The House is Quiet Again

We gave little Tinkerbell back to her parents today…..and the house has never been so quiet!  Don’t get me wrong, Tink is such a cutie!!!  She just suffers from a very bad case of separation anxiety.  I couldn’t even go to the bathroom for 1 minute without her crying and barking.  Oh wait….I’ve got one better!  I would be sitting on the couch watching TV with Steve, and the little one would be laying down at our feet nice and quiet, but if I got up to sit at the computer, which is in the same room behind the couch, she would whine because she couldn’t see me.  Steve was still there with her, but apparently he wasn’t good enough.  Which is pretty flattering, actually.  She loved me the most!  Ha!

Actually, with the exception of Kaylee, all our animals love me the most. 🙂  I think it’s because I’m the one that feeds them and takes care of them, and of course, cleans up their poop.  Steve is just there to provide affection from time to time.  Kaylee, however, LOVES her daddy.  She would choose him over me any day of the week.  I’m pretty sure this is due to the fact that I am the one that has to clean out her ears (which she HATES) and clip her nails (which she also hates).  Gosh!  I do all the dirty work, and I get no appreciation!!!

I mean, look at this face!  Don’t let the sweet expression fool you.  Kaylee does what she wants and has VERY selective hearing.  Don’t get me wrong, she is a wonderful dog, and I love her as if I gave birth to her (which would be very weird since she’s a dog and I’m a human), I just wish I could get some appreciation from her!

Doesn’t she know that I was the one who woke up with her 3x per night for over 2 months to take her potty so she wouldn’t have to go in her crate?

Doesn’t she know that I’m the one that cleaned up all her “accidents” on the carpet?  And I’m STILL the one that cleans up her human sized poops in the yard every week.  Not to mention cleaning up all the hair and drool that her body produces.  I get no appreciation I tell you!  She only has eyes for her daddy.  Of course, when I give her love, she’ll pay attention, and paw at me when I stop.  That is pretty much the only attention I get from her.  Sigh….

So I guess it was a little flattering when Tinkerbell would whine when she couldn’t see me.  At least SOMEONE appreciates me!  Here are a few pictures from her stay with us.

Tinkerbell loved playing with Lazarus.

I think he liked playing with her too, even if he won’t admit it.

Hey!  Where’d she go?

Our little cross-eyed boy. 🙂

She also had fun with Uncle Camelot.  He was so gentle with her.  It was kinda weird.  Normally he’s pretty hyper, but with her, he was as calm as can be.  He would even lay down so that she could play with him without being intimidated by his large size.

Haha!  Look at those ears!

Isn’t my big man handsome?

Well, Tink,  I can’t say I enjoyed cleaning your crate 4+ times a day or bathing you every morning, or listening to your yapping all night long, but you sure are a cutie pie!  And I’ll be happy to see you again AT YOUR PARENTS’ HOUSE!

Books & Tornadoes

Well, today was the closest I’ve ever been to experiencing a tornado first hand.  This morning it was raining as we drove to work, and I didn’t think much of it.  It was pretty warm outside, which I knew meant that we would probably have some thunderstorms.  Boy was I right!  Around 2:00pm we started hearing tornado sirens outside our office, but oddly the weather had died down, and there was almost no wind and the rain had let up quite a bit.  The calm before the storm.

A couple minutes later, we looked outside and it looked as if evening had suddenly fallen upon us….but it was only 2:00 in the afternoon.  The wind started picking up, and as we all stared out the window of our office, my heart started racing.  The rain was pounding our cars outside, and the wind was picking up with a speed that I had never seen before.  I am from Southern California, where there is a thunderstorm once every 10 years.  This was not normal for me!  Where was our storm cellar?  Oh, that’s right.  We’re in our office building, and there IS NO STORM CELLAR!!!

We all raced to my office, which happens to be toward the middle of the building and has no windows.  Then the power went out.

More heart racing.

Because my office lacks windows, all we had was the slight illumination our cell phones provided for light.  Why don’t we have any flashlights in the office?  Pretty sure we’ll be stockpiling them tomorrow.

A couple minutes went by, and Steve and Curtis (one of our employees) went back to the lobby to see if it had died down.  It hadn’t.  I heard them yell, “OH CRAP!!” and they came running back into my office.  They said that the wind was blowing so hard that they couldn’t see anything even 10 feet in front of our office.  The wind was carrying with it pelting rain, hail, and debris.

I tried sending texts to my mom and my friend Elizabeth, but of course I didn’t have any cell service.  My facebook app worked, though, and I typed out a couple scared status updates asking people to pray for our safety.

While hunkered down in my dark office, Casey (another employee) and I were worried about our chemist, Jeff, who had gone to lunch only a couple minutes before the storm hit.  We were finally able to get a hold of him, and he informed us that everyone in the Subway restaurant he was in had taken shelter in the freezer.

Several minutes later (but what seemed like hours) it was finally over.  The wind had died down enough that we walked outside to look and see if there was any damage.  Luckily the only thing we found was that a tree had fallen on one of the cars in the parking lot (not one of ours, luckily).  Since the power was still out, we decided to let everyone go home.  Needless to say, while we were driving home we passed countless fallen trees.  Many of which were blocking the roadways.  We had to take a detour through the mall parking lot since several trees were blocking the road we needed to take, and we saw several trees that had been completely snapped in half at the thickest part of their trunks, and the tops had blown completely across the parking lot!

Thankfully, God protected us and our house, and we didn’t have any damage other than some of my patio curtains being blown down.

On a happier note, the 2 books that I ordered on Amazon a few days ago arrived today!

Cake Pops by Bakerella.  If you’ve never visited her blog, do it!  She’s got so many cute recipe’s and tutorials for her Cake Pops.

I also got this wonderful book! 1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes.  It doesn’t have any instructions on how to make these beautiful creations, but it does give some frosting and fondant recipes, as well as tell you what type of frosting or fondant was used.  So, if you get this book, you should probably either already have a knowledge on how to do some of these decorating techniques, or get an additional book that has pastry decorating instructions.

Just look at some of these gorgeous ideas!  I’m sure I could figure this out (after messing up quite a few times).

Doesn’t that cake look delicious?!  I’m loving the chocolate ganache that is dripping down the sides.

Umm, Hello gorgeous!  Oh yah, I could totally do that!  Hey, I can always dream…..and practice!  Anyone need a cake?

Look at these adorable wedding cookies!!  I think I’m going to attempt something like this for Elizabeth’s bridal shower that I’m hosting in a couple weeks.  That wedding dress is so cute!

I’m planning on making some cake pops as wedding favors for our wedding in July, and wouldn’t these be perfect!?  So cute!!!

I’m so glad I had these books to entertain me after almost dying in a tornado…..well not really, but hey, it was my first tornado experience!!!  I was traumatized!  But I’m all better now, thanks to these lovely baking & decorating books. 🙂

Crochet Hook Case

I’ve been wanting to make a case for my assortment of crochet hooks for the longest time, and I found a pattern online several months ago, bought all the supplies, and then never got around to making it.  Until last night!  Now I finally have an organized place for all my crochet hooks!  I used to have a small plastic case, but since I have so many, they didn’t all fit, and whenever I needed to crochet something, I would inevitably not be able to find the exact crochet hook I was looking for.

Here is the free tutorial I found online.  That link will take you to a page with several different styles of cases, but I chose to do the one on the top left.  I just thought it was the cutest.

It was my first time using quilt batting, and let me tell you, it’s not that easy to work with that stuff.  First of all, it loses it’s shape very easily, getting stretched out if you pull on it too hard.  And secondly, it didn’t always want to glide through my sewing machine very well.  My bobbin got tangled up a few times as a result.  For those of you that are new to sewing or have never sewn with a sewing machine before, a bobbin is a little spool on a sewing machine that holds some of the thread that is used to sew your stitches.  Don’t worry, I didn’t know that until I was reading the directions on how to set up my sewing machine for the first time.

I was able to figure out how to sew little pockets for each of my hooks.  As you can see, I marked where i THOUGHT I wanted the pockets to be, and then when I started sewing, I realized I had made a few too small, so I had to adjust accordingly.  Which meant that I was left with some pen lines on my fabric.  Hopefully they’ll fade with age.  Or I guess I could always throw it into the washing machine.

Look at the cute ribbon ties and buttons!  I think that is my favorite feature.  If you are a person that crochets alot and doesn’t have a place to store your hooks, I highly recommend making one of these cute cases.  It’ll make your life so much easier.