Winston made it! Check him out here.

Woooooohoo!

I know, I know, I'm a huge nerd. What can you do about it?

(Apologies to Mom... I'm proud of you, too. This is a different kind of Motherpride, though.)

Obsessive and self-indulgent.

Who, me?

I wanted to plant this link here: Winston's Youtube debut

Please be careful if you're at work; there's audio (music). Nothing scandalous, but co-workers in close proximity will know you've taken a break from the TPS reports.

And how this relates to publishing: if the number of times I've checked the view count is any indication, I'm going to be a flaming wreck with my Amazon sales rank next year.

Cheerio!

I can't stop coughing, and my dog is as plump as a polar bear.

I'm in that awful "meaningless coughing" stage of my illness, where you just cough because it's easier than breathing.

Not to dwell on my poor health, but hoooooly cow, I was sicker last week than I've been in ten years, not counting food poisoning, which I achieve yearly. I learned that all of my feel-good Frankie Muniz philosophies have a tendency to minimize when I'm ill, and I'm not above honking at people or asserting my true place in two merging lines or even saying softly, "I feel like I'm going to pass out" to the good people of Bed Bath and Beyond. Happily, the guilt associated with these acts also seems to minimize, and perhaps that is the universe paying me back for all of my excuse making for its children.

I felt physical pain throughout my entire body, even when I wasn't moving! It was horrible. And I was so excited, because I knew I was baking with fever but the nerd in me wanted to know how baking, so I bought a fancy thermometer, and then I got home and the battery was dead, dead, dead. So I resorted to self-pitiful crying, which was nice because Winston then came and licked the tears from my face, no doubt thinking, "How delicious are Mother's self-indulgent tears!"

What was my point again? Oh, anyway, I didn't know what it meant for a fever to break until mine broke, and it was terrible. But I'm much better now.

Christmas was nice. Saw the fandamily.

Home again. Winston is still in that crazy "post daycare" state of mind where he seems to be in the process of shaking off the crazies and auditioning for his spot in the household. Licks a lot. Needs tummy rubs. Fat as a fat little monkey and I'll be damned if I know how he keeps getting fatter when he's on a strict daycare diet.

That's all, I guess. I'll keep it short and sweet since I have nothing to say. I just wanted to make my mark on the blogosphere.

Why I have not updated my dog--er, blog.

You will have to forgive me, because never before in my life have I been so immersed in the world of dog shows. Actually, I'm not sure if that's technically true; show night is pretty intense. Other than that, no. All I can dog about is dogs. If I'm not looking at the image of a dog on the Avid, I am compiling a database of dogs using Microsoft Dog. Or creating graphics featuring dog names.

The irony of all this is that the actual dog in my life is spending the week at daycare, which makes me sad, because I miss him. In the car, I keep thinking I'm hearing him shift around in his little pop-up crate, but it must be... rats? I don't know.

Also, the curious matter of publishing this on my own blog is the result of MyDog's blog control giving me an error dog one too many times. I don't think it will always be like this; on the other dog, if it's not too annoying, maybe it will be.

Either way, I am dog tired and have to go write more about dogs.

Duets: Frank Sinatra and Winston, Together At Last

1. Can I Steal a Little Turkey?
2. Every Day I Love Food
3. That's Ball
4. When I Was Seventeen Months Old
5. Send In the Bones
6. The Kennel With the Fringe On Top
7. When Somebody Loves Shoes
8. Ain'tcha Ever Comin' Back (and Feedin' Me)
9. Guess I'll Lick Those Tears You Hung Out To Dry
10. Fly Me to the Dining Room Table
11. Hugo Be a Lady
12. MY WAY! ARF ARF ARF DID YOU HEAR ME? I SAID MY WAY!

...and, of course, wrong Sinatra, but...

13. These Boots are Made For Chewing

Last night I dreamed about zombies.

Current mood: sleepy
Category: Life

I don't remember much of the dream, only that it was scary (** good God, speaking of scary, Winston just growled like a freaking Rottweiler for about fifteen seconds straight... I don't know what he was growling at, but let's hope it was the cardboard box in the living room and not a zombie). Anyway, the zombies were mean and hungry and we were all at one of the cathedrals we went to in Dublin, only it was dark and scary inside (and outside). It was also some kind of hotel or shopping mall, and I vaguely remember wanting to stay in my room. And I was late to get back on the tour bus, but I figured they owed it to me to wait.

Maybe that's why I hate leaving my house. You know, zombies.

What a horrible place the world would be if there were zombies wandering all over the place. I did enjoy the movie "Shawn of the Dead", kind of. We had to watch it with subtitles, because the accents were so thick. And before watching that movie, I didn't know that in addition to sounds I can make when things are funny, and sounds I can make when things are scary, I have a completely unique sound for things that are both funny and scary.

In other news, if I don't start working on my Christmas quilt soon, it's going to be a very odd Valentine's Day quilt.

Winston is like the world's living teddy bear. I love how people at work just come in and want to be near him. And he's so sweet to them. It's so comforting to have him around.

I'm sleepy.

What would YOU do...

...for 1/16 of a Wheat Thin?

Kayli's blogs are funnier than mine.

Current mood: tired
Category: Pets and Animals

(First of all, this here is a link that must be followed: Genius)

Kayli always blogs these mind-blowing little blurbs about punching people and having hallucinatory poultry experiences. Okay, maybe not the punching people part, but for sure the poultry.

I wish I had something more meaningful to contribute to the blogosphere. At least I could be one of the people those bitter celebrities talk about or write songs about. Ain't nothing a celebrity likes less than world hunger. Oh, wait, I mean, people who talk smack about them on the internet.

Winston is behaving a little oddly since we picked him up from his ten-day jaunt at doggie daycare. He's very submissive. It's like he thinks he has to earn his way back into the pack. Also, he licks a LOT. And not sustained licking. Just if you happen to get your face near his, there's going to be a tongue on your cheek. Or up your nose, or in your eyeball. I'll only say this once -- I don't encourage it because I know where that tongue has been (the euphemism is "nosing around in the junk drawer"). But some people just love to let him lick all the moisturizer off their faces (cough - Sharkey - cough), and who am I to stand in the way of that? Besides, I let him sleep on my pillow.

I'm starting to worry that all I talk about is dogs. On the plane, I read a book called "The Truth About Dogs", which is partly fascinating dog physiology, and partly depressing "your dog doesn't love you, he's just using you and you're falling for it" thinking. The author kept saying, "Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, I just don't think they love me back" or something. He kept qualifying himself and then contradicting that and acting like the major appeal of his dogs is that they're little biological capsules running around the place.

But I know Winston loves me... right? Otherwise he wouldn't try to stick his tongue up my nose with such fervor.

Nostalgia.

Reading over an entry from the day after we got Winston just made me flash back to the first couple of days with him. As anyone who has had an 8-week-old puppy around will tell you, they are exhausting, mentally and physically. So while Winston slept in his crate (always his safe place), I napped on the couch. I woke up a little while later to see this little puppy sitting on the floor looking up at me, checking me out. For the sake of sentiment, I'd love to say he wagged his tail at me, but I don't remember whether he did or not. One thing is for sure -- I love this dog.

The beeyotch is back.

Seriously. I suck at blogging. But I do not suck at putting a blog on my website, all by myself! Actually, I kind of do. It took me three separate-and-also-enormous efforts and approximately 8 woman-hours. But it's done now, and I am oddly proud.

What else... Winston update: he is 14 months old, and every day he seems to get sweeter. He has some anxiety issues (OH, GOD, A CAR! A LEAF! SOMETHING SHINY!), but overall, he is just a joy and a dear and I love, love, love to snuggle with him. He even jumps off the bed if he has to barf. Which happens a lot. He'll eat anything.

I'm back at work after my June hiatus. Dogs! Vending machines! Seriously,