Surprises - Buying A Car For A Dog?

Little did I know the last time I wrote in this blog and posted it on Monday the 25th of January that soon after I would get a call from my husband about a car sitting in the lot of an old dealer now a tire/mechanic/body shop. My husband phoned me because the car he had seen was like his a PT cruiser, but it was a convertible. The car was an 06 verses my husband's which is an 07. The body was silver, verses my husbands which is cream colored, and it only had 29,000 miles on it. Sounded good, but I hadn't been looking for a car.
Now you have to understand I have been using my husband's car, his 07 cream cruiser, because the now service dog that I rescued from the Oregon Humane Society is really too big to fit into my 93 white mustang convertible. Most of the time it isn't a problem for me to use my husband's car as he rides a motorized bicycle back and forth to work. When it is really stormy my husband takes my mustang convertible.
Now this rearrangement in cars was not a problem as we both had cars we could drive when we needed to use a specific one. Sometimes my husband uses the cruiser on the weekend to shop at Costco or Home Depot when he needs the cargo space and at those times I am usually home and not needing a car to transport Andy my extremely large black lab and I get to use my mustang when I am not taking Andy in a car. The problem is that Andy being a service dog usually goes everywhere with me so I was no longer using my convertible. Sometimes it would sit there in the driveway for 3 weeks before it was used again.
You have to understand neither my husband or I drive much, we only drive when necessary. However I really like driving a convertible and my husband remembered that when we were in California last summer at a family wedding I had seen a convertible PT Cruiser in a parking lot. I said to my husband at the time that it was too bad that a convertible hadn't been available when he bought his car and that something like that might work for Andy and I. Nice guy that my hubby is, he remembered what I had said...so on Monday after he was done with work we went to look at the car. Both he and I took it for a test drive and it seemed nice, but I wasn't about to jump and suddenly by a car. We learned that several other people were looking at the car and that the fellow who owned the car was currently in Germany, but would be back in the States briefly as his wife was now moving over with him. Whoever was ready to purchase the car first would get it. Knowing this again didn't make me want to make a snap decision. I told the fellow at the shop that I would sleep on it.
The next day I felt sick and ended up sleeping all day and both nights. I woke up on Wednesday and started to think about purchasing the car. I phoned my husband and told him I thought I might find out if the car was still there if the car was gone that was fine and if the convertible was still there I might make an offer. My husband mentioned that the blue book price on the 06 convertible was $11,000 something closer to $12,000 so suddenly if I was to make an offer it sounded like a good deal.
When I phoned the fellow he said someone had made an offer on the car, but wasn't coming right down. The person interested in the car had paid to have an inspection done on the car and was serious about it. I thought it wsa gone, but said would you take 9,000 if I came down right now and paid cash. (I had had some stocks bought out by another company so although it was a loss I had some extra cash.) He made a call to the owner of the car who had just come back for a few days and was in Seattle. The owner said whoever paid first got the car and 9,000 was fine. Suddenly I had a new car!
Now what to do with the mustang, I really didn't want to sell it as it still runs well. Our youngest son doesn't have his license yet, but he is 17 so I decided to keep it for him and let him know he could take some drivers-ed classes or take some driving classes through an agency and that I would let him use the mustang once he got his license an opportunity that neither I, my husband or my older son ever had. I think my youngest son is excited and I told him there was no rush, he should only learn to drive when he was ready. So now suddenly we own 3 cars whereas for most of my married life we only owned one car and I took the bus. Such a change and such a nice surprise. On Thursday I was able to take my son and my dog to an appointment in the car and I loved it. SO I GUESS ONE COULD SAY, I BOUGHT A CAR FOR MY DOG!

Time, An Endless Struggle

Today I tried to go through my email and clear it out. Lol! I thought it wouldn't take long, but instead it took me through some incredible sites, blogs and visits to youtube. I'd like to say I finished, but no I didn't. Which brings me to the subject of how do you limit your time on the internet and get your own work done, find the time to blog and post important information on your sites as well as visit your friends sites to keep up with what they are doing. As well as leave comments in appropriate places.
I still need to find the time to learn how to post the last three photos I have taken on my blog here and how to post various badges here after that perhaps my blog will look a little more interesting and will certainly give you more of an idea of the things I am up too. I believe posting photos here will be tomorrows goal, as well as taking another 15 minutes to tidy up the living room of my house, taking some of the items up to my studio. Knitting tools will remain down in the music room rather than being moved upstairs with my other items. I am also wondering whether my beads shouldn't remain downstairs here too.
I also need to find the time to regularly check the groups on flickr. that I started or moderate as well as various sites on the web where I do the same thing. Here, I am just wetting your appetite for links I will post in the future.
Admist everything else, I want to take piano lessons and take a glass class with my husband. Then when organized and having had some fun, I may return to classes in the fall having taken some time off.
I guess life is all about making the time and space for it all as there is so much to wet the appetite!

A few girls dressed!

A few girls dressed! I absolutely love Tiffany's girls - Squeakymonkey! If you love blythe and have not seen her work; both her custom girls or the outfits she sews for blythe you may want to go to her blog, flickr site & her Boutique. The boutique can be found at: http://www.squeakymonkey.com/ There are other individuals whose work I love too, such as Romina's work ihavewings at: http://ihavewingsatelier.com/ If you have a chance take a look at these individuals' work. Their work may be expensive, but it is worth it to have items for your more valuable dolls that are well made. You can see links to their blogs on the lower right hand side of this page. Enjoy!!!

And So I Cry - Yes I Have Given, But It is Not Enough!

I hope everyone who reads this blog gives something to one of the agencies in their country helping Haiti. I don't know if it is because I lost someone this past year or because I can barely take care of myself being disabled in many ways except for my mind, but I so want to do more for those in Haiti than I have already financially. All I can do is cry now that I have given money and I continue to cry. I wish I could fly down there and help all the children who are alone or hurting and just need comforting.
I wish I could help start some sort of schooling for them after taking care of medical needs and housing. Yet here I am stuck, I thought well maybe I could help develop my own relief effort to rebuild schools and yet right now with all the pain, I wish I could hold a child's hand who is in pain or has loss. Simply be there for them. But what they need first is water, food and medical care.

Time is a Funny Thing

I have so much time and so little these days. I now have beautiful Ikea shelves with glass door fronts to move so many of my ball joint dolls - my latis, my blythe and my momoko dolls onto the shelves and yet as I say that I have two shelves up inside and I see just how many miniature pieces of furnishings and dolls I have...! It would have been so much easier to have started with storage space first and to have added dolls and miniatures second, ah, but that is not the way it was to be...! So what will I do? I think I have decided to start going backwards. Does that sound odd to add the newest first to the shelves. What have I just received?, a beautiful momoko called puppy garden and mine has beautiful long flowing blond wavy ponytails on each side. I still a haven't taken a photo of her as she is still safely in the boxing she comes in.
As I play with my blythes more often and take them to blythe meets it does not seem as important to put them on the shelf first and yet they are what creates most of the mess downstairs in our living room and it is for just that reason I should move them onto shelves upstairs first. I also have container of clothes I am trying to sort. My dolls have better clothes than I these days.
As for my Latis, well Becky, Beth and Cherny all travel with me so they must always be ready to be on the go, but the most recent Latis - the unicorns although they have gone to a ball joint meet here in town, they are now ready to find a magical, mystical shelf to share with the magicians, just how I am to create this I do not know.
I know you are probably wondering about all these names if you do not know me especially since I have no photos posted on this page yet and I am just starting this blog, but if you would like to see photos of many of my dolls you can do so by going to flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhubsknit/ there at flickr except for my Momoko mentioned here you can find most of my Lati and my Blythe photographed.
Since this is the start of my blog I should mention that I have at least 3 dollhouses as well as old cardboard Barbie set ups and many other types of folding homes. But two of the doll houses are the types that you build, each is a different style. One is an English Tudor and the other is of course the Standard Victorian/Queen Anne style that gets meshed together somehow. Both are in need of work, but the Tudor already houses some of the German and Swedish doll furniture I collected when I was a child. You will find photos of each dollhouse on my flickr page although not under doll house I am afraid. This I believe is one activity I will do today and that is to create a dollhouse photo set on flickr so that even though the houses may appear in other sets with the dolls someone who goes to my flickr page can easily find my dollhouses. The other dollhouse I have is Madeline's meaning the doll and yes the character in children's books. I also have the dolls, both in cloth and in the size that fits in the doll house which is an 8" size which is a very good size too for some of my Latis. Enough for now have fun looking at some of my photos on flickr as you only have to join (and it's free) to look remember you can find me at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhubsknit/ please note I own the copyright on all photos under my name unless otherwise noted. Thanks!