Elizabeth Bathes Belle

(Note: for those of you unfamiliar with this story, Belle is Oma's dog, a miniature schnauzer. The song "Jingle Bells" is about her. Really. Elizabeth is quite convinced of it.)

This was written by Oma and sent to us via e-mail.

A few days ago I made the mistake of saying to Elizabeth that one day we will have to give Belle a bath.
Not something to say to a walking memory chip.
Every time we went upstairs it was "Belle Bath Oma?"
I would reply,"Not today Elizabeth."
Well today was the day.
I was getting tired of playing Chugga Chugga Choo Choo. (Elizabeth hangs onto my shirt and we chugga chugga choo around the house, stopping every once in a while to do a train whistle and pick up passengers, WHOOO WHOO)
SO up the stairs we go. We corral Belle in the bathroom and take off her collar. I start the water. Elizabeth throws in the towel(Literally. SO I get another towel and wring out the first one. Elizabeth throws in the collar. I rescue the collar and get the dog in. We take turns pouring the water over the dog and then add the shampoo. Elizabeth decides to flush the toilet and rearrange my towels and then finds Opa's tic tac toe game ( the triangle one with the holes for the golf tees to go in) She sits on the floor and plays with it for a while. I use the distraction to rinse Belle off and drain the tub. Elizabeth decides to give a dripping wet Belle a big hug and Belle decides to shake herself dry at the same time.
We get Belle dried off. Elizabeth sees that Belle likes to roll on the carpet and the towel to dry herself so she lays down beside her and rolls around on the floor with her.
Then she decides to help Belle dry her fur by running around the house yelling BOO at Oma with Belle barking and jumping behind her.
What fun they had. I had a headache.(:
Elizabeth helps Oma brush Belle and declares Belle to be a "pretty Girl."
NOw it is almost time to go to play group so we tidy up and wait for our ride. As I put on her coat Elizabeth asks in all innocence.
"Belle Bath again, Oma?"
NO Elizabeth, been there done that.

Keeping myself company

Well, Aunty Krista had stuff to do last night, so Aunty Heather took over and took the baby out instead. I still got my "free" evening, which I put to very good use writing nearly 3000 words in an hour and a half. I was quite smug about it.

Anyhow, the result is that Aunty Krista was feeling Elizabeth-deprivation and asked if she could keep her for a couple of hours this evening, effectively giving me two free evenings in a row. While I'm starting to feel some Elizabeth-deprivation myself, I still agreed. That much uninterrupted writing time, this close to the end of the book, is not to be sneezed at.

So I came home after the staff meeting (nothing crucial happening there, thank heavens) and started blogging. Then I wrote for a while, finishing the Rianna segment I posted a few days ago. That was about 800 words. Then I blogged a bit more.

At that point (about an hour ago) I decided I'd spent enough time over the last two days staring at a computer screen, and I decided to go crochet instead.

Accordingly I went downstairs and pulled out the new balls of yarn - specifically, the pink and the green. I have done twenty rows of double-ended afghan crochet, and I love the effect. It creates a play of colours where the green dominates on one side and the pink on the other. Exactly the same square reversed would give a totally different effect. I'm going to do a nine-patch afghan this way, with four different colours. That means that even though one combination will be doubled up, I can simply reverse the colours and still get a different look. The trick will be arranging the squares so that the same dominant colour is never showing up side by side on either side of the afghan. But hey, life is made for challenges, right?

I also put on my "Delovely" soundtrack. I love that CD. I've been putting it on as background music a lot lately, but Elizabeth generally gets bored with her toys in the living room about halfway through, so I rarely get the chance to listen actively to the whole thing. Today I did, and I love it even more. I sang along as Kevin Kline enjoined his listeners to experiment, revelled in the georgeous piano solos, enjoyed Gabriel's Trump, and generally amused myself quite well.

Evenings like this are good for the soul.