I’m at an odd place, emotionally, these days. I have not been efficient with my time which means not much blogging, not many pictures and no quilting. Even though most of my work days have been very full, recently, you’d think I would have found more time for recreation since we had a holiday. Nope –I mainly worked on closing case files, set up some file storage and slept over the weekend. I’d like to claim that I have at least been diligently cleaning house in anticipation of house guests next week but I haven’t. And I know I will live to regret that when they walk in and decide they’d rather stay at the Holiday Express.

I am not sure where the time is going other than that I have been trying to go through files in anticipation of shutting down my GAL practice. I suspect I’m doing some internal mental/emotional work. I guess that makes sense. But, still, it seems like the only tangible thing I’ve done, recently, is grow my butt from sitting around with a laptop or a book.

I went by a local quilt shop earlier this week but nothing caught my fancy. Even though we may not actually relocate for years, I am firmly in not-wanting-to-buy-anything-I-have-to-pay-to-move mode. I DID cruise the One Thousand Bolds (and one nut) website to buy some tonal whites, yesterday. First time I’ve bought fabric in a long time and it wasn’t inspired – just getting basics. My Kona muslin is a bit flat even though it makes colors pop. You know what I mean. After facing how much I was spending on fabric, I’ve cut back to balance the anticipated loss of income. Should practically even out!

Evelyn seems to be back for good.


For those of you who have read this blog for the past year or so, you’ll know that I’ve grieved not over the loss of Jezebel, but how Evelyn has been effected. She went from a vivacious, puppyish girl (look at that picture of her with the quilting block at the top of the stairs just to the right of this column) to practically catatonic immediately upon losing Jezebel. She’d stare into space, no eye contact, just lost. Oh sure, she’d have moments of happiness but not many. Getting Pearl helped a lot but if you saw pictures of her smiling or videos of her playing, trust me the rest of the time she has just been sad – off her feed – just damaged.

I’m delighted to report that it seems something has happened to Evelyn in the past couple of weeks. She was extremely excited to drive to the Samoyed Pawty and while she was a little shy when we got there, she hasn’t stopped smiling since we got back. She has been affectionate, energetic, playful – everything she was a year ago. I’ve cried over it. I was beginning to believe that when we lost Jezebel, we lost Evelyn, too. Seeing her grieve and not being able to do anything about it has been heart breaking – and our hearts were already broken over Jezebel.

Before losing Jezebel, I considered Evelyn to be a Daddy’s girl – maybe because Jezebel, the hog, shamelessly claimed me for herself. She was constantly beneath my hand or feet. Funny – now that she is coming out of herself, Evelyn is turning into my shadow. I can barely type since she is grinning up at me and demanding that I pet her. She follows me from room to room and seems to just want to be with me. Pearl is oh-so-jealous and is also trying to lay claim to both husband and me.

Of all my dogs, ever, Pearl is the biggest flirt. She is entering adolescence and getting naughty. She actually had accidents the past two days after going months without. I think she is getting too busy to think about going out. She is jumping up on people and trying to counter surf. She is also getting a tiny bit rebellious but all that is to be expected at her age. We have to clamp down on her because we don’t want her to start developing bad habits. She has been amazingly “good,” so far, and we’ve been spoiled.

She is getting so tall that I am almost alarmed. A rescue worker tells me that a good rule of thumb for medium sized dogs is to expect them to double their weight at 4.5 months old.

Gulp.

That would make her potentially end up being 65 – 70 pounds without being overweight! Good lord, she is ALREADY bigger than her mama and isn’t even 6 months old, yet.

Our old girl, Sapphire was a big girl.


At one point, she was about 90 pounds but much of that was fat (shame on husband!). She was taller (probably 24 inches) and a good weight at about 65 – 70 pounds. She could carry 75 pounds without trouble.


Pearl may well rival her.

To be able to compare, Evelyn is just under 21 inches tall, 55 pounds and ought to lose about 2 – 3 of them. Jezebel was 55 pounds and although she was about 2 inches shorter than Evelyn (not any taller than Pearl!), she was extremely muscular and spot on with her weight. She was a fabulous athlete.

Pearl is also very muscular so that could be why she is as heavy as she is. And she is tall for her age.

Enough of this blogging waste of time! I’m off to work on case files.