we have a new baby

we found this little guy, a stray, near my parents' house. he was skinny. he was dirty. he was hungry. we brought him home. we named him barkley (after my childhood cat who was also black). we love him. he's had a bath. he's getting some meat on him. he's fitting in well.

the pepster

I don't have any real reason for posting this picture other than I just thought it was cute. If you remember the puppy victrola post, you might notice the notch missing from his right ear there (well, you could possibly notice it even if you don't remember that post, but you just might not know the story behind said notch).

Tami posted a picture of their new dog. Oh my. She's a cutie. The thing is, Pepper is cute but can be the biggest turkey and a huge pain in the, well, everywhere. I've heard Boston's are good family dogs. Unfortunately I didn't know this until it was too late. But we do like our Peppie. Usually.

my favorite pet

swimming up to say hello

I felt like little Alice deserved a mention. I know I've talked about both the dog and the cat. I like them, really I do. The dog keeps me company while the kids are at school and the cat snuggles with me at night. They are good pets. The dog barks when anyone even so much as looks in our direction (and considering we got him mainly for security, we're pleased about that) and the cat has kept rodents away for years, while other houses in our neighborhood have struggled with them (she did stop leaving us "presents" when we got the pup, her nemesis, and kept them for herself but secretly that's how I prefer it anyway).


But Alice is still my favorite. They say these painted turtles don't much like interaction with people but Alice is social. She often swims up to the tank to see me and comes when she hears my voice. She likes me but doesn't ever demand much, beyond clean water in her tank when it needs it and food to eat. And she likes me to hold her occasionally too. At the beginning of the summer Pepper (dog) got her and poor little Alice needed turtle surgery. But she is worth it. I love her.

Puppy Victrola

Yesterday evening my poor little Pepster got bit by a little Jack Russell Terrier from up the street. She took their barking game a little too far and now good chunk is gone from his right ear. We took him in to see the emergency vet up the street and brought him home with this fancy new cone, a round of antibiotics and some medication for the pain. He's feeling a little grouchy, understandably. He keeps bumping the cone into everything, including my legs.

I took the above picture this morning on my phone because I knew he'd follow me if I got up to get my camera. I can't get the pictures off of my phone (I'm too lame to bother with reading instructions and such) so I just took a picture of the display screen.

In order to stitch him up they had to completely knock my poor little pup out (too wiggly to do it otherwise) which meant it ended up costing considerably more than I had hoped. After we got home from leaving Pep to get fixed up, my sweet little girls went down to their rooms and each returned with their respective life savings to donate to their beloved, although hyper, naughty and crazy, dog. Their contributions ended up covering half the total cost. I did let them give their money because helping meant so very much to them.

Pepster wasn't released until after midnight, so by then all girls were asleep. However, there was much excitement and happiness this morning which made getting ready for school a bit challenging. Thankfully it's a short day as they all were voting to stay home (no! I'm tired!! I was up all night with a crying puppy).


Our sweet (I think I may only be saying that because he's hurt - he really is a stinker!) little Pep is now, and maybe forever, also known as Conehead.

I knew I should have typed the title to this blog entry when it streaked through my head like a flash of lightening, but alas, I did not.

Meet Pepper! He came to live with us yesterday as a slightly early Christmas gift for our family (but mostly the children). We were told he's a pointer/jack russell mix. He is certainly cute and such a sweet little thing. His big sister Tiger isn't all that impressed. She hasn't showed her face upstairs much since the little guy's first paw crossed the threshold. She hasn't hissed at him either though and I'll take that as a good sign. We bought him a purple collar & leash, kennel (a refuge from all of the attention he gets), some crazy Christmas doggie treats, and a snazzy new sweater at PetSmart. Perhaps this is the only kind of sweater I will have the patience to knit? One for the pup? Maybe ... someday ...

Oh yes, I've done a little knitting too. Not much, but a little. Perhaps I'll snap a picture and blog about that soon too. In the meantime -- yay for puppies! And for Christmas time!

Tiger says Muu(Muu)

Now I admit that "muu" is not normally what you would hear coming out of a full-grown cat - perhaps a kitten, but even then it is more of a "mew". At any rate... a fellow knitting blogger and I were having a bit of a chat about our cats (cats, ya gotta love 'em!) when she suggested we knit sweaters for our (uh-hem) darling feline friends. It reminded me of my childhood when, much to our brothers' chagrin my sisters and I would dress our family cat (named Barkley after the dog on Sesame Street - it suited him as he considered himself at least as tough as any dog) in our doll clothes, including booties (how were we to know he'd slide all over the kitchen floor?). What self-respecting male cat (pure black even) would be subject to such humiliating and degrading acts?

Meet Tiger (please forgive the slightly blurry picture - I had to sneak in my daughter's bedroom and take this in the pitch black). She is a little over five years old and was born in the closet of my daughters' room. She is pretty lazy, despite the name. She's a good mouser though, as we've never had a single rodent in the house (well once I thought I heard one, but it was soon gone, so I assume it either never existed or Tiger got it). She has left us a few rodent gifts at the back door. Once she tried playing with a black widow (*shudder*) but thankfully quickly realized she wanted nothing to do with the creepy black thing and backed away allowing my husband to kill it instead. Tiger doesn't care much for children, but does know her place as pet. We feed her, change her litter box and don't allow her to abused. In turn she allows the girls to play with her sometimes never meowing just occasionally shooting her death glare around the room. If looks could kill...

So about the muu muu you ask? Get to the point? Ok I will (I really should go wash the dishes anyway). I did a little search on my favorite free pattern site: Knitting Pattern Central under pets and found they have recently added a pattern for a cat muumuu.

So what do you say Knit a Little, do you think Roland (scroll down a bit for his picture) is man enough for a muumuu?

Ok, perhaps I'll keep looking for a cat sweater...