A Labra- what?

Thursday, January 24, 2008


A Labradoodle! My brother and his wife are getting a Labradoodle. The puppies are not quite ready to go home with their new owners as they are only about 5-6 weeks old, but as with all puppies - they are CUTE! This is a cross breed - a hybrid if you will of a Labrador Retriever and either a miniature or standard Poodle. They are said to have wonderful personalities and be quite smart. This is the one that my brother and his wife are leaning towards - but, as you can see, there is not a great deal of difference in this group of pups (except for gender of course). Just thought we could all use a good dose of "puppy love". Ahhhhhhh!

Well, you would think that I would get a ton of stitching done on these dreary dismal winter days, but I seem to have the dreaded "creative block"! So, I just read through a bunch of my silk ribbon embroidery books and enjoyed looking at all the eye candy trying to get a picture in my minds eye of what I want to do next on my cancer hospital block. I did a little bit of work on the butterflies - I put a bit of modge podge on them so they would not curl, put gold ink on their edges and placed a golden hot-fix crystal to each of their bottom wings...I am still playing around with ideas.

Emma, my great pyr, and JJ, my Quaker Parrot, were my company today as DH was at work.
I brought JJ in to join me while on the computer this morning and he promptly got in trouble as you can see. Emma let me know that JJ was up to no good and then gave me that look of "Mom, I am good one - don't I deserve a treat?" I have been perusing the net looking at bird stands or perches that are standalone so that JJ could be with me in my sewing room or the living room outside of his cage for periods of time and have his own toys to play with - birds are very social, just as dogs are, and more socialization would be good for him. He tends to have a Napoleonic attitude - he thinks he runs the house so he needs to work on his "team spirit" a bit.

Since I couldn't get past my "creative block", I decided to dye some ribbon for my cancer hospital block. I know I will be adding some SRE work - flowers mostly, so I dyed some different size silk ribbon a peachy salmon and a periwinkle to use for the block. I have found that dying my own ribbon is more cost effective than purchasing it already dyed. You can find some good deals for dyeable silk ribbon and fabrics at places like Treenway Silks, Dharma Trading Company and Ribbonsmyth. I use all kinds of dye. Pebeo Soi, Jacquard, Ozecraft, Ribbonsmyth, even Koolaid. They all have great colors that differ a little bit from each other so they are fun to mix and match. You can also often find a silk blouse at a resale or thrift shop that you can over dye and add nice highlights to for use in your projects. Once in a while my sewing Bee group will decide to have a dye day and we dye silk ribbon and fabric all day and just oooo and ahhhh over all the delicious colors each one comes up with. Dying your own ribbon allows you to really variegate it to any degree you wish, which in turn adds so much more visual interest to your projects and the beautiful shading of darks and lights found in nature for your flowers, leaves, etc.

My devotional was quite convicting today...Luke 10:40. It was about Mary and Martha, two sisters. Jesus went to their home and was teaching there. Martha was scurrying around very busy preparing food, cleaning, etc. and Mary went to sit at the feet of Jesus to listen to his teachings. Martha became frustrated being the only one doing any work so she asked Jesus to reprimand her sister, Mary, and tell her to help her. Much to Martha's surprise, Jesus told her that she was fussing far too much and that Mary's choice was a good one. She was feeding her spirit. Wow, how many times have I felt like Martha? What an eye-opener for me. It is so easy for me to grow resentful or weary of serving and lose the joy in it, just like Martha. With God's grace, He can help me refuel and find the joy in my service, to remember whom I serve and why, even in the simple every day things - the joy is there, sometimes pushed to the back of the shelf behind those busy items, a bit dusty, but thankfully it can be dusted off to shine forth again and again!

2 comments:

Jane said...

This was the PERFECT time for me to re-hear this story from the bible! Thanks for sharing it and reminding me of whats important... love your blog... Jane

Stacy said...

Those have got to be some of the cutest puppies I have ever seen!

Hope ya'll are feeling better, and hope we see you soon! We love ya'll!

 
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