Hello my lovelies and dearies and sweeties ;-)

Yeah, the old lady's still here (me) and the boy's still kicking too as is Middi and Boots. Where to begin. I'm at the library and that's why Gizzy's not featured on my header. I had some nice photos downloaded on my memory stick, but using it at the library is tricky and I never did figure it out...so, this blog will be plain till I can get Internet at home again (soon, I hope!)....Thus far I crocheted 8 doll dresses, one lovelier than the other, two of which are exclusively for Valentine's Day in pink and pinker and pinkest with white and fluffy borders and little roses...I want to show them to you, but I'll have to do some more experimenting here. I don't go here much because we only get an hour and often the computers are all busy.

Thanks so much for all your sweet Happy New Year's wishes! It was quiet initially, but lately I have been going to the doctor's alot (not by choice) but I'm going to have preop work done on the 4th and a DNC on the 10th ... I know it's not a big deal, but I hate having anything done to me, but at my age, things are bound to go sideways. At least the biopsy revealed no cancer - thankfully it does not run in my family, but it can happen to anyone. Unless they find something in my bloodwork or during the "procedure" I will hope that's enough with the doctor's visits for a while. The more hospital bills I get, the more I have to do without - including the internet.

I will work on figuring out how to download the dollies for you. Four of them are mine and the others I'll try to sell. I gave one to an old neighbor who enjoyed it tremendously and another one to another neighbor. She gave me her dolly and I crocheted a dress for her that she showed to everyone.

I closed my Etsy shop for now, but will try to go to this one swap meet in another town this weekend. It's $10 per spot and it's indoors and it includes a 6' table, so that's reasonable. I've never been there and I was told that it's mostly fresh produce (I will probably end up buying some) but there are a few other things there too. I'm hoping with Valentine's Day approaching, I might get a couple of sales, especially since the dollies are pretty in their fancy dresses. They are not toys and definitely not for small children, merely for decoration for the bed, etc. I will advertise them as such, but once I sell them, I guess it's out of my hands.

ONE MORE THING before I leave: I got such a nice surprise from one of you nice ladies - someone who lives in Texas ;-) It's a Valentine's card from Gizzy to me! It's the cutest card (the only one I'll probably get) and it's from Middi and Boots too.

I'm still looking for a home for Boots. The cats situation is really getting out of hand over here and the Animal Control does not pick up strays. Boots started to defend his territorry, but he can't keep up. The other young community cats are spoiled from being fed and never had to fight for anything. So, Bootsie, being the old timer of 12 took it upon himself in trying to keep the intruders away - he used to have patches of hair missing and one time his eye was oozing - I really got scared for him, especially since I don't have the money to take him to the Vet, even if I could capture him. So, now he resigned himelf to hanging out mainly on my front porch. At night when it gets cold I fix him a warm place to sleep with a couple of pillows, after all he's getting up there too (12 years or older.) I wish I could keep him, but I'm only allowed 2 pets and Gizzy hates cats...even though he's surrounded by them.

So, we have new cats moving in on us, young males who are agressive fighters who spray everyhing with that awful smell of unneutered males. They stunk up my brand new $50 car cover and that irritates me. I wish we had garages. I wish I could afford to get them all neutered and spayed. The frustrating thing is that the majority of people here don't take care of their pets. The bigger majority does not spay or neuter their animals. A lot of people use the dogs for "breeding" trying to make some money and forget about cats....cats are very unpopular where I live. I know that some people care, but unfortunatly not enough of them do. Also, we have a leash law in this town, but the people who live behind our apartments have two or three big hunting dogs that roam around free all the time. Apparently they sniffed out the cats' feeding stations and now we have big dogs running around at night, looking for catfood and scraps and leaving us big c..ps (HELP)...I need to move away from here!

Gizzy sleeps a lot. He's 12 and his hearing has diminished somewhat so that I have to speak with him more loudly now, but he still has spunk and enjoys his outside time and tug-o-wars with his Miss Piggy (and me.)We both love the cool weather and our walks in the crisp, fresh air. I breathe so much better in the cold air. We've had a few warmer days recently where I was opening up the house so that Middi can have some fresh air too. She misses me leaving the windows open all night long like I do in the summer.

I have to go now. God bless you all and thanks for being so sweet. I will try to come back soon with some photos!

Love and best wishes to you all!

(p.s. I can't find the spell check on here....the one thing I thought was spell check (ABC) is the strike through, so please excuse my spelling errors.)