family,

The Pug Shack

Posted by

4

When you spend weeks trolling Petfinder and various animal shelter sites it should come as no surprise that you find two dogs that you MUST HAVE!  But it was a surprise – a big surprise!

The short version :

On Wednesday evening I had a Facebook alert from D#1 about two little pugs at a shelter in western New York.  By noon on Thursday I got a call telling me I was approved to adopt them!  and 3 hours later I was on the road for a 2 day, 12 hour drive to pick them up!!  whew, it was crazy, wonderful and dizzying!! So many plans had to be quickly made (hotels, copilots, dog care for Poe) and so many plans had to be broken (no Vogue Live, no walk in Central Park, no birthday slumber party with Cara! sorry pals!)

Luckily I was not alone on this adventure — Kathleen was up for a spontaneous road trip and it was a good thing too since these little girls spent the entire car trip home sitting on her lap!  They are so energetic (don’t let all the napping fool you) that they were able to leap from the back seat to the front seat despite the canvas dog barrier I have.

20160115_154341-01.jpeg

The bad news is that I may never knit again — my lap is constantly full of pugs!  I KNOW, I KNOW I need to set limits … but seriously ….. look at this ….

20160117_121618-01.jpeg

while there may be no knitting to show, we have been busy on social media (I can manage to use my phone even with all three on top of me!). Officially The Pug Shack on  Instagram, Facebook and their own www.thepugshack.love (which leads right here since purlingswine may end up being a 24/7 pug blog!)

 

 

It’s November

Posted by

9

which means it must be time for my yearly blog post.  I need to justify owning a domain name and paying wordpress for the ‘no ads’ option don’t I?

In addition to the general joys & sorrows of living, there have been two exciting developments around these parts.  D#1 is getting hitched!  The wedding date is June 2016 – she lives in the Buffalo NY area and the wedding will be held there.  Which means she is shouldering most, if not all of the planning with the occasional phone call/text message consult with me.  Her dress has been ordered and is waiting for her first fitting (this will be happening next weekend), venue is all set, cake has been decided upon and a thousand other details are in the works.

One detail that needs attention is the Mother of the Bride dress.  I need to quit procrastinating and start looking.  For awhile there I told myself that I was being proactive with a Pinterest board and my own personal shopping assistants in the form of two very fashionable friends.  But I do believe the time has come to waddle over to the stores and get serious!  Can I put this off until after the holidays and all the desserts?

I’m serious, can I?

The other development is that after six fantastic years, Kathleen (dude! 2011?!  now I don’t feel so bad about the once-a-year blogging) and I are closing The Village Knitter.  Our last day is December 12th, which will give us the rest of the month to dismantle shelving etc.  This is a tremendously bittersweet thing.  We made the decision back in January that this would be our last year, so we have had a long time to come to terms with the idea.  Owning a LYS has been so much more than I ever thought it would be — definitely more work and more headaches than I had imagined, but also much, much more fulfilling and fun too!  I have had such a wonderful time and have forged so many friendships.  I know these will continue past the door closing.  Plans are already in the works in that regard!

I am excited to see what happens next.  My idea is to be busy with house projects through the winter and into spring.  And also catch up on road trips to visit family and friends that I have been neglecting what with the retail hours that the shop required.  Then there will be a wedding.  The post wedding summer agenda will involve a great deal of sitting around.

And after that?  who knows?!

apropos of absolutely nothing – I made this new recipe for dinner tonight and it is delicious and easy!

we were both starving when I was making it so it has turned into late lunch and dinner!

Posted by

1

C360_2011-03-20 14-50-51_org_edit0

market bag

I am closing in on the end of a seemingly endless project and thought I would post a picture of a recently completed projected to cheer me up and remind me that a bind off is close at hand. Kind of like a rainbow – not to say that I am Noah with an ark full of animals and God has sent me a rainbow (although I do have animals and sometimes two pugs and a mutt can feel like an ark especially when they are all in the kitchen trying to trip me. It is at present an odd number and that is how I KNOW for sure I am not Noah).

enough biblical pretensions.

This completed project is a shop sample – the yarn is Woodstock Cotton Lux. You know market bags are a lot like lace — lace only looks good when it is blocked. Unblocked and it looks like a blotchy blob. Market bags only look good when stuffed – sometimes with a charming baguette and bottle of wine for when you are shopping for your nightly bender, or in this case, more yarn! (the stuffing yarn is Malabrigo Rasta).

What is the project on the needles? I am knitting up Stripe Study Shawl and am in the final four inches ….

What else is new around here?  Not too much – the house is quiet again with D#2 back at school.  The shop is filled with busyness and fun.  Mr. Boar is good.  He and I recently took a hike at a place that was so unexpectedly desolate that it would have been the perfect spot to commit a murder.  The fact that we both emerged is proof of our love.

C360_2011-03-09 10-44-09

of course I maintained a safe distance at all times...

mr. wonderful

Posted by

1

IMG_3062We knew it all along didn't we? 

Boar spent the better part of his Thanksgiving weekend tending to the technology issues of the women in his life.  D#1 was having phone trouble.  D#2 was having Garmin issues.  And I was having iTouch issues. 

The first two were somewhat quickly resolved, but my trouble (which was actually with iTunes and not my iTouch) took all weekend to resolve and many many emails.  Initially I took a stab at fixing the trouble.  It all started last week and I spent a solid day trying to figure out just what the hell was wrong.  My iTouch wouldn't synch and I ended up in a perpetual loop of being asked to authorize accounts and computers and then being told they were alreay authorized. And seconds later being asked to authorize again.  I tried deauthorizing everything every which way I could think of.  I tried to just install everything on a different computer.  I tried turning things off and turning them on again. 

My final solution was going to be to erase every damn thing and just reinstall.  And be all huffy and indignant about it.  Boar sensed redundant purchases with my fix, not to mention residual huffy indignation coming his way and took over.  Yay for Boar — he is our IT guy in every way!

If anyone else out there is having the same problem – it was all wrapped up with an old aol account that couldn't be accessed on our end.  The customer service person at iTunes had to go in through the company's side of things and move it it from aol to iTunes.