Lexi made two egg heads but she’s refused to allow me to photograph them because she wants to post them on her blog.

For some reason I thought this project would be a little more involved than it actually was. Eggmond’s collar is a bit of cardboard tube scavenged from an aluminum foil box, connected with white glue. I drew his face on using sharpie marker. Then we filled his head with potting soil and topped it off with a sprinkle of wheat grass grain (which are just starting to sprout.)

I’m growing quite fond of Eggmond.

Physical symptoms of the flu aside, I get this antsy feeling because I’m not doing anything other than taking periodic swigs of cough syrup and popping ibuprofin along with minimal housekeeping duties. I know myself well enough to know that I am not in the right state of mind to start any projects.

However this self knowledge didn’t stop me from trimming Josey’s hair, and giving Lexi a touch of color.

Isn’t she just the cutest?

I think it turned out well.

Alexanne seems pleased with her new look. She told me that she looks like a rock star now and she wants a motorcycle. I told her to reign in that inner diva and that I don’t think anyone makes a motorcycle with training wheels. The conversation ended well enough, although Lexi made it clear that she was not amused by my flippant attitude.

This is not just an amusement park. There are rides, but the main attractions are fairytale and western themed walk throughs, mazes, tunnels, and slides and tons to see so the kids actually end up quite tuckered out after a few hours of running around, crawling through the rabbit hole, and exploring.

What have I done with the real me? Obviously, I am not me. I just can’t be.

Look at my poor dog. Georgia knows that I’ve been taken over by some alien life form that is controlling my central nervous system and it makes her sad.

She is overwhelmed by the responsibility of saving me (and the rest of humanity) from a sinister force that sends out parasitic drones to pull us down into the hive mind.

Or, she’s just enjoying the remaining bits of residual butt heat from my husband’s chair.

I can’t tell.

Black Coffee sock yarn is officially finished. So mood controlling alien parasites can’t be all that bad.

Right?

It’s not like my theoretical mind controlling alien parasite is making me listen to Phil Collins or Kenny G. Or making me read Altas Shrugged, or design handbags from human skin (you know, things that are *truly* evil.)

I bought some vitamin and mineral supplement for Greta and Georgia, and because it’s liquid the dosage is doled out in teaspoons. 1 teaspoon per 10 pounds of body weight.

Because in my former life I was a bartender I know that one ounce is one shot, and a shot holds 6 teaspoons. So really each of my dogs should be getting two shooters a day, which is far easier and faster than trying to accurately measure out 12 teaspoons. Right?

I feel so clever. The only problem is that I’ve packed away the glasses somewhere and I’m not sure which box would actually contain the shotglasses. Why did I not write the contents of each box on the outside of the boxes? Cleverness gone.

On the  bright side I did find a dosage cup conveniently attached to an unopened bottle of cough syrup. I’m clever again! At least I think I’ll be clever until I need to take some cough syrup.

I also bought Greta a nice huge thigh bone at the animal supply store, she’s in heaven.

Greta deserves a treat for being my helper today. While I was sorting and storing fabrics today she kept me company, and when I felt compelled to iron she faithfully kept the cats away from the ironing  board.

Housework is always nicer when I have company.

That man, you know the one; he’s about 6 foot, lean, nice strong features, and wears a wedding ring that matches mine claims to know nothing about the missing ball winder. I think he’s involved with the crime, but he refused to break during the course of interrogation so I was forced to let him go.

The yarn-winder is obviously some place where I have not yet thought to look.

I can’t go on like this so I’ve ordered a new one. A better one. Well, hopefully it’s an upgrade from the old one. The first one was an ordinary table top ball winder that claimed to make 4 oz balls of yarn (average wool yarn was between 3.25-3.75 ounces before the ball exceeded the capacity of the winder) and did a wobbly dancy thing while the yarn guide was stationary. The new one is an inline ball winder, where the yarn guide moves– it also claims to create 4 ounces.

Anyone have any experience with the inline kind? (I know, kinda late to ask since I already ordered it) Amazon claims I’ll see it somewhere between February 6 and 11.

I made a batch of soap just before Christmas and it’s fully cured now.  I am very pleased with the final results (the lather is really nice and my skin smells so good.)

I used coconut oil, virgin olive oil, dried senna, and some pink lime essential oil. This was one of those batches that horrified me from the beginning. The first problem was that somewhere during the process the pot lost too much heat (‘caught a chill’ is how soapers describe it) and refused to trace (thicken up and saponify.)

No big deal, except that the new wand mixer I bought just for making soap had a detachable blade, which I guess I must have thrown out last time I did a declutter in the kitchen. So there was stirring, and stirring, and stirring. And lots of begging, pleading, a little cursing (it was before I quit using swear words) and  some more stirring.

The next day, I decided to throw it all back in the pot and boil it. I went to add a little sugar water and milk to it, and surprise! No milk.

At a certain point, I think any normal person would have dumped the whole mess down the toilet and be done with it, but those oils are kind of expensive and I really had my heart set on some homemade soap. I learned some new tricks from the whole thing though.

1. Sugar water (4 tbs sugar +1/2 cup hot water per lbs of soap-to-be) really does smooth out soap on the border of curdling.
2. Dry Senna leaves have a very strong bad smell when initially added to a batch of hot soap (fortunately the smell ceases when it actually becomes soap, unfortunately by that time it had contaminated the atmosphere in the kitchen)
3. Pink lime oil is *totally* worth the extra money over regular lime oil– the smell stays and hasn’t faded. And it’s not nearly as antiseptic smelling as the artificial lime scent made for candles and soaps (I’m truly impressed)
4. Really ugly handmade soap can still turn out very soothing in the shower.

I chose senna as an additive basically because I wanted to try something that was conditioning (senna is sometimes used as what’s called “neutral henna” because it does not dye hair but makes it feel fuller) and lime because its antiseptic (and smells yummy!) Next time I try this combination, I’m going to do two things differently: I’m going to make it outside on a warm day and I’m going to use a different oil combination (maybe coconut and almond oil instead of coconut and virgin olive.)

The crinkle cut is courtesy of one of the new soap knives I bought back in August. I really didn’t expect such a sturdy knife for what I paid, I’m seriously impressed with the quality and how nice it makes my scary soap look.

Gratuitous cat picture.

It’s hard to get a picture of Sumi-e because she doesn’t like the camera flash. That weird expression she has is because she’s eating the bit of tripe I was trying to use as a distraction.

Sumi-e usually doesn’t look so displeased. I can’t blame her though, I’m not exactly fond of camera flashes myself.

My decision, I’ll live with it.

Now that the girls are all rather nice dogs that come when called and don’t (usually) jump up on people, know how to sit and stay nicely, and head for their chew toys when they want a nice soothing nibble I’m starting to feel confident that they can be around my little treasures without causing too much damage.

We still have a few issues though, it’s impossible to do any gentle art with a 130 lbs Great Dane on my lap, I’ve had Greta for 8+ years and have still yet to fully convince her of this point, although if I tell her to go lay on the bed she will happily comply. Georgia on the other hand is completely unconvinced that an entire queen sized bed is just as good as my lap, or that I really want to pay attention to a bunch of string or fabric instead of devoting every waking moment towards staring into her deep soulful eyes and feeding her tripe. Sadie (aka the dog formerly known as Sydney) prefers her little love seat in my bedroom so needlework isn’t much of an issue with her, for some reason the spinning wheel sets her off into a series of long and mournful howls which is then repeated in chorus (and in a different key) throughout the neighborhood; this limits my spinning to daylight hours, away from Sadie, in an undisclosed secure location with the shades drawn.

The typical view of my craft efforts includes a dog nose. A very large dog nose connected to a very large dog.

I’m not quite to the point where I feel comfortable taking my nice clothes, paintings or guitar out of the closet, but I can sneak in a little knitting and needlework if I’m careful to put it all away when I’m done.

I just want you all to know that when I decided we should take both dogs, it was not because of a flawed pop-ethology theory of doggie buddies. Obviously, the dogs had decided to lace their drool with a psycho-reactive mind control drug and used state of the art hypnotic suggestion technology on me. I was helpless to resist.

Right, so want to see the babies?

Sydney, Georgia and me on their first night

The marle (gray & black in the foreground) is Sydney, and the fawn (standing next to me) is Georgia. I decided that since they weren’t trained (at all) and didn’t recognize their original names that it would be better to give rechristen them, both are 18 months so adapting to their new identities was a fairly graceful affair. According to the original owners neither is leash trained, housebroken, or obedience trained but they are “kinda” crate trained (and I have a huge neon sign saying “Sucker” across my forehead.)

The first thing Georgia did (post-butt sniffing) was check out the kennel (which our dogs don’t use, because they have our nice comfy bed to take over in the middle of the night.) Danes are not outside dogs, and Labs really are way too social to want to sleep alone, so the kennel is more or less for the benefit of Elle, the chicken, who thinks it’s a swimmingly great vacation home when she needs a break from her coop.

Wouldn’t you know it? When we brought Sydney into the mix, and all the butts were sniffed she went right over and started checking out the kennel.

Georgia

Georgia is unconvinced that the big pillow on the floor is actually meant for her use. Because she’s such a big girl (seriously huge– even in Dane terms) at such a young age, we have to be very careful with her joints– which means convincing her that the pads and pillows around the house are for her use.

Syd and her blankie

And then there’s Syd, who is only too happy to declare that everything is hers. Sydney’s a sweety but she’s under socialized with other dogs, hates/fears leashes, distracted by every little thing, insecure and possessive. On the upside; she likes people, she’s already more confident and really digs training. I’m going to ignore the leash thing for a while and just work on her basic manners and obedience skills, I hate putting off something as important as leash training but I don’t want to traumatize her by forcing the issue.

Greta seems to have taken over the potty training for the young’uns– so there haven’t been any accidents in the house. I never trained her to keep an eye on other dogs, but for some reason she’s taken it upon herself to alert us when someone needs to go outside and to reward them when they are done with a barrage of head nuzzles and licks. There is no doubt, Greta is the most awesome dog– ever.