Where've I Been? Right Here!

Happy Summer!

Well ... it's been a long time since I've updated That Old House. 

Since 'way back in February, in fact, when we still had

several feet of snow on the ground, and ice-encrusted windows.

(shudder)

It's a prettier picture now, isn't it?

(Even with all the weeds.)

Confession:  This picture is more than a month old.  The garden is much

advanced since then, but I am too lazy busy to take a new shot.

Mr. Dylan DiPoochy, dog-about-town, is happy

that trips to The Great Outdoors no longer mean a freezing bippy.

Mrs. Gilda-The-Red, pictured in that snowy shot above,

luxuriates on the Grandma swing in the garden.

Gilda is a Great Outdoors kind of gal.

Dylan?  Not so much.

He likes a nice cushy sofa better than

a patch of warm earth.

To each his or her own, eh?

And that's it for today.

Many thanks for the sweet messages I've gotten over the past

few months, for your wonderful kindness,

and I apologize for just disappearing with no explanation.

Because ... honestly? ... there really is no explanation.

I just ran out of steam.

But I think my supply of hot air is bubbling up again.

I'm back.  :-)

See you tomorrow, my friends!

I'm off to re-stock my antiques booth today.  Pictures to follow!

Love and blessings to all; I wish you a wonderful Sunday ... Cass

Those Crazy Cut-Ups: Mother Nature and Father Christmas!

A Happy New Year to all!

I'm sure things have been hopping at your home, too,

as time slid into the New Year, and then the 12 days

of Christmas ushered in the season of Epiphany on January 6th.

Our fresh Sunroom tree, back on December 18th, freshly decorated.
You can still see ornament boxes stacked in the lower right corner!
This tree is a Canaan Fir, and took 4 Rubbermaid bins of ornaments,
1,800 colored lights, and one strand of white lights around the trunk.
Howard is a lighting wizard.

*********************************

How was your Christmas?

Ours was lovely,

with both of our daughters and our son-in-law under our roof.  

We had a big party on December 21st, but I took no pictures.

Too busy!

Christmas morning at That Old House: 

Josh and Alida made Monkey Bread for breakfast,

a tradition borrowed from his family.

So good, your brains could fall out!

Anne made her lighter-than-air waffles,

this year gluten-free!

Waffles, real maple syrup, and breakfast sausages.
We don't skimp on Christmas feasting!

 And then, it got cold. 

Really, really cold.

Brass Monkey alert cold.

Our fence, this week, with the Christmas lights still
festooning it, and the thermometer crying "Uncle!"

Our resident red-headed bombshell, Gilda,

is not bothered by the cold at all.

She wears a nice, thick fur coat.

All the time. 

 Dylan DiPoochy, whose coat is rather thin

in comparison, is less happy with the frigid outdoors.

We fenced in a play yard for the dogs; here's part of it,

as seen from the dining room windows:

 They haven't spent much time playing in it.

Gee, I wonder why?

Meanwhile, in the house, Christmas still holds sway

. . . in the front hall: 

. . . in the Parlor: 

. . . and in the Sunroom, where the Canaan Fir

still stands, still in good shape.

I really hate to take down a Christmas tree! 

Sunroom tree, on Tuesday morning, 1/7/14.

Gilda has started to yank ornaments off the tree

and put them on the floor.

I think perhaps she's pushing me into restoring

the house to a more normal state.  Gilda is a very opinionated lady.

She likes to sleep on pillows,

and often tips one over to make a bed for herself.

The other day she used her nose to push a pillow off a club chair

and into a basket of clean folded laundry.

Nice little nest, isn't it?

Happy Epiphany to all!

This season of the church year brings us to Lent, to Ash Wednesday.

How 'bout that?  Before we know it, we will be looking at Spring.

I promise.  -- Cass

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Let Me Pick Your Brains . . . . Canine Style

If you don't care much for dogs,
you can skip today's post.  
Not that you need my permission to do that

Because it is about this guy,

our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel,

Dylan DiPoochy.

 And these guys,

Dylan's beloved Alligator-Dinosaur-Dragons. 

We are not entirely sure which species these little stuffed toys represent.

Hence, the hyphenated names.

Since adopting Dylan during Hurricane Sandy last October,

our house has slowly filled with stuffed dog toys.

Dylan piles them up on sofas, and lies down on top of them.

He takes them for walkies in the yard, sometimes forgetting one

and rescuing it, dirty and bedraggled, hours later.

The only things he'd rather snuggle with than his toys

are his people and, sometimes, Gilda The Red, his Cavalier companion.

Luckily for Gilda and for us, he doesn't chew us open and pull out our stuffing.

Most of the time, when you find Dylan, you also find at least one.

Two.  Three.  More of his stuffed toys.

Some of Dylan's stuffed toys are quality items.

They have survived pretty much intact.  Most of those still have their guts.

But the little Alligator-Dinosaur-Dragons

are in the 2 for $5 bucket at the PetCo checkout counter.

  

Not really your quality items.

But Dylan loves them.

And we have managed to keep him from dining

on the white fluff he pulls out; thank goodness he's more interested

in the eviscerating than in the ingesting part of this process.

Which proves what those of us who shop for bargains,

and haunt thrift shops and secondhand emporiums,

are probably born knowing:

You can't judge the value of something by what you pay for it.

It's a rare picture of our Dylan that doesn't include at least

a glimpse of one of these little green toys.

So one may not have its snout, another may not have the top of its head,

and the new one will be similarly customized by our ferocious pooch . . . 

but they do look well loved, don't they?

By the way, during the photo shoot for these three toys, above, 
there was a quite frantic little dog bouncing up and down, up and down, 

at the side of my desk, worried that his little pals had disappeared forever.  

He got them back.

And so far, New Guy has not had a lobotomy.

May all of us find bargains that we cherish, 

and that amuse and comfort us!  -- Cass

Gilda thinks there was far too much talk about Dylan today.