A few short for the upcoming three dog nights...

My foster dog, Dakota, has gone to live with his new forever family! I drove him down to his new home in Portsmouth, NH yesterday and he slept curled up with his head in my hand the whole way down. The lovely young woman who will be Dakota's new best friend has another dog for Dakota to play with and, in fact, her dog is super-shy and the hope is that Dakota will help bring the other dog out of her shell a bit.

It was heartbreaking leaving him there (those eyes! he was just so confused that I wasn't bringing him with me!) but I am confident that he is in capable and loving hands. Dakota is the kind of dog that is trusting and open to new people, and the fact that he bonded so strongly to me after being here for so short a time (he was here for a month, but he decided I was trustworthy after about four minutes) is a great sign that he is able to adapt and form attachments to new people. I, on the other hand, am having a bit of a hard time with it! I sure will miss that goofy, loveable guy. And, you know, now I'll be down by two when we have another "three dog night." Heating oil is coming down in price, that's true, but for me, a couple of dogs on the bed is better than a nice warm quilt or cranking up the furnace. Better for the environment, too, because you can turn that thermostat down a few notches at bedtime.

Adopting a dog is good for the planet! :-) If you're buying what I'm selling, you might want to visit petfinder.com for your next bedwarmer.

In the meantime, (speaking of the quilt option...) Here's what I've got in progress:

"Tree of Life" panels going into a modified log cabin design for pillows.

Strips for the "Pinwheels" version of the Bamboo & Pinwheels design.

You know, the one I couldn't wait to start and so I didn't bother ordering the pattern? Well, the bamboo portion was pretty easy but the pinwheels -- oy vey! I'm just winging it. If I can't get it to look like the picture in the pattern I'm just going to pretend I invented a new design. ;-)