Time Out for Visitors

In my last post I talked about getting ready for my next quilting project.  I went out and bought some more assorted fabrics to cut up.  The quilt shop near my house didn't have everything I was looking for, so I ended up going to JoAnn's to find the rest.  I hated to do that because I wasn't sure if the quality of the fabric would be the same.  I can tell a difference, but for this particular quilt, I'm not going to make too big a fuss over it, especially since it's not going to be given away to anybody else.

So I got my cutting tools out and got busy.  It took several days to get them all cut out.

Then I sorted them to get them mixed up cuz I didn't want two of the same to be too close together.

And now they are all nicely stacked up and ready for sewing.

But, even a humdrum life like mine needs to be put aside once in a while and I had to put all my quilting stuff away temporarily.  We were treated to a visit from our daughter and her husband and I was finally able to give them the quilt that I made for them.

Stephanie and Isaac

A visit from them now also includes a visit from my "grandson".  He is quite the handful!

Since he is a registered purebred Golden Retriever, they had to give him a very dignified name.  May I introduce to you "Sir Poop(sy) Charles Barkley Doggins".

Or "Charlie" for short.

He should be proud to carry a name like "Sir Poop", don't you think?

Believe me, the name fits.  But we call him "Charlie", you know, for people who wouldn't understand.

Anyhoo, after they left, I knew I couldn't get my quilting out just yet because we were expecting another visitor.   

For the time being, the closest we can get to having the human kind of grand baby is to borrow one.  You have met Dominic before in a previous post.  This is the 4th time we've kept him now for a 3-4 day stint.  We've had him when he was 7 weeks, 4 months, 6 months, and now he's almost 8 months old.  This time his "parents" went on a camping/fishing trip in Kenai, and we have already agreed to take him again in August so they can make another medical trip to Seattle.

He is such a sweet little guy and so fun to play with, now that he's a little older.  He's at the stage where he is grabbing everything, and just starting to crawl.  So, in some ways he's harder to watch, but in other ways easier.  Harder to watch because I have to keep a closer eye on him, but easier because he can now sit up by himself.

I was able to set him down on my lawn while I watered my veggies.  Last time I had him he couldn't quite sit up yet, so I had to do all my watering while hoisting 20 pounds on one hip.  Not good for my lower back......

But he is also teething, which makes him kinda crabby at times, thus very very very clingy.  I started calling him "Velcro" or "Cling-on" cuz he clung to me almost constantly.  I couldn't put him down for very long, but he did a lot better outside, I suppose because he had so much more to look at, plus he was watching me walking back and forth with my watering can.

The worst part about keeping him was that he's a very poor sleeper, both at night and during the day, so he always seemed tired and rubbed his eyes a lot because he had a hard time getting adequate sleep. His "mom" says part of it is meth withdrawals, but teething makes it a lot worse.  So he was more clingy when he didn't get enough sleep, but there was a big difference when he did get enough sleep, cuz then he would let me put him down for longer periods of time, -- as long as I stayed within his eyesight.

Here I took him outside to enjoy a relaxing cup of joe with me.

Our two cats kept their distance most of the time, but towards the end of the week, they began to emerge.

Kiska was a little bit nervous around him, but eventually she let him touch her.

Bossy, also eventually let him touch her, but I know she was quite content to see him leave.

"I want my house back"

We watched him from Monday night to Friday night.  Boy, did I sleep good on Friday night!  And it felt so good to sleep in on Saturday morning!

So now that my break from my humdrum life is over, I can get back to it and get my quilting stuff out again.

So get ready to read some really boring humdrum posts about my quilting project in the near future.