I'm home from the retreat, and a good time was had by all. I think I gained twenty pounds in the last two days, it seemed like all we did was stitch, and eat, and eat, and eat.

I learned that I can't count. I brought Mystery 6 with me, since I really want to finish it, and I stitched and ripped out at least five times because I couldn't get the top border correct. Finally I just started working on the fences and flowers. I didn't get enough done to make it worth posting a new picture.

I did finish Leaping Lizards by Honeybee Creations, and have a picture of that, but the camera is still packed, so I'll post it later.

I left a big stack of books with Bookcrossing labels in them, and I hope somebody will pick them up, read, register and release them. Bookcrossing is my latest obsession, I've registered a bunch of my books and am having fun with trading them, and even just leaving them in public places. Check out the site if you think I'm just crazy!

Hanna is fitting in very well with the other animals, she's even relieved Abe's anxiety to the point where they can be left alone during the day in the spa room, with doggie door access to the yard without him freaking out and destroying anything. When we tried that pre-Hanna, he chewed up the doorknob and broke one of his teeth. Poor baby. I love that they don't need to be locked up in crates during the day, I like knowing that nobody is sitting around with legs crossed if I have to stay late at work with an emergency.

This weekend I'm attending the annual retreat of the Tudor Rose Sampler Guild. We'll be staying at Create-Away Cottage in Collinsville, and doing nothing but stitching all weekend. No fiance, no dogs, no work, no worries. Just sitting on my ass and stitching. How refreshing will that be? I need a vacation! Now I just have to decide what to take with me to work on. I'm definately bringing Mystery 6, but I probably want to bring something else too, and my current sock that I'm knitting, and some books - just in case.

I did another round of stitching on Marquoir Story

I haven't worked on this sampler for months. Obviously I didn't keep up with the stitch-a-long. I have got to stop signing up for those, I never can keep with the program. I still have to finish the bottom row, plus the last bit of the middle row.

I also finished a little freebie Shepherd's Bush sampler:

I've had this marinating in my stash since the early '90s. It worked up in about 6 hours.

We got another dog, a greyhound of course, her racing name was Hand Picked, and her call name is "Hanna". The name is cute so we're going to keep it, but it wouldn't matter if we wanted to change it since she doesn't actually know her name yet. Hanna is a dark brindle, with white socks and chest. She's 2 years old, born on 3/11/03.

That's the first picture we took of her, I can't find the camera so I bet Dave has been taking all kinds of photos of every cute thing she's done. Hanna was the absolutely perfect pick. The cats can back her off, but she's not afraid of them, I've caught her playing with Elmo.

I finally took pictures of the corner I completed on Mystery 6.

And a close-up


We put the deposit down on the wedding site, and on the hotel, so that's one less wedding worry. Now we just have to get the invites sent out, Dave is planning on creating them himself, I just have to remind him that we need to give people time to plan if we actually want them to show up.

Interesting. I can't seem to access wildlycrafty from home. I keep getting an error message, but when I check server status, everything is fine. Blogger shows up ok, I can see the pages from work or the library, but not from home. Weird. Another thing I can blame on crappy dial up.

This weekend we may be getting another greyhound. We sent in an application to the local rescue where we adopted Abe, and were told "of course you're approved". The adoption coordinator said that there would be three cat-safe dogs at the next adoptathon, so Dave is going to go check it out. I told him that if he fell in love, to go ahead and bring him or her home, since Abe is my dog. I'm sure the cats will be thrilled.

Forgot to bring the pictures to work to upload, I got another section done on my Mystery 6 sampler. I completely missed the deadline of finishing by the end of 2004, so I'm not bothering to even try to start and keep up with Mystery 8. I'll get to it when I get to it (along with the previous two from the same series)

I still haven't found the box with the sweater I was working on (Simply Sweet) so I've just been knitting socks. For some reason, I can find plenty of sock yarn, I think, maybe, I went a little crazy with my purchases.