A new dress

I received the highest compliment anyone who sews can receive--my daughter-in-law asked me to make Alison another dress! I've made her a couple but that was in the summer, and so Jen and I looked at patterns online while we were there for Thanksgiving and picked two out. I got the material for the first one this past Saturday. Yesterday I made the dress and little bag, and today I did the pinafore.

I did make two mistakes: first I didn't get the collar lined up just right so there was a bit of a gap between the two sides. I solved that problem by putting a large button in the middle and honestly I like it better that way. The second mistake was more not realizing I was about out of thread when I was ready to make the buttonholes on the pinafore. So I didn't use the same contrast color I had been using but instead used a color that's a more subtle, background color.

Here's the finished product:

Wally the weird again

He is so strange. I sewed all day today, and when he wasn't complaining that he couldn't "help" me, this is how he spent his time.

Of noses and neti pots

Something in Boston doesn't like my sinuses and I've had a lot of congestion, sneezing and general misery for the last three months. I hoped that when the temperatures dropped below freezing for a week that I would feel better, but no luck so far. Here's how bad it is: I will blow my nose and Kent and all three kitties will react to the whistles coming out of my head. Painful, really.

I'd read about neti pots (here's an article from the NY Times) and how they are supposed to help relieve congestion due to allergies or whatever. But I could never bring myself to consider really using one because after all you are basically pouring water in one nostril so it can drain out of the other one. Yuck.

This week, though, I hit rock bottom with the nose. I had a really bad fit of sneezing and snot in the middle of the grocery on Monday, and I thought OK it's time to give the neti pot a try.

I used it yesterday, and will say it's not the cure all I'd hoped for. I found it very difficult to get much water going in my nose, and didn't see much difference yesterday. But I am a little better today so I guess I'll try it again tomorrow.

First snow!

I doubt it sticks since the temperature is above freezing now; it is supposed to go down to 17 F tonight though.

Will the box obsession ever end?

I took these this morning and stopped briefly between each to keep the file size down. They are in chronological order.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


PS These are for you, Alison!

Decorations

Since our house was on the market last year, our realtor advised us to put up very few decorations. So most of our things stayed packed up, and then we had to get rid of a lot of them because we knew we wouldn't have a 2800 square foot house in Boston.

Here is this year's tree. Yes, it's a little ceramic tree with LED lights that flash but at least I know the kitties won't eat it, although I guess they could still knock it over and break it.

Thanksgiving 2008

Kent took some Thanksgiving pictures for Ben and Jen, and once he finished taking them, I took this video.



Ben and Jen have two kitties, Milo and Smoochie. Smoochie is named that because when they got him just over a year ago, he was a tiny kitten who would put his little nose up to your face and give you smooches. He doesn't do that any more but he's still quite affectionate, if a whole lot bigger. Both cats love to sit in the dining room window and look outside to the strawberry/raspberry patch and chitter at the birds and squirrels. Their coloring is almost exactly the same; Milo is on the left and is a dusty orange while Smoochie is on the right and has more visible tiger striping on his fur. Well and he's a really big boy.

Milo started out as Ben's kitty but as you can see, he's now all about Jen.









Finally, here's a picture I took when Kent was taking those Thanksgiving pictures I mentioned.