#27 on the 27th

The flower bouquet from Lyn that he gave me this evening.

We had a nice dinner at La Bottega, a small but quaint Italian restaurant in downtown Vancouver. It was mostly quiet and filled with nice conversation. At one point the couple next to us started arguing loudly, and it was hard to keep a straight face with them so close by. We didn't know if we should have conversation while they were arguing, didn't know where to look, didn't quite think we should pretend nothing was going on. When the woman shrieked, "I know your father is an alcoholic, I Am NOT YOUR FATHER," I turned to Lyn and said, "I think I'm going to have indigestion" and did not care if they heard. We whispered that they probably had loud conversations on cell phones in public places. Thank goodness they left before we finished so we celebrated by staying longer and had dessert (panna cotta for me, chocolate mousse for Lyn).

We couldn't remember all 26 of our celebrations, so I'm recording our anniversary dinners from now on.

Ardella in the garden

Here are a few pictures of Ardella in the garden this morning.





Here's one when we came back inside. The blur around the tail is because she's wagging it.



We've had an off day all day long today. I also got my first weird comment - borders on the obvious, but still made me roll my eyes.

Ardella has been using a head collar for a few weeks now and up to today has been a really good way to take Ardella for walks, to help her resist distractions, and to stop eating stuff off the ground. However, today she decided to just freeze and not move. She did this on an outing to Borders and Whole Foods where I was looking for an anniversary card. Ardella froze several times, but the worst place was in the middle of the street. This is where I got my comment. Someone felt obliged to ask me, "Don't you think it's not a good idea for a guide dog to stop in the middle of the road when she's leading someone?" Well, obviously not. I was good. I explained she was a puppy in training, not a guide. Still, the comment wasn't helpful. So, I couldn't get Ardella to budge and ended up picking her up and taking her to the car. Maybe not the best solution, but it was the middle of the road and we were blocking traffic.

It's possible that Ardella's mouth is sensitive. She's been teething and we did play a brief game of tug and I there was a little blood on the rope and then I noticed her loose canine was gone. She's been teething for awhile though, so I don't know if that is what is bothering her. Ardella has a way of learning things quickly and then balking weeks later. I hope this isn't one of those times. I always considered the head collar a real breakthrough for us.

Puppy class was last night and I discussed housebreaking issues with my leader. I'm going to restrict free water for Ardella and will limit what she drinks to 1/2 cup at a time to see if that will help. So far no accidents at all today. We have a fun field trip coming up in a few weeks where we'll be attending a tulip festival. We've been promised potential for taking great pictures of the dogs. Can't wait!

Week 20!

I am taking off the rest of the day due to low work load, so have some time finally to post. Ardella is taking a nap because she still thinks it's work time.

The last 2 weeks have gone by so fast! Ardella is now 5 months old and looks great. She looks lean and muscular and has gotten quite tall. I realized this when she tried her "let me in your lap" look on me and she wouldn't fit on my lap when I lifted (hefted) her up. She was 26.5 pounds at her 4-month checkup and I know she's gained. Her nose has a pink spot. I want it to stay black.

As far as her behavior, Ardella is mischievous. However, she still continues to learn, but maybe I'm teaching her too much because she gets confused with commands sometimes, especially sit-down-sit and go to bed. Still, she's a fast learner and is a joy to teach. Inside with Aidan I still have to keep the two dogs apart because they both want to be rowdy, chasing, barking, pawing, etc. If they could be outside together this wouldn't be a problem. However, Ardella still eats pine cones and bark dust and I can't let her loose with Aidan right now. Oh - she's recently discovered earth worms. I'm pretty squeamish about digging those out of her mouth. I have played hide and seek with her outside and as long as she's busy she doesn't pick things up off the ground, except when it's time to come in and she picks something up to bring inside.

I think we're making progress with house training and relieving on walks. Ardella has started eating twice a day and this has helped some with predictable times to go. She has also started standing by the door, but it just means she wants to go out, not that she needs to relieve herself. We've been told that on walks that if a puppy starts to go to make the dog sit until the urge passes and then go home. This has worked twice for us now. We can't be too far from the house to make it back, but that's usually all it takes to get her to go. At any rate, we're on 2 days without an accident. Either I'm catching on or she is. I sometimes think this house training is similar to toilet training a toddler - that the parents are trained more than the child until the child is developmentally able to have sphincter control. I'm not sure about puppy development. Does anyone have a good resource for developmental stages of puppies? It would be nice to see if Ardella is on track or if I need to find a different approach.

Now that I have the rest of the afternoon off, we can't go anywhere. Ardella is getting a new coat tonight and I had to wash the one she has clearly outgrown. Hers is going to new puppy - Mardella (I kid you not) - who is one of the cutest puppies I have ever seen (next to Ardella, of course). We're going through an puppy population expansion in our puppy group: Pecoe, Katysue, Virgil and now Mardella. Guess we'll go for a long neighborhood walk. I'll add a picture later today - something other than Ardella going to bed on the rug by her tie-down.

Lyn and I will be celebrating wedding anniversary #27 tomorrow. I haven't forgotten this year!

Ardella at 19 weeks

I missed Ardella's 18th week as she was with puppy sitters. I think she had a great time because she was with children, but I haven't really heard much about her stay yet. I was a little nervous since Ardella is NOT reliably housebroken and sure enough I had reports that she had a few accidents. Still, I'm surprised by how much she matured while I was away - not just in appearance. She seems calmer. I had her in the office with me all day today and she learned "kennel" and would go there when I asked her to! She grumbled a little bit, but it was great to have her with me all day!

Walking with her since I got the head leader has been wonderful, even though she doesn't like it, and riding in the car with her is great, too. No more crate in the car!

Ardella can wait before she gets her food and has learned "take it" before she takes food from my hand. I also taught her "leave it" which came in handy today when she knocked Aidan's food off the counter and tried to eat it. I was able to correct her and get her to stay until I got the food off the floor. Okay, that was a bad thing for her to have done, but I'm so pleased that she is learning commands!

Now if we can just get her housetrained! This dog has no predictable pattern.

Here's Ardella checking out the camera when I took it out the take her picture.



Ardella after she has just settled on the mat after the "go to bed" command.



Ardella bewildered that I'm taking a picture and not rewarding her for going to bed.



I'm so glad to be with Ardella again. I hope I'm home for the duration of her time with us. We've been separated a lot and I'm ready to have Ardella stay put for awhile. One of the things I did while I was in Florida was to reread the manual cover to cover. That was extremely helpful and I recommend doing that from time to time.

Vacation to Tallahassee

I spent last week in warm and sunny Tallahassee, Florida. Lyn and I left on Friday, March 6 and got back on Friday, the 13th - The Ides of March. We stayed at the retirement community where my parents live, in one of the rooms that can be reserved for out-of-town visitors. My 2 sisters were there, too. Ann came on Saturday with her daughter's dog to give to my parents. She changed her travel plans at the last minute to avoid bringing the dog on the plane and drove down with a seminary student from France and his wife from Brazil. Their plans went a bit haywire and they ended up staying in the vicinity through the week. They were a delightful couple. Nancy arrived on Tuesday. We saw family friends, sorted pictures, I got to finish my father's socks so my Christmas presents are done, and my sisters worked on my parents' computers and taught them how to use Quicken. Lyn got to sort through my mother's collections of New Yorker cartoons and put them in categories of interest so my mother could make birthday cards for family members. Lyn reports that the New Yorker tends to favor penguins as cartoon subjects more than anything else.

I lived in Tallahassee from the time I was 2 years old until I was 12 or 13. My father was the pastor of First Presbyterian and we lived in the manse that the church provided our family. Every year I go back to Tallahassee, I make a pilgrimage to see the Terrace Street manse, and this year I took pictures. I read somewhere that ones true home is the home that recurs in dreams. This is the house that I always associate with home and it's been my favorite house. I had the room on the far left of the house, over the screen porch.

The front view:



Lyn got to go to St. George Island with Maria and Tomas (seminary student and wife). St. George is another "sacred" place in my early memories. We would go to St. George every August for a month. At the time we went there were few houses on the island. We had a cinder block house that my parents bought and we had to get to the island by taking a ferry. When we needed food we'd take a motor boat to the mainland and drive to Apalachicola in a car that we had parked in the ferry parking lot. There were wild pigs, dolphins, sharks, tons of shells, big sand dunes, birds, crabs, and even sea turtles that would come and lay eggs. There was a park ranger that lived on the island who took us to see them once. St. George is now home to several million dollar homes and there is a bridge to get there. There's also a state park that resembles the island when I went there as a child. This is where Lyn went and took pictures of sea gulls and the face sculptures that Tomas made in the sand.







Tallahassee's prettiest time of year is in the spring. I always like to go in March or April. This year I got azaleas, though I missed the tea olive - the blossom smell I always associate with Tallahassee. These pictures were taken where my parents live.

A red bud tree:



Azaleas:





Dogwoods just beginning to bloom:



Vacation ended too soon. I didn't want to come back to the gray blanket of Portland, but I missed Ardella and couldn't stay longer. Plus, we are employed and had to come back to work. Sigh!

Some finished objects

This is going to be a long 3-part post. I have my vacation to report, some finished objects to show, and of course I have to talk about Ardella. So, finished objects first.

This is the scarf I knit for the scarf exchange. It was Best Friend scarf in Rowan silk-wool blend. I didn't like this yarn until I washed and blocked the scarf and now I love it. I enjoyed the scarf pattern - it was easy lace and relaxing to do. I would knit this scarf again and probably soon as I have more of this yarn in another color.



While on vacation I didn't buy much yarn, but I did get a cashmere sweater at a consignment store and plan to take it apart and knit something out of it. I've always been curious about the recycled yarn trend and now I have a chance. I haven't done it yet because, well, it's cashmere and I keep wondering if I should leave the sweater intact. Nah! I'm going to do it.

This is not an object I finished, but one my sister Nancy made for me. She saw a knitting bag she liked somewhere on line and created a similar bag from a pattern she made up herself. It's a great bag - the material is very spring-like and there's a lot of room and a lot of pockets perfect for needles, notions, and patterns. It's not a floppy bag at all and stands up nice and straight so I can put my yarn in the bag without it getting tangled in material. It closes with a snap - no Velcro to catch my yarn. I love this bag! Nancy will be making more, but I was the guinea pig and she asked my advice on things I liked in a knitting bag so she could improve the design. I was a happy recipient and I've gotten a lot of compliments on the bag whenever I go out.

Bag standing and closed:



Inside look at the bag:



Bag closed:

Kevin's birthday

Kevin is still "6" but had his 25th birthday celebration on the last day of February, yesterday. His choice for the family get-together birthday meal was to go to Rib City Grill, a new restaurant for the family, but probably a restaurant that will become a family favorite. It's always a pleasant surprise to find a good restaurant in Vancouver! We're obviously not Portland, but Vancouver has changed since we first moved here 11 almost 12 years ago. They had very good fried okra and legitimate sweet tea. They passed the Southern test. Here is the family portrait taken by our waitress. This was the one picture Lyn would allow me to post. I had to post the one of me looking away for the camera so he wouldn't have a picture that looked like he had missing teeth. It doesn't matter - I felt like death warmed over in both pictures regardless of the one I posted. There was nothing we could do about the pitchfork over Tim's head.



If you look closely, there is a leash draped over Lyn's leg. That is Ardella's leash and she is sleeping under the table. She did very well, although Kevin looked a little dubious when we showed up at the restaurant with her. As the mother of the bride, I have suggested that Keri use Ardella as a ring bearer at the wedding. This has been a request that has continuously been met with "you've got to be kidding," look. I won't give up. She needs to be a ring bearer!

This next picture is not our new dog. I did help dog sit for my supervisor while she is recuperating from surgery though. When I told my mother that I was going to do this she told me to HUSH, I was upsetting her. So, dog is now gone and I can safely post a picture without upsetting my mother. Klondike is an American Eskimo and has downy, cashmere-like undercoat. Unfortunately, I didn't get enough fur to spin anything of substance, but I'm hoping my supervisor will now understand the value of her dog's fur and will start collecting it for me. Doesn't Klondike remind you of a baby seal. She was a very sweet dog. Tim wanted to keep her and Keri wanted to take her home.



Ardella will be 17 weeks tomorrow! It's going by so fast. I can't remember life before Ardella. It's been an intense 2 months and I'm thinking about her constantly. I don't think I was prepared for the intensity of this experience, but I'm loving it and am still glad we're raising her. We have work to do, but mostly she's a satisfying dog to have around. Bruna "A" puppy raisers - someone in the puppy club commented that Ardella really "swings it" when she walks (meaning her hind end). Do your puppies do the same? Is this a normal gait variation?

Also, puppy raisers, we have to do a field trip for our group in October. What kinds of field trips have you done? We need some ideas.

I'm all about a nap right now. Hope I can do it without coughing!

ISE7 Swap

This is the A Touch of Whimsey scarf I received from Rubyknits this week. It's in Malabrigo teal colorway and I think it's gorgeous, and the yarn is as soft as everyone says. I also received a felted notions bag made by Frabjous Fibers and some green and red stitch markers, as well as a beautiful clematis card and enclosed note from Ruby. I loved my scarf and goodies. Ruby says she's only been knitting a year. Lace after a year is something to feel accomplished about. I think she has a natural talent for knitting. Thank you for the fabulous package, Ruby.

I received the package earlier this week, but am only now able to post it. I've been sick with that 3-week respiratory virus that's been circulating in the community. Lyn picked it up first at the office and graciously shared it with me. I guess the state of respiratory illness in his office was so big that the employees all got a notice saying that there was far too much presenteeism and to please not come to work sick. I work at home, so I have to work sick, although I'm not working today. I had a virtually sleepless hacking-cough of a night last night. I'm only hoping the up side of all this coughing is that it will tone my abdominal muscles! Probably not, but one can hope. As a result of being ill, my ISE scarf has not been mailed but will be mailed tomorrow. I'll post a picture of the scarf after it's been received.