our gladys, you are the bees knees...

one fine day three years ago, Gladys came to live at the bottom of our yard. she had no inners, holes in her roof and sides, a coat of dodgy brown paint inside her shell and a floor of forest green plywood. she came with many things i wish she did not, but one thing she came with was potential, and that was all i needed to know one day she would have a little moment to shine.

Gladys has patiently sat waiting for that moment, through rain, hail, snow and sun, she has bided her time. slowly growing a coat of green on her silvery good looks and sinking gradually into the moss below... never complaining, just looking back at me every day as i look at her through my kitchen back door. i knew things had reached an all time low for Gladys when my man took to storing the chicken straw in her inners.

then one fine and dandy day this summer a miracle happened. Our #3 said "when are we going to do up Gladys? i would help you know" and then Our #4 piped in with a "yes, we can put a telly in her" and that was all i needed to be stirred into action. i replied with a "if you help me then you can claim her inner space as your own"

and so began many hours filled with sheets of metal, piles of rivets, pots of duck egg blue paint and a pile of faux flooring tiles. i must tell you it was rather nice 'me and my lads of three' spending quality time together until the moment we stepped back late this past monday evening and saw Our Gladys beginning to shine.

of course it was at that moment i was overcome with a need to claim Gladys back for myself, for now she was so peachy looking. i could not help myself... so as my boys placed the couch one end of her, to see if telly watching in Gladys would be grand, i asked in a little 'pretty please' voice, if i may claim a little corner for myself. they sighed, knowing it would be impossible to keep me out. of course my lads could have said "no, on your bike mother" but i am delighted to report they did no such thing. for perhaps a little voice inside their heads mentioned the clean undies and the hot orange meals which miraculously appear everyday.

 they gave me one end, the perfect end with a handy dandy shelf above the clock for forsaken thrifted souls to spend quality time. i have many dreams for my little end such as pasting a few pictures and papers on the wall and perhaps a rug for underfoot.

yes indeed, i wish to 'twiddle' with Gladys like i have never wished to twiddle with anything before, but it must wait, for i need to turn my attention to something more pressing over the coming days. but in between said pressing moments i can be found with a nice cuppa tea, in Our Gladys, looking back at Mossy Shed and yes, why not, counting my chickens because that is what i have become. an obsessive mother hen who counts her chickens every ten minutes and as always, her blessings.

she is stitching for The Creative Connection and doing more counting, this time counting out her clean undies ~ Tif

and the winner is...

well i must say, over 400 little imagination caps have been put to grand use over the past few days. thank you for taking the time to use them wisely and brighten up my evenings. along with the comments left here and my bulgy inbox, Linus (Our #2's cat) and i have spent many a happy half hour reading them all. i noted as he sat upon my lap and listened to each and every 'critter imagined', he had very good listening skills. far greater than my 'lads of three' and i see now why Our #2 has always felt he was a 'cat above the rest'...

and so it is, Linus and myself, pondered and purred about a winner. i must note, i did the majority of the  pondering and he did a splendid job at the purring side of things. and so this morning, after my final amount of pondering and Linus was done with all his purring we have a winner...

and the winner is

Melinda with her little prickly critter called Basil
"I would love to have a little hedgehog and call him Basil. Hedgehogs are so English and so is the name Basil. I had an uncle Basil and remember him being super prickly and gruff. He was also obsessed with growing root veg so it all seems fitting. I would make Basil a little wooden house which I would hide under the leaves at the bottom of the garden and inside there would be a camo quilt pillow. But most of all when we have a frigid Pennsylvania winter I picture him curled in a ball in my knitting scraps by the fire.

now everyone will tell me all the reasons I can't have a hedgehog for my little friend. But I say ...

ode to Basil:
Hedgehog hedgehog hidden tight,
Make your ball when there's a fright,
But under the moon
And a mackerel sky,
Scurry and dance in the freedom of night.

Such a silly thing for a woman of 56, but he's my special critter craving"

congratulations Melinda, thank you for sharing your ode to Basil with me and thank you to all for imagining their little critter so brilliantly and also for the spiffy comments upon my book.

she will be back tomorrow with a few pics of our Glady's inners after many days of hard graft with 'her and her lads of three' ~ Tif

hooray hurrah, it's a give away...

yes indeedy, what a perfectly perfect day for a give away.

however before we get on with it, just a little note to say i will not be around for a few days as i am a busy bee beavering away on...

1: make lots of goodies to take to The Creative Connection where Janine, myself and the book will have a stall in september.

2: spring clean my blog in late summer with the help of my friend Marjan. so things may look a bit odd over the coming few days and despite the worry of it all disappearing into cyber space, it is something i have been wishing to do for a while.

3: my lads need to get organized for school next week, this would mean unpacking their back packs from mid June, removing old mouldy sarnies and the likes. then the dreaded shopping for school supplies

.

4: putting sweeties on my shop shelves, this will take a few days but i am determined to get photos done and listings written.

5: doing Gladys (our airstream trailer) up. yes at last i will no longer fear a visit from the department of trailer abuse. this past sunday, me and my lads of three ('cause that is what my shed is now, me and my lads of three, don't you like that, has a nice sound about it doesn't it? "why yes it does" i hear you agree). so me and my lads of three, we've been patching old Gladys up with sheets of metal and rivets to stop the rain coming in and one coat of duck egg blue has been applied to her inners. we are now turning our attention to her floor. oh happy days

so, that being all said, shall we just get on with the give away?

"blimey Tif, we thought you would never get there"

yes, i can see your point

so this little give away is probably the most spiffily ever give away to me, for i will be giving away a copy of my book. when Janine sent me two last week i immediately thought "one for me and one for you"

along with the book (and signed if you would like a bit of my scribbling in it), i will also be giving away one of the original bits of embroidery i made for the book. so the winner will have a book and a bit of dottie angel stitchery to go with it.

if you wish to enter this little give away then you will have to answer this question...

what little critter or pet would you love to care for and what would you call them?

now this is where you get to pop on your imagination caps and dream big or small. forget your allergies, the fact your nest is rented or you work all day. forget about them being domesticated or not, rare old critters or common as can be. does not matter, for one small moment you can picture that elephant in your yard or the snake in your bath tub.

so for example if it was me entering, i would say

"oh i would love a goat, my goat would be called PIP, but i would not wish for PIP to be lonely so i would be sure to have another goat called PIP'S FRIEND. i would go out into my yard and spend quality time with PIP and PIP'S FRIEND so they knew they were loved. on rainy days i would invite PIP and PIP'S FRIEND in for a cup of tea and a bit of telly watching"

i will not go on anymore because actually i now realize i could write a short story on PIP and PIP'S FRIEND which is not the point of today, no sirree, the point of today is you and your story.

so let us just write down the nitty gritty in easy points

NITTY GRITTY

1: leave a comment or email me tif@dottieangel.com with the sort of lovely pet you would like to have as a friend and their name.

2: be sure to have a way that i can contact you, either leave an email address in your comment or be sure it links to a blog

3: me and my lads of three will choose the winner and announce them and their imaginary pet on tuesday 6th September when i return to my shiny place after my list of 'to dos' is done.

4: do not panic if you do not see your comment published, this could be a number of things, one: you may not have answered the question and therefore do not qualify. two: i will be checking comments once a day so i may not have got to yours and published it just yet. 3: when i am spring cleaning my blog later this week everything disappears into cyber space.

of course i hope number 3 does not happen, so i am keeping both my fingers and toes crossed until the spring cleaning is over

so there we have it dearest readers, i hope you will enjoy dusting off your imagination caps, i know i have and now i am off to dream about PIP and PIP'S FRIEND whilst i tackle the mountains of neglected laundry which comes of living with 'just me and my lads of three'

she is thanking you for your 'billy-no-mates' kindness and thinking how lovely, he (she) will be forever remembered on the front cover of her book ~ Tif