It looks like someone lives here!

While I was busy working on my final paper, Paul was busy planning and planting our new garden areas. He dug up the grass around the mailbox so we could put a bunch of plants there. We moved the plants from our front walk area to the mailbox patch so we could re-do that section with lavender and phlox. The tiny plants up by the walk aren't much to look at right now, but they should start to fill in that area over the summer. It's amazing how much work it takes to garden such a small area! By the mailbox, we've got mums, salvia, maltese cross flowers, multicolor columbine, and a weigela bush. They all should be nice and filled out for next summer. I am so happy with how it turned out! Paul did an awesome job planning it out and getting it all in the ground!

Here's what the front yard looks like now.


It's really starting to look like someone lives here!

Good things

It's one of those days. I've got a big paper due tomorrow and a bunch of small but annoying problems have come up (one of which is that the study where I'm working looks like it was hit by a tornado with my journal articles all over the floor). So here's some good stuff that has been going on.

1. Binsey was sent out by herself to get the newspaper for the fourth day in a row. She successfully brought it back and dropped it on the doorstep. She also did not get mud from the gardening all over the carpet today.

2. I'm sipping a tasty amaretto flavored iced coffee (non-alcoholic - I have a paper to write!)

3. Our water & sewer bills arrived today and they were lower than usual.

4. The air conditioner is all fixed after 4 weeks of repair action and the service was covered by our builder.

5. Despite waking up to find I'd "ruined" my homemade yogurt by adding too much starter, I can still turn it into cheese! It's currently draining in a cheesecloth. I also discovered I can take the liquid whey and make ricotta cheese - so that's TWO kinds of homemade cheese!

6. I saw a beautiful FULL double rainbow yesterday!

7. My wonderful husband has been working really hard to make our front yard look gorgeous with new flowers including three hanging baskets with petunias, and planting, lavendar, creeping phlox, saskatoon berry bushes and some kind of berry-bearing tree whose name I forget.

8. The dog escaped through the gate yesterday morning while I was upstairs getting dressed (with all the gardening the gate was accidently left open), and all she did was run around to the front door and bark to get back in! No chases, no nothing!

9. We finally hung up our most expensive wall art - our diplomas!

10. I had a nice chat with my awesome sister-in-law Anne today.

11. I'm done with my teaching assistant job for this semester.

12. Binsey is making cute puppy sleeping noises

13. It is a beautiful day - bright sunshine and not too hot.

14. All I have to do is finish this paper in the next 24 hours and I'm done for the semester! Just 5-10 more pages!

My new apron!

I just finished my first sewing project: an apron. I figured I'd start with something that wouldn't matter too much if it wasn't just perfect. It's got pockets, which weren't as hard to do as I thought they might be. I'm really happy with how it turned out!


Here's another view


The most fun part was using the buttonhole feature on the machine. You put the button in this little device that goes below the sewing needle, then choose the buttonhole shape you want, and press the "sew" button! It even sews on buttons too, so I tried that as well. Now I'm going to have to locate all those random shirts and pants that have had buttons fall off but I was too lazy to reattach them!

It's a good thing I'm not expecting to sell this thing, beacuse for all the time i spent on it, it would so not be worth what someone would pay! Hopefully I'll get quicker as I try new projects. As for what's next? Not sure, but I did buy a pattern for making storage boxes for shelves. We'll see how that goes.

Doggy Playdate

Last night Paul had to work late to set up a business expo, so I invited my friend Jamie over with her dog Miller for a doggy playdate/girls night. We weren't sure how it would go because it's the first time Binsey had another dog in "her" back yard, plus the dogs have never met. It didn't take long before they decided to be good buddies and run-run-run around.


...and pounce!

Sewing Sensation

For my birthday, Paul got me the sewing machine I had my eye on for a while. It's a Brother cs6000i, which probably would not impress the people on Project Runway, but it is by far fancier than anything I'd ever need. So far I've fixed 3 shirts that Binsey ripped up during her earlier puppy shenanigans. The machine has 60 different stitches, of which I've used two, and I have no idea what the heck you'd do with most of them!

I'm hoping to make some neat thing with my new machine, like window treatments. Last week there was a sale on sewing patterns, so I bought four of them. My plan is to buy fabric as it goes on clearance since my first few projects will probably not be anything close to professional grade. But I'll learn as I go along!

For now, though, I'm just glad I don't have to pay someone to fix puppy tooth holes or to hem new pants!

Training Continues

We're about half way through Canine Good Citizen training at Hacker's Creek Kennel here in Bloomington. We decided after boarding Binsey there over Christmas that we just had to go there for training beacuse she came back behaving WAY better than when we dropped her off. Jeff is a fantastic trainer and has basically devoted his life to training dogs, particularly labrador retrievers. He sells some of his trained dogs to families, so if you're in the market for a dog and don't have time to deal with all the puppy shenanegans, this is a great option! Since we've been working with him, we've even noticed that Binsey is listening to us more because we've learned how to be better leaders for her.


Sure, we did the PetSmart puppy class, but Binsey is such a strong-willed dog that she needs some extra training (or at least we needed extra training in how to deal with her!). Positive reinforcement only (treat training) is a great way to go if you have a mild-mannered dog, but for a brute like Binsey we needed more variety. Remember that Yuppie Puppy harness I was so excited about? It is not a good solution and I think it just brings out her husky instinct to pull! So we started using a choke chain (I hate that name), but Jeff explained to us how it's actually more humane because it distributes the pressure around their neck rather than just on the front with a regular collar. It's true - she stops pulling and doesn't cough/choke like she did with the regular collar. And now that we can "communicate" with the collar, she's listening to us more even when she doesn't have the chain on.



She's still a work in progress, but she's turning into a real sweetheart who loves to fetch and chew her toys and lie at our feet for belly rubs.

Here she is fetching for Paul (she decided for the past few months that she didn't want to fetch, and then one day she randomly decided she loved it):

New glasses

It's been nearly 6 years since I got my last pair of glasses, and since my prescription changed it seemed a good time to get a new pair. So here's the new look.