Susan of all Trades, Mistress of None

Parade of Mutants

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:45:00 +0000

This is a little long (it has 6 parts) and may not be of interest to you, but I found it to be a really well put together, albeit sad, look at the world of conformation and breeding. Of course if you are involved in either of these activities you might feel otherwise. Nobody wants to be told they are wrong and have been responsible for suffering and harm. Cavaliers are, unfortunately, an obvious poster child for this issue, so you get to see a lot of them. Also featured, pugs, German shepherd dogs, bull dogs, boxers...

Personalized Crate Tag

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:22:00 +0000

Personalized Crate Tag
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

I sold my first crate tag! I put this up on Etsy a couple of days ago (of course with their choice of breed and name) and I sold one today. I still have to work out with the buyer what colors they want and all that, but yay!

Scallop skewers

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:06:00 +0000

Scallop skewers
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

For some reason I felt like cooking when I was back home so one night I made these Curried Scallop Kebabs. They turned out quite well for a first try.

River Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:04:00 +0000

Mom and Bleys
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Back in Big Rapids mom and I took a walk on the now completed River Walk. I think its been done for a while, but I haven't seen it so it was new to me. It was a very nice walk and here near the end we saw some brave tubers (it was a little on the chilly side that day) getting into the water. You may not be aware, but Big Rapids is the tubing capital of Michigan. Impressed, aren't you?

Partay

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:02:00 +0000

Friends
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

There was, of course, the obligatory shin-dig at Jason's house. In this case it was a hoppin' fifth of July party. There was good food, melted chocolate, Henry's homebrew, and some guitar hero. Who could ask for more?

Foot prints

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:33:00 +0000

After North Muskegon we ventured over to Big Rapids to visit my family. It was nice to bed home and to see their freshly redone bathroom. They installed this cool faux skylight thing called a Sun Tunnel, that lets in a ton of natural light. One of the days we were in Big Rapids we turned right around and went back to the North Muskegon beach with my mom. We had a nice lunch and then walked along the beach for a while. The temperature was on the chilly side so all we really did was get our feet wet. Shortly after we got there the weather turned threatening so we only stayed for a while. Good thing, as just as soon as we got back to the car there was an absolute downpour.

Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:46:00 +0000

We also spent quite a bit of time over at the Wiles' house, hanging out, chatting, and playing some Guitar Hero. Once we took Bleys over...Adventure wasn't sure about that. Although very bold, walking right over and sniffing Bleys nose to nose. There was only one hissing incident, which was warranted because Bleys has a tendency to forget that Adventure is a cat and hence doesn't want to play in a dog type fashion. You may notice in the picture that Adventure has just been shaved. Being a long haired cat, it seems to make a big difference in the summer.

Pool Party

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:36:00 +0000

Another evening in North Muskegon we invited people over for a nice afternoon at Roland's parents' house. They have a pool and a grill, so it makes for a fun time, especially now that many of our friends have kids. One of the highlights was when Mila, our niece, discovered Bleys' crate. She decided that it was just about her size. There are some more pictures of her adventures with the crate including one where she tries to get in the crate with Bleys already in it. It was awesome.

Norman Rockwell at Jimmies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:31:00 +0000

Our next stop was North Muskegon to visit Roland's family and many of our friends. It turns out that Erin, Laura's sister just opened an ice cream shop near by. Of course we had to stop by and see what it was all about. I managed to snap this picture, which I think looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. Behind the counter is Laura, who was working in order to give Erin the day off since it was her birthday. Jimmies has all sorts of ice cream options (both hard and soft serve) burgers that are cooked to order, and a cool potato spiral thingy which was good. So if you find yourself in Whitehall stop by for a sweet treat!

Readyyyyyyy

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:54:00 +0000

Our next trek took us to Hastings, Michigan for our first U-Fli event. We mostly just wanted to check it out and have a little fun. We ran singles on Friday night and with a pick up team on Saturday. The other team members were mostly from Overdogs, but we did race once with a Rude Dog named Melee. Everyone there was very nice, totally welcoming, and it was a great time. Bleys was the height dog and measured at 6" (which is the lowest height available and quite a bit lower than he runs in NAFA). Bleys earned his Top Flight title and got a sweet squeaky toy out of the deal. The racing situation was a little different than Florida with the crating outside. But it did make the racing arena a little quieter...not a lot, mind you, but a little. Most teams camped out in RVs right at the site and used those as their crating area. We set up in an open pole barn across from the racing building. It was just fine, but I would imagine it might get a little hot sometimes. My Mom even stopped by for a while to check it out. It was really nice to have her see it!

Baroo

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:09:00 +0000

While in Kalamazoo we stayed with Jason who allowed us to crash his place whenever we needed to. He has a nice big back yard which Bleys really appreciated. He got to run around a lot more than he does down here. There is a fun picture over at Flickr of him running. He's a little blurry, but I just feel like he was having a really good time after two days in the car. Here he discovers that Roland is up on the deck.

For Dr. J

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:06:00 +0000

Our first stop in Michigan was Kalamazoo. We took this picture to put Dr. J's mind at rest...there really is a Kalamazoo. :) We got a chance to visit with Jason, take a trip to campus and see all the changes, some good, some sad. They've shut down the awesome old school bowling alley in the Bernhard Center where I took bowling as one of my gym credits (hey, you've got have something fun when your other classes involve biology, chemistry, and physics). It is now "Textbook Alley" where they store all of the textbooks for sale.

Roland and Scotty

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:49:00 +0000

It's been a while huh? I've been to Michigan and back and been keeping myself busy since getting back last week. Roland has been super busy presenting at conferences and writing his article. He has finished a draft of the article, which is awesome and is hoping to be able to send it out for the fall submissions to journals.

So lets go back in time to when we left for Michigan. There was a flyball tournament in Orlando so we decided just to use that as a first leg and take off from there.

Roland got to run Scotty at this tournament and did a fantastic job. Scotty is not the easiest dog to run because he's pretty crazy, but I think that made Roland a good match, becuase he is perpetually calm. It was kind of funny to watch Roland standing there all completely calm holding Scotty who was yanking against his harness and generally doing his best to impersonate a rabid dog. Bleys shared a spot with another dog and did very well. He earned his FDX (500 points) and it was generally a good time. One of the other dogs earned her FM (5000 points) and I made her a crate tag to celebrate it. I thought it turned out really well.

Tee Hee

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:44:00 +0000

Congratulations to Bleys now officially the top ranked and fastest all time Cavalier in U-Fli....oh wait, he's the only Cavalier in U-Fli.

Puppy Flies with Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:52:00 +0000

Yesterday went really well. Our team didn't do very well in the tournament, but because it was a pick-up team anyhow it didn't really matter. I think given a little practice we could have done much better. As it was Bleys ended up running anchor because he was a little spooked by the other dog running at him. We ran with an Irish Setter named Story, a small Border Collie name Whispie, and a Australian Cattle Dog named Nora.

Bleys did earn enough points to get his Top Flight title, but he was more interested in the squeeky toy he got for running on a team. The people were very nice again and very laid back about things. This was good because there wasn't much stress about things, but since everyone (including the judges) were pretty laid back it meant that racing went at least an hour longer than it would have if it had been more controlled. The judges we have in Florida keep things rolling right along and even shorten the warmups to 1 minutes after everyone has had a chance to get at least one 2 minutes warmup. I think people in Florida tend to complain a bit about the strict judging, but I really appreciate it! The lights we had even had a timer in them. The judge could just push a button twice and there were two minutes counting down for everyone to clearly see. I liked that, but I would miss being able to see how fast the dog doing the warm up was. A trade off I suppose. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I'm glad that I got a chance to do it.

Puppy Flies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:01:00 +0000

We're all in Hastings this evening. We drove up today and participated in our first U-Fli singles event. It was interesting. There weren't very many entrys, I think between the singles and the pairs there were only 10 or so. Everyone there was extremely nice and helpful. A fellow just came up and ball shagged for me without any prompting. The event is being held at the Barry Expo Center which turns out to be a fair ground type place. There are 6 buildings that aren't really enclosed fully - sort of barn-ish and a lot of RV parking/camping. There is also a race track for those horse cart thingys. It looks like most all of the teams camp out right there, which makes sense because there aren't many motels nearby.

I still haven't met any of the people from the pick-up team since none of them signed up for singles or pairs. I hope that things go well and Bleys catches some balls tomorrow!

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:47:00 +0000

Greetings from Michigan! Roland and I arrived yesterday at Jason's place in Kalamazoo. We started out on Friday taking a couple days in Orlando for a flyball tournament. Then we continued our trek on Sunday evening, finally arriving yesterday afternoon. It was a nice drive and we had a good time (although I think the puppy could do without two days of enforced confinement).

Bleys did very well at the tournament getting a shiney new title to add to his collection. He now has his FDCh (Flyball Dog Champion), which is awesome. Again it was thanks to everyone on the team who makes allowances for his speed that he gets any points at all. He did end up catching a couple balls outright which was great, and a little surprising. His time when he doesn't catch the ball is around 9 seconds, but when he caught it, he ran the course in 7.6 seconds! Go speed puppy, go! I think most everyone had a good time and we certainly did a lot of laughing.

We are staying here in K-Zoo until Friday when we will be driving up to Hastings. Why Hastings? We are going to try out a U-Fli flyball tournament. We are going to run singles (Bleys just running by himself - no team) on Friday night and I found a pick-up team for Saturday. There is also a qualifying event going on on Saturday which means we'll get to seem to smokin' fast teams. Hopefully it will be fun!

Is there anything you can't do with PVC?

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:12:00 +0000

Step 1: Get discouraged

Step 2: Get encouragement from great friends (thanks Anne, Dr. J, and Janice)

Step 3: Have a great husband who finds light box plans on the internet (with super-awesome accompanying tutorial)

Step 4: Get crafty

Let there be light

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:56:00 +0000

I'm feeling a little frustrated at the moment. When Anne originally found Etsy I was super excited about it. A whole community of other crafty minded people like myself. But as time goes on it gets more and more obvious that people have taken it to the next level. The most recent evidence of this are the pictures. On the front page of Etsy they put some hand picked items from different sellers. However, when I look at those items I'm intimidated because of the production value. I also keep searching around just looking at random stuff ('cause its fun) and again I see pictures that are clearly well thought out and staged. It makes me feel like my items aren't well made enough to be sold and that my pictures are terrible.

I just finished a new project that I was all geeked about, but now that I finished taking some pictures and uploading them I just feel disappointed.

Best. Site. Ever.

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:40:00 +0000

Urban Threads. I think Anne will also really real kick out of it as well. Personally, I'm going to make something that has the Craft Ninja on it. Like tomorrow.

Dress

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:37:00 +0000

Mila
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Roland's dad sent of over some of the pictures he took at Disney last week. This is one of Mila in a dress that I made! I'm so glad that it worked out that she was the right size in the right season. The day she wore this we went over into Mickey's Toon Town Fair to visit the play area and fountain there. And a lady even asked to take a picture of the dress so she could ask her mother to make one for her daughter. Too bad the place where I found this fabric went out of business.

Otter puppy

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:23:00 +0000

Otter puppy
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

After flyball yesterday a couple of us went over to a place not too far from practice that has a dog swim area. We had an awesome time and Bleys really enjoyed cooling off in the water. There are quite a few pictures over at flickr, including some using the series feature of my new camera. Bleys doesn't realize that he can jump into water so he didn't get a series. But Jubilee (black lab) and Jake (rat terrier) both have some fun shots of leaping for toys.

Pudding

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Sat, 24 May 2008 20:41:00 +0000

Pudding
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Roland and I got home yesterday from another trip to Disney. We spent a little time there with his Mom, Dad, sister, niece, and brother-in-law. It was a nice trip, although on the hot side. We don't usually visit this time of year and I had forgotten just how hot it can get out there in the sun. I much prefer the cooler months for waling around so much.

This was taken at the restaurant in Italy. Mila got the chocolate pudding with bananas. At first she didn't realize there were bananas in there, but when she did she ditched the spoon and went face first into the dish. It was awesome.

Spring Fling

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:50:00 +0000

We attended another Flyball tournament this past weekend so I've been out of town since Friday. It was a really nice time although the facility just wasn't designed to hold that many people. The air conditioning really struggled to keep up, especially on Saturday when it was very sunny. The building is pretty much a metal box so it acts like an oven. Bleys didn't start racing until almost half-way through the day so he also struggled. He was pretty slow and we ended up spending quite some time out in the car's air conditioning at the end of the day. Sunday was better because at least part of the day was overcast, and Bleys started racing right off the bat. Bleys did very well for himself and I think everyone had a good time. Roland even ran Bleys for a couple of races! Although I'm not really sure how that went because I had to hide. If Bleys saw me, I'm pretty sure he would forget about the racing and try to come over and say hello instead! That's what happens at practice anyway.

Roland and I took quite a few pictures and for the most part they didn't turn out too badly. I'm still unhappy with the noise, but I'll have to experiment some more to see if changing some settings will allow a better result. A few of pictures are over at Flickr (click on the above picture), but most of them are at the Storm Riders website.

Now Bleys is at a new puppy boarding place and Roland and I are preparing to go up to Disney to see his parents, sister, niece, and brother-in-law. We will be back on Friday and then I'm going to just say no to traveling for a few weeks before we start our trek up to Michigan in mid-June.

Proofs

noreply@blogger.com (Susan) — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:01:00 +0000

If you are interested, the professional pictures from the tournament are now available. There are a lot of them to sift through though. If you click here you can choose Saturday or Sunday and then click on any folder with SR somewhere in the title (for instance the second folder on Saturday "02 BOI-SR"). If you aren't so keen on that you can check out this folder of the pictures that Roland and I chose to get. There were some additional pictures that I liked, but it seemed like 5 was plenty to purchase...probably more than enough.

Other fun pictures include this one when I got to run Ace a couple of times, and this one of a pretty nice pass between Hannah and Cagny. I also like this one of Scotty and his "but I want both" conundrum. Ooh, or this one, this one, and this one of Deuce, Ace, and Jake showing just how far ahead of the jump they leave the ground.