A Crabby finish and a PSA

When my stitching slump ended, I plodded through "that durn flag" and finished it.  Then I tackled the next monthly block in "Crabby All Year."  Here is the "August" block.  I found it a very boring stitch with mostly dull colors.  But then again, I guess weeds are pretty boring (and annoying).

And as a public service announcement for dog owners, I want to tell you about a product that DH and I bought after we had lived with Annie for awhile.  Our previous dog, Emma, made small, dainty poops that "composted" and disappeared from the yard rapidly.  We never picked up her poop.

Not so with Annie.  She poops in much larger piles and likes to poop in the front part of our yard right near the front walk.  (Emma was an equal opportunity pooper and used the whole yard.)  So, after stepping in some fairly fresh poop bare-footed, I decided that it might be wise to pick up Annie's poop on a regular basis.

But what should we do with it?  Dog poop in the trash can is very stinky, especially in the the south central Texas heat.  I guess I could chuck it over the fence into the neighbor's pasture, but flinging poop is not very lady-like, especially if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.  ;-)  

I remembered seeing a dog poop septic tank called the Doggie Dooley Waste System in a pet product catalog and researched it.  Unfortunately, it does not work in soil with a lot of clay in it, which is what we have.  So I researched some more and found this product:  Doggie Doo Drain Dog Waste Sewer Line Attachment on Amazon.  We bought it and I have to say it works well.

You screw it in to your sewer pipe cleanout and dump the poop in it, following it with water (either a pitcherful or from your hose) and it goes into the city sewer line if you live in the city or into your septic tank if you have one.  We have a septic tank.  In the second picture, you unscrew the handled cap to dump in the dog doo, replacing it after you've dumped.  ;-)

Septic clean-out cap before.

Doggie Doo Drain attachment after.

LoneStar

Changes: Annie has a "fur-ever" home now!

One of the biggest recent changes in our lives was the loss of our dog, Emma.  In June, she suffered a massive, severely debilitating stroke and we had to euthanize her.  It was a very sad day at the vet's office.

We took our time in grieving over our little friend of 12+ years and we will always miss her.  As the days passed, our grief grew less sharp and we realized that the house was a bit empty.  We talked it over and decided we wanted another Jack Russell terrier (JRT).  DH was leaning toward getting a puppy.  However, due to the influence of my stitching friends Lynn and Jennifer who have both adopted several adult dogs, I went to the Texas Russell Rescue website "just to look."  I was both amazed and appalled at how many JRTs there were out there needing homes.

Long story short, we recently adopted Annie.  She is a young (1-2 years old) JRT.  She was found wandering the streets of Wichita Falls, Texas, last December by animal control.  Very emaciated at nine pounds, she was taken to the animal shelter and was slated for euthanasia due to her growling and snapping at everyone.  Besides being underweight and bad-tempered, Annie also had a missing right eye.  The shelter vet was unable to determine it if was from a birth defect or an injury.

A wonderful lady named Sue came in to the shelter to pick up a couple of chihuahuas.  Sue is involved with Little Dogs Big Hearts rescue and specializes in chihuahuas.  She saw Annie sitting sadly in her cage and she sat down beside it.  Annie soon calmed and came over to Sue for some petting.  Sue decided to rescue Annie and took her home with her and two chihuahuas, even though she had no experience with JRTs.

Annie's JRT personality was a bit much for Sue and her chihuahuas, but she persevered and Annie was very well cared for until we adopted her.   (Sue had named her "Sassy," but DH thought that "Sassy" sounded like a stripper name, and I didn't think she looked like a "Sassy" so we changed her name to Annie.)

She is a joy and all JRT and we are happy that we could give her a "fur-ever" home.  (As I type this, she is galloping back in forth in the house, tossing a toy repeatedly over her head - she entertains herself well.)  I am finding it hard to stitch as Annie wants to sleep in my lap every time I sit down in my stitching chair.  Oh well.  We must all make sacrifices!  ;-)

Sitting with my male human.

I see you!

Playing with my purple ball.

 LoneStar        

I breached the space-time continuum...

I really had no intention of neglecting my blog this long.  Yeah, a whole year.  Life happened.  I lost my stitching mojo for many months.  Other things happened.  Changes happened. 

At any rate, I am back and will be once again posting of my stitching projects and our DIY projects around the house as they occur.  

I finally finished "that durn flag" or "One Nation" by ByGone stitches as it is properly named.  I hated each and every stitch of this project.  I dislike stitching long lines of one color, repetitive motifs, and alphabets.  This project had all three.  But my DH really liked it and asked me to stitch it, so what's a gal to do?  

This gal gritted her teeth and stitched the durn thing.  And yes, I complained about it the whole time I was stitching it.  Here it is stitched on Charles Craft tea-dyed Monaco with DMC floss.

"That Durn Flag"

 

The picture is small and kind of wonky, but you get the idea.  It's a big project (400 x 210) stitches, so it was hard to get a good picture.

LoneStar

Summer marches on

The middle of the country seems to be baking in the heat, just like we did here last summer.  We feel the pain - been there, done that, took off the t-shirt 'cause we were sweating too much.  Not that it hasn't gotten hot here, upper 90s with the occasional brush with 100+, but it's "normal" for us.  August is here and that's fine.

We haven't gotten a lot of photo-worthy work done on our DIY projects, although we are making progress.  DH has been doing more electrical work prep before we get the electrician out here to do his thing.  And he had a to spend last weekend mowing and trimming much of our property.  We're getting just enough rain to keep the grass growing.

We've been fighting flying-stinging-things and creepy crawlies in the house all summer.  With all the holes in the wall from the electrical project, Emma spends her days barking "alert" to wasps and "pointing" out scorpions (evil, devilish crawlies).  Wasps are swatted and killed.  Scorpions are grabbed with our very special scorpion removal tool (needle-nosed pliers) and flushed at sea where I'm sure they have a short life in our septic tank.  All this work made Emma tired so she took a break with her Purple Puppy.

Last weekend, I was accosted by a spider the size of Australia, Iowa, a pickup truck, a German shepherd dog, a grapefruit, my hand - well, it was darn big.  I usually wake up on the weekends before DH.  I was sitting on the porcelain throne doing my business when I noticed said spider lurking under the edge of the bathroom sink cabinet.  I managed to suppress my instinctive "spider yell" to avoid waking DH.  The darn thing was too big to swat dead with a shoe (which would have made a lot of noise and made a disgusting and yucky mess on the shoe), so I dug out bug spray and gave it a good dose.  The dratted spider took too long to die and thrashed and crawled around, so I upended the bathroom trash can over it and left it for DH to deal with when he got up.  It gave him a good laugh.

I am not stitching on the scheduled August block of "Crabby All Year" this month and may not for a while.  I'm rather tired of it interrupting my stitching and doubt that I'll ever participate in a stitch-a-long again.  Surprisingly, I am still stitching on "One Nation," albeit rather slowly, and will continue on with it until I am sick of it again.  I'll try to post a picture this week.

We've been spending our evenings watching the NBC coverage of the Summer Olympics.  Each time NBC does the Olympics coverage, we cringe.  They do such a horrible job.  You feel like you are getting little bits of this and that instead of coverage of an entire event.  For example, they will show the last half of the last set in a match of volleyball instead of the whole thing.  I guess it's better than nothing, but we'd love to see an entire event.  Oh well.

LoneStar

Men in trees

DH's work buddy, Billy, recently got a new fancy BBQ smoker.  He enjoys smoking ribs, brisket, and chicken wings.  Since his smoker uses wood, he was looking for a wood source.  DH struck a bargain with him; if Billy would come out and help DH with cutting and splitting wood, he could have a share of it. 

Yesterday they cut up a couple of downed trees and they will split it in another couple of weeks.  Due to last year's drought, we have plenty of dead and downed trees to choose from.  In one day, the two of them were able to get more work done than DH could have done by himself in two.  Here is DH cutting up a huge tree that fell down (we heard it!) this spring.

DH and Emma decided to take a break after lunch today.  She likes to lay on the couch behind his head - he calls her his "hairy headrest."

LoneStar

Making holes in the wall

DH and I had a nice week off together.  Projects got done.  We did some relaxing.  Then, as is often the case, DH had a wild week when he returned to work on Monday.  So this weekend we are doing a lot of relaxing in between minor projects.  

We are now ready to get the electrician out here to do the work DH can't do.  DH was able to set the new breaker box next to the old one, and the electrician will need to move the power from one to the other.  DH had to do some major construction on the wall to do this.  He cut a big hole in the wall and then made it bigger.  He replaced old, bad wood with new wood and then spent time patching the outside of the house temporarily to keep the rain and heat out.  As soon as the electrician does his thing, we will refinish about 15 feet of the front outside wall of our house.  We'll remove the shingle siding and replace it with Hardi-plank and paint.

Inside before (with the freezer still in the den).

Outside before.

Cutting the hole.

Emma supervises.

Holey moley.

A whole lotta wall gone.

Patching the hole.

Sealing the hole.

New box next to old box, ready for electrician!

On the stitching front, I finished the July square of "Crabby All Year."  Now I'm grudgingly working on "One Nation" or "that durn flag" as I affectionately call it.  I intend to stitch on it all through the month of July and then bury it in my stitching bag again.  It remains a boring and tedious stitch to me.

LoneStar

Is it Wednesday already?!

Happy Independence Day, America!

DH has taken the week off to work on the house and relax some.  I've intended to post every day this week, but I haven't.  

This weekend, DH was planning on getting up on the roof to install two plumbing vent pipes, some of the last bits of plumbing he has to do.  Of course, we had intermittent rain a good bit of the weekend which kept the roof just wet enough that he couldn't work on it.

It made him grumpy to have his plans thwarted by rain, so I sent him out to his shop to finish making and mounting the drawers and doors on his shop workbench, which he did.  

The doors and drawer fronts are made from old cabinet doors DH salvaged from a remodel at work.  He saved them from the dumpster thereby saving himself a bunch of money.  The drawer pulls and door handles we got on clearance from Lowe's for fifty cents each. 

On Monday, the weather was cooperative enough for him to get the vent pipes done.  The summer weather is definitely hotter now.  DH hates sweat running down in his eyes, so he "borrowed" one of my microfiber sweatbands to wear.  I think he looks rather jaunty, don't you?  ;-)

I've been stitching on the July block of "Crabby All Year" and hope to have it done by the weekend.  I plan to spend the rest of the month of July stitching on "that durn flag."  Hopefully I can make myself work on it enough to get a lot done on it.  

LoneStar