Fish Pie and Stuff comments: 28

Comfort food: Tessa Kiros's Fish Pie from Apples for Jam. I've never had fish pie before, believe it or not. I suspect fish pie is supposed to be a rather humble casserole; this one was fancy — halibut (under there somewhere), shrimp, white wine and mushrooms, ringed with a frothy halo of mashed potatoes. I think this, with a big green salad and some crusty bread, would be fantastic for a Friday-night after-work dinner with friends in front of the fireplace. Especially if the weather is bad, I can't think of anything better.

I forget how hard it is to blog about dinner in the winter — it gets so dark so early that the finished-dish picture just looks like a solid block of yellow. It sort of looked like that in real life, too, but it was absolutely delicious. Tessa Kiros is 2-0 around here. The pastitsio and now the fish pie — win, win.

All this month I have worked on reshooting photos and finishing sidebars and all the dozens of details that didn't make it into the originally submitted manuscript in September. I am tired, I have to admit. I was hoping to do a small line of Christmas stuff for the Posie web shop this fall, but I honestly don't think it's going to happen. Book proofs come December 15 and I have to return them by January 4 — so, right over Christmas. Before then, I am definitely needing a break. My sweet friend Megan interviewed me for the Design*Sponge guest blog last week (I just popped over there and see interviews from Susan and Amy — whoot! go Team Portland! — are up now, too) and I talked a little bit about trying to balance things. I see the light at the end of the tunnel here, maybe even really finishing this week, but the past five months have been intense. In real life I'm sure anyone who has seen me hasn't been able to miss the too-frantic tone in my voice and the wild look in my eye, like I'm being chased. I will say that I really had no idea what doing the photography for a book entailed before I did it. Ignorance made me brave. Or not "brave" but at least like, "Sure! Cool!" Now that I've done it — submitting close to 150 photos for the book — I have a completely different appreciation for what goes into product photography. I can't even get my mind around it yet, I don't think. I'll never look at it the same way again. Even more than it did before, it really seems like magic to me now. It seems like it should be the opposite, but, strangely, great shots feel like even more of a mystery than ever. What can I say. Backwards. I'm more than a bit intrigued. And a little hooked.

Paulson's Back on the Field comments: 27

Egads! The knee has improved! Not even going for an x-ray like we thought he'd have to yesterday. Pheeeeew. Now we can all laugh without worry!

The drama of the doormat pile-up. And all in his jersey, too! More poignant, somehow. Oh, the humanity!

And . . . scene.

I wish I had mentioned this earlier, since the book actually came out in August, but the illustrious Therese Laskey has compiled an incredibly cool collection of critters in Softies: Simple Instructions for 25 Plush Pals. Published by Chronicle, this book is totally charming and beautifully styled and produced, as all Chronicle's gorgeous books are. It features a range of my favorite indie designers' patterns for two dozen simple, sweet softies, perfect to make up as holiday presents.

The pattern for my Paper Doll Dresses is also included, and I love the way they photographed them. Cuties. Therese has started a Flickr group for things made from the patterns in the book, and I am totally loving the dresses that others have made (and the other stuff, of course, but it's very exciting when you see people intrepreting your own designs). Therese is also hosting the Holiday Softies Awards right now and there are some amazing, amazing critters over there so far. I am judging the "Doll Dress Up" category and I'm excited about that — they are all so cute I don't know how I'll decide. I never know how to decide these things. Unfortunately, I should've mentioned this a lot earlier, because the deadline for entries is tomorrow, October 31, at midnight. So if you want to enter, please see Therese's Softies Central blog for all the info, including info about tagging your photos so that they show up in the right category. (The FAQ is here if you have questions; otherwise be sure to email Therese.)

Recovered the Fumble, with Injuries comments: 93

Okay, I'm not completely sure how it is that the two full-grown adult caretakers of this adorable, innocent little puppers keep landing on the ground while trying to take care of her, but it went something like this:

We had been out for a quick walk on a lovely Sunday afternoon and had just returned home. Across the street, several people were helping a neighbor move, two other people were packing another car, and our other neighbor was sitting on his porch reading. Andy was holding Clover, standing inside the screen door and trying to unlock the front door. I was looking at the porch chair, blathering on about how I did not understand why every time I looked at that chair it was always crooked, on an angle blocking the door, etc., etc., who was moving it, etc.

Suddenly, right behind me, I hear a commotion and turn and see six-foot-three Andy fumbling Clover, a quivering coil of muscle and wiggle, who has apparently spooked and is suddenly trying to climb on top of his head and neck while he is unlocking the door. Grabbing at her wildly, he sinks down, apparently in an attempt to get closer to the ground but loses balance and is about to fall over, headfirst, into the door. I stretch and reach for Clover, who is headed south over Andy's back, scrambling for dear life. I manage to get her just fine, but lose my balance while the screen door is closing on me and fall on top of Andy who, at the moment of my size-16 impact, screams,

     "OowwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeAGHHHHHH!!!"

and falls to the ground as his knee goes east. I place Clover on the aforementioned chair and with a total lack of coordination but a lot of speed (think: panicking manatee) clamber off of Andy in complete horror as I see him clutching his knee and grimacing in pain.

I cannot express how loud all of this was, and how long it all seemed to take, between the chair skidding and the door banging and the yelling in agony. I can only imagine what all nine completely random people within thirty feet of this spectacle — normally, no one is ever out there but squirrels, of course, until we decide to fall down — were thinking as two large adults and a small puppy went rolling around shouting on the front porch all while simply trying to get into the house. We did not turn around to look as somehow we managed to unlock the front door and then fall through it into the living room. Andy was sort of laughing and crying in pain at the same time. After asking him hysterically fourteen times if he was okay (he said yes, ish), I put the puppers down (she was just fine) and ran upstairs and threw water on my face, feeling awful, trying not to cry, trying not to laugh, trying to remember which knee he had surgery on a few years ago. Somehow Andy and Clover came upstairs and we all laid on the bedroom floor, nervously laughing so hard tears rolled down my cheeks and I got a stomach ache. Andy was like, "Dude, I don't even know what happened!" and I was like, "Dude I'm so sorry! I didn't even know what was happening!" It was all so absurd. Just picturing it would send either of us into a fit of doubled-over laughter for the rest of the night and into this morning; just writing it and thinking about it again now makes the giggles bubble up again. I keep imagining our neighbor Scott across the street, looking up from his book, surely thinking, "What the hell are those two up to now?" I really regret that no one was filming this because, as a consummate fan of America's Funniest Home Videos, I feel quite sure that this one would've won us the ten grand, which would've helped us pay for the knee surgery we both worry is fairly imminent, as, even this morning, the knee is messed up.

So, to the doctor. Last time it was the other knee, hurt while running for the bus.

Phooey. I feel really bad. I recovered the fumble but totally sacked my quarterback. He was wearing his Bears jersey, too (Sunday uniform).

Poor knee. Poor Andy. I think that's called "taking one for the team." I am so sorry, honey. 

Winter Sheets comments: 71

Time for the flannel sheets. I love village scenes like this, don't you? This summer we did a huge puzzle, Andy and I. It was a seaside village scene in fall. It was right after Audrey died and I didn't think I could do anything other than figure out where to put those little pieces. A thousand of them. I lost myself in the layers of the little village — the village bakery, the hotel, the boat shop, the tiny trees getting smaller and less distinct the further they moved up the hillside. Maybe there's a metaphor in it all, but it doesn't even matter. It worked — that is, it relaxed our sad heads — and when it was done, maybe a week after we'd started, we felt strangely better. A bit better.

These sheets I've had for maybe five years now. Another Christmas present from my mom, from Garnet Hill? I can't remember. And the blanket is from my mother-in-law, maybe the Company Store? You see how my mommies take care of me. My mother has bought me sheet sets all my life, and I keep my sheets for years and years. Since grade school I have cared a lot about my sheets. When we went to the beach with my sister a few months ago, she pulled out a twin flat sheet I hadn't seen in thirty years — dancing cartoon cats, doing ballet. I have a lot of my old blankets and sheets from Chicago. Every day after school, I'd walk past Marshall Field's on the way home, and my mom's office was a few blocks away from that beautiful old department store with its dark green gate and gold clock. I remember going regularly with my friend Mary Davis, who was infatuated with an English guy named Simon who worked in the shoe department and looked like the guy from A-ha. She'd head for the shoes, and I'd head for the sheets. I was infatuated with a mint green comforter with pink flowers. I went to flirt with it constantly. The day it went on sale I flew out of the store, back toward my mother's office. I raced into her building and skidded to her desk saying, "Mom! Mom! My comfie's on sale! Pleeeeeeeeease can you lend me some money to buy it!" (Riiiiight — "lend.")

Of course she came down after work and got it for me. Of course I promised to pay her back but surely didn't. I worked as a movie-theater candy girl all through high school and spent all my money on various things from the Hallmark Gold Crown store. And this place called Essence that sold Crabtree & Evelyn soaps and lotions. I had every Spring Rain thing that they made. I have the comforter still, though. It's on the guest bed now, and kitten-soft after twenty-something years. I love to sleep, but I haven't been getting too much lately. For the past several weeks, I have been working on revisions and additions to the book, and re-shooting and adding a lot of photos. The night before last I was so worried about everything and going over it all repeatedly in my mind that I didn't sleep at all. Andy had gone with his friends to see Junior Brown and he came home around 1 a.m. He smelled like the bar and could not stop talking, then woke Clover up to play with her on the bed. I require all residents of the bed who can't stop talking after 1 a.m. and who will, within four seconds of hitting the pillow after a few beers, start snoring like foghorns to sleep in the guest room. So he left, but I still couldn't sleep. I read half of Still Glides the Stream, which has seriously got to be one of the most soporific books on earth, but it didn't even work. Finally around 5 a.m., the snoozing ensued. Clover woke up at six, and you know the rest. 'Morning, sunshine!

The Knitting Man(ual) comments: 37

We have a little morning fire in the fireplace this morning so I'm thinking about knitting. My friend Kristin came over on Tuesday for a hang out. I haven't had much time to see my friends lately so it was nice to bake and sit and talk. The sun was shining, low and golden. I hope it comes back. I hope and pray the humidity kicks up and the winds die down in southern California.

Kristin's a phenomenal knitter and all-around incredible person. I met her, probably six years ago now, when she worked at the Yarn Garden, which I think was the first yarn store to open anywhere near my neighborhood. When I first moved to Portland in 1997, I had just learned to knit. I didn't know my way around town, and when I wanted to find a yarn store I looked in the yellow pages. I think I went to three different locations that were no longer even open. When the Yarn Garden opened a couple of years after this, it really took off, coinciding perfectly with the renewed collective interest in knitting. I went down to find yarn to make a shrug to go with a salmon-pink dupioni silk dress I'd made to go to a friend's wedding. I was a very nervous yarn-shopper — I knew nothing about yarn, or gauge, or fiber content — but Kristin was there and she was so nice to me, walking me through possibilities gently and patiently. And now, years later, I know that that is just how Kristin is in everything: gentle, patient, generous, wise.

I think all of these qualities are exponentially displayed in her work, for in addition to being a lovely person, she is an illustrious and incredibly talented knitter — a technician of great skill and integrity and a truly creative designer, she has already written four knitting and crochet books: Knits from the Heart; Crochet from the Heart; Blankets, Hats, and Booties to Knit and Crochet; and her latest, The Knitting Man(ual) just came out from Ten Speed Press last month.

The Knitting Man(ual) is a collection of patterns for guys that anyone, men or women, will enjoy knitting. Taking traditional designs, including many Scandinavian inspired patterns that reflect her own Norwegian roots (my favorite is "Dad's Sweater," which she designed based solely on a little black and white photo she had of her dad wearing a sweater hand-knit for him by one of his sisters in the 1960s — so cool — it is such a cute picture), Kristin has updated classics to include contemporary colors and modern construction. Everything is classic in the best way — but classic with an edge of cool.

In the introduction, Kristin traces the history of men knitting, and interviews many males knitters to discover just what it is about the craft that appeals to them. I love reading stuff like this. What I also love about the book is that she used many real-life models — everyone photographed wearing the projects from the book are members of her own circle of friends and family and there is such a wonderful, accessible, friendly feel to the photography. Even local knitting rock star Jesse Stenberg's tattooed chest ("Born to Knit" in a modified skull and crossbones) is included. I remember once watching Jesse knit a present for his baby nephew while explaining that he intended to be the world's greatest uncle, blowing every other potential baby gift that anyone else might deliver out of the water. I just busted out laughing when he said that. I thought that was hilarious.

Christmas presents, peeps! It's time to start!

Buffet Bliss-Out comments: 122

Oh, storage solutions, how I love you! This is our buffet, our first real piece of purchased dining-room furniture. It holds everything I have. I'm so happy!

It came from IKEA on Sunday, and Andy put it together for me. It is actually a Christmas present for us from my mom, which is so nice. Andy and I are having Thanksgiving here, and Andy's mom and grandpa are coming from Chicago. When Andy's mom was here we went to visit it at IKEA and she helped me decide that it was the right thing to get. I have a hard time making decisions like that. So I couldn't wait until Christmas for it. I was bouncing in my chair. It is called the Liatorp buffet and it is exactly what I have needed for years. A lot of this stuff was previously all over the mantle.

Last year, or maybe it was two years ago and last year we repainted, but sometime in the last two years we switched the dining room and the living room in our house. So our dining room is really in our living room, and vice versa. A lot of the china pieces lived above the fireplace. Now they live in their very own cabinet. Sigh.

I was rereading the post I just linked back to, and I realize it was written right around the time I opened the antique booth last fall, which I closed this summer but forgot to tell you that I closed. Everything was such a blur. Pretty much as soon as I opened the booth, I realized that I was going to be so busy I'd never have time to go there and take care of it as I intended, so it got very neglected. And it never made any money. And then they kicked me out because I was neglecting it and it wasn't making any money, which is understandable. But all this happened in the middle of the summer when I was wigging, so it only barely registered and actually was a huge relief. So now my basement is full of boxes of vintage stuff, and I still haven't decided what I will do with it all. Just too many things going on all the time.

I think I'll just sit here and look at this vanilla layer cake of wood, glass, and china. Ahh. Serenity now.

Thank you Mommy! Thank you Andy — you did such a great job with it. (I actually left the house for the afternoon in case there was a furniture-putting-together hissy that no one wanted witnessed, but the report was that there were none, and the directions were very clear — yay IKEA!). Thank you, honey! I love it!

First Walk comments: 140

On Friday morning, there was a first walk outside on a leash.

Everyone was very excited.

Well, one of us was a little nervous.

Because there were just so many new things outside of the backyard.

Oak leaves, for instance, and flowers.

Rocks and hills and dales.

The world outside is large, and I'm small.

And worried.

Just one sec. Gimme a minute here.

Oh, I got it.

Watch out, world, I'm coming through.

'Morning, Sunshine! comments: 90

Wakey, wakey honeybuns!

It's a new day, full of things to do!

Kisses to get and give.

Naps to take (after chasing leaves around the yard — Nature's puppy-tiring service: blowing leaves).

Things to think about.

Like, did you know Andy Paulson makes his own pajama pants?

True dat.

Pastitsio Weather comments: 111

Oh, how I wanted it to rain yesterday. How I wanted it to pour cold rain from the gray sky so that I would have every excuse to order this (no, I didn't order it but I really wanted it!) and make pastitsio. And yes, can you believe that the previous owner of our house painted the porch pink? Hot pink, actually. Now I like pink as much as the next homeowner, but not on the porch. There's Kelly green under there, too. Yipes.

I was thinking about how much my cooking habits have changed since I started the blog. I come from a family of great cooks, and I've always liked cooking. I started cooking in Missoula, when I lived in my first big-girl apartment and Andy was just my boyfriend. I was a poor teaching assistant and he rotated tires at Sears and washed dishes at a bakery downtown. We didn't have a lot of time together, and we had even less money.

Nevertheless, oh! how we cooked, especially in the fall and winter. Around four p.m. in the fall, the mountains out our windows would start turning dark blue. It was always cold. I'd head down the alley to the Orange Street Food Farm. I loved cooking for my boyfriend. He was my first boyfriend. I pulled out every stop. I wasn't very good at it, and I didn't have a lot of equipment, but I was interested. Curried chicken soup, homemade stocks, complicated lasagnas, pies and cakes. Candles on the table, Irish music on the stereo, washing all the dishes by hand, a kitchen as small as a closet but painted the whitest white I could find. It looked like a tiny wedding cake, with its shelves and four stacked cabinets. One night we got in a fight when he was heating up a jar of hot fudge in a pan of boiling water and water was splattering everywhere. I don't even remember what the fight was about, but I left the apartment in anger and went for a walk. We lived just a few blocks from the river. A park bordered the river for several miles; you walked along the Clark-Fork to get downtown, or to school. On the way to the park it started to snow. In the dark I could see the flakes falling — the first of the season — illuminated by street lights. No one else was out for as far as I could see. It was so beautiful and I was so lonely that I started to cry. I felt so ashamed that I was too righteous to go back to get him, to show him the season's first snow on the black ribbon of river. He would have loved it so much, and I would've loved that. It was twelve years ago now, but I've never forgotten that night. Young and stupid. You learn.

But we cooked a whole lot back then, when we lived at the Rozale Apartments, and slept in an ancient Murphy bed. My mother (a natural in the kitchen) was not a cookbook cook, but I was and am. I have always had a lot of cookbooks and since my earliest days away from home clipped recipes from magazines to try. But it wasn't until I started the blog, actually it was quite a while after I'd started the blog, that I really started to think about cooking in a serious way. Like, I started trying to actually be a better cook, someone who learned about cooking, someone who could stretch and get better at it. Ina Garten's books and television show have been hugely influential in my life over the past couple of years. I just adore her, and truly appreciate what she does. I have all of her books now and I use them constantly. Somehow, from them and from her show, I started appreciating how much fun it can be to take my time in the kitchen. Blogging about cooking just heightens this. There is no reason to set up a still life of ingredients and an apron before you cook dinner and take a picture of it, but it's fun! If you've never done it, you should just try it! I think it's totally fun. It changes my perspective on what I'm doing. Most of the week, it's bottled spaghetti sauce or turkey sandwiches on my lap while watching Larry King Live. But about once a week I pull out the big guns — something fancy, something that requires teaspoons and measuring cups and clarified butter, or shallots, or a bay leaf — and I tell you, I am never happier. I truly love to cook now.

A couple of months ago, someone wrote and told me that they thought I would like this book, Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes by Tessa Kiros. (I wish I could find that email so I could credit you, kind person! I'm sorry!) I did rush right over to look at the book and order it, along with another one of Tessa's books, Apples for Jam: A Colorful Cookbook.

I am so pleased with these books. Though they are expensive, they are worth every penny, in my opinion. They absolutely saved me this summer. So many times, at the end of a hard day, I'd heft one of them up (people, they are 400+ pages each) and just turn, turn, turn pages, slowly. I'd read all the section introductions, then the pull quotes, then the recipe introductions, then stare at the photos, trying to just absorb it all. They are each densely packed, blousy, gorgeously personal volumes. Full of recipes I've never heard of, from places I've never been, each has been an education and a total inspiration for me. I honestly think they're the prettiest cookbooks I've ever seen.

So yesterday I dreamed of pouring rain so that I would steam up the windows cooking the pastitsio from Falling Cloudberries. Tessa Kiros was born in London to a Finnish mother and a Greek-Cypriot father, raised in South Africa, and now, after having traveled the world, lives in Italy with her husband and two daughters. The recipes in FC span continents, representing the "food from many kitchens" in Finland, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, Italy, and others around the world. Throughout it all, she sprinkles the pages with photos and memories of her childhood and her family. I love it when she talks about her paternal grandfather:

Pappou was quiet; he had integrity and no flashiness about him. He always wore a perfectly ironed shirt, gilet in winter, polished shoes and had his hair slicked back with the special cream he ordered from Italy. He never demanded acknowledgement, but dashed around quietly with the energy of milk just at that rolling boil. . . . Always, always upon arrival in Cyprus I would find a box of my favourite baklava, ribboned and waiting for me. Pure chance, his expression seem to say when I looked at him questioningly. Pappou never said much, but I could tell he loved us all sitting under the lemon tree, late into the summer night, while the crickets carried on and on with their chanting.

Stuff like that. I love that.

I considered that, if the recipes bombed, I wouldn't even care. Not at all. Oh well, I'd say, I can go downtown and get pastitsio at Alexis. I'll wear pale blue and sip Greek coffee.

No need. Never, ever less of a need.

Damn, that recipe (the pastitsio from Falling Cloudberries) worked like a charm. This photo is it without its duvet of intensely rich bechamel. Even though there's not much that can't be considered delicious when snuggled soundly under a thick layer of bechamel, this was gooooood. After it came out of the oven, I was too busy tucking into it to take its picture.

I need to start an exercise blog. Maybe I'd come to love exercise as much as bubbling casseroles.

No way. Some things you just know, you know?

Clover, 11 Weeks comments: 87

Clover Honey Meadow Paulson plays. She runs, she fetches, she chews, she pounces, she races, she rolls, she tumbles, she skids. She has more toys than FAO Schwarz. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but relatively speaking it's not far off. Our house has become a minefield of things that squeek — I step on them constantly and scare the peep out of myself, thinking I am stepping on the puppers. No, it's just one of eighty squeeky toys in every room/hallway/staircase of the house.

Something I love about dogs is how they know, they automatically know, that that's their bed, this is their toy, that's the bag coming home from the store that holds their treat. I mean, do you not think that is kind of amazing? Maybe it's just me. But you put a little dog bed down and the puppers heads right over to it and curls up. You come home from the store with a toy buried deep within the bag that also holds shampoo, envelopes, and a tank top and she knows there's more. Maybe we walk into the house with a particular spring in our step that tips her off? I don't know. Whatever it is I'm always so tickled by these sort of cliched, cartoon-dog habits. Watching the dog actually chew on a bone just totally cracks me up.

I love Clover. There are so many things about her that remind me of Audrey, it's true, but somehow it just makes me love her more, knowing what big paws she has to fill around here. I don't remember very much about Audrey's puppyhood; we have no videos, and few pictures. Even so, there are moments when Clover is doing something, especially eating, when I'll be looking down on her, listening to her crunch crunch crunching her kibble, seeing her chubby tummy, and I will have such a flashback to watching Audrey do the same thing, so many years ago. It's something I wouldn't have remembered and there have been several times where I've gotten choked up, thinking about life and all the things we have to leave behind.

Audrey and Clover are Cardigan Welsh corgis, and I think they are classic embodiments of that breed. People write and ask me if I think a Cardi would be good for their family — I can't answer that, but I think this description truly details at least my own experience with these dogs. Incredibly smart, very agile, extremely sensitive to their human pack and their animal companinons, compelled to herd anything and everything into a corner, highly attuned to all activity around them and ready to sound the alarm at the slightest unusal noise, prone to nipping as a method of installing order (so you must be careful with small children around them, as small children do not appreciate being treated like cows and sheep), very willful when reprimanded, but extremely loving and loyal to their people, preferring their people to all others though still offering affection generously to friends. Clover is different from Audrey in that she is more vocal and more cuddly but also more willful — when we tell her "nuh uh" she gets extremely irritated and talks back quite brazenly. I say "no" and she says "YES!"
     "Nope."
     "Yep."
     "Nooope."
     "YEP!!! Yes. . . . I said yes."

Even as puppies, corgis are pretty sure they know everything, so you have to have quite a firm voice with them. Nevertheless, they will usually get in the last word, even if it's just a conciliatory groan —I'll do it, but I will not like it. Just so you know. As if I didn't. But there will never be any other breed for me. I absolutely adore these dogs. I think they are incredible.

Of course, our Clover is quite advanced! She has been an amazingly easy puppy, for the most part. I've been lucky enough to be able to be with her constantly, leaving her alone for only about an hour or two a day, during which time she goes in her crate quietly and sleeps. I'm flabbergasted at how easily she has taken to crate training — Audrey literally howled for hours every time we left her alone in it. She'd be howling when we put her in and howling when we took her out. But from the second night Clover has even slept from 10 p.m. 'til morning without much of a peep and seems fine with being alone. During the day, she sleeps in her bed next to wherever I am, waking four or five times a day to play vigorously then fall back into a snoring, belly-up snooze. Last week we started giving her the run of the living and dining rooms and she is behaving quite maturely, not chewing shoes or furniture, not really doing anything naughty at all (though I don't really give her a chance, and when the cat comes around, all bets seem to be off — she whines, cries, tries to nip her, sucks on her ears, and jumps up on the coffee table, in the middle of which Violet stands, looking down at her haughtily, but generally refusing to raise a paw to swat Clover's nose, which actually would help the situation quite a bit. I keep saying, "Violet, make her stop for me," but Vi just stands around like "Huh? Why does that mini-Audrey keep jumping on the table? Couldn't have a thing to do with me, I'm sure"). She's also pretty much completely potty trained, having accidents only when I forget to take her out every hour. So I sit pretty much in awe of this puppy. I already miss the old days and her eight-week naughty-puppy self. I think eleven weeks is very early for this kind of good behavior, but surely I am biased. And I can only imagine that Auntie Audrey is around somewhere, telling her just how she would like her to behave.

Andy made a video on Sunday. Love these.