AndThisLittlePig said New Year New Hope

Hey I'm back... well I hope I am... going to try anyway.

So 2013 the year that was, and is never to be repeated.

So a recap, little or no stitching, the mojo just wasn't there, any stitching will be a big improvement on last year.

April was the month of the big dog fight, in which Meah came of second, third, fourth and fifth best, that's how many drains she had in.

August will never be look on again in the same way, after loosing Evie, Podge and Ava.

November wasn't ready to let Meah off without another major medical event. In brief I came home late from work one evening to find her with a very swollen eye, I suspected an infection, so gave her some pain killers left over from her fight, and took her to the Vets early the next morning.

Well my Meah likes to be different glaucoma, only I could have a dog who at five and half has glaucoma, there were really no options but to remove the eye. So Meah who is also called Moo is now also called The Pirate Ahhh :@

No gory photos we had enough of them last time, but I will say she came through it with flying colours.

No. No photos please.

Yes that is blue in the other eye, she will go blind, and I have already made the decision that if her remaining eye "blows" than I will be letting her go. It sounds awful I know... dogs can live blind etc, and if she had a different personality/temperament it would be fine, but she just doesn't like other dogs, even when she had two perfectly good eyes, she is spoilt rotten and high strung. Every day is a blessing and I hope she is round for many years to come, to continue being spoilt.

So not all of 2013 was sh!t, it ended well on December 30 my beautiful Quincy whelped four beautiful puppies.

All girls, can you believe it! Their father Frank, is one of Evie's many sons, he is also Podge's younger brother, and little Ava's litter brother.

Quincy just loves them.

And they love her...

I can't pick a favourite, nor can I choose names, the chocolate girl will be staying and one of the black and tan girls as well, if I can ever decide... Little chocolate is more than likely going to be called Maude, until I change my mind again.

Want some lovely old-fashioned names, in a non-doggy way :@ And no Lilly/Milly/Tilly names, Quincy's first daughter who I kept ended up being christened Pippie, which I will admit in the end was just like calling her puppy, her litter sister was called Lilly by her new people, and her brother Billy. You can see where I am going.

There was one other addition to the household in 2013, a rescue Dachshund called Katie (Mum named her) she had a silly name and didn't answer to it anyway. Skin and bone, was surrender to the local pound (shelter) 9-10 months old for biting the children was the description. Well I ask you, if you were starving, and had 5 yes 5 kids at you all day you'd bite. Well she doesn't bite she just hadn't been taught not to, she was just treating the kids like puppies. I will get you a photo if I ever get her to sit still long, she is a very happy girl, and loves Pip... well unless there is food involved, but she is learning.

So turning over a new leaf, new year, puppies to watch grow and love, make time for stitching and try to just enjoy life each day at it comes.

So until next time... Libbie :@
With The Pirate Meah Moo, Quincy, Katie, Pippie plus Four

And This Little Pig said Puppies Day 2 & 3 & 5

Yes I am behind, in just about everything, 

the pups are now 9 days, there eyes are 

starting to split and will be starting to open

in the next couple of days. 

Photo above, two days old.

 Mum! Please! People are watching!

 Two days old. 

 Our girl is a little cheeky :@

 Three days old, and all snuggled in together.

It's spring here in Oz, and we are going from high 30's C back down to near 0.

Five days, and yes she is still poking her tongue out.

Meah finally getting a chance to check out the new 

house members, she waited for Evie to go 

out to the little girls room.

I think she believes that if she stares at them long enough...

  

...they will go away :@

So tomorrow will have... wait for it... more puppy photos, and photos of an exchange, received and sent.

See you next time... LiBBiE in Oz

And This Little Pig said Finally!

Finally I seem to have my stitching mojo back, but don't uncross those fingers just yet :@ one good weekend is a start.

First that is my Meah at the top of this post, my very spoilt dog, I was in so much trouble after my post last month, no photo's of her Royal Highness Princess Meah or Moo or Mooey as she is often called. So a hunt through photos found these taken back in February just after mowing the lawn. There are a lot of Long Dog photos, but I have been informed by she who must be obeyed, that while I can show photos with the plebes in them, She must be the centre of attention. They will be at the bottom of this post.

Stitching Mojo, I had a great weekend, firstly it was my birthday on Friday, yes a Black Friday, but I'm used to these, try being 13 on Friday the 13th :@. Spent the day at work, by myself, fielding phone calls and really not doing much. (Hope the boss doesn't read my blog). Saturday, I went down to my LNS 'Busy Needles' and spent the morning with the beautiful Bev, putting the border fabric on a quilt that has been finished for five months. Then bundled it up and arranged to be pick-up for quilting. Will show you it when it comes back.

Saturday afternoon, finished off the washing and housework, boring but a necessity. Saturday night, was restless, nothing on TV and cold, couldn't find a decent book to read, so settled in to watch a DVD. Still not happy. Oh cross stitch, but my Crazy bag was out in the car. Cold. Ahh my Little House Needleworks Family Sampler was in the cupboard!

Photo taken in December 2010, I should be ashamed! I had done some more since this was taken, windows finished, door done, and a little bit more brickwork, but not much. Didn't realise how yellow it looked.

Photo taken today, house finished! Changed colour of door, to a dark green, think I will change it again, not sure if I like it? Really happy with progress, but in reality I should have trekked out to the car and done some Crazy stitching.

Crazy finish number four, LHN Ornament of Month 2011, Cardinal Winter, finished 31 May 2012.

Crazy progress, LHN Ornament of Month 2011, Bringing Home the Tree. Will have to put aside the Family Sampler and work on my Crazies, maybe I'll rotate them. Don't mess with the mojo, if it want's Family Sampler, that is what it's gonna get.

Meah and Podge, so close, yet...

... So far, these two photo's were taken seconds apart, poor Quincy brining up the rear, Meah had wrong footed her when she grabbed the toy. Meah is usually I may be half your weight, and while you have long bodies, I have longer legs, as she sprints away with the toy.

Well so happy to see that my crafting mojo may be returning. Now to catch up on everyone's blogs, so here's to seeing everyone again soon, with more updates.

Catch you all later... LiBBiE in Oz

PS Seriously could I have used any more labels :@

And This Little Pig said Long-Dog & Christmas Tree

This is sort of like a 'Where is Wally?' but it is really 'Where and what is Meah doing?' Sitting in my clean washing! A white dog on my black towels! Looks so innocent, doesn't she?

Miss Meah Moo doing her impression of the Long-Dogs.

Evie, Quincy and Podge

Quincy

Quincy and Podge

Today I decided to put up the tree, late I know, but better late than never. I haven't had a tree up at home in years, my old tree and all my decorations and lights are at work. Black tree I got a few years ago at a post Christmas sale. Very sparsely decorated... reindeers and a few balls. Must get some lights :@

Green Deer

Blue Deer

and Silver Deer under the tree

And on a closing note Jennifer and Abigail over at Feathers in the Nest are having a very generous giveaway for Christmas, go on over and have a look.

Talk soon... LiBBiE in Oz

And This Little Pig said Pride and Prejudice

I love Pride & Prejudice, especially the BBC mini-series from 1995, starting Colin Firth............... oh sorry Mr Darcy was just walking through the trees after taking a dip in the lake, white shirt, wet... you get the picture, and the wonderful Jennifer Ehle as Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

One scene came vividly to life just recently, it is when the Lady Catherine de Bourgh, comes to confront Elizabeth on her engagement to Mr Darcy. The following quote will make perfect sense, once you have seen the pictures.

"There seemed to be a prettyish kind of little wilderness on one side of your lawn, I should be glad to take a turn in it."

This is not

a prettyish

kind of

little wilderness!

It is actually a kind of biggish wilderness! Can you see Meah?

But I can apparently grow magnificent Scotch thistle, as in some of them are over five feet high.

Love the little cobwebs on this one.

For those of you who couldn't find Meah, there she is, she was sort of impossible to find.

Now Lady Catherine de Bourgh would definitely not take a turn in my garden, but in my defence, we have had wonderful spring rain, which meant it was wet every weekend, and I was unable to mow, but now that daylight savings has started, I am finally getting on top of it! And soon I might just be able to let Meah and the Long Dogs up the back and be able to find them before Christmas :@

Seeya soon... LiBBiE in Oz

And This Little Pig said Crazy Finishes No 11 & No 12

Well Crazy January Finish No 11 and No 12 done and dusted! Oh this is a long post.

I finished Little House Needleworks Ornament 2010 Red House in Winter on August 15, it was around this time that my old Boss was having surgery, and then the unthinkable happened, and he passed away, so these two ornaments will always be Neil's ornaments.

Little House Needleworks Ornament 2010 Pear Tree, was what I was actually working on, when he passed. I love all of Diane's patterns, but this one from the moment I put the first stitch in all the way back in January, never gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Every time I picked up my unfinished Crazies, this one was always shuffled back into the dwindling pile. What made me pick it up to finish it, I will never know. It will hang on my Christmas tree this year, but I think it will be tucked around the side only just in sight... poor Pear Tree, it has never done anything wrong.

So in my month long blogging break, I have been cross stitching like a woman processed, Little House Needleworks Ornaments 2010 Frosty Flakes is very close to being finished, fingers crossed tomorrow, if not early next week. And I have really gotten stuck into Gracewood Designs Northern Nights, which I am loving.

My beloved dogs (that's Podge above and don't let the cute and innocent look fool you) ask to be let outside anywhere from between 5am and 6am, so have fallen into the routine of stitching for about an hour before starting to get ready to go off to work. A friend has lent me their Hawaii Five O the original DVD's, which have been fun to re-watch, a lot I don’t remember, well I was young :-) anyway it is nowhere near as corny as I thought it would be, but there is no comparison between Jack Lord and Alex O’Loughlin (pause for a moment, well a few minutes to imagine Alex swimming in my imaginary pool) but it has been great to pop in the DVD's and watch while I stitch.

This is a result of what cute and innocent can do, you know when you are scrambling for something to write on, thankfully I had copied this hastily written note on a proper note pad before Miss Podge helped herself to it, and I have no idea where she found the floss.

Evie and Quincy enjoying the morning sun, while trying to see through the lace curtain to people walking by.

My Meah, Moo has it all figured out, she gets up on top of the armchair (my grandmother would not be impressed) and finds the break in the curtains.

I am still trying to convince the long dog crew that it really is spring, and they no longer need my old coat to curl up in.

It is not working.

Our local Agricultural show starts tomorrow, this is the one and only rose I have anywhere near being ready to enter, photo taken on Monday, this afternoon it looked like a beautiful Valentine bud. Well it's being picked in the morning and entered, I can only hope. No one and I mean no one has roses this year, everyone is complaining how late they are, plenty of buds, just none that are anywhere near ready. Mr Lincoln, he needs one more day! Entered LHN Pumpkin Hollow Farm, and CCN Pumpkin Cottage in the needlework, but have a feeling they may just be "too American". Have photography entered as well, big entry, but one can only try.

Lastly again I would like to thank everyone who sent me messages of support and prayers on the loss of my old employer, they helped but at the time I was not capable of replying. I have been lucky in my working life to have never had a ‘bad’ boss, and have been truly blessed with my current employer and my old boss, both have treated me like family, one a younger sister, and the other a daughter.

So to my little Bossman, a wonderful family man, husband, father, grandfather, friend and gifted surgeon, rest in peace, you are missed by many. On a serious note, Neil you really have to do something about the Rugby World Cup, give our Wallabies a bit of a push will you!

Neil 3 October 1934 – 19 August 2011

LiBBiE in Oz