The doggie is running the business!

This is Cosmo!

Anyone who has ever been to Sprinkles Sewing Center knows who this is ! This is Cosmo and he is in charge of the store. While Cosmo is a beautiful little Maltese he came from very humble beginnings having been rescued from the pound in Colorado Springs. He knows a guy has to work for a living, and if he falls down on the job, he could be out the door! That Jerry is a task master that expects a lot out of a little dog! True, he gets to ride in the front seat, but never gets to drive!



When you pull in the parking lot, Cosmo is at the door watching you walk toward the store. It is then that he is deciding if you are on a mission of good or evil! He has a natural instinct to separate the customers from the bad guys meaning to do harm. He will greet you with a smile and a friendly wag. Your job is to say, "Oh, hello Cosmo! How good to see you!" Or something along that line.



Sometimes he is busy in the back, but when the door chime rings he will drop what ever he is doing and run to greet you. He is partial to his humans, Jerry and Cathy, and if he is busy with them you may only get a perfunctory wag, but when he is finished with the current chore he will be back to give you his full attention. Granted sometimes the chore he is involved in is having a little snack, but "treat breaks" are one of the "perks" of the job.



Everyone is his friend, but you need to realize that running a store takes a lot of attention and when you are only 8 inches tall and running on 2 inch legs, it takes a lot out of a guy!



Everything and everyone is his concern and for the most part he does a very good job, but this summer he had a real problem and that is what I want to share with you now. His human got him a new kind of flea medicine. No fleas for this little white doggie! No siree! The next day, Cosmo was not himself. He was lethargic and not meeting people at the door. On the second day the humans were becoming alarmed.



Having eliminated diet changes and all in the list of things that could be wrong, they happened upon the flea medicine! Being good little humans and concerned, they gave the little fellow a good scrubbing. Thanks to the astute humans who were in charge, Cosmo made a rapid recovery and was back on the job the next day!



Seems as though there was something in this medicine that the little silky haired pooch could not tolerate. They had used this kind before and had never had a problem, but apparently this batch was different in some way. Just want to reinforce here, that if you are in charge of a four legged friend, you are very lucky and no doubt have a friend for life. But, it is a big responsibility! They can not talk and tell you anything. You just have to guess.



And if you ever get over that way, stop in to see Cosmo. He is always happy to see a new face, and tell him Lou said "hi!" Oh, and you might visit a minute with Jerry and Cathy, the people he allows to take care of his needs.

Alpaca: up close and personal.

Here is the alpaca, just standing there and wondering just exactly who I am, or rather what I am. It is very cold! This particular alpaca looks like she is wearing a mask. I shall continue to refer to this one as she because she is white in the front and brown on the back. White dogs are female also. Cats are him, no matter what color.

Look, Mr. Alpaca, I have a nice fat carrot for you. Come on over here! Yum, yum!
Now, they have eaten the carrots and they are trying to get me to go back in the house and get more. The one on the right thinks he told a joke so he is laughing!

And there you have the alpaca's that live in the field by my house! I thought they were Llama's when I first seen them. I must confess, I do not know the difference, but alpaca is easier to spell! It sort of rolls off the keyboard, but the double "ll" business just sort of boggles the mind!

These 2 alpaca's are very astute. If I walk across the deck and head out to the duck/goose pond they just look at me and go on about their business. If I stop and look at them they look back at me. If I take a step in their direction, they take a step in mine!

" I start walking their way, they start walking mine!

We meet in the middle 'neath that old Georgia Pine.

You gain a lot of ground if you both give a little!

Ain't no road to long if you meet in the middle!"

Forgot who sings this!

And there you have your lesson for the day! That was not too hard was it?

Peacock Wall Hanging!

As promised, the lovely Peacock wall hanging is now a published work of art! This does not do it justice because it is not really finished! See the gold ribbon between the blocks? I need to sew more all the way around the white and also stitch some in the border. Problem is I am out of the gold ribbon and it is too cold here to venture out for more. I will get that done at some point tomorrow.

Now for the particulars on this. This is an Anita Gooddesign Full Collection in 20 block tile scene in 3 sizes. This is the medium and measures 35" x 29". There are a total of 514,092 stitches in this and since I screwed up a couple of blocks, there are way more than that! This will lay flat when I finish and hang it on the wall as opposed to closing it in the top dresser drawer.

The peacock is a sign of good luck and since the neighbor lady does not have very good luck keeping her peacocks in the yard, perhaps she can keep this on her wall and have good luck, after all. I will give her this for Christmas and it will be a surprise for her because she does not even know I have a blog!!!

We learned in class that we should charge $1.50 per 1000 stitches. That makes the value of this $771.00 and since I worked on this for over a week (Sunday excluded) I would say she is getting a pretty good Christmas present!!

I get to babysit today for the little one that belongs to Janea, who is Lyn's daughter. He is 5+ months old. Don't think he can do much but kind of roll around. Oh, well. It will be a break in the routine and I can snuggle with him and he will keep me warm! Reminds me of an old cross stitch I made once to hang on the wall. I don't remember all of it, but the part I remember goes:

Cooking and cleaning can wait for tomorrow
For babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow.

So dust you just lay there, cob webs go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep!

Author unknown

Give us this day, our daily bread!

It is 12 below zero, do you know where your children are? Remember way back when curfews were in style and the announcer would come on and say, "It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your children are? " At the time my kids were little and I knew exactly where the little boogers were.

Time passes and those little cherubs have since grown into adults and raised their own babies and those babies in turn have spawned more babies. I look back on the trail of human lives that I am directly responsible for and I am amazed. How did this happen?

I birthed 5, who in turn birthed 8. Those 8 have turned out 7 (so far). Very quickly I am running out of fingers and toes to count them on! You probably are wondering where I am going with this and what it has to do with 12 below weather! Simple.

All of these people have homes. They all have somewhere to stay and food to eat and by the grace of God, are not out on the streets in this Artic weather. It is the time of year to look around at the less fortunate in our midst and to reach into our pocket and do something for someone we have never met and probably never will. It is time to think outside of our little circle we tend to be so generous with and encompass a little more of mankind.

I make soap and lotion as one of my hobbies. The family gets lots of that for Christmas, but I tend to forget about the homeless needing something like that. I am going to load a bunch and take it to Posada, I think. This is already made so it will not cost me anything to do that! And it may make some one happy.

"Count your many blessings, name them one by one! Count your many blessings see what God has done!"

My God! It did it again!

Here is Daisy in the snow on the way to the duck pond. If you have not guessed, it snowed again last night. According to Indian Lore we now have 23 snows left. Daisy stopped so I could take her picture. What a good doggie!!!Here is where our footprints converge, although briefly. You can see we only have about an inch or so. Not how much snow we have, but rather how cold it is here. I do not know the exact temperature, but I think it is the area of -2 degrees. The schools in town and here in the county are closed.

Normally I would just hang out here in my 'jammies and wait for warmer weather, but I have ducks and geese that need tending. I shut them up at night and have ever since I found the fox dining on the drake that night. By closing them up, I keep them safe and they stay warm, which you can see by the next photo, what they think of snow. They rush out the door and sit in the snow! They only set in the snow until I get the pond broken and then they are in it swimming in the ice floes!

Do you see them setting in the snow up there! The picture below is a small part of the pond that I broke so they can get water to drink. Then when they all get out there the weight of them will break off more edges and they will have room to swim. Glad I am not a duck!!

See my little footprints there? This is my strategy for breaking ice without falling in the pond. My right foot has the toes up on a brick so my weight is thrown to the back. Then with my right hand I proceed to break the crust of the ice with a sharpshooter shovel. I do not want to fall in that pond on a good warm day and doing so in sub zero weather would be the end of life as I know it!!

And there you have the start of my day. The rest of the day has got to be better, but not according to the weather report. I am going to go work on the peacock so I can post that for you tomorrow or Thursday at the latest.

"Keep a smile on your face so people will wonder what you have been up to!!"