FO Friday -- PUPPY!! Edition

guys! Guys! GUYS!  Guess what?  Okay, you guessed.  WE ADOPTED A PUPPY!

(I know, I know, FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday are all about the knitting, but if I talk about my stripey socks and make you wade through lots of words, all you'll read is:  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, PUPPY!  So if you're strictly interested in fiber, scroll down for the socks...)

Here she is!  See?  (Shelter's fuzzy pic):

My much better pre-adoption snap:

And the picture that melted my heart:

Now that we have the squeeing out of the way, I can tell you the story.  Mr. Right and I have been talking about getting another dog to (at best) keep our old girl company.  Or at the very least, to inspire her to be more active during the day.  So we decided that I would go by the shelter after I dropped him at the airport on Wednesday to do some initial research.  Easy enough.  I went, looked at lots of grown up dogs and made a list.  One by one, they dropped off because of different limitations (hate kids, hate other dogs, that sort of thing).  I was standing at the desk going through this list with the clerk when an old man came in with this cute little puppy on a leash.  She proceeded to run  up the back of my jeans, then went away with the man.

I went and met with a dog who turned out to be Not Our Dog.  He was a cutie, but would've driven our geriatric shepherd into an early grave.  No dice.  When I went back out, the clerk told me I should check back since they get new dogs all the time.  "Like the puppy that guy just surrendered."  What???  Seriously???  Why would anyone do that???  "Can I see her?"  And the rest, my friends, is history. 

I sat down on the floor with her and she climbed into my lap.  It killed me.  Then someone walked past the glass door and she ran over and barked.  Shortly after that, a big dog went by and barked at her, and she dove back into my lap and tucked her head behind my purse strap.  Then it was really all over.

After a meeting with our dog, and a looooooooooooooong phone conversation with poor Mr. Right who's half a continent away, we decided to bring her home.  I can't believe it!  She was spayed this afternoon, and Mr. Right and I will go pick her up tomorrow morning on the way home from the airport.  She's SO not the dog we thought we'd be adding to our family, but she's perfect!  She's ostensibly a purebred Australian Cattle Dog who is 4 months old.  And at the moment, she's called Peanut, but I expect that will be old news by the end of the weekend.  We'll see what fits our new girl.

And oh yeah.  In other news,  I knitted some socks.   I finished these before the holidays, but they're the last in my back up of FOs.  This was my first foray into the world of self-striping sock yarn, and I've made a vow not to buy any more of it without seeing a swatch.

In the beginning, I thought they were the ugliest things I'd ever seen. (In my defense, the first repeat started with pink, purple, rust.)  But I must admit, I'm pleasantly surprised with the way they turned out.  They're a nice bit of cheer in a pretty dreary winter.

Now that you have your puppy fix, go check out FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday.  Both are guaranteed to have much more yarn-y goodness than this particular entry -- but absolutely no chance of finding a cuter puppy.  You win some, you lose some, right?