The week (mostly) in pictures

Paul and I went to my friends' wedding in Wooster last weekend. I asked his opinion about which shoes to wear with my dress, and he suggested his. I decided maybe not.



I bought a fan to combat the outrageous heat wave we've been having. Penny got her own Cardboard Box out of the deal.






The peonies have worn themselves out with their own decadence.



But I finally got some veggies in the ground. This is a green bell pepper - I also planted carrots, radishes, green and wax beans and some cucumber plants today, but the garden doesn't look like much yet. As soon as I have sprouts, pictures will be forthcoming.



The clematis is doing well this year.



So remember a while ago how I posted about the beautiful sunshine that comes in my kitchen? It's really lovely in the spring when it's still cool outside. It's a bit much when it's 90 degrees by 11am. I strung up some tea towels until I find inspiration for this window. I might just try to get one more calendar tea towel for a year between 1986 and 2010. I think they're cute. The 1986 one was my grandma's - she used to get one each year. I like to see on what day my birthday fell each year. My first birthday was on a Tuesday in 1986.

Family

Paul came to visit for the weekend, so we took some family portraits.

Most of them looked like this:



But we managed to get some cute ones.






See any family resemblance?

Gratuitous puppy pics

"Ok, enough pictures, Mama, time to go play now...."

I see the light!

One of my very favorite things about the CB is the gorgeous sunshine that streams into my bedroom and the kitchen in the morning. Pictures don't do it justice.

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes...

So I meant to post this last week, but between moving into the CB last Saturday (I know, right?!?) and having a puppy on my hands (literally - she's teething right now and her favorite chew toys are my fingers) it didn't get done. Little Miss Penny Lane is now taking a nap (picture to follow) after a big morning playing with my mom and Lynn when they came to see her, so I'm finally free for 20 minutes or so.

The story on Penny is that my friend Kelly from work knew someone who had a litter they were trying to place in good homes. Penny is a border collie mix, and she's about seven weeks old now - she was just over five weeks when I brought her home. I've arbitrarily picked March 12th as her birthday, so free your calendars next March - we're having a birthday party.

The first couple nights I had her (Monday and Tuesday) she didn't sleep through the night at all, waking up every couple of hours crying to go out. While I appreciate that she wants to go potty outside, the lack of sleep was brutal. Since then, she's slept through the night pretty well. As long as I take her out around 11 she will sleep until 6:30 or so, which gives momma a blissful and much needed 7 hours. She was doing really well on the potty training until last Friday, when I had to leave her at home most of the day while I worked a double. She was not happy about that, and let me know by christening my house pretty liberally. Luckily her bladder is tiny, so it's only a teaspoon at a time, but I swear she was deliberately punishing me. Since then she's only messed in the house when she first wakes up from a nap if she's still too sleepy to remember what she's supposed to do.

In other news, I moved in to the CB last Saturday and have been living here for a week now. There are still a few things that need to be done, including painting and installing shoe molding and figuring out what the heck I'm going to do with all of my books, but the major work is done. It's really starting to feel like home. I'll take pictures of the finished floors and the furniture soon - it's rainy today, and the house really looks much nicer in the sunshine. After four months of backbreaking labor*, I'm finally in.

* Ok, truth in advertising: it wasn't really four solid months. More like a few hardcore long weekends. Parts of it were pretty backbreaking, though. At least the bruises on my knees have finally healed.

So anyway, on to the gratuitous puppy pictures:

Penny's current napping place:



Her other favorite napping spot in the pantry:



Learning to climb the stairs at the big house the first week:



Now she's a big shot and wants to climb everything. She made it onto my desk from my lap a couple days ago. Too bad it's harder getting down than getting up...



She "helps" me clean the house by chasing the broom and biting at it/ stepping on it/ standing in my dust piles. It's comical, if inefficient. She is undeniably cute, though.



Oops, somebody's stirring. More pictures to follow shortly!

Penny

!!!

It's moving week!

Also, there will be a new addition to the family tonight! (Hint: I'm not pregnant - the new addition has four legs and black fur).

Pictures to follow shortly.