Update photo of the FLAK project. As you can see, the back is looking very nice so far. I wish that I had more time to work on it as it's quite addicting.

The weather hasn't been co-operative for taking good pictures the last few days and it's supposed to cloud over and bring rain/sleet/snow later today so I took the picture quickly when I saw a little sunbeam coming through the window. The sunbeam happened to be on the kitchen floor and the dogs thought this game was wonderful as I kept pushing them out of the way because they were creating shadows on the sunbeam. I think I was lucky to get a picture before Robbie snatched the knitting and took off with it!

Knitting late last night and realized that I had miscrossed a cable in the middle horseshoe a couple of rows back.

I decided that I would try to correct just the cable instead of "knitting backwards". I got out the Brittany double points, laddered down the four stitches, recrossed the cable, and knitted it back up.

This might not be a big deal for other people but it was huge feat for me and deserving of a celebration! Thanks to Janet and the posters on the FLAK list for giving great suggestions and pictures for this strategy!

I have a couple of teacher anecdotes. Both of them are from colleagues.

A teacher was working with her class to improve their language as many students were sprinkling their conversations with crude words. She was marking compositions and noticed that one fellow had written, "They were walking in the forest bum had trouble seeing as the trees made it pretty dark in there." She called the student over and asked him to reread his writing to see if he wanted to change anything. He read it and said, "No. It's good." The teacher then read his writing aloud to him to see if he could hear a problem. "No. It's good." She then told him that the word bum didn't make any sense in the sentence. He said, "But I thought it was more polite to say bum than butt."

Another teacher was supervising recess on the playground when some kindergarten students came running to her to report that some grade two kids were saying "swears". When asked what words were the problem, the kindergartens said, "Ooh, they were saying the X-E-X word!"

This is our newest addition to the family. His name is Robbie, WillowGlyn Serengeti Nights. Robbie is a very mischievous black tri sheltie. The baby picture was taken last summer. The picture below was taken in November. Robbie grew too big for the show ring (he went a fraction of an inch oversize) so is being trained in obedience.

















Our only Bichon left is Poke, multi group and puppy group placing Can CH Ajax's Amazing Hocus Pocus. Pocus is 8 years old and his main job in life is keeping the shelties in line. Unlike the shelties, Poke likes to pose for the camera : )







And, finally, we have Harrison, WillowGlyn Patriot Games. It's hard to get a good picture of Harrison unless he's sleeping as he is usually running around the back yard. Harrison is 5 years old. He didn't enjoy training classes and is content as a house dog and a walk-in-the-park dog. As you can see in this picture, Harrison is also a blue merle but he is a powdery blue color compared to Austin's darker markings (that's Austin being the chase-ee).

These are pictures of a couple of things that have been on the needles recently. The first pic is of a start on an Aran sweater back using Sirdar Denim Sport Aran yarn and pattern. After swatching for the FLAK I realized that I hadn't swatched carefully enough for this sweater and it is much too small. I am definitely not a loose knitter! I'll have to decide whether to redo it or choose another pattern. The stitch definition looks pretty good in this picture but not as good in reality. I may look for a pattern with bolder cables.

The second pic is of the FLAK project so far. The yarn is Elann Peruvian Highland in Victorian Rose.

Here are a couple of pictures of Austin, BIS UKC Ch and multiple group placing CKC Ch WillowGlyn Oh Behave. He is my current show dog. Austin is a 2 1/2 year old blue merle Shetland Sheepdog with the sweetest temperament. He loves the show ring and is always owner-handled.

A new beginning....

This is truly a new beginning as I have never made a blog or website before. I will share my thoughts and experiences as a teacher, a dog enthusiast, and a knitter.

I have been teaching for more than 25 years. This year, I'm teaching a grade 2 and 3 class in the afternoons. Most of the time, it's a very rewarding yet challenging career. I will share the experiences that make the job worthwhile and tickle my funny bone.

My dogs are a huge part of my life. I am currently owned by a Bichon and 3 Shelties. I train and show my dogs but I don't breed them as I have decided I am temperamentally unsuited to selling puppies. I think that the dog obsession is a genetic flaw; you either have it or you don't. When I was a child, I prayed every night for a puppy until my mother finally relented. My dad also had the dog gene and I'm sure he helped my cause. I thank my wonderful husband for his support of my hobby over the years. He even cheerfully dog sits when I go to shows!

The knitting is a new pursuit. I was looking for a way to lessen stress to help with my ongoing battle with fibromyalgia and diabetes. As I couldn't really picture myself meditating, I decided to take up knitting. I'm glad I did! I have been enjoying it to no end. I had dabbled in knitting before but my mom was a prolific knitter and when I got frustrated or bored with a project I would just it hand it to mom to finish so never really learned much. I also crochet and I used to do a lot of counted cross stitch but I'm finding the knitting much more challenging and rewarding. I'm not into the novelty yarns; I much prefer cable work. I found the FLAK project and dove in. I haven't done much of the sweater yet but I have learned so much from the FLAK yahoo group and my swatching. Knitting seems to be the perfect activity for those days when I don't have very much energy for more physical pursuits which happen more often than not this winter because of the fibromyalgia.

I live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in the heart of the prairies. We have had a strange winter this year. We had a few cold days at the end of November but December and January were very mild. Last week, winter hit with a vengeance as the wind chill values were close to -50 C! We were so spoiled by December and January that people were kind of wimpy about the cold and we forgot what winter usually feels like in Saskatchewan. I figure that every nice day is one less cold day that we'll have to endure this winter. At least in February the days are longer so it seems easier to deal with the cold when there's more daylight.

One of these days I will get out the camera and post some pics of my FLAK project and dig around in the computer for some dog pics too.

I'll end with one of my favorite conversations with a student recently. A boy came up to me and said, "Know what? I got lucky last night." My response to this: "You did?" "Yep," he said. "I got to go to Chuck E. Cheese."