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A Fond Farewell To A Friend

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“This is just a fond farewell to a friend"- Elliot Smith


We just had to say goodbye today to a dear old friend of our cul de sac and family. Kelso was not just our neighbor’s dog but a very very loved dog by our whole family. He managed to love every single one of us as if we were all his family. Kelso you were so loved, and you will be so missed.

Kelso Tracey 2000-2009

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Posted by Jennifer on 06/22 at 02:48 PM ♥ Comments (10)

Success and other things

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First up I just really need to say thank you. With ALL of your help..buying our bags..clicking that donate button..we raised $958 and i called the vet last week and paid them directly. My dear friends s-ro and michelle really helped in that last push! There was only a little left and the balance due was $0. Amy was able to bring Hannah’s ashes home where they belong a few days ago. I am working on sending you all buttons..i just ran out of envelopes and need to send out the last 2-3.

Let’s see what have we been up to? You wouldn’t believe it’s summer with all the grey, chilly temps, and rain around here. But we braved the rain and went to the Printer’s Row Book Fest which i think is now called Lit Fest or something stupid. Printer’s Row is the neighborhood my friend Joy lives in located in the South Loop.



I saw a guy playing banjo



Sparkly Raindrops



and wood type


Zander’s been doing well with his baseball, except it’s been cold at every game and nearly rainy


and samuel has been just as lazy



Last weekend we went to Rib Fest to see a band nat likes. I think their name was Margot and the Get Down Stay Downs...they were pretty good and she played her guitar with a toothbrush on a song it was impressive. After eating many ribs and enduring far too many drunk annoying people we headed to Chicago’s Blues Fest in Grant Park on Sunday to see the Master himself HoneyBoy Edwards play with Devil in a Woodpile. Look close, i only had my 50mm lens. He’s singing Sweet Home Chicago and is turning 94 in a few days.



Nat likes to drive his Mini Cooper all around....



On Irving Park you’ll find the forrest preserves in Chicago. At sunset if you pull over like in the picture above and look 50 yards OR LESS to your right you will see anywhere from 5 to 15 deer grazing. We like to stop and watch them for a bit, but usually dumb people let their dogs loose to chase the deer, or even worse people go running around and scare the deer. One chased a guy and nearly hit him. I don’t know why people do this. But last sunday evening we stopped and no one was around to scare them. I even took some pictures cause they liked to come really close..so close you can see their fuzzy antlers.




and that brings us currently to this weekend. Which has my sister’s bday AND father’s day. oh boy.

Posted by Jennifer on 06/18 at 08:38 PM ♥ Comments (1)

Helping out…

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Sometimes you just need to lend a helping hand. A fellow knitter/raveler’s basset needed emergency surgery on saturday. Hannah needed her spleen removed because of a tumor had ruptured. This plus bloodwork, plus meds has left Hannah’s human Amy in a pinch. We figured we could help. We will have bags listed in our shop tomorrow that will help Amy out. Any bag in our update tomorrow listed as Bags for Hannah 100% of the proceeds will go to Amy to pay off her vet bill.


If you can’t buy a bag for yourself but still want to help them out you can donate 5$ dollars i’ll send you a special pin. Just click the buy now button and donate if you can lend a helping hand. We did learn this evening that Hannah passed away rather suddenly and this update and donation is in loving memory of a wonderful kleenex eating hound. :(

Posted by Jennifer on 06/08 at 09:11 PM ♥ Comments (9)

Stuff & Things bonus edition now with Alpacas!

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yesterday was our annual trip to Shipshewana, Indiana. We go to the flea market and walk around a bit and then shop at some quilt stores. Usually this is where my sister and i find all our valentine fabric for some odd reason. Anyways here’s some of the adventure…

While stopped at the rest stop (some people in my family have no bladder) we saw these Alpacas in a trailer.


Turns out they were headed to a competition in Cleveland OH.


The are awfully smiley looking little animals. The guy was telling my mom and aunt that they smell your breath so they can recognize you...here’s my mom talking to one of them and he’s sniffing!


Lots of colorful stuff at the flea market:

Avon booth


License Plates


Look carefully...you can buy old soda bottles from the 70s with pop still in them! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew.


Three things that don’t go together...deer hunter lane, skateboard road & cattle country


My sister and i used to play clarinet! I’ve never seen a blue one before


The Amish know how to make a mean soft pretzel, they are my favorite


After we got home we divided up our haul for the day


And then relaxed in the front yard cause it was nice but chilly outside.

Samuel is getting grey in her ears


My mom shared her sweet tea with samuel and when lucy dog wasn’t looking did this:

Posted by Jennifer on 06/04 at 12:03 PM ♥ Comments (8)

Packages of Happy

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First off i got a little package in today’s mail. S-ro sent me a little box!



Inside was trinkets & baubles!





A good dog/ bad dog shirt, maryland sheep and wool pin, hello kitty vinyl zippy, and evil eye pin!

The BEST thing about this, is how happy it did indeed make me. You see I once owned this shirt (S-ro did not know this) i lost it back in 1997 when i moved from Bloomington. It was so good to see this shirt again! And amazing, just how did she know? Thank you so much S-ro and Charlie and Conan. You should click her link up there and check out her two cute dogs.

I also received a small envelope a month or two ago. It had Erin’s return address on it so i knew i’d certainly be in for a surprise!

Inside was a card and THIS BEAUTY!



Not only does it match my Vomit green coat perfectly, but it has awesome details like this braid:



Erin is just that good. Always amazing me. I simply love it. I sent her a little box to say thank you and i hope she likes her little gifts too.

The Hawks did win ONE out of their two games at home. They played so badly on sunday i am not even sure the team knew they had a game...they were too busy sitting in the penalty box or getting thrown out of the game for too many penalties. ugh. Chicago, reel it back a couple notches. It’s ok if we lose though..i have to agree with the guy i saw on the news who said.."in two years everyone will be like DETROIT WHO?”

Posted by Jennifer on 05/26 at 09:39 PM ♥ Comments (6)

Play to win…or go home

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Turn the way back machine on and Jen-of-the-90s used to watch NHL all the time. I live just outside of Chicago, and i just used to pick a team each year and follow them through. I remember being a Dallas Stars fan in the mid 90s, then Avalanche, then Flyers, then Toronto, then the lockout happened. I just sort of never got back into it, then this year I started to watch the playoffs. I used to watch the playoffs all the time despite who was in them, but this year..for the first time in 7 years Chicago made the cut.

This whole series of playoff games has been extra exciting this year. Lower seeded teams who had to play the #1 teams for each conference were each taken out. Apparently the lower seeded teams didn’t get the memo this year that they were supposed to lose. Chicago made it past two rounds, they took out the Calgary Flames, then defeated the last canadian team in the running for the cup, Vancouver. So now we stand in the western conference finals matched up against Detroit. Yes i said Detroit. The rivalry that goes way way waaaaaay back. Detroit is a cup winning machine. They also have the cup now and are not going to let it go easily. Chicago you’ve lost 2 games in this series which means nothing, i have faith in you. Keep playing hard and tight like you did in game 2. Make the Wings work extra hard each and every game. Learn from them so you too can raise that cup into the air. I like your spirit and teamwork, y’all work together in such a way that excites everyone. Y’all can rally like it’s nobodies business. Keep it up and for the love of all things holy WIN TONIGHT AND SUNDAY IN THE UNITED CENTER!!

LET’S GO HAWKS!

p.s. if you made it this far..you can see a fine example of why hockey jersey’s only look good on fat drunk guys.

Posted by Jennifer on 05/22 at 09:12 AM ♥ Comments (2)

Adventures

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So I guess some of you do still remember me over here at this poor neglected little blog!

So maybe you are wondering, so Jen, just what exactly have you been up to all this time?

Well I can easily say many many adventures! I’ll share some of them with you, but i must note that none of these are my photos.

At the begnning of May, a friend from the beloved Philly Crew, was visiting Chicago on official business. Miss Robin, of the blog What is Robin Up To? Asked me if i’d like to accompany her to a taping of Chicago Public Radio’s Weekly Quiz Show Wait Wait....Don’t Tell Me! How could i say no?

(photo by robin)



It was a lot of fun, a long taping, and a LOT of laughing. Robin convinced some poor soul in front of us to take our picture.



And after the show the Host and Score keeper will even humor everyone and let you have your picture taken!

Here we are with Carl Kasell



Here we are with Peter Sagal



Thank you Robin for sharing a ticket with me, for the company afterwards for good eats up on the North Side, and for making me laugh so much that day! You can check out her blog for short video clips of the show too!

What else have i been up to? Well a major thing has been this....

(photo by Nathaniel Davis)



That would be Nat’s new car. In Decemeber his car’s heat went out when it was below zero. He needed brakes and feared something was wrong with the clutch when we’d hear that weird rattling sound. So the first week of January he bought the Cooper. It is a fun and beautiful little car. Nat loves it so much, we go driving every weekend. Yes, every weekend. We have learned many things about rich people while driving along Sheridan up to the North Shore. (This is a really really windy road that drives along Lake Michigan and all of the ultra expensive real estate) We’ve learned that rich people like their retaining walls, no one does their own yardwork, 3 car garages are uncool and 6 car garages are where it’s at, they either have chandeliers and lamps or track lighting, and some of these people have living quarters attached to THEIR GATES.

While doing all this driving we’ve happened upon some weird stuff. Like Nat asking me what is this thing jutting out of the sky in the western suburbs of chicago?

(all photos by Nathaniel)



I shrugged my shoulder’s and said SKI JUMP?

Nat drove toward it and turns out...I WAS RIGHT....I KNOW? You are thinking Chicago...suburbs of chicago...ski jump? what the hell? right me to!





Then while driving along the Fox River we happened upon an just ended Civil War battle!



Then we happened upon an old Rail Car Museum (that was closed for the season, so we stayed outside the chains and took pictures)





We’ve also stopped at IKEA to buy poang chairs and got rid of the old couch in nat’s apt. Here’s what it looks like when you pack up the Cooper.



While we were there the sky looked really weird so i made nat stop to take pictures with his wide angle





So i’m sorry for the long break, and this long visual post. But thought you might like to see some of these adventures. Now that it’s not zero degrees i need to start carrying my camera with me non-stop again.

Posted by Jennifer on 05/21 at 09:50 AM ♥ Comments (9)

Taking Back the Blog

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Hi guys.

waves

I’m taking back the blog. So here’s some stuff for you!

Look at the beautiful package i recieved from a wonderful friend, Stacey of Sheepinthecity fame. (If you aren’t reading her blog by now, you should)



I sent her a little present in return from an awesome seller on etsy. Her name is Joyce and she has a shop called Happy Cloud Moments. She will put together custom sets that will make you so happy! She made this beautiful set for me:

Dew Drop Earrings in a custom blend of orange and lime green:



Star Necklace in Orange:





A little pop of color in sterling silver for about 20$, you have to love it. They also make great thank you gifts. I had a custom set made for Stacey keep your eyes peeled and see if she shares a picture of them.

Another great etsy seller i have to share with you is Dawn of Twice Sheared Sheep Her markers are unique and fresh. Her craftwomanship is outstanding (as well as Joyce from Happy Cloud) and you shouldn’t hesitate to buy from either of these fine etsy sellers.

Dawn sent along cards with the markers so i can attach them to our project bags.





We also now, thanks to Nat, have an official stapler for the Piddleloop Sewing Team



Yep, that’s a dog stapler. Gotta love it.

Alrightie, hopefully there’s a few of you who still read blogs out there now that twitter and plurk and facebook and stuff has made stuff seem rather instant. I’m just going to go old skool and take the blog back. So there will be more. In the meantime if you need a little pick me up or a little thank you gift check out one of those etsy sellers!

Posted by Jennifer on 05/17 at 07:10 PM ♥ Comments (10)

Valentine Update

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Once a year we go crazy and regress back to 4th grade and go nutzo-out-the-buttzo for hearts, pink, red, and all thing valentine. We are doing a massive valentine update friday feb 6th at 2:14pm central time. I will release everything at once on our etsy shop at this time. Shipping will begin monday when i return into town. All orders will receive a special limited edition valentine 1 inch pinback as well. We’’ll have 12 project bags, 40 piddlys, and 26 of our elusive flat animal bags. All animals have a heart to make them even cuter. So please join us and one of these days i’ll take back the blog, does anyone read this anyways?

Posted by Jennifer on 02/05 at 05:12 PM ♥ Comments (9)

Monkey!!!!

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Sometimes you just get the best mail ever. And i do mean EVER. I opened the mailbox the other day and inside was a pretty red mailer. Inside was a handknitted monkey. Alexis was kind enough to make and send me a little friend. He hasn’t really revealed his name to me yet, but i’m getting to know him.

Saturday on pizza and beer day i found him hogging my IPA.



On Sunday i spotted him wanting to be a pepper too.



We came ome from brunch and i think i spotted some hijinx in our tree.



Then later in the afternoon he moved to be close to our presents under the tree



Then after we opened our gifts i saw him lounging on my orange chair with one of my gift bows



Then he just pretty much hung out on the radiator since it was -4 in chicago all day



Thank you for the monkey, Alexis! He is going to travel with me to philly tomorrow for his great philly adventure!

I also got a little gift that made me smile from Erika

She sent me a little stitch marker set made by Cary. They are beautiful! Thank you very much Erika!



And last i’ll share lucy dog. She is the queen of comfort. She will find ANYTHING you put on the floor and make it her lounge. This would include my mom’s handmade, hand quilted or whatever tree skirt.





We’re off to philly to spend the holidays with nat and his parents. I’m already planning my vacation eating...tastykakes, cheesesteaks at jim’s or ishkabibbles, sandwhiches made with paper thin cheeses and meats, nat’s mom’s hommade peanutbutter snicker-doodles....dunked in my tea, mmmmmmm om nom nom. I wish you a warm and wonderful holiday!

Posted by Jennifer on 12/21 at 10:02 PM ♥ Comments (14)