i celebrated turning thirty-one over the weekend with some quality garden time, farmers markets, good food, friends, and crafting.  and as a special gift, the pools closing coincided with my birthday weekend, meaning that saturday was dog days of summer!  (we go every year, here are last year and the year before)

the markets are vibrant and lively - you can feel summer coming to an end.

 bella helps with the harvests and then the sowing of cool weather veggies.  it looks like we're going to be eating a lot of pesto this winter.

^^a cross stitch i made for our new nephew, emil.^^  we got out to colorado for a couple of days to meet the adorable new addition to the family, and this project was so perfect for relieving flight anxiety.  i think i'll do one on every trip from now on.

 dog days was a blast, as usual, though belle didn't do a lot of leaping into the water like she normally does.  it's hard to believe she's almost ten.

 ^^my pick for best in show this year^^  must. eat. all of the water!

 we even managed to get some swim time in, ourselves!

 a few nights ago we were lucky enough to spot this cicada molting in our back yard.  its wings came out in ridiculously vibrant colors.  i've always loves collecting their shed exoskeletons, but have never been able to see it happening.  really cool.  a few days later a praying mantis kept following me and trying to land on me.  i'm taking both of these encounters as signs of positive transformation, rebirth, and inner calmness/inner strength.  all things that will be very helpful in the coming months ;)

while 30 was a fantastic year, 31 is shaping up to be miraculous!

if you want it to rain, give your dogs a bath :)  it rained cats and dogs yesterday and a tree in our yard was even half blown over.  but so far it was my most enjoyable furlough day yet.

first i'll go back to the end of day 6 (sunday night).  in preparation for the start of the workweek (ha) i gave our dogs a late afternoon bath.

giving bella a bath usually looks something like this.  at some point during the bath, she always manages to escape (soap is slippery) and i end up chasing her around until i can finally break her spirit long enough to hold her down and rinse her.

 belle, on the other hand, stays exactly where you put her until you are finished, and then glistens in the sunlight for a picture (perfect dog).

 one of the best things about bella being a basset hound and getting a bath, is that she runs around like a wild and crazy dog after her bath (like most dogs do).  i usually have the camera ready for some post bath basset hound running pics.  and she never disappoints.

oh man, she's funny.

then eric prepared us a wonderful sunday night dinner of smoked salmon steaks with a white wine veggie pasta.  we ate outside and then drank wine by the fire pit and talked for a while before heading in for the night.

with clean sheets and clean girls we were ready for a full night of snuggles.  

furlough day 7 started by sleeping in with those warm, snuggly, clean girls, just as a rainy cool-front came in that lasted most of the day.  nothing is more energizing for me than to have a whole rainy day to myself to drink hot tea, to sit on our porch and listen to the rain, and then to watch pride and prejudice with all of the windows open.

the girls and i spent a few hours on the back porch enjoying the rain and sipping tea.  between that and the movie, the day quickly disappeared.  eric calls time spent this way "dilly-dallying" and i'm proud to say i'm very good at it.

 i could really get used to this not working thing.

dog shaming: the belle and bella edition

i came home yesterday to a lovely mess of 4 boxes of mostly eaten cereal, a sticky/cereal-covered floor, and two very thirsty girls with fat fat bellies.  oh and they also ripped off the cabinet door :)

they were bad girls and they knew it.

dog days is back!  every end of summer, the arlington county pools stay open for an extra weekend for dogs to come swim and play.  it's one of my absolute favorite things to do all year long.

last year was so much fun, the girls had a blast.  and this year was no different :)

bella did her usual thing of chasing other dogs, avoiding the water, and meeting everyone should could. 

yalla, who went camping with us a few weeks ago, was also there and had a great time splashing around with any dog that would play with her.

meanwhile, belle's lab instincts were out in rare form; she was in and out of that water like a fish!

eric would throw the tennis ball in and belle would leap in after it, but she would leap SO high.  you could hear people say "whoa! did you see that dog jump?!"  "man, that dog just got some air!"

it was a proud moment!  she's air belle. 

and because dogs are hilarious, here are two other funny pics i got of dogs being dogs.

it's finally time to go!  we bathed the girls and left them with my mom for the summer.  giving bella a bath is a lot of fun.  she's like a model.  so i took some pictures.  her little wrinkly extra skinned face has so many different expressions!

here are two sexy waterfall shots.

but mostly she just looks funny :)

and just for the fun of it, i took some pictures of bella running.  because everyone loves to see basset hounds running.  multiple websites are dedicated just to this... there's even a buzzfeed for it.  granted, bella does not look as insane as the bassets on there (thankful she doesn't have that much extra skin), but it's still hilarious to look at her different faces :)

sorry bella!

really don't know how we're gonna make it for months without our baby girls :(

in the midst of moving the only place left to sit in our home is the small couch.  our dogs (obviously too good for their dog beds) have been finding creative ways to sit with us.  sitting, staring, and pawing at us can get a little annoying, but we really don't mind because once they are successful at squishing joining us up there, it's impossible to resist the snuggles!

...and as soon as i got up to take a picture, my spot was stolen :)  poor confused girlies.

^^oh mom, here we go again...^^

^^i'm wearing a hat^^ 

 ^^and rocking it.^^

 ^^what you looking at?^^

 ^^don't need eyes... that's what my nose is for^^

 ^^***poof***^^

^^i do what i want^^