June 2016 - Debra Sennefelder

Browse Month by June 2016

Shih-Tzu Saturday #8

Happy Saturday! How hot is it where you are? My critique partner, Ellie Ashe, who lives in northern California is baking as I write this. Over 100 degrees. Ugh. Here in Connecticut the temps are climbing today to the mid-80s with low humidity. So it’s tolerable. I’m really not a summer gal. I prefer cooler weather (without the snow preferably). But today’s post isn’t about the weather, it’s about a Shih-Tzu named Billy, aka Cone Dog.

Billy experienced something we humans dread. You go to the doctor for one thing and you end up leaving worse than you did when you arrived for the appointment. Last Sunday I took him for his annual exam. Simple, right? No so much. He had a skin irritation, something to do with allergies. Then the big whopper and the reason why he’s been wearing a cone since the appointment. He has an ulcer in his eye. We left the appointment with five medications for both conditions and then I picked up the cone for him. Aside from his medications (three times a day), the most important thing I had to do was protect his right eye so that the ulcer does not worsen. On his re-check mid-week the ulcer was healing nicely and tomorrow he has another appointment scheduled. If all goes well, he’ll be out of the cone tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

The little guy has been a good sport considering the wearing of the cone and the three medications I’m putting in his eyes three times a day. I know that’s not pleasant. But he’s still wagging his tail. I’ll have to keep this week in mind the next time I come across a difficult situation. I’ll just remind myself to keep wagging my tail. 🙂

Have a great Saturday!

Friday Faves

Happy Friday! I hope you’ve had a great week. Did your week fly by like mine did? Between the day job, the exceptionally lovely weather which means I can get the pups out more for walks and playtime, and revising the over 10,000 words I wrote over the Memorial Day weekend, the days just flew by. I did have time to do some reading and I was able to squeeze in some knitting time along with doing a little work on my counted-cross stitch sampler. I also found some great blogs and I’m going to share a few with you today.

Alina from The Gift of Knitting shared her thoughts on creativity. She posed the question of where does your creativity come from and the responses were very interesting. Her post had me thinking about where my creativity comes from and after giving it some thought the answer and the answer I came up with is that it is always present. There are times when it is quiet and other times it’s bursting at the seams so much so that I can barely contain it. Luckily that occurred when I sat down to write the outline of the second book in my mystery series. Check out the post, I think you’ll find it interesting.

With all of this lovely weather, a girl can’t help but thinking about having a picnic and over at Epicurious there’s a great post on packing the ultimate Parisian Picnic.

The countdown to Father’s Day is on. If you haven’t done your shopping you may want to check out 10 Last Minute Father’s Day Gifts from Organizing Made Fun for ideas and inspiration. There’s no time to dawdle.

Looking for a little movie history? The house from the 1991 remake of The Father of the Bride staring Steve Martin is for sale. It’s move in ready and I’m so ready to start packing.

Every 7 weeks I take Susie and Billy for a grooming appointment so you know I just had to read this article, 12 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Became a Dog Groomer. Lets just say, I’m super jealous of the dog bath that the groomer does. Talk about lucky dogs!

I hope you have a great Friday, after all it’s the best day of the week, right?

Knitting, Reads, Yarn Along

Yarn Along

I’m so excited to be participating in my first Yarn Along. I’m looking forward to seeing what the other gals are knitting and reading. For my first Yarn Along post I’m sharing a new project and my current read.

For my project it’s take two. I began this baby blanket (it’s going to be a gift) last week and after a rocky start (it was labeled a beginner pattern, in truth it really should have been labeled intermediate/beginner knitter and luckily I have a friend who is a very experienced knitter to help me) it started to look like a blanket!!! I was loving every stitch…until…I realized there was a dropped stitch after finding a funky end stitch on a row, both of realizations came after the fact. Not being experienced enough to salvage the drop stitch and I had no idea how to deal with that funky, loopy stitch, I decided to pull out all of the stitches until got to the dropped stitch. My thought was I would pick up that drop stitch and go forth. Knit on!

Well…

The blanket just fell apart, the stitches were coming undone and …it was a real mess.

I made the decision to pull out all of the stitches and start from the beginning.

That’s when it became a disaster.

Two yarns being pulled out led to a heap of knotted, tangled yarn. Yeah, that was fun.

Eventually I untangle, unknotted both yarns and I started all over again.

It’s finally starting to look like a blanket.

Now onto my current read. This is the third book I’ve read in the series so far and I’m really enjoying the series. Jenn McKinlay has written a smart, cozy series with characters that engaging and the plots are well-crafted.

One more photo. While I was taking photos of the blanket and the book Susie joined me and saw the camera. So, she wasn’t going to be left out of the action. She posed and waited patiently for her close-up. Guess she wanted to show off her pigtails. She and Billy had just returned from the grooming appointment.

This has been fun sharing my project and current read. I’m looking forward to checking out the other Yarn Along posts. Have a great Wednesday!

Knitting, Pets, Writing

Happy June!

It’s June 1st. Wow! It’s hard to believe we’re half way through 2016. I had a feeling that 2016 was going to be a good year and so far, it is pretty good. At the end of March I signed with an agent to represent my cozy mystery series! Very, very excited about that. I’m currently working on the second book in the series. In fact, over the three day weekend I wrote 10,017 words. That was pretty awesome.

But it hasn’t been all work. I’ve gotten some play in. And I have pictures!

Today was a perfect late spring day to get the dogs outside so I took them to their pen. Susie ran around and rolled several times. Boy, she just body slams the grass. LOL. Meanwhile, Billy stood close to me. I had him on a lead and walked him around several times so he could sniff and get some fresh air. He’s pretty much completely blind so letting him loose in the pen wasn’t a good idea. I think he would have been too disoriented.

Just as I snapped the photo, she turned her head. So typically Susie. 🙂

When she was ready for her photo to be taken she posed.

Here’s Billy.

Billy was ready for his close-up. 🙂

While I was at a writer’s conference in April I visited a knitting shop with my roommate, fellow author Megan Ryder, and I fell in love with a sample baby blanket and knew it would perfect for a certain little guy. So I bought yarn and a circular knitting needle. And I’ve finally had the time to start the project. Here’s my work in progress.

In the above picture you can see a glimpse of my new knitting tote. Before we hit the knitting shop we stopped in Michael’s (we needed to get a few things for Megan’s basket for the raffle) and we came across the prettiest totes. I couldn’t resist. Then I found the yarn and then it all came together. My yarn needed a bag!

I hope you have a great start to June. This month I want to finish the blanket and I have to continue writing the first draft of the second book in my mystery series. What are you up to this month?