Lola update

Lola is doing much better. She is on her last day of antibiotics and gets her hernia stitches removed in a week. The sutures in her mouth will dissolve in a month. She is still eating mushy foods and can't climb or jump so she gets carried everywhere which I am afraid will become permanent if she gets her doggy druthers.

Here she is at work with me today in my office. Please note she is not in the special dog bed with the special dog blanket at the foot of the sofa, nor is she on the nice soft, fluffy blanket I folded up for her on the sofa.

Can you see her? Mushed in between the blanket and the pillows?

Someone loves me this much

I was just given my very first Le Creuset pot. The pot I have lusted after for years. I have dreamed of the recipes I would cook in this pot, only in this pot would I ever attempt to make Julia's Beef Bourguingnon. Doesn't life only really start after you have a Le Creuset pot?

I know you have seen this pot before but this is MY Le Creuset pot. Look at it sitting there all orange and french.

And OH the inside!

I'm going to make you very dirty.

This weather is crazy. The lilies and tulips are coming up in February, although I am very excited to see the tulips (I think they are tulips) I planted around the cedar trees are alive. I never planted bulbs before and I did it very late in October.

Curtain call

YAY!  The curtains are hemmed. I finally have a curtain for the bedroom AND the bathroom. These started off as one insanely long curtain and my very clever mother made them into two which was no easy task as it was a blackout curtain with three layers.

The Edward Gorey prints have also been rehung hopefully for their final time. The first two times I tried the Velcro strips. Did not hold. The frames practically leapt off the wall taking chunks of paint and plasterboard with them.  

Lola

Lola had four teeth extracted and her hernia repaired on Tuesday. It was an awful lot for a poor little 8 pound chihuahua to go through. 

The morning after her operation, she is still out of it.

Have a seat

In my new chairs!
Stumbled into Pottery Barn and found this chair on sale for almost 75% off of original price. They only had one but the very nice clerk found two more in a NJ store that could be delivered by Monday for only $20 shipping fee. Yes please!

I have a very wee dining table so three chairs are a good fit and when I need a fourth I have another older Windsor arm chair I can bring over.

They are big but crazy comfortable and they actually do look great scale-wise when you can see the entire room.

Now to change that light fixture. This is what I've been thinking about:

or the classic Nelson saucer pendant:

Both out of my pauper price range.

Thank you card hubris

I made this thank you note last night at my mom's. She has every type of paper, die, utensil, adhesive imaginable. It's like playing in a candy store except you don't feel sick afterwards, although your fingers do get sticky.

Sunday morning

Hydrangea blue

Flower market

Saint Valentine's Day deluxe

I was treated to lunch with three smart, funny and very clever ladies. A surprise box of cupcakes mysteriously appeared outside my door and I received beautiful, handmade cards in the mail.

What more could you ask for?!

Keeping warm

Window sill spring

Baby feet

How cute are these itty bitty feet? I can barely stand it.

Yay Sarah!
Hello baby.

Lunch with a new friend today.

A glint of light flicked in my peripheral vision. I feel a little more interested in tomorrow.

The ebbing of grief

For a while all you inhale are waves of grief. 

But it refuses to be exhaled. It just runs rampant through your body kicking and tearing and biting. I don't know if eventually the grief subsides, or scar tissue grows and dulls the pain.

My eyes still well up, but I don't sob, my knees don't buckle.

Go Big Blue

I could hear the sounds of the superbowl coming from the tv room but had more fun chatting with my mom, getting tipsy on Cosmos, and doing laundry.

Squeaky

Cleaned every inch of the downstairs.
Swept, dusted, steamed, vacuumed, scrubbed, sprayed and polished.

Daffodils
Arugula
Fingerling potatoes
Broccoli rabe

Picked up Nashi's ashes today. Sounds odd but I feel better now that she is home.