Dog for sale!

Well - not really - but honestly - Millie is now officially driving me up the wall!  Towards the end Katie would bark around 6 - 6:30am and ask to be let out - she would conduct her business and then come back in.  For the second morning on the trot Millie has barked at 5:30 - run outside but not doing anything and then expecting to stay up - she was wide awake so why wasn't I?  I made her go back to bed but she started barking again around 7am - I am whacked.

Okay I thought - I will get up and get started - lots of chores / finishing tasks etc.  So I started tidying up and putting rubbish into the bins as I went around the house - all of this whilst Millie is curled up asleep of course.  In fact she stayed asleep whilst I watched my sewing program on Create and Craft (and whilst Sewingbuddy tried to lure me into buying something - but I resisted).  Then I moved onto some sewing - something for a cracker and a request from my cousin.  All in all by 11am Millie had been asleep for the best part of 4 hours straight.  then she woke up demanding a chew - yes I mean demanding - think Bobby Beale!

I then set to making some cakes for one of the weekly challenges.  This will be challenge 24 and, by my reckoning we are now in week 28 so I am behind - but not as much as I thought.  The challenge is to make cakes for 7 of my neighbours.  Since a number of the craft group are neighbours then I thought they should suffer my cooking!  By now Millie was clearly feeling bad about her behaviour this morning and so tried to help - by pulling the paper bits out of the bins and strewing them across the lounge floor - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr  You can REALLY go off some dogs!

After lunch it was time to start on the washing pile - three loads later plus drying will provide tonight's entertainment - ironing and putting away (now why can't I train Millie to do that?)  We did venture up to the beach around 3 and it was cold and very damp.  It was a pleasure to get indoors, draw the curtain and light the fire. 

Finally I made a start on a block for the everlasting sampler quilt (I started it well over a year ago and want to complete it to hang behind my bedhead in the new bedroom).  So far the blocks have been fairly traditional - a mixture of patchwork and applique.  However I saw a sampler quilt by Sally Holman at Harrogate and it included some crazy quilt blocks with some hand embroidery so I thought that I would try to make up a couple of blocks to embroider over Christmas - I am not so sure about my first attempt - hence the lack of photo!

As for Millie - clearly I wouldn't part with her for all the money in China (although my response may not be the same if she wakes me up early again tomorrow morning!).  Perhaps she's just lonely at night - I did take her as a pup from her mum straight to Katie - and she was curled up asleep against Katie within the hour.  It would, of course, be strange if she was not affected by Katie not being at home anymore.

By the way, talking of cousins, I came across this today which made me smile!