My First Crochet Scarf

Hi Everyone,

I hope you all had a lovely, relaxing holiday! We had a nice time at Hubby's mom's house. Mom made a wonderful turkey dinner for all of us. We even got to bring home some leftovers for sandwiches on Friday.

I have started making Christmas gifts. Here is my first finished gift, a scarf. I really like it, it's soft and warm but not really wide so you won't feel strangled. I will be making a coordinating hat next.

Hubby and I are enjoying the nice long weekend together. We had lunch with our daughter yesterday and had a good time. She is such a great person.

I am heading back to my yarn...I have been having a lot of fun making gifts.

Talk with you soon!

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi Everyone!

We wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.

We are very thankful for friends and family everyday. We are thankful for the kindness of others, strangers and acquaintances alike. Our biggest wish is for everyone to share kindness with others. The sentiments from Ane and Bajas on their blog about Norway's Courage to Care Day hit home with us.

On this day where we all give thanks, please have the courage to care and to make it a full time commitment. Kindness is contagious, pass it on!

Peace and kindness to you all,

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

I Have Another Confession!

Hi Everyone!

I have heard that confessing is good for your soul. So I have another confession for you...

I am a closet gamer...I play World of Warcraft and it has sucked me in again.

This all started about two years ago when Dear Daughter was living in Wyoming. She started playing WoW and on a visit she introduced the game to her daddy. Hubby came home and started to play. At first it was fun because he could play with and chat with daughter. It was a good way to keep in touch when she didn't have a phone.

So then I wanted to be able to chat with her and I started to play just to chat. Well it didn't take long before I was just playing! For the fun of it!! Now here we are, over two years later and daughter moved home, has a phone and I am still playing!

I know Nevis of Manicdote has played and she plays other games...Does anyone else play?

I have decided that this will be my last entry in the giveaway I have been participating in. The choices of Etsy shops is limited in the giveaway to about 30 shops. Most of them are jewelry shops. Well how many jewelry stores do you want to read about? I think there are so many other wonderful shops on Etsy, and I want to encourage all of you to browse around and support handmade products. So, go on...do it...you know you want to! Etsy.com

The final Etsy shop is OrganiDog. This is a nice shop that has organic dog treats. They are in fun shapes and interesting flavors. I really liked these two.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I am thankful to be a part of this lovely group of bloggers. I am thankful for my wonderful family, both near and far.

I wish everyone a very happy holiday!

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

Turkey Sandwiches

Hi everyone,

I am anticipating turkey sandwiches. I love the leftover turkey and I love turkey sandwiches. My favorite is a nice whole wheat bread, mayonnaise, turkey and cranberry sauce. mmmmmmm I could start drooling!

I have two turkeys at home. I have a 12 pound turkey thawing in the refrigerator and a 20 pounder in the freezer. We are having dinner on Thanksgiving day at Hubby's mom's house...these turkeys are for us. I will cook the small turkey over the weekend. And I will eat turkey sandwiches.

Cranberry sauce is also a big favorite. We make the fresh sauce with whole berries. It is so easy and quick, we have given up the canned stuff. It's so much fun to make and watch the berries pop.

So, what's your favorite leftover at Thanksgiving? Do you love sandwiches like me? Do you put cheese or cream cheese on them? Or do you skip turkey and cranberries altogether?

It's my bedtime, so I will head off to dream about turkey sandwiches!

hugs,

Puglette

:o)

I Love the Innerwebs

Hi everyone,

Thank you all so much for your comments, they are wonderful and so much fun to receive. But I just wanted to clarify to some commenter's, that I am not a grandmother! The cute little kids on my last post are a niece and nephew. I am totally ok with the idea that you may think I am old enough to have grandkids...grumble, mutter, grumble. ;o)

I also had a lovely comment here at home from genius husband. He seems to think that because I forgot our anniversary last Friday that he can now forget forever! HA! He can just forget that silly idea. :o)

I love the internet...it is just a fabulous place if you know what to watch out for. I have made some great friends through the internet, I have seen some funny pictures and read funny articles. I have learned how to crochet on the internet. I have bought too many pairs of shoes on the internet...zappos.com I love you! I love being able to research stuff on the internet, even if I just have a goofy comment to make, see aluminum hats.

I want to share something really cute with you today. Look at this cute little puggy! This is from Planet June. June makes crochet patterns for the cutest little animals and sea life. She sells the patterns on her blog, there are even instructions for making a black pug! So you can be sure I will have little Ollie's and Charlie's soon.

photo courtesy of PlanetJune...thank you!

I was reading June's blog one day last week and commented on her adorable giant sea turtle. She emailed me about my name, Puglette, giving her a good idea for a new dog pattern. I got an email today about something I would like on Planet June today. And there was this cute little pug pattern! I just love the little pug eyebrows.

I need to finish the teddy bear for Zach so I better finish up. I wish you all a good night and have fun on the innerwebs!

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

Made with Love

Hi Everyone!

Happy Friday! Woohoo!

I have a confession...I am a bad wife. :o(

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary, also the anniversary of the day we met 17 years ago. Hubby gave me a lovely, mushy card first thing this morning. I, however, forgot. I hang my head in shame.

In other news...

I finally finished the crochet elephant! And I must admit that it came out better than I anticipated. I am really a beginner at crochet and parts of the pattern made me nervous. I just kept going and when I got to the tough section, I seemed to understand. The most complicated section was the skirt of her dress, there was a lot of learning in that little skirt.

So here she is...Abby's Elephant!

Here's a new picture of little Abigail and her baby brother Zachariah. They are wearing their future school colors from Pacific Lutheran University. Their mom and dad are both alumni of PLU as is their Grandma, hubby's mom. I will be making something for Zach next and then ship both toys off to Indonesia.

What a cute little cheerleader!

I hope you all saw the little bear on Melissa's Life is Art...Art is Life blog today. It's really cute and it's for charity. The Mother Bear Project takes these little crocheted or knitted bears and gives them to children in need. If you go to their website you can read all about this project and see photos of the children and their new bears. I ordered my pattern today and will be making bears soon.

Today's Etsy store is Genuine Article. (This will end soon, contest ends 12/4) Please take a look at lovely hand made jewelry made by a woman, her mother and sister. They also have custom web banners.

I hope you all have great evening. I will talk with you soon!

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

A Few of My Favorite Things

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I posted one of my favorite pictures, Honey and Charlie in profile. I love how the girls are are looking off into the distance. This photo is my desktop wallpaper. It makes me happy every time I see it.


That started me thinking about the other photos that make me smile or make me think I am a sort of good photographer. So today's post is just a bunch of pictures in my history file that I love. I will put a brief explanation below each one. They are not in any chronological order, I just grabbed them and there you go!


This is the Greybull Motel in Greybull, Wyoming. Greybull is a tiny little town, about 2500 people, in the middle of Wyoming, in the middle of nowhere. Daughter lived there for about three years. The flowers were beautiful in late summer.

Here we are, me, Hubby and Daughter. In a parking lot on a hot summer day. :o)

This is Hubby's mom and Honey Puppy. This was taken from our hotel room deck at Cannon Beach, Oregon. We had just bought a new camera and it was fun to play with the zoom.

Here is the same shot without the zoom. Can you see them?

The Sequoia National Forest in California. I love the way the redwoods smell, especially in the summer. I can smell them when I look at this picture.

A pretty lighthouse on the Oregon coast, the glass is beautiful.

Oops, Honey Puppy fell in! TeeHee!!

Honey Puppy again, we were at a rental house in Oregon. We rented a house on Saunders Lake hoping to swim and play in the lake. The lake was a yucky rusty brown color...no swimming but we had a lot of fun.

Thank you for sharing my walk down memory lane! I am sure I will do this again, I had fun and I hope you did too.

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

Oh, one last item...my foil hat worked, I did not cook the same dinner as Roxy's mom. We had pork chops again and she had chicken legs. Tonight it's grilled ham and cheese sammiches and tomato soup. I think I have broken the spell. ;o)

A Message from Auntie Mare

Hi everyone,

Tonight I have a message from Hubby's Aunt Marilyn. Auntie Mare is a wonderful woman. We all love her very much and fight over who she will stay with when she visits from California. She is very funny and can make hubby laugh until he cries. And that is very funny to me!

I received an email from Auntie Mare today and I would like to share it with you. Today is Pulmonary Hypertension Blog Day. So, take it away, Auntie Mare!

"Today is PH Blog Day so here I go. I was diagnosed in 1997 with Pulmonary Hypertension, a rare, incurable disease that causes high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery between the heart and lungs and can lead to heart failure. I've been on several therapies including IV infusion 24/7 for six years; now I am on an experimental drug, some pills that I take twice a day. I have come a long way and I feel better now than before I got sick. Twenty years ago, the only treatment was a heart-lung transplant. Thank God for modern medicine and possibly a cure in the future using stem cells from the patients own bone marrow. Everybody enjoy the holidays. Peace Out."

Auntie Mare can now drive up to visit. Before the pills, she flew up and was attached to her IV making traveling difficult. Now she can even swim in her own swimming pool! Woohoo! We are very thankful for the advances in medicine. We still have our favorite Aunt around and that makes life wonderful.

Today's Etsy store is BeSem Natural Scents. This shop has hand made candles and soaps in yummy fragrances. I would like the Pink Grapefruit and Orange Blossom scents. There is a great deal of sample soaps, six bars for $9.00.

So, two silly items...Ollie has been sitting on my lap since I started this blog post. And his tummy has been talking away the whole time! Seriously! It sounds like he swallowed a kitten! While this is amusing in a gross kind of way, I am not looking forward to his pending explosion! Secondly, Roxy's mom is copying me!! Or I guess I am copying her. Two nights in a row we have cooked the same basic dinner. I am wearing my aluminum foil hat tonight to prevent brain waves entering my head and swaying my cooking. ;o)

Have a good evening! I will let you know about my dinner tomorrow!

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

Retail Therapy

Hi everyone!

This was the first day of my last full week at my current job. I have had a few leads and hopefully will find something soon. I did apply for unemployment benefits and while they aren't my full salary, it does help.

I received a new swap item today! I got my hedgehog and he came with a little mushroom for company. He is so cute, both are made of felt and hand sewn. I just love him! My daughter will be so jealous of the cute mushroom...but it's mine! Ha!

Dear Daughter came up last Thursday and we had lunch together. She always cheers me up. We went to Michael's craft store and she shopped for some of her swap items. She likes the more artistic, paper crafts. I am hoping she will make some patterns for me soon. We have talked about this and she can draw and I will sew the stuffies.

Daughter brought me a lovely surprise when she visited, some new yarn! What a thoughtful girl she is, it's so heart warming to see your kids grow into kind and generous adults. Here is what she brought, some pink and green bamboo yarn and some pink and red hand dyed alpaca yarn. She also brought a skein of cotton yarn in a pretty pink, orange and yellow mix. I have used that already. ;o)

After that treat from Daughter, I treated myself to more new yarn! Look at these wonderful colors! The light pink and white yarn will be a pair of fingerless gloves for daughter. The huge skein in browns and blues will be for Christmas gifts. The huge pink, yellow and purple skein is for me! That same day, I checked the mailbox and was surprised to receive a yarn swap! Four skeins of wool yarn in a beautiful green. This swap was for a hat pattern and the yarn to make it.

The yarn I bought came from a wonderful yarn shop near my home. Yorkshire Yarns is a fabulous place. So warm and comforting inside. There are of course, hundreds of skeins of the softest yarn you have ever squeezed. And they have several tables and chairs set up for holding small classes. There is also room with two comfy sofas ready for curling up on and knitting or crocheting. There is even a yorkie doggie running round! The staff were so kind and helpful the day I visited.



That photo doesn't do this store justice. The lighting is more mellow and warm. It really feels like you are visiting someones home and they just happen to have a ton of yarn! Those two big skeins were quite a bargain. They are nice and soft and the size of a small pillow. For $11.25 they are the equivalent of three regular skeins. I love to just pet them and squeeze them. :o) I can't wait to start using them!

Today's Etsy shop is The Tiny Fig. This shop has a lot of "kawaii" or cute items. I have learned that kawaii means cute in Japanese. These items are very popular today and a lot of the amigurumi I have been making are kawaii type items. Please take a look around at the cute items, earrings, hair pins, stickers and more!

So last night Roxy had chicken and rice too. Tonight's spaghetti night for hubby and me...what about you?

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

More Gratitude

Hi everyone,

I hope you have had a good Sunday. We just relaxed at home and watched a movie. We watched the new "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with Brendan Fraser. It was good, a nice afternoon movie adventure.

Today over at Peace Love and Pugs you can see a picture of the mushrooms I crocheted for Joan. We had a swap and I received the cutest collars for the pugs! Look, Ollie's has a tie! I wasn't able to get a good picture of Charlie in her new collar but it looks really good on her.

Can you see the little silver heart on the collar? It says "Made with Love". That is just the sweetest touch. These collars are so well made, they don't have any of that scratchy nylon thread. Thanks Joan!! I am so grateful for the new friends I meet through our blogs!

Today's Etsy shop is Beads in the Belfry. I think that is a very cute name. This is another handmade jewelry shop. There are lots of beautiful silver items, necklaces, earrings and bracelets. I really love these two pendants.

Aren't they pretty?

Off to finish dinner...chicken, rice and peas! Not too imaginative tonight, but it should be yummy.

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)

Grateful

Hi Everyone,

I want to thank you all for your kind words and thoughts about my loss of work. I am grateful for the friends I have made on the blogosphere. Thank you.

I am not sure what I will end up doing, but I am hopeful that I will be able to find work soon. Fortunately, I have a good reputation in my industry and over the years I have made and maintained good contacts. This may also be an opportunity to try a different field of work. My husband and I are looking at all options and will look into possibly working together. We have lots of hope and a great family.

Ok...enough of the mundane...on to the pug pictures!!

We were fortunate to have a lovely clear, sunny day today. Very unusual for late fall in the Pacific Northwest. We had flood warnings during the work week and many people were flooded out of their homes. We don't live in a flood plain so we rarely have any problems, thank goodness!

Since our wedding anniversary is coming up, hubby and I decided to take a break and ride our ferry boat. As I mentioned previously, we were married on the Washington State Ferry Rhododendron. This is a lovely old ferry that runs between Point Defiance in Tacoma and Vashon Island. We walked around the deck of the boat and reminisced about our wedding...we even shared a smooch! I am grateful for my husband, he is a great man and knew this would cheer me up.

After we drove off the boat at Vashon Island we drove around the beautiful island. Vashon is a fairly small island in the middle of the Puget Sound. You can take a ferry at the opposite end of the island and get off in Seattle. We just stayed on the island and went to the local farmer's market and then had lunch.

Of course we brought the doggies along for the ride! They love to ride along and we love having them with us...well, most of the time. They were kind of bratty on the boat, barking and growling at the other passengers. Fortunately for us, it's no dogs allowed on the deck! We stopped by the bank on our way out, Ollie and Charlie were quite interested in the pneumatic tube.

Then on to the boat and all around the island! What fun, riding on Dad's lap! Hanging out the windows...

Honey Puppy was a good girl and sat on the back seat. She's such a good dog. I am grateful for my crazy doggies.

The pugs were very interested in the bag of groceries we bought at the local market. Yummy sourdough bread, ham and swiss cheese for Sunday and some cheesy rolls...they smell so good!!

Finally as the sun was setting, we headed back to the ferry for the ride home. We had a lovely day and hope you did too!

Hugs,

Puglette

:o)