A Dog Bed for Honey

Ever since she was a puppy, Honey has loved anything soft.  From the moment we brought her home, if there was any type of pillow or soft blanket around, it was hers to curl up with.   

Honey quickly decided that our pillows were much nicer than her mere blankets.

I think it might have something to do with her mixed heritage - that perhaps her joints aren't all that comfortable at times.  Considering she limped and messed up both her hind legs just running around the back yard when she was 6 months to a year old ... I'm going with that theory.  It gives me an excuse to pamper her with soft things!

For the most part, Honey is fine wandering the house, sleeping on the couch or our bed.  But she's grown into a fairly good-sized dog - 61 lbs when I took her to the vet this summer.  Sometimes we like to sleep at night without her lying on top of us or having to kick her to let us get some blankets (yes, she hogs the blankets).  We also like to sleep through the night, without her waking us up to go outside at 3:30 am.  And sometimes she just misbehaves and needs a time-out.

That's what her bed is for.  She is crate trained - and honestly doesn't mind being in there at all.  The only times she gets upset when I put her in her bed is when she thinks she's missing out on something, or if she's in trouble.  I had made a pillow for her bed a few years ago when I first got my sewing machine.  It was my very first project, and a little bit sad.  It looked fine at first, but then all the stuffing got stomped down and now it's hardly a pillow at all. 

So, I finally worked up the energy to make her another pillow.  (Please be nice - I'm totally self-trained on the sewing machine, and am very slowly learning!)

First off, I found two pieces of fabric in my stash - whenever I go to a craft store I check out their clearance fabric section to see what I can find.  Those two pieces of fabric probably cost me less than $5.  The only problem was that they were both super thin - and that worried me.  I didn't want Honey's nails to ruin the fabric just through normal use!

So, I got out some batting, and sewed a piece of batting to each piece of fabric, creating a quilted design on each side.  The batting became thoroughly attached to the fabric, and made the overall piece much sturdier.  I think the batting was about $10, but I've still got most of the package left.

Side One - with diamonds

Side Two - it's hard to see, but each square is quilted.

After that I sewed the two pieces together, leaving a space for the stuffing to go in.  Having learned from the last pillow that the stuffing will most likely get matted down and flatten the pillow out, I wanted to create a way to re-stuff the pillow at a later time.  Solution:  velcro!

I left a tab on each side of the open seam, and sewed the velcro pieces to the respective fabric pieces.  I then used some iron-on stitches to clean it up a bit.  It looks a bit rough, and I didn't take any pictures of it, but honestly, I was just winging it.  All the messiness is inside the pillow, so as long as it looks good from the outside, that's fine.  Right?

I didn't have any stuffing immediately on hand, but was so excited to have a (nearly) finished project that I called Honey over for a photo shoot!

You want me to do what again?

I'm only here because I love you.  In two seconds, I'm going to go see if there's a squirrel outside.

Rather than pay a bunch of money for bags of stuffing, John and I went to Fred's and bought 4 pillows for $10 and ripped them open.  We then stuffed the pillow (the Velcro works wonderfully) and surprised Honey with it!

She wasn't really interested.

Notice:  the lack of a dog in this picture.

Although, to be fair, we'd left her home alone most of the day, and this was only about 5 minutes after we got home.  She was too excited to see us to sit still for the camera or check out something new.  All she wanted to do was get some love and attention.  And maybe play.  And take a walk.  And cuddle.  All at once.

So, we moved the pillow into her bed - considering my lack of measurements (I just picked two pieces of cloth that were relatively the same size and cut them to match each other), I'm thrilled to say that the pillow fits her bed perfectly!

Perfection!

Once it was in her bed, Honey finally took interest and started checking the pillow out.  She seemed pleased.

Actually, we bribed her by putting a treat in her bed.  She was still too excited to be still.

Since then, I've noticed Honey going "missing" at random times, and found her curled up on her pillow in her bed.  She always gets up quickly when I walk in - so as not to let me think that she likes being in her bed, but over the past 4 days I've walked in on her a good 6-7 times. 

I think she likes it!

Epic long post detailing the best weekend ever!

What is it, Monday already?

So, this weekend was probably one of the best weekends we've had in a long time!  For me, it kinda started on Thursday.

For some reason known only to her, Honey decided to stay up all night on Wednesday barking.  John slept through it, thankfully, but she kept me up far too late.  So ... I called in to work the next morning and took Thursday off.  I spent the morning in my pajamas and did laundry and finished sewing Honey a pillow for her bed.  (Why?  I don't know.  She certainly didn't deserve it after keeping me up all night!  Still, it's soooo nice to have one more project checked off the list!)

I'll post pictures soon - Right now is an overall summary of the weekend.

So ... Friday came, and John had another test.  I went back to work, and spent the entire day working on a project that I've only just now mostly finished.  I made enough project on Friday to be almost giddy by the time 5 pm came around.  John was pleased with how his test went, and did not want to have a quiet evening at home.  So, we decided on a fun evening out.

First we drove over to Fred's to pick up some cheap pillows.  Pillow stuffing is expensive, but we bought four good-sized pillows at Fred's for $10.  Perfect for ripping apart and re-using the stuffing in a dog bed.

After that we made our way over to Chick-fil-A for dinner, and went to the movies!  We hadn't been to see a movie in months and months - I think the last one we saw was "Up" ... or maybe "Star Trek".  Whichever one came out more recently. (Edit:  Apparently they both came out in 2009.)

Even though I would have happily seen "Hotel Transylvania", John talked me into seeing the new movie "Argo".  Neither one of us knew much about it, but we'd seen the advertisement on tv about it, and read a few reviews about how good it was supposed to be.

It. Was. Amazing.  For the first time in my life I went to a movie where people actually applauded when it was over.  I will say that it's rated "R" for a reason - it's not a movie for kids.  But it's rated that way primarily for language and some violence - no gore or sex.  The acting was very well done, and the editing kept things interesting.  Definitely an amazing thriller, and worth the price of the tickets!

After the movie, we went to Target and bought a new tablecloth for the Dining Room (is it sad that that makes me super excited?) and then went to Cold Stone and got ice cream before heading home.

Saturday, we slept in, and then headed out for brunch at a new local restaurant.  It's only about two blocks from our house, and they opened close to three months ago.  John ordered their Shrimp & Grits, while I ordered a salad - not a very good "brunch" dish, but it was what I was feeling like.  The food was perfect - John's grits definitely tasted home-made, not processed; while my salad was the freshest I've had in forever.  John told me yesterday that that's his new favorite restaurant!

Since the weather was positively perfect (70-75 degrees F), we decided to spend the day working outside.  The flower bed in teh front of the house needed some love, and since neither one of us had any experience whatsoever with gardening, we decided to visit a few gardening shops and get some advice.

The first place we went had only herbs, veggies, and mums, and the workers there were distinctly unhelpful.  The second place ended up being a planter store, not a gardening store at all!  We finally gave up on the local business aspect and just went to Lowes.  After all, we only had the one day to get the flower bed taken care of!  We couldn't spend it all visiting shops!

After about an hour wandering the Lowes garden session, and a (very) brief consultation with one of the workers there, we bought some flowers, plants, garden soil, and tools, and headed home.  We started working in the 11x4 flower bed about 2:30 pm - and finished about 5:30 pm.  Not bad!  I then trimmed some bushes while John mowed the grass.  We were going to clean the house later that evening, but by the time 7:30 came around we were so sore we could hardly move!  I think we were in bed by 8:30 pm!

I have pictures of the gardening project too - that'll receive it's own post soon!

We spent Sunday recovering from Saturday - we didn't think we'd worked that hard, but both John and I are still so sore we can hardly move!  Still, we went to both the morning and the evening service at church, and after church last night went over to a building/business dedication.  The man that John has worked with for the past 2 years before he started school in August wanted to dedicate his building to the Lord, so most of the church went over there after the evening service to fellowship, eat, and pray.  It was fun - and we didn't get home until about 10:30 pm.

John's Bible study is at our house tonight - so we ended up frantically cleaning house until about 11:30 pm last night to make it presentable.  It still needs a little bit of work, but hopefully John can do some of that while I cook dinner.

And now ... life back to normal!  Only with a really cute front flower bed!  Yay!!

Waiting Waiting Waiting

I've spent all day today calling people and emailing people trying to get them to get back with me so that I can get some work done!

Now I'm having to stay late because someone never got back with me - and they're on their way over here now.  I'm just marking time until they get here and I can go home.

It's more than a little frustrating when your (large) projects get stuck in limbo because people aren't doing what they're supposed to do.

Okay, vent over.

John is studying, waiting for me to get off work.  Then we're going to go eat (depending on when we get out of here I'll either go home and cook or just pick something up) and then take Honey for a nice walk.  It's gorgeous outside!  And considering there are less than 6 weeks a year with beautiful weather here, we must take advantage of it!

After that we'll have a quiet evening of studying and crocheting.  I'm working on a queen/king sized blanket.  I'm hoping to complete it in time for my brother's wedding to give it to them as a wedding gift.  They're not even engaged yet, so I still have time!  I've only been working on it for, oh, five years now?

I am so tired of working on the thing!  I'll be glad to give it away.

It really is beautiful (before you start thinking that I'm giving something horrible to my brother and (future) sister-in-law)!  Various shades of blue in a variety of stitches that I may or may not have made up myself. 

Since it's so large, each row takes me anywhere from 25-75 minutes to complete depending on the stitch.  Thankfully, I've finished the most time consuming stitches, so now I'm down to about 25-35 minutes per row.  Still ... that's a lot of rows and a lot of time!

But I'm determined that I'm going to finish this blanket before I start any other projects.  Period.  Done.

Weekend Notes

Today was not nearly as productive as I would have liked, although it wasn't bad, either.  We're helping John's parents sell a house here in town, so this morning John went over there to cut the grass and attempt to fix the A/C.  John and I lived in the house for 4 years - and the a/c broke just before we moved out.  With the house closing in less than a week, we have to get it up and running again.  Preferably without it costing an arm and a leg!

John was kind enough to let me sleep in this morning - that plus the long nap I had this afternoon may be why I'm still up at 1:30 in the morning.  Bed, as soon as this is posted.  Promise!

While John was over at the other house, I attempted to paint a bench - I bought a bench at Goodwill's for $15.  It was sturdy, but a bit scuffed up.  I sanded it down really well, and spent the morning spraying on coats of white paint.  Unfortunately, I ran out of paint, and then messed up the top of the bench by not positively, absolutely, without-a-doubt made sure that the paint was completely dry.  Ah well - I just sanded that down again.  There will be a cushion on top of the bench when it's finished, so the top doesn't really matter.  Now I just need more paint!

We were total slackers this evening, though.  John really ought to have gotten some study time in; but I discovered that Netflix now has the second season of Sherlock, so we dropped everything to have a movie night!  My little laptop's sound wasn't up for the fast mumbling that Sherlock does so brilliantly, so we moved into the tiny office to watch the first two episodes on John's larger computer with speakers.  LOVE that show!

Tomorrow is church day - I believe I'll be in the nursery for the service.  After that lunch, a Sunday afternoon nap (for me, that is.  John doesn't believe in naps.  Unless he's sick or not feeling well), and some serious study time for John.  And maybe, just perhaps, we'll watch the final episode of Sherlock.