Foster Dog of the Week: Pumpkin

I don't really expect my new foster almost every week streak to keep up, but so far they've all been in and out of here super fast. Which is great, since the sooner one foster gets adopted, the sooner I can get to work finding a home for the next one (and the lower the chances I'll get so attached I won't be able to let them leave!)

So, in the interest of maximum publicity for my newest foster, I present, in a rare weekend blog post, Pumpkin!

Gus named this one :). He's a poodle or a poodle mix, about 10 pounds, and, according to the shelter he came from, around 2 years old. He's very sweet, cuddly, and playful. Loves all dogs--tries desperately to play with both my 19 pound beagle and my 55 pound sheepdog (the latter with hilarious results). He annoys the cats very noisily (he has quite a bark for such a tiny guy), but we're working on that. I'm not sure he'd ever met cats before. And this one's actually still available! I haven't put him up on Petfinder yet; I'm guessing he'll go fast once I do. So if you're in Georgia and you're looking for an itty bitty dog (or you know someone who is), let me know!

More pictures:

And since bloggers love a good before and after, here's what he looked like fresh from shelter, before he went to the groomer:

Fergus!

Okay, you guys: I have real, honest to goodness HOUSE PROJECTS to post about this week. But not today. Today I'm going to tell you about Fergus.

First, the sad news: a little while ago, we had to say goodbye to our crazy old girl, Lucy. Lucy was nearly 15 and had been going downhill a lot the past few months, so we knew it was just a matter of time....but the house doesn't feel the same without her.

I've always thought that we'd go back to fostering dogs once Lucy was gone (three dogs is my limit. My limit, I tell you! And also Lucy did not have the best doggie social skills in the world, to put it mildly, so fostering with her in the house was a bit anxiety-producing).

Remember how we tried to foster dogs a year ago and made it to dog #2 before we just had to keep one (i.e. The Beagle aka Fiesta)?

I am determined that that won't happen this time!

But my sweet boy, Fergus, is making it pretty tough.

We're fostering this time with the rescue group my mom is a part of, Southeast Cocker Spaniel Rescue. As you can maybe tell from that picture up there, Fergus is not a Cocker Spaniel. Cocker Rescue is branching out! To other kinds of small dogs. My plan is to be the scruffy little terrier arm of Cocker Rescue :).

I fell in love with Fergus at the shelter as soon as I saw him. He's been here with us for a week today, and he is a completely wonderful, easy, laid-back, charming little dog. He's great with the kids, with our other dogs, ignores the cats, loves visitors....I could go on and on about how fabulous he is.

He went up on Petfinder Thursday night, and by Sunday we'd gotten e-mails from six different people who were interested in him. A great family came over to meet him yesterday, and he's going home with them today.

So this was all kind of a whirlwind. Scotties (or Scottie mixes who look very Scottie-esque) with no particular issues are a pretty rare find on Petfinder, it turns out. I'm very glad he's going to his wonderful new home today, because I'm not sure I'd be able to let him go if he stayed here much longer!

Happy new life to Fergus....and on to the next scruffy little terrier!

(I will also consider beagles, corgis, non-scruffy little terriers, and poodles)

There is a wonderful poem I read awhile back, by Peter Davison: "The Passing of Thistle."  (oh! It's about a Scottie; I just realized!) It has a line in it about the dog's darkness, "bringing out the hero in photographers." Yes. Fortunately, Fergus is at least good at being still, which helped.

Busy weekend

I have not one, but TWO weekend projects to blog about this week. One of them I need to finish up before I can take the pictures (I would normally be too impatient to wait and just go ahead and post it as is, but it's a small enough project that I feel a little sheepish about not just FINISHING it already). And a Home Depot trip is required in order to finish it, so that one will wait until closer to the end of the week, I'm guessing.

Project #2 I could post about right now....except that I'm waiting on a new card reader to get here from Amazon before I can deal with pictures, so I'm operating on a bit of a delay. Truth be told, although I'm writing this post right now, I can't actually post it until said card reader gets here, because there is at least one picture that I need. Oh, wait, two. I forgot about project #3. It is tiny, so I'll put it in here.

Now let's randomly talk about blog traffic, because I find it fascinating. The picture of the metal chair from World Market that I posted back in my "kitchen musings" post? That seems to be my biggest single source of page hits. I have no idea why. I have no idea what people are even searching to get directed here. I wonder if it makes World Market sad that people come here to look at their chair and then I just talk about how much cheaper similar chairs at Overstock.com are....

And then I also get to look at the search terms that bring people here. Right now there are four things listed:

*gray hex floor tile
*use a dining room as a library
*nantucket fog benjamin moore
*old house fire pit

I must be a big disappointment to people searching the first two, since I don't HAVE any gray hex tile and I have only posted about deciding NOT to use my dining room as a library. I'm glad I'm coming up with searches for nantucket fog, as I spent a long time looking up other people's nantucket fog pictures before I picked it. And I'm a little perplexed by the last one...what difference does it make if your house is old when you make a fire pit? Are people concerned about building a fire pit that fits in aesthetically with their old house? Or are they worried that they need to take some extra safety precautions so they don't burn down their old house while toasting marshmallows one night?

(since writing that, another one showed up: "mood board octopus." awesome).

At any rate, if you have wandered here because of chairs or hex tile, feel free to leave a comment and tell me all about it. For, as I mentioned, I'm fascinated. Also, I like comments.

Okay, that little detour took longer than I expected. Moving along. Things that kept us busy this weekend, in addition to projects:

*wedding
*archery for kids
*shopping expedition
*dinner out with friends
*kid friend sleeping over Saturday night
*math club for Ari/Dave

And still! Projects! We are awesome. I am just going to keep pretending like we're going to maintain this level of accomplishing stuff-edness after the baby is born. Yep. Even though this is my 4th kid and I really should know better, I'm going to be one of those "this baby won't change our lives at all!" people. The baby is going to sit around cooing and gazing adoringly at us while we paint and build stuff. It's going to be GREAT. Ahem.

Shopping excursion included a trip to TJ Maxx. I haven't been to TJ Maxx in awhile and apparently I should never go again because I want everything they sell at TJ Maxx. I might have even bought a sweater for The Beagle.

Oops. Busted. I DID buy a sweater for her. Fiesta is a great dog because she doesn't mind wearing clothes.

I also looked at sheets and comforters and whatnot for the guest bed, which needs such things because it will be occupied by the in-laws come Thanksgiving. But I didn't buy anything yet, because I am indecisive.

Mostly, besides Fiesta's Halloween sweater, I bought stuff for my new.....fall centerpiece!

In the kitchen! I moved that twiggy pumpkin in after I decided it didn't work in the dining room. And then I added the pitcher (which a friend of Dave's family made for us for our wedding. Pretty, isn't it? There used to be a matching bowl. Alas, some child broke it at some point) and part of my too big haul of Trader Joe's gourds. But it still looked like a random collection of stuff on a table. And that made me sad. Also, I wanted a more generic fall/less Halloween display (it will probably/maybe move into the dining room after Halloween). So I added the table runner ($12.99, I believe) and the little leaf shaped rice bowls ($7.99) from TJ Maxx. Then filled the rice bowls up with Target dollar section acorns and pinecones. And now I'm not sad anymore! I'm still a little sad, actually, because they had a few nice leaf shaped placemats, and I wanted to get them for Thanksgiving, but they didn't have nearly enough left (we'll have 9 people for Thanksgiving, and I'd probably want 10 for symmetry purposes). There were maybe 3 or 4 there. Oh well.

As you can see, my new card reader arrived (yay cheap one day shipping with Amazon Prime!) so I'll get to work on recapping weekend projects soon!

Fire pit sneak preview

You know what you need when you're digging a circle for a fire pit? The most important part? A beagle.