Yes – because I have exciting news! John (Human John that is, not John Beastie my knitted life partner) built me a new tower to live in.
Here are my previous accommodations in Tierney’s studio (in a box John made during his earlier days of woodworking):
And here is my new home – a three story tower!
Before I show you a closer tour, here are a couple photos from the build of my new tower home:
Here are close ups of each floor and my roof garden 😉
Top floor – my dressing room and closet:
John built me a freestanding closet that can be moved; and Tierney found at gift shop this summer during her travels tiny hangers that she put away hoping someday I would be able to use them! (You might be curious about the container of Vaseline on the top shelf of my closet – Human Tierney and John also found that traveling this summer and thought it was very cute – a Beastie sized personal care product!)
Middle Floor – My Craft Room!
Beside sewing/quilting, Tierney found miniature versions of the other crafts for that she enjoys like drawing/coloring and knitting.
Lower Level – the Living Room
Now I have a room to hang out with John Beastie in and listen to music on my new turntable (see yesterday’s post), have tea and drink some Hop Monsters IPAs (my favorite craft beer).
Rooftop Garden
I might have been influenced by Tierney but for some reason I really love Sunflowers...
So I am very pleased with my new home, what do you think?
Postscript
Tierney thought I should store my colored pencils like she keeps hers – upright in containers for easy access, so she just now put mine for me in a little Colorado mug!
Hello! This is the tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
It’s been a while since I’ve done a guest blogger post and I know you all have missed me!
For Thanksgiving I decided to visit my partner John Beastie (see his story at this post Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom) who lives in the basement in John’s (Tierney’s husband) desk area (I would have invited him to my home in Tierney’s studio but it is currently being remodeled by Human John, more in a future post):
(Tierney found that strange sign “A fart is a wish your butt makes” at a little shop in Maryland while she was vacationing with her sister earlier this year.)
John Beastie served us a non traditional Thanksgiving meal of spaghetti and meatballs (his trademark dish) on the table John made me a couple years ago (see post Guest Blogger: A Desk for Me!) perched on the new table John made himself (see post John Builds Himself a Desk)
After dinner, John Beastie, who loves bourbon, brought out his bottle of Monsters Mark for an after dinner drink.
I’m not into bourbon like the human Tierney is so instead I asked him if I could show him my new record player – a Teeny-Tiny Turntable!
I then pulled out two bottles of Hop Monster IPA for us (I’m more of a craft beer Beastie than a bourbon Beastie) to enjoy while listening to some of my records.
My turntable came with a couple records that play a snippet of music of different musical genres and a book on 10 historical Chart Topping Record Albums.
John Beastie started reading the Teeny-Tiny Turntable book and I suggested that we play some music instead.
I wanted to listen to “Classic Rock” but John Beastie wanted to listen to “70’s Funk” and once I put the music on something strange started to happen:
I thought at first that John Beastie was having a seizure but then I discovered he was dancing! Well what he described as dancing…
(And yes the music you hear in the video is actually the music that comes out of the Teeny-Tiny Turntable when you put a record on!)
Hello! This is the tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
Human Tierney and Human John having been busy spending time with family this week to celebrate the holidays so I told Tierney that John Beastie and I would send out a Happy Holiday Greetings to all her blogging buddies for her!
Here are John Beastie and I in our BEAUTIFUL Christmas Sweaters:
And here is our full collection of BEAUTIFUL Christmas Sweaters (Tierney added two more sweaters to our collection this year):
I know you all are probably VERY envious that these beautiful sweaters do not come in HUMAN sizes. Nope they are just in Beastie sizes! Tierney tells me they are actually Christmas Tree Ornaments but I do not believe her – they were made for Beasties, I just know it!
Well John Beastie and I hope you have a safe holiday filled with wonderful memories and lots of smiles!
Well you haven’t heard from Tierney in a while so I figured it’s time once again for me to step in and update you on what we’ve been up.
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer who lives with Tierney and John, who despite not having opposable thumbs is able to write a guest blog post from time to time.
Tierney and John had an upstairs deck that was on the verge of collapse. John had tried bracing some of the rotting sections a couple years ago but they were one crazy human-deck-dinner-party (you know if the humans started jumping up and down on top of the deck while dining) from a total deck disaster!
Their awesome friends from Bend, Oregon (where Tierney and I used to live) MJ and J (J has a lot of deck building experience) came and visited us last week; and thus began 4 days of deck demolishing and rebuilding.
MJ and Tierney documented the whole 4-day long project with photos; and I am going to share some of their photos (it’s impressive enough that I can write without opposable thumbs, taking photos with a smart phone would be nearly impossible…but with the right dog treats offered, I could try…) in this post.
First they had to take the existing deck-of-terror down:
The backyard got to looking crazy and there was no place for them to play ball with me (humans are thoughtless)!
Plus they kept chasing me back inside because they didn’t want me to get any splinters in my paws (perhaps that was thoughtful…but I wanted to play ball!!!)
Luckily and I had Tierney and MJ (the female humans) hostage in the basement den binge watching television shows and eating snacks while paying attention to me:
Here I am with MJ, one of my favorite humans in this world (she is lucky I love her!)
John and Tierney made sure the visiting humans ate well, making what looked like delicious breakfasts each morning; and what looked like tasty dinners in the evening like the Chicken Piccata with homemade pasta and Caesar Salad they served one night:
I did get nervous while they were working on the deck as it looked like the humans working on it could fall at any time. They of course made sure I was safe (which is what is most important).
Tierney and MJ helped out the male humans John and J by running some errands including a trip to Home Depot for something called “shims”. Of course Tierney and MJ took me with them and I had to help them find the shims:
You might notice Tierney has a bandage on her thumb – it’s not from working on the deck but carelessness while chopping carrots…
I was concerned when there was an attempt to scan me twice while we were in Home Depot – don’t they know the cash value of me would break a price scanner?!?!?!
We also took a trip to Target to buy J some additional clothes as he had “Man-packed” where he forgot to pack all the clothes he needed for the trip. Little did MJ and Tierney realize that there was a “Service Dogs Only” sign in the entry of the store (oops!)
No one said anything to MJ and Tierney about how I didn’t belong in there as they wandered around the store except to say “cute dog”. Well I guess that was my one and only trip to Targetunless I pursue a career as a Service Dog (but I am too grumpy to do that).
By the 4th day the male humans finished up the deck and they were so happy! Here are photos of the last stages of putting the deck together and making it livable again:
The deck is not completely done. John has to order something called “matching trim” for the deck, add post caps (whatever those are), and do some painting. But the deck is now very usable! The humans could even have a crazy human-deck-dinner-party if they wanted.
The last day of the project, the humans went out to dinner and then relaxed in the basement den for a movie night. If you look closely at the lower right hand section of the photo below, Tierney is actually working on the quilt she is hand quilting (see her post Hand Quilting Go Boldly) and perhaps sometime this year she will finish it!
Note: J and John are only snuggled as a joke for the photo, they did spend the 4 days working hard, not snuggling.
By the time we took MJ and J back to Human Storage aka “the airport” as humans call it (see the blog post “Human Storage” and Airport Lore) I was pretty tired because managing humans is so exhausting!
On the way to drop them off in Human Storage and then when I returned home
Well that catches you up on major recent events in my life. I will work on getting Tierney to blog on what she has been up to (before the deck project she had just returned from a trip to New York City with her sister) and to have her work on catching up on all her blogging buddies posts!
FINALLY in April 2024, Tierney has finish the blanket and has put it on the upstairs guest bed as the warmer weather season covering (though she appears to be confused as it is not officially “warmer weather”, we are just getting warm days here and there):
I know, I know, you were hoping to see me stretched out on this bed relaxing like you did in other posts, however I am boycotting this blanket as I wanted it to only be for ME as she led me to believe while she was making it!
Happier times when the blanket was in a configuration that worked for ME…
Oh Tierney has come in the room and bugged me while I am writing…
Don’t bug me while I am writing! A lot of concentration is required when you don’t have opposable thumbs!
Oh, Tierney stopped by to ask me to tell you she got a cute new radio while thrifting last year during her trip to Florida with her sister (see the post Sisters’ Trip to Englewood, Florida) that she placed next to the bed in this room:
She says it is a “Tivoli Radio” and she got it for only $5 when normally it would retail for over $100 and it has a wonderful sound. This means nothing to me as a dog, but I am passing this along at her request (why doesn’t she just write her own darn posts if she wants to share something??!?).
Okay I have to go find somewhere to nap now after all this typing and I can’t just go lay down on the bed behind me as I am boycotting it…
(Oh and I am not going to even address that weird post Tierney had yesterday – Imagining Mike Playing Sports – I am going to learn how to use that app and write a guest blog post with images of Tierney playing sports!)
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time. I want to update you on the gray granny square blanket (MY BLANKET) that Tierney has been working on as I am a little annoyed.
(Here I am working on the blog post)
(And here I am slightly irritated that Tierney is disturbing me while I write)
Tierney should have finished by now the gray granny square blanket by now – she has joined all the 80 granny squares together by whatever strange human magic she uses to join them.
But now she’s decided she wants to make the blanket large enough to be a summer bedspread in the upstairs guest room so she is doing something called “adding a large border” while requires her to use that weird needle (she calls it a “crochet needle”) and go around and around on my blanket so it will get bigger.
Here is the blanket after she put all those squares together and started doing some weird bordering of the blanket.
The good thing is while she’s been doing her bordering, I’ve been able to get some naps under the blanket even if she occasionally disturbs me when she spins the blanket while bordering.
Yes, I am a “Napping Professional”.
I want her to stop this silliness and just set the blanket down somewhere that I can just private enjoy it.
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time. It’s January 31st and Tierney has not posted on her blog since January 15th (ScrapHappy January 2024 – Update on Table Runner and More ) and I needed to intervene and jump on her laptop and write a post (even though I don’t have opposable thumbs so typing is challenging).
I need to figure out the dictation feature…
Tierney has been busy doing some purging in her crafting area and quilting table runner she discussed in her January 15th (so long ago) blog post. Also she and John have been doing some traveling and recently returned from a trip to Las Vegaswhere John was in a poker tournament (he didn’t do too bad in the tournament!)
Since I am on her laptop I was able to find a couple photos from her trip to Las Vegas to share with you including a meal they had at Hell’s Kitchen (Chef Gordon Ramsey’s famous restaurant) of the renown Beef Wellington and Sticky Toffee pudding on the menu.
But what is more exciting than their trip is the time I had at “Dog Camp” where I stay when they go out of town. “Dog Camp” is only for dog’s my size and I have a group of dog friends (like my Miniature Schnauzer friend Bandit is a regular at “Dog Camp”).
Here’s Bandit trying to manage one of the humans that run “Dog Camp”:
And here are more awesome photos of me recently at “Dog Camp” (the humans that run it take photos and send to Tierney so she knows I am having more fun that her and John while they are on vacation):
Yes I need to nap, as do my friends,after all that fun!
Well that’s all I had to share, but I am going to talk to Tierney and ask her to get caught up on her blogging friends’ posts as well as start writing her own posts again!
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time.
Tierney has been doing something weird the past month or so and only posting to this blog once a week. I am trying to work with her to increase her frequency. She went from torturing you all to daily posts in the month of October, this blog’s 10th anniversary, to BOOM once a week posts.
So I had to step in and blog about the progress on “my blanket”.
Look at all the progress I’ve encouraged her to make!
In case you are wondering why I refer to it as “my blanket” – isn’t it obvious she is making it for me when it coordinates with my fur so wonderfully?
Try not to become overwhelmed with my cuteness
She has 5 more rows of 8 blocks to join to it to make it an 8 by 10, 80 block blanket. But at this point it is sufficient enough for me to snuggle under. For some reason she wants to keep working on it.
I’ve caught her cuddling under it while working on it and she even wrangled it into the car when John is driving to work on.
Here she is working on it while in the back seat when we had a holiday visitor; and I am trying to snuggle in it too:
It should be covering me but she said that won’t work while she is crocheting
Well hopefully it will be done soon.
That’s the end of my guest post and I am going to return to guarding the house from my sunny guard post on the upstairs guest bed surrounded by my natural habitats: blankets (fleece!) and quilts.
Hello! This is the tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
The main reason for this post is my husband John Beastie (Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom) and I would like to wish you and yours a very Happy Holidays!
If you are admiring our “Ugly Christmas Sweaters“, Tierney and John (aka “The Humans”) picked them up from Hobby Lobby and they are actually Christmas tree ornaments and hang from little hangers!
I think John Beastie and I looks so cute in our sweaters I will share a couple more photos for your enjoyment:
Yes it’s pretty much the same photo but Beasties love photos of themselves!
Well the other day Tierney and Mike the Miniature Schnauzer were on their daily walk and noticed the house had a friendly and sweeter look for the Christmas season:
What a big difference!
And a little more – Tierney thought you all might enjoy photos of Mike the Miniature Schnauzer (even though I am cuter) out holiday shopping with John and Tierney the other day:
Once again they snuck him into the Food Court (like in the post Mike in Macy’s). I think he is pretty spoiled. They are yet to take John Beastie and I to the mall.
Ok…they did take us to Ireland in October 2022 so that might be more significant…
Tierney needed a break from her daily postings for October 2023 challenge to celebrate her 10th anniversary of blogging, so I am stepping in and doing a guest blog post for her.
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time.
Here I am doing some late night blogging.
Well the other day the humans pulled a fast one on me. They loaded me into the back seat of their car and said we were going to “Home _______”. I thought they said home improvement store that I go to all the time with John when he works on his projects – THEHOME DEPOT. This is my favorite store and I am regular there, with many of the humans that work at The Home Depot greeting me and occasionally slipping me a dog biscuit (because my cuteness overwhelms them!).
Nope, we did not go to The Home Depot. Instead we went to some place called HOMEGOODS. Home Good is VERY DIFFERENT than The Home Depot!
Here I am in shock as they push me around in my box in the cart:
No one stopped and petted me or gave me a biscuit. This store sucks!
As we approached the check out line I gave my humans quite the look for disappointing me!
I was fooled my the word “Home” in the shops title!
What? Two tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posts in a row? No actually I am sort of cheating – this is a re-post from October 2022. Since it is the tierneycreates blog’s 10th anniversary in October 2023, I’ve challenged myself to post everyday (or shall I say “torture you all everyday to another post”) and I thought I would pepper in some re-postings during this anniversary month of some favorite posts (yep, that’s my excuse for not doing new posts everyday, ha!).
This post is a very special memory from my first trip to Ireland with John, our friends K and M, and our Beasties! Plus we got to meet M’s new Beastie – “Matty” Beastie; and of course meet Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties who made all the Beasties happen!
Please see the “Postscript” section of this post for a special dedication.
Guest Blog Post: Beasties Return to Ireland! (October 11, 2022 re-post)
This is tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
You haven’t heard from Tierney or myself in a while as we’ve been in Ireland!
Tierney, John, John Beastie and I recently returned from Ireland and I got to see my maker Helen of Crawcraft Beasties & Knit with Helen; and Tierney got to meet Helen in person for the first time!
We had lots of adventures in Ireland visiting cities such as Dublin, Galway, Doolin, etc. I told Tierney I would get the blog posts on our trip started as she is still rather jet lagged.
Here I am trying to write this blog post (sitting at my desk that John built me, see post Guest Blogger: A Desk for Me!) while my dog Mikelet is trying to get attention from me as he missed me on my long trip (we did not take him for fear he might get misplaced during the trip).
We visited Ireland with Tierney and John’s friends K and M who visit Ireland a couple times a year. K’s family is from Ireland and she still has family there and M who is part Irish, is well versed in Irish culture and history.
K also knows Helen as she has been working with Helen to get her husband M his very own Beastie!
John Beastie, Tierney, K and I met up with Helen and visited a pub for a Beastie reunion with Helen. Here are a couple photos of our initial reunion, I could not decide which one I like best of my awesome maker so I included them all!
She was pretty pleased to see us again as she sends her Beasties out all over the world and rarely gets to see them in person again once they’ve traveled across the ocean!
After the pub, we all headed to Helen’s studio for a little tour of her studio, to meet the new Beastie for K’s husband M, and to take a little knitting class (Helen is a professional knitting instructor) to learn how to knit cables (which scare K and Tierney).
This is Helen’s new studio and although John Beastie and I were not “born” here but it was awesome to be in a place where our fellow Beasties are now “born”:
Here is a little photo tour of Helen’s bright and cheery studio:
After a little studio tour, it was time to meet “Matty Beastie” (and his dog Riley) the new Beastie Helen made for K’s husband M:
Matty Beastie comes with his dog Riley the Chocolate Lab (to see the Canine Riley check out the post Loved (or mugged) by a Lab, Tierney is Riley’s “Dog Godmother”), a pint of Guinness, as well as his PJs (if he gets tired of wearing his jeans) and his famous slippers.
Helen brilliantly added a magnet to Matty Beastie’s chest so he could hold up his pint of Guinness:
John Beastie and I took a group photo with our new friend Matty Beastie who we would now be touring Ireland with:
As you can see I was not sure where to look during the photo as Helen was also taking a photo of our group at the same time.
We got distracted during the photoshoot and Riley ended up sampling some of Matty Beastie’s Guinness!
I did take Matty Beastie aside and give him some tips on managing humans and how to get away with things right under their noses…
While John Beastie and I visited with our new friend, the humans Helen, K and Tierney) had a cable knitting class. Below is a photo of the class sample and a photo of Tierney clumsily trying to knit her first cable (she won’t be whipping out a new Aran sweater for me anytime soon…).
I am sure Tierney will do a post about it whenever she finishes that headband.
After the knitting class, we headed back out to a pub (the humans visited a lot of pubs while in Ireland) to meet up with human John and human M so he could be surprised with his new Beastie!
John Beastie and I watched with anticipation while M excitedly unboxed his new Beastie:
Matty Beastie was a hit with M and John Beastie had raise a pint to toast the newest member of our US based Beastie family!
Sláinte!
More stories to come on our Ireland adventures. Tierney asked me to include this photo as proof that she and human John really did come on the trip:
I am also including this photo – Tierney captured in a moment of pure joy hanging out with my maker Helen in person for the first time:
image courtesy of K.
POSTSCRIPT
This post is dedicated to Riley (2019 – 2023). The pup that “Matty Beastie” had with him was based on the real life Riley, see post Loved (or mugged) by a Lab. Riley suddenly passed in the summer of 2023 from an unknown illness.
Many hearts were broken including of course K and M who were absolutely devastated.
They do have a new lab puppy which I featured in this post Bag to Celebrate a New Lab!, and their hearts are slowly healing.
John got to meet Riley in 2021 when we visited K and M in California:
Riley giving John lots of kisses
I met Riley in 2019.
Riley was my “dog goddaughter” and I first met her as a puppy a couple days after they adopted her and a couple months after my husband Terry had just died, when visiting K and M in California. Snuggling with their new puppy very comforting and healing:
Riley was not my dog but she and I had a special connection. I miss you Riley.
Hello! This is the tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
As October 2023 is Tierney’s 10th blog-anniversary month, I thought I’d better make an appearance with one of my fabulous guest posts (Beasties are full of ourselves, it is our nature).
Before I talk about the title/subject of this blog post, I should show you my latest accommodations in Tierney’s studio – I now have my own little apartment now in a wooden box John made:
It’s very cozy and filled with my favorite items.
Oh and you might notice a red ball next to my dog Mikelet (named after Tierney’s dog Mike) – like Tierney’s dog Mike, my dog Mikelet loves his ball!
Today I took him to the backyard to play ball:
And big Mike joined us, asking me to also throw his ball (which was too big for me to maneuver):
Mike was disappointed but he did agree to pose for a photo with Mikelet:
The two “Mikes” with their balls!
(Oh Tierney asked me to tell you all that big Mike is out of his cone/scoop and his boo-boo healed!)
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John and provides management of their lives. I am guest blogging since Tierney has fallen off the blogging-wagon again busy with summer visitors and trying to finish up projects (that she will eventually blog about…)
I want to share with you an irritating issue I’ve been dealing with for a while: a battle between my “cousin” (or “uncle”) Goose and I over who gets to manage the humans.
First you might be confused if you’ve never lived with Miniature Schnauzers. Miniature Schnauzers are natural “Human Managers” and can help guide humans in their daily lives. My late sister Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer had her own blog Schnauzer Snips and she addressed this in a Special Service Announcement she made on her blog:
I already had John and Tierney “under my paw”; and John’s Dad Chuck was very amenable to Human Management by a Miniature Schnauzer – whenever I stayed over my “grandpa’s” house I was able to keep him easily in line.
Then everything changed…
John’s sister decided to get a Miniature Schnauzer puppy (Goose) and share custody with her father Chuck. At first I was okay with this as I know I am a role model of dog fabulousness and I figured they were just trying (and would not succeed) to find their own “Mike wannabe” that they could have regularly in their life.
Little did I know Goose had his own plans and would become my nemesis in a battle for control of the Humans!
Here are some recent photos from when John and I stopped by for a visit with Chuck and Goose (I much prefer when we visit Chuck and irritating Goose is at his other home!)
Goose is whispering in my ear: “Chuck is mine and soon John will be too, I’m going to be in charge of managing the humans!”
Here we are at a stand-off, each one of us wanting to get on John’s lap.
Here I am pleading to John to just ignore Goose, I am his one and only manager!
Goose succeeds in getting on John’s lap and his now mocking me.
Here I am whispering to Goose: “You might have won this one but watch your furry back. There can only be one human manager in this family!”
Hopefully Tierney will return to blogging in the future, until then I am happy to let you know about my struggles to be the primary Human Manager of John and my grandpa!
This is the tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
I know you all have have missed me as it has been a while since I’ve guest blogger posted! In the image above you can see me and my dog Mikelet working on a post on my laptop.
The weather has warmed up in the Denver area and it was time to change from my beautiful Aran knitted sweater to my T-shirt (from my apartment inside Tierney’s studio):
Okay that’s better!
Now I need to go grab a couple Hop Monster IPAs and get my Beastie husband John Beastie and go enjoy the nice weather on the patio.
If you are new to the blog and would like some background on John Beastie, here is a link to the post from 2020 when I introduced him:Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom).
John Beastie and I got married in February 2022 the same time as human Tierney and John did (see post New Coffee (and Tea) Station and Some Big News ). John and I have separate spaces – I live on a shelf apartment in Tierney’s studio and he lives on John’s desk in his office.
After hanging out for quite a while with John Beastie on the patio, I invited him over to my shelf apartment to show him the new Colorado mugs I have for my tea and his coffee in the morning – just the perfect size for us!
(Eventually I asked Tierney to stop taking photos and just leave John Beastie and I to visit alone in my apartment…)
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer guest blog posting for my female human, Tierney.
Getting ready to write something brilliant…
I want to use this post to encourage the crafters following this blog whether they are making blankets or quilts, that whatever warm and cozy item they make, make sure it is “DOG APPROVED”.
Don’t just focus on human comfort, also focus on canine comfort!
Here is a recent example of a “dog approved” quilt, actually multiple dogs approved.
Earlier this week, Tierney’s longtime friend MJ had surgery to her arm. (MJ, Tierney and their mutual friend J call themselves the “Surgery Sisters” since over the past several months each of them have had surgery to some body part. I think this is a poor choice for a hobby but humans are going to do what they are going to do…)
Here is a photo MJ sent Tierney of her recently operated body part:
Ouch! That looks painful. I might even give her some sympathy for that (especially if it would impair her from petting me if she was visiting).
Well Tierney, having recently had surgery herself on her left ankle (which she broke while being careless on ice while walking me), thought she would send MJ a nice surprise to snuggle under during her recovery; so Tierney sent MJ a quilt that Tierney made many years ago and MJ always liked.
Well MJ received the quilt in the mail the other day and sent Tierney this photo, reporting that the quilt was DOG APPROVED!
I mean if a quilt or blanket is not DOG APPROVED, why even have it?!?!?
The quilt has a nice flannel backing and so it will be great for dogs to snuggle in. Unfortunately Tierney did not think to photograph the quilt before sending it out the door to MJ (duh!).
MJ is one of the humans I am able to tolerate.
When we lived in Central Oregon before moving to Colorado, MJ and her husband would let me stay with them at their home when my humans went out of town. She even forgave me after a certain “crotch biting incident” when Tierney first adopted me and I had (behavioral as the humans call it) “issues”. See the post Taking Chances: The Mike Hogan Chronicles (re-post)for Tierney’s side of the story of when she first got me from the dog rescue organization…
Well all I know is that I am awesome now and the humans are lucky to have me in their lives!
Okay that’s what I wanted to share in my guest blog post. I now need to return to managing humans. Here I am keeping my male human calm during a thrilling movie we are watching.
Hey it’s Mike the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with/manages Tierney and John. Usually I write my own blog posts (yes I’ve learned to type without opposable thumbs) but this time I had to dictate my post to Tierney because I am in A CONE!
Can you tell how irritated I am with the humans?
Just because I had a weird growth on my back, which turned out to be harmless, and had it removed, does not mean I can’t be trusted not to lick my stitches.
I kept trying to reason with my humans to remove the thing. Here I am glaring at a human sitting on the loveseat next to the couch:
I think this is a plot by my female human to have someone else in the household who looks injured. I tried to intimidate her by staring at her knee scooter:
Nothing has worked and allegedly I have to wear this thing for 9 more days. I am going to keep giving them the “furry eyeball” and staring them down until they consider removing this thing.
The humans keep commenting on how cute I look in my cone. Why don’t they try wearing cones for a while?
Hi this is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer. I figured after you read about my humans holiday travel misadventures (see posts A Christmas and A New Years Miracle? (Part I) andA Christmas and a New Years Miracle? (Part II)) you were probably wondering what I’ve been up, especially during the time they were away for an extended period of time trapped on the East Coast of the U.S.
Well I spent my Christmas at “Dog Camp” the house I stay at where they only let dogs my size stay for overnights or for daycare. I got lots of friends there who regularly come during the day for doggy daycare as well as those whose humans keep going on ridiculous trips like my humans.
It was my first time since I got adopted in 2014 by Tierney that I was away from her at Christmas time. But I did okay as miniature schnauzers do not generally keep track of holidays!
At Dog Camp we play ball all day long (and I love playing ball!). Here I am with my friends playing endless ball:
Endless ball makes you tired after a while so there is also a lot of napping at Dog Camp – there is a cozy cushion for every dog. Here I am relaxing with one of my friends:
Since it was the Christmas holiday, the people who run Dog Camp did make me pose for a silly holiday photo which they sent to my humans:
As much fun as I have at Dog Camp, I still was so happy to be reunited with my humans when they finally picked me up from camp. So much so that I am trying to be near them at all times. Here I am snuggling with my female human while she tries to read a book this past weekend:
My humans felt bad for being away from me so long and this past weekend they took me everywhere with them. They even took me in my backpack to the mall so my male human could get some additional winter clothing. Here I am at a department store “hanging around” while my male human tries on clothing over his existing clothing (no worries it was a top not pants – ha!).
Bet you didn’t know those racks at department stores can also hold miniature schnauzers!
Hey this is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer guest blog posting.
Recently I had to help my humans add additional lighting to Tierney’s studio (the former main bedroom, see post A “New” Studio). Since it was a former bedroom, it was not set up for studio lighting, so the humans thought adding a two sets of track lights – one over Tierney’s ironing station; and one next to her design wall would help.
The above photo is the studio during the day and if you look for the faintly drawn green arrows on the ceiling you can see where the track lighting was planned.
So first of course I had to go to the home improvement store and supervise the humans while they picked out tracking lighting and supplies for installation:
What would the humans do without me?!?!
John installed the track lighting. He had to get into the attic (via the main bedroom closet) and drill the hole for the lighting box as well as set up the wiring.
The attic has layers of insulation so John got very creative on how to try and decrease the amount of attic insulation coming onto the floor of Tierney’s studio by attaching an aluminum pan to the “hole saw” attachment he had or his drill:
After a couple hours of drilling, wiring and lighting installation, Tierney’s studio was suddenly filled with light!
I was of course exhausted after all that human supervision and it was time for a nap:
tierneycreates Beastie back again continuing my series of posts of our trip to Fayetteville, AR to help our friend J unpack and organize her studio and hang out with our friend MJ who joined us.
If you are just joining us here are links to the previous 2 posts:
In the previous post I mentioned my run in with the cat Oscar while I was taking my dog Mikelet for a walk in the backyard. Tierney moved Mikelet and I to a safe location, the porch swing, just in case Oscar decided we were cat toys.
Mikelet got pretty cozy on the porch swing and was ready for belly rubs:
Mikelet was a very good dog during our trip and mainly laid about and slept while we worked on the studio unpacking and organization project.
Here is what J’s studio looked like by day 3 of the project. Tierney had made it her mission to get J’s sewing machine area cleaned up so J could sit and it and sew!
I even found a clean spot on the cutting/worktable in the center of the room:
On Day, Tierney, Mikelet and I had to head back to Denver but our friend MJ sent us this photo of a completely cleaned off worktable!!!
Amazing!
By the time we left every box was unpacked and nearly all the boxes were broken down and moved to the garage for future recycling.
Early in our project, Tierney came across this plaque in one of J’s boxes and hung it on the wall of the studio for motivation:
I guess it worked! But what really worked was the untiring and persistent efforts of J, MJ, and Tierney (and me cheering them on) “kicking #ss and taking names” on those boxes! They were quite the RELENTLESS team!
They didn’t just unpack boxes and organize the studio, they also did some fun stuff, but Tierney forgot to bring me along so I’ll let her tell you about it in another post.
J’s new home was really beautiful. So I will just close my series of posts with some photos of her lovely home and her amazing collection of art from J’s world travels (for example the ancient Egyptian themed framed quilt is from her trip to Egypt) . Also Tierney made J a little hostess gift, one of her drawstring bags, and that is in the photos below:
Here I am in my observation tissue box taking notes for this blog post:
So after a day of unpacking boxes, J’s studio looked like this:
It might not look like it, but we were making great progress! Especially when we got the closet organized and set up for J’s WIPs (works in progress) to be stored out of the way (plus she could see all the projects she has to get done by the end of the year – ha, ha!):
Unpacking all those boxes we made a bit of mess between the boxes themselves (which we broke down) and the wrapping papers.
But we had a curious kitty Oscar who was fascinated with all our unpacking activities, especially the wrapping paper:
Oscar even tried to help us break down some of the boxes:
I’ll admit Oscar was cute, but I am not too sure of my comfort level around Oscar. When I tried to take my dog Mikelet for a walk around J’s backyard, Oscar came a little to close for comfort:
Tierney had to intervene and move Mikelet and me to another area as we weren’t sure if Oscar would think I was a cat toy!
After a long day of unpacking, J who is an accomplished pianist, treated us to an impromptu concert on her beautifulEstonia piano (which Tierney thought also looked beautiful in B&W):
Wow all those symbols on the page look complicated, not sure how J understood them all!
Well more progress to come in Part III of this series of posts…
Hello this is tierneycreates Beastie, filling in for Tierney who has just returned from a couple days in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Mikelet my miniature Miniature Schnauzer and I went with her, and we consulted/helped with the unpacking and organization of her friend J’s studio in Fayetteville.
(if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
Tierney and J’s Central Oregon based friend MJ also met up with us there (and Tierney and I got to fly on the same flight from Denver to Bentonville, AR as MJ had a connecting flight from Central Oregon).
J had moved from Central Oregon (where Tierney and I used to live) to Fayetteville, AR and then had a major life changes and did not have the time and chance to unpack and organize her quilting/art studio. She invited MJ and Tierney to visit her and MJ came up with the idea that we could also work on getting J’s studio to the point where she could do her art again.
Here I am on my way to Arkansas – Mikelet and I traveled in Tierney’s backpack:
After visiting with J and MJ a while when we first arrived in Arkansas, we headed upstairs to J’s studio to see what we were getting ourselves into…
Oh dear.
Looking around, I realized we’ve got a bit of work to do.
Well I went ahead and set up a temporary desk in the tissue box so I could blog about our project!
Next guest post I will show our progress, but for now I will close out this post with a funny sign J had in her studio:
This is tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
You haven’t heard from Tierney or myself in a while as we’ve been in Ireland!
Tierney, John, John Beastie and I recently returned from Ireland and I got to see my maker Helen of Crawcraft Beasties & Knit with Helen; and Tierney got to meet Helen in person for the first time!
We had lots of adventures in Ireland visiting cities such as Dublin, Galway, Doolin, etc. I told Tierney I would get the blog posts on our trip started as she is still rather jet lagged.
Here I am trying to write this blog post (sitting at my desk that John built me, see post Guest Blogger: A Desk for Me!) while my dog Mikelet is trying to get attention from me as he missed me on my long trip (we did not take him for fear he might get misplaced during the trip).
We visited Ireland with Tierney and John’s friends Kathy and Matt who visit Ireland a couple times a year. Kathy’s family is from Ireland and she still has family there and Matt who is part Irish, is well versed in Irish culture and history.
Kathy also knows Helen as she has been working with Helen to get her husband Matt his very own Beastie!
John Beastie, Tierney, Kathy and I met up with Helen and visited a pub for a Beastie reunion with Helen. Here are a couple photos of our initial reunion, I could not decide which one I like best of my awesome maker so I included them all!
She was pretty pleased to see us again as she sends her Beasties out all over the world and rarely gets to see them in person again once they’ve traveled across the ocean!
After the pub, we all headed to Helen’s studio for a little tour of her studio, to meet the new Beastie for Kathy’s husband Matt, and to take a little knitting class (Helen is a professional knitting instructor) to learn how to knit cables (which scare Kathy and Tierney).
This is Helen’s new studio and although John Beastie and I were not “born” here but it was awesome to be in a place where our fellow Beasties are now “born”:
Here is a little photo tour of Helen’s bright and cheery studio:
After a little studio tour, it was time to meet “Matty Beastie” (and his dog Riley) the new Beastie Helen made for Kathy’s husband:
Matty Beastie comes with his dog Riley the Chocolate Lab (to see the Canine Riley check out the post Loved (or mugged) by a Lab, Tierney is Riley’s “Dog Godmother”), a pint of Guinness, as well as his PJs (if he gets tired of wearing his jeans) and his famous slippers.
Helen brilliantly added a magnet to Matty Beastie’s chest so he could hold up his pint of Guinness:
John Beastie and I took a group photo with our new friend Matty Beastie who we would now be touring Ireland with:
As you can see I was not sure where to look during the photo as Helen was also taking a photo of our group at the same time.
We got distracted during the photoshoot and Riley ended up sampling some of Matty Beastie’s Guinness!
I did take Matty Beastie aside and give him some tips on managing humans and how to get away with things right under their noses…
While John Beastie and I visited with our new friend, the humans Helen, Kathy and Tierney) had a cable knitting class. Below is a photo of the class sample and a photo of Tierney clumsily trying to knit her first cable (she won’t be whipping out a new Aran sweater for me anytime soon…).
I am sure Tierney will do a post about it whenever she finishes that headband.
After the knitting class, we headed back out to a pub (the humans visited a lot of pubs while in Ireland) to meet up with human John and human Matt so he could be surprised with his new Beastie!
John Beastie and I watched with anticipation while Matt excitedly unboxed his new Beastie:
Matty Beastie was a hit with Matt and John Beastie had raise a pint to toast the newest member of our US based Beastie family!
Sláinte!
More stories to come on our Ireland adventures. Tierney asked me to include this photo as proof that she and human John really did come on the trip:
I am also including this photo – Tierney captured in a moment of pure joy hanging out with my maker Helen in person for the first time:
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer guest posting as Tierney has been taking too long to write Part II of this two part series of posts that began with John, Project Man (Part I). Okay it’s only been a couple of days but Miniature Schnauzers are an impatient breed in general so it’s my nature.
So I opened up the laptop and got to work:
Ready to fill in for lazy Tierney
Yes, John has been busy on projects, and I would prefer he follow my lead and do something like this:
The perfect “hobby”
He won’t listen to me about napping instead of remodeling, so I’ve had to spend a lot of time at home improvement stores supervising him:
I need to charge an hourly dog biscuit wage for all this work
So Tierney and John got it in their heads that they needed to remodel the basement bathroom, which is also the main guest bathroom for pesky humans that visit us.
And then they decided that they should also replace all the toilets in the house as they are the original toilets from when the house was built.
I am unclear why they would want to waste their money on new toilets as we have a perfect good backyard to take a pee in like I do.
And if they need to poop they could just follow my lead and do it on my twice a day walks.
But I am not going to carry around their poop bags like they do for me – ew! (What is wrong with humans, why are they always collecting my poop and carrying it around in little baggies on our walks – what are their plans with it?!??!)
I know the answer…
We have a lot of pesky humans scheduled to visit us in the near future, so last weekend they worked on remodeling the bathroom (I used the term “they” loosely as it appeared Tierney was only in charge of snacks).
Here is John removing the old tile floor:
Take that floor!
I stayed away from this as he was making a lot of noise and creating a lot of dust.
Instead I did this on his behalf:
These naps aren’t for me, they are for John so he can live vicariously…
Tierney did not bother taking step by step remodeling photos (there goes her career as a home remodeling Instagram influencer) but here are some photos of what it looked like with a new floor, new toilet (waste of money), new lighting, new fixtures (whatever that means, dogs don’t care about “fixtures”), and new shower curtain:
John has his bar near the bathroom and collects nice whiskeys as a hobby, and so they went with a whiskey themed bathroom. The shower curtain according to Tierney is a reproduction of the original “whiskey still” patent (whatever the heck that means, humans are so weird).
They also took photos that John took in 2019 when he went on a Kentucky Bourbon tour with his friends, converted them to black & white photos, enlarged them, and then framed them as art for the bathroom:
They were pretty pleased with themselves when the project was done.
Tierney did mention that her fantasy would have been to just gut (that sounds painful) the whole bathroom and do a nice tiled walk in shower but that was too expensive an option. But they are happy with the small amount of money they spent (they wasted) on the remodel.
When John is not doing remodeling projects, he is doing his other favorite hobby: cooking.
Here he is in the kitchen making my favorite of their human meals – pizza! I like when they (using the word “they” loosely again as Tierney is in charge of getting pizza making supplies out of the refrigerator only) make it because sometimes a little cheese will fall on the floor, and they always give me a piece of their pizza crusts!
John always makes a pizza for my Grandpa (John’s Dad who I visit all the time) who lives nearby; and my human brother (John’s son) and his family, whenever he makes pizza. It’s like he supplies pizza to 1/2 the neighborhood!
So this closes out the series of posts on “John, Project Man”.
Now I have to get back to my very important project:
If you’d like to read more of my musings, they are all under this blog post category: Miniature Schnauzer Musings.
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. I see that pesky Beastie has had like 4 guest blog posts recently; and it is time for me to have one. (Plus I am a REAL miniature schnauzer, I am tired of that allegedly cute little fake miniature schnauzer – Mikelet.)
In my Dog Camp post, I shared my challenges of being EXTREMELY popular at the Dog Camp I attend whenever my humans go out of town (though occasionally I stay with John’s Dad who refers to me as “his dog” even though he now has a miniature schnauzer puppy living with him).
The Dog Camp is only for smaller dogs and I am always surrounded by the little female dogs that attend camp for daily dog daycare or are boarders when their humans go out of town like mine.
Recently I spent a stint at Dog Camp when my humans went to Chicago and oh my goodness – from the minute I arrived the ladies went crazy!
The human that runs Dog Camp took this video and my human Tierney uploaded it to YouTube so you can see what happened the moment I arrived at Dog Camp!
Ladies, there is only one of me, calm down!
I am so glad to be back home and take a break from the ladies. I am neutered but it still does not matter, they all follow me around!
It is not all “Mike-stalking” by the female dogs at Dog Camp, I did also have time to play lots of ball with my buddies there:
I bet you are surprised to hear from me again so soon! This is the tierneycreates Beastie, and I am sneaking in for a post about my new desk that Tierney’s partner John built for me yesterday.
Tierney had a post planned today on Black & White photos she took in Chicago (my monster eyes are rolling) but I asked her to delay your boredom a day while I shared news about my new desk (which I am writing you from right now!):
First John came up to Tierney’s studio (which is also the home of my dog Mikelet and me) to take my measurements for the desk:
He went down to his woodshop in the basement (where my partner John Beastie lives, yes we stay in separate sections of the house its a long story – but it best not to let two Beasties hang out continuously, trust me…).
An hour later John returned with my new desk:
Then Tierney and John did a photoshoot (and I am not sure why they were giggling so loudly during the photoshoot, it was quite rude) of me at my new desk:
We also discovered the desk is great for me to sew on my Beastnina, so I can help Tierney out with her backlog of UFOs (unfinished objects for the non-quilters reading):
My dog Mikelet was getting impatient during the photoshoot because it was time for his after dinner walk:
So I stopped playing with my new desk, and took Mikelet out for his walk:
So that’s my new desk story. Now that I have a great place to write I might pop in more frequently with blog posts.
And don’t worry Tierney will be back tomorrow to bore you to tears with more of her B&W photography from her delusion that she is a photographer (but just keep playing along).
Oh and to close this post – here is a photo of me back in my area of Tierney’s studio, with all my accessories made by Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties (crawcraftsbeasties.com):
tierneycreates 