Our Friend Riley

It's no secret the affection the Monteith family feels for our good friend Riley. Holidays were extra special when Riley came to spend them with us. Always the perfect house guest, he tolerated the bug, bug, buggings of the ever persistent Maynerd and allowed Bella to sleep in his favorite bed protesting only with a doggy smile and a waggy tail.

Now that Riley has made his transition, we will remember him as a cheerful guy and perfect gentleman. We will miss his holiday visits and the fun we had playing dress up.

My heart goes out to the Emersons who loved him and are greiving their special puppy.

What are Friends for Anyway?

Whenever I learn to make something new, I always include my friends to suffer along with me. Remember the WonderUnder sweatshirts with the fabric design cutouts and glitter glue or puffy paint trim? I made dozens of them and gave them away - I'm sure my friends wore them, maybe not in public, but at some time. I knew they liked them by the deer in the headlight look they had on their faces after opening the packages. And the Christmas I made stained glass boxes for everyone ... I didn't intend for the lids eventually fall off! I'm still wondering what happened to that guy I cooked Swedish steak for during my "learn to cook" period. Hopefully he's out of the hospital by now.

This year I tried wood burning images of my friends' children onto plaques then painting and decorating them with lots of sparkles and shiny paints. The shiny paints look kinda funky with the camera flash reflecting off of them and look much cooler IRL.

I hope my new friends like them and don't mysteriously disappear off the planet like all of my old friends. But, where ever the old ones went, they sure had some spiffy sweat shirts to wear!