I've been thinking about Mamanette recently. She was a woman who was like a second grandmother to me. (I say second, because my father's mother died when I was three, so I only had one grandmother for most of my childhood). Mamanette's real name was Jeannette and she and her husband, Papa, cleaned my father's and grandfather's office. Mamanette would also come to our house every Thursday and help my mom. Sometimes Mamanette and Papa would take us for the weekend while my parents went to the bar convention or other similar weekend function.

Mamanette was born in 1902 in Holland and came to this country pretty early. I don't know her whole story, but she met Papa, who was from Belgium, married him and their son Junior was born here. Mamanette was an exceedingly strict person. Her house was immaculate and she had the neatest, most beautiful handwriting. When we went to her house, she would not let us touch the walls, as they were made of tile and would show any little fingerprint. I remember the sound of a chime clock and that she had a Steiff bear that she would only occasionally let us play with. I bet that thing is worth a fortune today.

She made us eat runny scrambled eggs and she would mash carrots in with potatoes, but she also turned us on to "papercook" with cream cheese. I don't even know what papercook is, but I think it was some kind of date nut bread. To this day I love sweet breads with cream cheese on it.

I googled her the other day and found out she died in 2001. She had moved to California to live with her daughter in law as her son had predeceased her. We lost touch with her after my wedding in 1988.

I also remember she used to make the most decadent butter cookies. They were made of mostly butter and they were so bad for you but were so so so good. I want to find the recipe. I've been googling Dutch butter cookies and looking at the recipes and this one is the closest, I think. I'm baking them now. I'll let you know how they are.

Today we brought Java out for a walk in the stroller, and then let her walk home. It's really helping the muscles in her legs build back up.

Today Mrs. Gaimari came home from the rehabilitation facility where she was staying after having a knee replacement. She's happy to be home finally.

Tonight is a knitting circle with Christine Lavin and then a concert with Christine Lavin and Don White. I'm looking forward to both events.

This is a picture of the Christmas tree I'm going to auction off in a week or so. The proceeds will go to Friends of Homeless Animals, who I do volunteer work for. This picture shows all the ornaments I made, so I think I need to make a few more - maybe in red and green - to fill it out as the back of the tree is bare. I bought myself another tree so maybe I'll make one for me, too.

The past few mornings, our favorite little place for breakfast has been closed for repairs, so we have been trying new and different places. Today we stopped at the grain store and bought some farm eggs. I'm petrified of finding a chicken inside. I hope they do it right and candle them. I think if that happened to me, I'd be off eggs for life. At least someone else would have to do the cracking.

Yesterday I swear I saw a bald eagle. It was flying over the corn field in Hollis, not too far from the Nashua river. I think it's fitting as today is Veteran's day and the eagle of course is a symbol of this country. Many people on Facebook are thanking veterans for their service and I join them. I think of my Grandfather who fought in WWII and my uncle who served in the army in the early 60's.

Java is continuing to get better. No signs of a relapse. She drops down to the next lower dose of prenisone on Saturday and I cannot wait. Perhaps she won't be so thirsty or so wont to pee in the house.

These are the beads I made for the ornament swap on the Boston Terrier board I go to. The person I'm swapping with has a Boston named Rosco. The head ornament is a hollow bead, which I hadn't made in a long time. The other bead has the new style of pictoral bead I learned from Caitlin Hyde's class at the Gathering this summer. I hope she likes them.

It was fun getting into the studio yesterday. I even cleaned all the beads in my bead bucket, washed mandrels and dipped them too. The only beads I have still to clean are the ones from yesterday.

I also knitted 4 rows. And did a bunch of reading.

All in all, a good day!

I have a bunch of beads to clean, so today I'm going to do that. I did get into the studio to make some prototype buttons for Martha's sweater and a couple of beads for my Boston Terrier Christmas tree. I also made another ornament for an online ornament swap I'm involved in. Now I have the afternoon to knit or read after I clean beads. It's a grey day, but it's pretty warm considering the date.

I like to have a picture on my blog every day, but today's picture is a bit disjointed. It was taken on a beautiful day, which today is not.It's another cold, icky, rainy fall day. It even snowed last night in some places. I'm not sure what to do today. I'm thinking of starting on the bead room in earnest, but it's hard to get motivated.

Yesterday I solved my "not enough yarn" dilemma by going with Martha to the yarn store and picking up one more skein. I probably will not need it but I feel more secure now that I have it. Martha definitely ran out of yarn; she had to buy two more skeins.

And the time change is still kicking my butt. I was up again today at 4:00 am, because I'm used to waking at 5:00. Plus last night I fell asleep during my 9:00 show, because it was really 10:00, and I missed it. :(

I do wish it were a nicer day, because we've been walking Java a couple times per day to try to build up her leg muscles, which are wasting away because of the prednisone. We started walking her on the leash about a week ago and I can really see a difference, so it's working. The only problem is that she will not walk away from the house. She will put on the brakes and just stand there and because of her neck and back problems, pulling her is out of the question. She will walk towards the house, though, so what we do is we either carry her out to the street or put her in the stroller and walk her out to the street and let her walk back. I fear that I'm getting a reputation as the crazy lady who dresses her dog up like a baby in diapers and a onesie who takes the dog out for rides in a stroller. But there's a reason for all of those things. Believe me, I didn't have kids for a reason and have no desire to be diapering or strollering anything at my age, nevermind my dog. :)

Mouse Hunt

 

We've been having a mouse problem. We realized it this past summer when Robert was cleaning the garage and found a mother mouse and her babies nesting in a blanket in the closet on the shelf. Being the kind-hearted soul that he is, he left her there. Fast forward a month or so to when I go into my glove compartment and find a nest of fluff (no mice or any mouse signs) sitting on my owner's manual. We now realize that this has got to end. So we clean the garage. Mommy mouse is still in the closet, so we relocate her and the nest to the woods and we think we have it solved.

Since the weather has gotten colder, though, we have been hearing scratching sounds in the walls. Eew. We've always had a mouse or two every year as we live in the woods, but now we are hearing them! So we called an exterminator, who sealed up all the holes where mice can come in and set traps in the places we've seen evidence of mice: the attic, the garage and the cellar. So far we have caught 10 mice; most of them in one trap in the electrical closet in the cellar. The traps are mounted vertically on the wall. If I ever see a mouse climbing down a wall I think I'd freak. 

We do have a cat, but almost every time he's caught a mouse, he brings it into our bed, still alive, to play with. This usually happens about 3 am. Thanks, Gary.

Tonight we have to set the clocks back one hour. This is a pain. It disturbs my sleeping pattern and throws my schedule off. The dogs don't get it so making them do everything an hour later is going to throw them off, too. There is good and bad with this, I guess. I do like that we get an extra hour but I don't like the 4:30 pm sunset. I won't miss waking up in the dark, that's for sure. I think the sun didn't come up today until 7:20 am. That's insane. When it's dark, I want to stay in bed.  It was very difficult to get out of bed this morning.  Tomorrow it'll be 6:20ish when the sun comes up, so that's good. I also don't like having to manually change all the clocks in the house. I especially don't like weeks later finding the one clock I forgot to change and having it throw me off for a second.

The good news is that I'm finished with the body of my knitting project. All I have left to do are the sleeves and the collar. Oh and make the buttons. I have three skeins of yarn left. I'm hoping it's enough. I always worry that I won't have enough yarn. Always. I'm pretty sure I will have enough, but a little part of me says "what if you don't?" It gets me every time.
 

Yesterday I finished putting together the storage shelves in the bead room. Robert put the outside frames together for me on Saturday and I finished them up by putting in the shelves. I really like this system. It was expensive but worth every penny.

I haven't put any beading stuff away yet. I think I'm afraid to tackle that table but it's going to have to happen some day. What I did do was put away my knitting things in the taller cabinet on the right. I have a drawer for each type of needle and the larger drawers will hold my skeins of yarn for different projects I want to do. Looking at my stash of yarn, it looks like I have 5 or 6 projects in the works. The green yarn is for a shawl I've made before and want to make again in the pretty green color and the black and white yarn is for a pair of Boston Terrier mittens I want to make.

This drawer has my double pointed needles. The great thing is that doing just this gets all the knitting stuff out of the living room, where I had been keeping it. It'll be good to have one place to put my crafting things.

My straight needles:

The yarn in their drawers:

It's a gross, cold, rainy, gray day. I'm going to knit and work on my bead room storage shelves.

At least the commercials are over and the signs will come down. This was perhaps the meanest-spirited most bitter election campaign I've seen. There were not only ad wars, but there were sign wars. The opposition would put their sign on either side of the candidate's sign in order to block it. And it wasn't a pro-opposition sign that was placed, it would be an anti-candidate sign. I've never seen that before. And it was both parties that did that, not just one. I'm just glad it's over.

Java's bath time

We almost never give Java a bath because she hates them. Yesterday she needed one, though, so we gave her one. She was not very happy. This look is called the stinkeye.

Here she is saying "how can you do this to me? I thought you loved me."

She is looking to Robert for succour as I was the one who bathed her.

This is what I get.

Hence the diapers.

Here is my first blog post in November. Today my plans are to bring Java to acupuncture and get some knitting done. I've already done a little work tidying up the kitchen and I have a bunch of laundry to do.

The picture above is the sky back in September. There was a really cool effect of one layer of clouds being way up high and another layer much lower down. I'm afraid the picture doesn't really do the reality justice.

Tomorrow starts National Blog Posting month, so I'm going to try again to post every day in November. It's fun and very challenging. I don't know if I can find enough to talk about for 30 blog posts in a row, but I'm going to try.

 How can a dog this big:

Make himself this small:

 

My latest knitting project:

And the cabinets have arrived. Guess I know what we're doing this weekend!

My bead room

This mess is my bead room. It has become a catch-all for my craft supplies. I recently ordered some cabinets to organize it into a pleasant place to create and to keep my stuff. Right now I have knitting supplies in the living room all over the place and I'd like for them to go into the bead room as well.

This is a picture of the kind of cabinets I ordered. The drawers are 12 x 12" and are 1", 2" and 3.5" deep. I hope I have enough room for all of my supplies. 

Here's another view of the mess:

And another:

Here is where I store my seedbeads. This is the "neutral" drawer.

This is the group of supplies I bring to the bead retreat. It usually stays packed until I go the next time. I also have my crystals, other beads and silver findings in these boxes. They have no other permanent home and they need one.

I'd like to put a little comfy chair in this corner.

The cabinets will go against this wall.

Dog stuff

Here's a post about my dogs! Bobby is lying in Gary's cat bed. It's amazing to me how small Bobby can make himself. He's a largeish Boston Terrier but he sure can make himself into a tiny ball.

Java has been wearing a diaper and a onesie to keep the diaper on. I never thought I'd be diapering my dog, but you have to do what you have to do! She doesn't really like it, but I think she's cute in a flashdance kind of way.

Here's the both of them, trying their mind control on me to get me to feed them. It's not working.

And this video is what Java does when she really wants to boss me around.

The pond has been all planted and is almost ready for winter. The pump will be removed and stored in a bucket of water for the winter and a recirculator will be put in the bottom of the pond to keep the water from freezing solid. There is a net over the top to prevent the fall leaves from gunking up the bottom of the pond. I can't wait until it's time to plant the water plants and to put fish in. Hurry spring!

Java is still getting better. No sign of any relapse so far. I was actually able to get out to the studio a couple of days this week and make some beads. Having new glass and new techniques to try sure helps my motivation. I also want to reorganize my bead room upstairs so it's a pleasant place to be. That's going to be my project for the winter.

Things are pretty good around here. The leaves are turning gorgeous colors and it's a beautiful day today. Java is feeling much better, though the prednisone is turning her into a pee machine. Bobby is great and as goofy as ever and Gary the cat had a tooth pulled but seems to be doing fine.

Last weekend I went to the bead retreat and sold some beads, which was fun. I didn't have a lot of new ones, but I promised to have some at the next one. I haven't had much time to make beads because Java needs to be tended to: let her out; clean up pee; let her out; clean up more pee, etc. She will eventually be weaning off the prednisone so hopefully as she comes off it the peeing will slow down.