Queen for a day (or more)

Look at this monstrosity...

So, we wanted to get Mandy a bigger bed than she had.  Since the new wood floor got installed (pics later), and since she is old, she has trouble getting up from laying down.  The floor is really slippery and she looks like a cartoon character with her legs moving but not getting anywhere.  So we needed a bed that would fit her. The website said "measure your dog when he/she is laying down and add 12 inches".  So the length is perfect.  The width is ridiculous.  The bed takes up half the living room!  So she will now be Queen Mandy.  Luxuriating on her luxury dog bed monstrosity.  The things we do for our pets.

Meanwhile, there's Phoebe.  Sitting in front of the "fire" (there isn't one) on the new hearth rug and not in her bed over there under the side table....

On to other fun stuff....
We finally finished the wood floor!

We still have to do the "finishing" (painting and installing trim, filling in nail holes etc) and we all know how much I love finishing work (NOT).  But the hard stuff is done and we just love it.  It is so nice not to have subfloor and crappy carpet in here.

And in gardening news...  I made tons of tomato sauce (just cooked down tomatoes -  no spices until I know what I'm going to use it for).

Did I already tell you about that and show you this picture?  Well, I made a lot more since then, just didn't take pictures.  Lots and lots of containers in the freezer.

AND, then I cooked my sugar pumpkins:

Then used my new food mill to make them into puree:

And wa-la.... 10 one cup bags, ready to freeze and then use in pumpkin bread or pumpkin chili (I've had it.  It's actually really good.):

Oh, and speaking of the food mill, remember when I said I had to buy a new one because I couldn't find the one I had since it was probably packed somewhere still, after 5 years of living here?  [ok, so I just went back to link to the post in which I said that, because I'm certain that I did, and now I can't find it.  I'm so good at this blog, I can't stand it.]  Yeah, well.....

FOUND IT!  In the back of that really deep cabinet over the fridge, where you put things that you don't use that much because they are a pain to get to, and where I had supposedly already looked, behind the panini maker.  AFTER I had purchased and used the new one.  Well, now one will go into the tag sale. What tag sale you ask?  Why, the one we keep saying we are going to have but can't seem to find a good weekend to have one.

In knitting news...
I'm making progress on my Watermelon Slice Socks:

Do my "seeds" look random enough?  Mind you, the seeds are in the exact same spots on both socks.  But the look on a single sock should look random.  Purposefully random.  Do they?

And then there's this mess...

Since I finished knitting my Tudor Henley (as opposed to finished finished it, including sewing it together and doing the button band ---  told you it might take 10 years!) which was a previously-unfinished-object, I decided to work on another unfinished object, my Echo Flower Shawl.  I got stuck on the nupps row.  What are nupps, you ask?  They are a clump of 9 stitches that have to be purled together into one stitch to make a pretty bobble-y clump.  I couldn't get them purled together and I didn't want to un-knit it, so I put it down.  For a long time.  I have now un-knit the set-up row for the nupps and re-knit them into 7 stitch clumps (which makes for much easier purling) and it worked much better.  Since this is a lace-y project, you can't really see what's happening right now.  Once I'm done and I pin it out to block it, you'll be able to see the pretty pattern.  Plus I chose a dark yarn which probably wasn't the wisest thing.  But it's a pretty, variegated brownish/greenish yarn.  I think I've still got a ways to go, with several more rows of the current chart and then an edging, so stay tuned.

Whew.  You are all caught up except for book reviews.  Maybe next time.

P.S. Paul is currently watching "How It's Made" -- how to make toothpicks.  Apparently the number of toothpicks in each box matters.  Riveting.