I Like #123

Things to like this week!


1.  Knitting!  My friend Barb is undergoing chemo, and though she seems to be doing great, she did lose her hair.  I decided to make her a hat, and found this cute free pattern on ravelry.  I'd never made a hat before, and it came out a bit lumpy, but it's bamboo yarn and so very soft and not itchy.  That's me modeling it in the picture, but I think Barb liked it too.

In a second knitting related event, my awesome friend Kristin sent me a new pair of knitted socks!  She's the one that made me my favorite turquoise ones before, and these are just as fun.  They're red and pink and have a fabulous waffle pattern.  They're a bit heavy-definitely winter socks, but it will get cold eventually! So wonderful.

2. When my parents were up in Utah earlier this year, they visited Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.  It's a huge place, and an even bigger organization.  They're dedicated to making all shelters in the nation no-kill, and are doing amazing work.  In addition to a huge animal sanctuary/adoption center in Utah, they have other sanctuaries/shelters/foster organizations all over the country.  They also provide extensive support and resources for other shelters.  It's really an amazing organization.  One of the things they were heavily involved in was the rescue of the large number of pitbulls from Michael Vicks horrifying dog fighting ring back in 2008.  Almost all the dogs from that wretched place were rescued, many by Best Friends, and later found forever homes.  That event really helped change the cultural perspective by demonstrating that even animals raised in such an awful place and trained from birth for fighting can heal and recover and become loving members of adoptive homes.  This particular group of dogs was renamed the Vicktory Dogs and was the subject of a documentary.  My mom got me a set of notecards for my birthday featuring eight of the Vicktory Dogs, and I wanted to snuggle them all (lots of them have now passed away from old age).  

Mya

Georgia

Mel

Lucas

Cherry

Curly

Little Red

Handsome Dan

3.  And my pups!  Blue split his dewclaw all the way up last week and had to go in to the vet to have it clipped off at the base.  It was pretty painful, and even with some meds he was pretty mopey and sad for a few days.  He's doing fine now, running around and bouncing as usual.  Bentley is fine,  he saw a toad on the back porch this morning while I was throwing the ball for Blue and chased it into the flower bed (ignore the weeds).  I made them go inside after that so they wouldn't traumatize the toad further.

his bandage made him look like he had a ballet slipper on.

He stood like this, partly over Bentley, for like five minutes before moving.  It was the evening he came back from the vet and I think he was still a bit dopey from the sedatives.

The toad is sort of blendy, but as soon as he moved Bentley saw him, and I think he could smell him too.

4. My flowers!  I think this might have been the peak weekend for my flowers.  Everything was looking great, blooming and beutiful.  Now it's getting steadily hotter, the marigolds are dying and even the dahlias are looking sad.  Something is also eating the dahlia leaves and petunia blossoms again and I don't know what it is.  We haven't had any rain, and I haven't seen any slugs or snails, but I don't know what else it would be.  Bugs of some kind maybe?  Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can coax the dahlias through the heat.  The marigolds will probably die back but my sister says she gets another round in the fall so maybe I will too.  One weirdly exciting flower thing, my alliums are blooming.  They should have been way earlier in the spring, but I got the bulbs in so late I didn't think they'd do anything.  I don't think they're going to fully bloom- it's so hot they just seem to wilt as soon as they open, but I got these cool partly-bloomed flowers.

5.  Finally, I like kayaking!  I actually like canoeing better, but I just like boats and water generally.  A friend invited me to go on a full-moon kayaking excursion on Lake Overholser and it wound up being beautiful.  Lovely and breezy and not too hot.  The moon was pretty and it was great to be on the water (especially since we aren't sailing this year).  I didn't take any pictures on the actual trip because I put my phone in the car (nice in itself), but I snapped this one before we left.

I hope everyone had some things to like this week.  For more positivity, head over to LeeAnna's!