October Saturday

Lyn and Madeline have gone to a Trailblazer's game. Someone offered tickets to puppy raisers and Lyn got 2 tickets. Lyn didn't find anyone else to go (I'd rather get a root canal than go to a sport's game), so he and Madeline went alone. At 4-1/2 months, Madeline is a pretty calm puppy and seems to take noise in stride. I hope that the noise level isn't too overwhelming, but I think she'll be okay.

We took Madeline and Ardella to Farmer's Market today and walked around. Madeline has been getting used to a head collar and she was fantastic. No accidents, no freaking out over anything, just a calm, well-behaved puppy. I thought Ardella was doing okay for Ardella, but she had a bout of diarrhea. However, she wasn't panting, drooling, or looking stressed, so other than that bout of diarrhea, I saw a slight improvement. We did have one more shaky moment when a man walked by with 2 parrots who started squawking loudly and startled everyone. I want to continue obedience training with Ardella again, if nothing else just to have some one-on-one Ardella time.

I want Madeline to learn to sleep on her dog bed at night and I'm beginning to consider putting away ex-pens. We need to work on Madeline not snuffing up every pine needle or piece of bark dust in sight first and we need to work on her being able to be present in the room with us without jumping on the other dogs and cats. This is improving, but we still have work to do. So far this entails me being on the floor with her. We play, take naps, I read while Maddy chews on bones. It's a hard floor so I'll be glad when I can trust her to just be present in the room without running amok. I also want the ex-pen out of the living room!

Nothing much is happening. I'm knitting a project for a swap and I'm working on hats, scarves, cowls, and socks for Christmas presents. Next year I'm not knitting for anybody except me. I want a year of being a selfish knitter.

We have a new grocery store in town - Chuck's Produce. It reminds me a lot of New Seasons in Portland where my daughter works, but the store has it's own personality. A lot of the food is organic and local, and less expensive than either New Seasons or Whole Foods. I've found new snack foods to enjoy, love the fresh baked crusty breads, and new local roasted coffees. I'm also thrilled to be able to boycott Whole Foods again. I'm thrilled to support this local business!

I'm almost through with Name of the Wind and I know this will be one of my favorite books for 2010. I'm not really a fantasy reader, but I love it when it's well written, and this book definitely was. I'm thrilled to see there is a release date for the second book in the trilogy: March 1, 2010! The author is very picky about his work, so I expect I'll be happy with book 2.