My Precious Mother

Mary Lou Pennal passed away peacefully on August 29, 2012, in Fort Worth.

A memorial service was held Wednesday, September 5, 1 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Granbury.

Mary was born January 15, 1929 in Des Moines, Iowa, to Leland and Mary Forrester, as their only child. Growing up, she lived in Chicago and other cities as her family moved to follow their careers. Attending college at North Texas State teachers College in Denton, she received her BA degree. It was during her college years that she met Billy Eric Pennal, whom she married in 1951. Though Bill passed away in May, 2012, they would have celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary this month.

For almost 20 years Mary was a devoted teacher of 3rd graders. She developed many special relationships with her students and colleagues during this time. Following her teaching career, she worked as the office manager for her husband's private psychology practice in Irving, until their retirement in 1994. Two years prior to retiring, Mary and Bill moved to DeCordova near Granbury, where they lived the remainder of their lives.

Mary was a talented artist, writer and poet. She could accomplish anything she put her mind to--even the achievement of obtaining her private pilot's license. But beyond framed certificates and wall-mounted plaques, Mary's greatest attributes were her kindness, empathy and charity. She strongly believed in justice and had a tremendous love for all creatures, great and small. She instilled these values in others by her example.

Mary Pennal is survived by her son Eric and his wife Sandee, of Sachse; daughter Susan, her husband Robert and their daughter Marianna, of Silver Spring, Maryland; and many other friends and relatives. She will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Friends for Animals or First Presbyterian Church in Granbury.

ranty mcRantpants

There are a few things I've seen just one too many times online and I'm sick of seeing them. Hence the rant.

1) "I'm so excited I just pee'd my pants!"
Seriously? How old are you? Why in the world would anyone want to exclaim to the world that they have so little control over themselves and their bodily functions that merely getting excited causes them to lose control in such a spectacularly embarrasing way? Add "I just threw up in my mouth a little" to the same vein of disgusting exclamations over how extreme their feelings are about any one subject. Why in the world can these people not learn to express themselves in a better way? Urgh.

2) "I hope I haven't offended anyone" or any of the myriad variations on this theme.
Quite frankly, if you aren't offending someone you're probably not doing much of anything so why take up anyone's time with whatever the hell it is you're doing? There is always going to be someone out there who is just looking to be offended by something or someone. Those people thrive on being offended. Don't pander to them.
This goes hand-in-hand with the unfortunate tendency of women who feel it necessary to cushion ANYTHING they say with a little apologetic smile. Don't even get me started on that one. Why in the world do women (you don't see men doing this) feel they must cushion everything they do which *might* be interpreted in a negative way with that little "I don't really mean it/I hope I don't make you mad/etc..." smile.

Stop it. Just stop it. Try to be someone who means what they say without apologizing for it. Seriously.

In conclusion let me say ... I hope I've offended someone today

In honor of my father

Billy Eric Pennal, Ph.D., 82, passed away Sunday, May 6, 2012, in Granbury.

A memorial service will be held Wednesday, May 16, 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Granbury.

Bill was born April 5, 1930 in Nocona, Texas to Eric Derring Pennal and Ollie Jean Lemon Pennal. In 1951 Bill married Mary Lou Forrester, whom he had met at the beginning of their college years. They celebrated their 60th anniversary this past August, 2011 with the help of their wonderful children Eric and Susan and their spouses.

Bill graduated from Nocona High School in 1946 at age 16, and entered what was then North Texas State Teachers College the following September. He earned a BA degree in Art in 1949 and continued as a graduate student until joining the U.S. Air Force in August 1950 after the beginning of the Korean War. He remained in the Air Force 10 1/2 years, earning the rank of Tech Sergeant. During that time he was able to finish his graduate studies, earning an MA degree. He served the last few years in California as Crew Chief on KC-135 aircraft, one of his favorite jobs among several careers during his life. After leaving the Air Force he worked at Vought Aircraft in Grand Prairie. There he utilized both his aircraft and art training as a technical illustrator.

After several years he began working toward a degree in psychology, earning first an MS and then his Ph.D. in 1975. From 1975 to 1978 he was a member of the adjunct faculty in the Psychology Department at the University of North Texas in Denton. Dr. Pennal maintained a private practice in Clinical Psychology, his other favorite career until retirement in 1994. After 31 years in Irving, Texas, the Pennals moved to DeCordova in 1992, maintaining their office until retiring in 1994.

His many hobbies included flying his own airplane, painting, sculpture and computers. He loved music and enjoyed playing the harmonica.

Dr. Pennal was preceded in death by his parents, Eric and Ollie Pennal. He is survived by his wife, Mary; son Eric and his wife Sandee of Sachse; daughter Susan Ator and her husband Robert Ator and their daughter Marianna of Silver Spring, MD; brother Charles Pennal and his wife Shirley of Grand Junction, CO; cousin Sue Dowden of DeCordova; nephews Eric and Charles and their familes of Colorado; and many friends and relatives.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Friends for Animals or First Presbyterian Church in Granbury.

lap quilt of love

I just finished making a lap quilt for my lovely little mother. It is a pattern I am very fond of and will probably make again. I especially like the back. It is all cotton; cotton fabrics on top, cotton flannel on bottom and cotton batting between. Easy care!

dinner and a movie

I am very lucky in that my father introduced me to science-fiction at a very young age. I love pretty much anything science-fiction related. I really have soft spot for the old 30's to 60's sci-fi. I have found something that punches pretty much all my buttons when it comes to this stuff. It is an online webseries called "The Mercury Men". You can catch it on hulu and SyFy.

It is a retro-sci-fi cliffhanger webseries that is so well done. They hit the mark on everything; characters (everyman caught up in circumstances beyond his control and the quintessential hero to save the day), lighting, music, bad-science threat (the moon!), and, the most important thing of all, BRAIN IN A JAR!

The basic premise is this: a government worker who does all he can to not work (you know the type) becomes embroiled in a nefarious plot of the Mercury Men (from the planet Mercury! men made of light!) to <spoiler> the moon! He is rescued by the daring, gorgeous Captain Jack Yaeger, engineer with the mysterious "League". Together they overcome obstacles and, I don't think it's a spoiler to say they save the day. Oh, but HOW they save the day is the story.


Captain Jack Yaeger - engineer ... with a gun.

What would make the perfect watching experience would be to eat off the right dishes while watching the show. These are a must. Take your choice of dinner plates.



pick a mug:



and you're good to go! Unfortunately, I couldn't find a proper bowl for eating your "Mercury Men" cereal out of but I guess you can't have everything.

Seriously, check these guys out. There is a ton of extra stuff on the website. Videos of behind-the-scenes stuff, commercials, an adorable one with a 3 year old fan getting a visit from Captain Jack Yaeger himself! There's also free downloadable digital props you can print out yourself.

There are currently 10 webisodes with the first nine telling the first season's story and the tenth setting you up for a new (please god!) season.

new girl in the shop

It's been a while since I posted anything but I've been busy with this'N'that. One of the things I've gotten back to are the mermaid dolls! There's a new one in the shop. Go see her here. Here's a little sneak peak just for you though. Say "hi" to Lavande!

flime ties

Wow. How did it get to be November 12th already?

I've updated the shop with two new mermaids and my photographer extraodinaire reshot my first two dolls. Go take a look!

For your viewing entertainment here is another lovely model captured during the latest photo shoot.

sneak peek

Here she is!



I'm trying to get some better pictures before I list her in the shop. I have also finished another one and need pictures of her as well. I'm pretty happy with my final pattern; it's easy to put together and she feels like the right size. The only thing I'm still fiddling with are the eyes. I haven't come up with what I think is the "right" look yet but it's getting there.

Here's a view of the back so you can see all that hair. Wowsers.



Just to remind you, this is where I started with this one.



The only part I re-used was the tail and that even got adjusted a bit at the top. No comparison, right?

All in all, this is a "yay"!

new stuff - photos coming soon

Well, I got my new sewing machine and, man, it is a cute one. Better than that, it sews! It sews without skipping stitches!

I completely took apart the denim/linen mermaid and re-did her. I changed out the denim for a printed cotton and changed out the whole body top pattern, slimmed down the tail a bit where it connects to the body and generally changed how I put the whole thing together. It was a lot easier once I figured it out. I was really making it hard on myself the way I was doing things before.

I've gone back to using the yarn I like for the hair (here). I pretty much hate that yarn for anything but mermaid hair but it's perfect for that.

I'll get some pictures of her and my new lovely sewing machine and put those up soon. I'm still re-thinking some elements on her face so she's not quite finished but she's getting close!

frustrations

Well that was fun.

I was able to cut out several pieces for more than one doll and started sewing them up. Started but didn't finish because my lousy sewing machine, which I recently spent over $100 to fix, doesn't work anymore. It sewed about 3 stitches then promptly quit catching stitches. Oh how I wish I had never given up my trusty old Singer which my parents gave me sometime in the late 60's. That was a workhorse that only sewed a straight stitch - frontward and backward. That's all it did but it did it consistently.

I am totally fed up with the one I currently have so I got online and ordered this little beauty. It's been shipped and now I'm just sitting here waiting for it to show up. I can hardly wait to have a sewing machine I don't want to curse out when I use it!

mermaids past and present

Well, I went through and took some pictures of the mermaids I made for my daughter when she was quite a bit younger and thought I'd post them here.

This is the very first one


and a closeup of her face


She was made with some beautiful velveteen fabric, a lovely co-ordinating brocade for the tail plus some odds and ends of lace and velvet for trimming. I used this great yarn for her hair. My daughter loved her and then started requesting more! Following are the others all lined up


As you can see, I had some difficulty with their faces. On each one I learned something new.

Here is the first with the last one I made.


As you can see, she is quite a bit larger than the original ones. I have come to the conclusion that she is a little too big. I also have a tendency to over stuff them and make them a little less cuddly because of that. The latest one is also over-engineered and I don't like the shape of the head. I'm going to stick with the head shape of the first ones. I *do* like using rhinestones for the eyes and I love the extra full head of hair. Those are things I will continue going forward. I have now completely taken the latest one apart and she's ready to be remade. I'm going to work on that over the next couple of days and will hopefully have something to show for my labors! Stay tuned.

inspired again

it's taken a while but i'm inspired again. when my daughter was little i used to make mermaid dolls for her. i made quite a few since she would give me orders for the type she wanted. along the way i kept trying new ways of doing them since there were always "issues" with them in one way or another. i started with a basic doll pattern which my mother used to make me a "gretel" doll (from hansel and gretel) which she got from an old better homes and garden booklet. i created my own tail pattern to replace the feet but everything else was pretty much as the pattern was made.

zoom forward several years - i decided i wanted to making these mermaid dolls and then selling them. i really liked doing them but there are only so many you can have hanging around. in order to do that i realized i really needed to come up with my own pattern since it didn't seem quite right to sell based off someone else's pattern. i managed to get one done which i was quite pleased with (see her here) for a friend at work. she ordered it for her little girl as a christmas present.

one of the things i realized was i really needed to simplify the pattern. it was a lot of work; work i don't think i would be willing to do for a large number of these dolls. the take-away from this was i won't worry about making the head swivel, the arms articulate (maybe - still not sure on that one), possibly reduce the size and not make the bend in the tail too narrow (makes it hard to stuff properly and it tends to get floppy). even though it takes almost an entire skein of yarn and a long time i really love having a full head of hair. don't like skimpy haired dolls - especially mermaid dolls since they are so oo-la-la to begin with.

so, the inspiration. what brought it on? this woman. she is amazing. it was really something seeing her journey in doll-making and the different stages she went through (is still going through?). she made me want to get back in there and try and do something with the mermaids in my head. get them out of my head on in the world.

i'm going to try and keep a running post on what i've got going on and the different things i'll be trying in developing the body style i think will work best for me.

i hope you'll come along with me on this new endeavor.

irony

i·ro·ny    [ahy-ruh-nee] –noun

1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.

what irony abounds when the defacto leaders (glenn beck, sarah palin) of the most uncivil bunch of people this nation has seen in a long time call for a return to civility.

pupdate now with more socks

update on the pup. she's fitting in beautifully. the crate is still in the living room but only because we need to replace it with an end table next to the couch. need something to put the lamp on dontchaknow.

we had to use the crate for only a very short time. she has adjusted to the cats quite nicely and vice versa. want proof? ok. here's proof.



what? too far apart? hows this, then.



really? still too far apart? jeez. ok you doubters.



see that ferocious little cat face? she's trying to chew on sophie's paw. she is also partial to sophie's ears. sophie, for her part, likes to flea-bite dinky. *sigh* those two.

jenger is still keeping her distance, although she has, at times, actually rubbed up against our little sophie. no pictures of that rare occurrence. we're just grateful sophie isn't inclined to chase her like prey.

now for the sock portion of this post. i'm trying to get my sock mojo back. i've been putting in time on non-sock related knitting and realized my sock situation is getting desparate. time for socks! going for a pretty basic sock just to get going again. trouble is, i think i need to switch out to my metal needles. these wood ones, beautiful though they may be, are just a little to grabby for me. i'm struggling just to do a round at a time. want to see? ok.



yeah. just the toe getting started and it's taking way too long to get to this part. i'm hoping switching out the needles will help. i'm using stroll kettle-dyed sock yarn in "jay" for the toes and heels. (it looks like they're phasing that particular yarn out but the equivalent yarn is the regular stroll sock yarn.) i'm using this particular yarn because it has some nylon in it and i need that to keep the toes and heels from wearing out too fast. for the body of the sock i'll be using a beautiful handpainted yarn in purples. when i get to that part i'll take a picture.

onward and upward!

sophie, world. world, sophie.

who's a pretty girl? who's a pretty girl?


Sophie is a pretty girl!

oh, and that crate in the background? doesn't look like we're going to need it. she is such a sweet tempered little girl and seems to be housebroken. it's only been a day so we'll give it more time before deciding for sure.

and just for fun, here's a pic of her in the magic room (good things find their way to her tummy here)

and one of her having her dinner


good dog!

mother's day - new beginnings

i'm going to have a dog again!

we went to our local shelter (warl) on mother's day and started the search. i didn't know what would happen; would we find a dog right away? how long would the process take?

well, yes, we did find a dog right away. she was in the 3rd section we looked at. such a pretty friendly little girl. she was rooming with another friendly dog, a boy named homer, and we just couldn't quit petting her and looking at her. i meant to make the rounds and check out all the dogs but just couldn't leave her. my husband said "i really like her". so we took her to a little room so we could interact with her without a lot of distractions. so sweet. and SMART. oh yes, i could tell right away that she's a smart girl.

we still have two cats so any dog we bring in will have to be able to co-exist with them. that is a deal breaker. they "cat-tested" her while we were there so we could see how she reacted to a cat.

i always wondered how dogs are "cat-tested". conjures up some interesting imagery to be sure. well, what they do is put a cat in a large cage (or crate) in one of their offices then bring in the dog on a leash. the first thing is to see what the dog does when s/he sees the cat then go from there. our new puppers didn't even notice the cat at first then, when she went over to check the cat out, the cat hissed at her! she ducked her head and kind of backed away. i figure we can work with that.

we pick her up tonight. tonight!

i dreamed about her last night. i dreamed she was sleeping on the bed with us. it was a lovely dream.

tonight!

man candy

i'll be frank. this post was prompted by me getting Sherlock Holmes in the mail the other day. i mean, really. robert downey jr and jude law? yummy.

made me think of the man candy movies i have. i present for your viewing pleasure the following:

Silverado - lots of lovely men in their prime, plus let me just say this: "scott glenn in leather pants". it's also a great movie with some wonderful lines

i don't wanna kill you and you don't wanna be dead

i think there's only a couple of guys and this a**hole's one of 'em

you idiot! he's hit everything he's shot at!

the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes - again, robert downey jr and jude law. need i say more?

Ocean's 11 - oh my lord. george clooney, matt damon, brad pitt, andy garcia. seriously.

300 - 1) gerard butler, 2) gerard butler in very little and 3) all those other BNN* men. sigh.

so, what are your favorite man candy movies?

seriously, i wanna know!

*BNN - buff and nearly nekkid

i'm all for trying something new

doing something new this year. i'll be participating in my first ever KAL (knit a long) and, boy, is it a doozy. a fully ALL OVER cabled sweater. check it out.

the big question will be what yarn to use.

i'm pretty cheap so i don't want to spend a fortune on yarn. the recommended yarn has crazy good yardage for the price but it is a little rougher wool. i don't want to put all that work into it and have a sweater too scratchy to wear.

i've been wanting to do something like this for a while but always felt a little intimidated by the amount of cabling involved but the sweater does not incorporate any real shaping and it will be done in pieces so i'll be able to transport it more easily.

all in all i think it will be fun and fun is good!

too painful

it is still too painful to go into detail. suffice it to say our beautiful dog is no longer with us. she was the best and most beautiful dog i have ever known.

i love you rene.

quiet miracles

last monday my husband came home to find our precious dog on the floor unable to get up on her own. it was time for the hard talk. we made the decision and i told him he had to call our daughter who was away at school and tell her. i was unable to at the time for purely emotional reasons. she had to be given the opportunity to come home and be here. we made the decision to have things taken care of by saturday. we are very fortunate to have a wonderful vet who makes house calls and she was set to come by sometime in the early evening on saturday.

tuesday the pup was no better. wednesday pretty much the same...

but...

sometime in the night she had gotten up on her own and got off her bed. i know this because later that night i woke up to hear her getting back on her bed. she sleeps on the floor next to my side of the bed.

thursday she was getting up on her own. she was a little shaky but she was doing it. by thursday evening she was doing so much better.

friday. friday she was looking like her old self. well, the old self that is still a very old dog but, still. friday evening when our daughter got in we had made the decision that we would have the vet still come over, see how the puppers was doing, see if any hard decisions needed to be made at that time.

saturday she was doing so well we decided that when we talked to the vet it would be with the purpose of finding out what we should look for; what we should keep an eye out for; how we could be sure we weren't jumping the gun. late saturday we got a call from our vet that she was running late. she had been out that day with her little family and they had just gotten back. i told her what was going on and we made the decision for her to come by on sunday instead.

when we lost andre we had really let it go far beyond the point we should have. we were all in denial. my husband said he didn't want to let things go so far with rene. we also didn't want to err on the other side and let her go too soon. it was so helpful to talk to our vet and have her tell us what to look for so we could make the right decision at the right time.

she was, quite frankly, amazed that rene is still doing so well considering her advanced age, her failing liver and her loss of muscle mass in her hind-quarters. you just wouldn't know it to look at her. the vet agreed with us that now is not the time. rene is really doing well. she doesn't appear to be in a lot of pain, she still gets excited for her treats, her food and her walkies with her daddy.

our quiet miracle. she is still with us.