Mother's Day

It's that time of year again. The day when we all call our mom or go see her and thank her for tolerating various levels of snotiness from us when we were growing up, and allowing us to grow up in spite of that.

Not being a mom of two legged creatures, I do not yet get to partake as a Mother this day. I can however, take my four legged canine babies to the dog park and that is exactly what I did.

Does this look like a happy dog to you?

This boy LIVES for tennis balls. Okay, he actually lives for just about anything you are willing to throw, but tennis balls are his favorite. We essentially spent two + hours at the dog park and I had more fun then I have ever had there with any of my dogs.

Scrat - the little dyno mutt - is an absolute joy to be around. I wish I knew how to bottle his energy, because I would make a fortune. This little 12 pounder out ran, out swam, out foxed all the other dogs which outweighed him by at least 40 pounds all afternoon.

Hubby showed up after we'd been there about an hour or so and the fun really began. How many dogs do you know that you can swing through the air with a tennis ball because they ABSOLUTELY refuse to let go of it?

That's my hubby, at 6'1" standing straight up with the dog hanging from the tennis ball.

This is Scrat jumping up and managing (the little booger) to grab the tennis ball right out of my hand. Now granted, I am MUCH shorter than my darling dearest (5'2"), but this little guy jumped above my waist after spending the previous two hours swimming or running non stop.

NOTE: heads are chopped off the bodies because well, my picture taking ability sucks. Also note that light colored jeans are a REALLY bad idea if you intend to let your dogs play in water and mud.

This is all four of my 'boys'. Oscar the Dog, Cliff the Mutt, Scrat the Brat (or maybe rat lol) and hubby honey.

Cliff is my darling. I've had him since Christmas Eve of 98, when he was 4 months old. He'll be nine this summer and he's the best dog I've ever had. He's a cross between a Boston Terrier and a traveling salesman. Only reason we know what Mom was (the boston) is because he was born at the local Humane Society.

Oscar the Dog, is my nervous norvis guy. He's about 9 too, we think, and we've had him 3 years. He's come a long way from the fearful abused boy that I brought home, to the playing fetch and frolicking with Scrat boy he is today. Terrier Mix through and through.

Scrat the Brat, we think is about 1 to 2 years old. He's a chichuahua something cross. He just showed up on our driveway March 18th and never left. This was in spite of repeated efforts - newspaper ads, found dog reports filed at local shelters, craigslist posting, neighborhood signs - you name it I did it trying to find his rightful owners.

Apparently the fates decided that we could handle another dog (thank goodness he's little) and he is here to stay. He loves to fetch and adores the water, which makes him the absolute perfect dog in the world for my husband, whose lap he is curled up on right now while recovering from his day.

The cats are still on the fence as to how they feel about him, but they are figuring out that they can take him since they out number him and together outweigh him, so he's learning his place with them. Helps that he's pretty much a wimp around cats too.

On a knitting note, during a lull time in Scrat's activites, while were waiting for 'Dad' to show up, I started a swatch for a sock. My friend Taunya, gave me a skein of Opal sock yarn from an auction she won this week. I was allowed the pick of the bunch - so I choose the Opal in Silver Spiral.

Now why on earth am I doing a swatch, when I don't do swatches? Well for this sock I decided to try the Yarn Harlot's Basic Sock Recipe from Knitting Rules! and she actually talks about swatching. So I bit the bullet and cast on 40 stitches to do in stockinette to see how tight my stitches are before I start a DPN sock. Plus the color change in this one is interesting and I want to see how they all line up so to speak so there won't be any major surprises (yeah right).

It will be interesting to see how her sock turns out compared to the one I started in Lorna's Laces, Jungle Stripes, with Cat Bordhi's circular needle socks. Either way I think I'm (or someone I know) is going to end up with some really cool socks by the time I'm done.

Happy Mother's Day to all my mommy friends. I hope you know how lucky you are.