Joxer The Mighty, Part Two

Last month, I wrote about my dearly departed dog Joxer.

Losing him was especially hard on the Sweet Man

because although Joxer loved all of us,  he primarily was the Sweet Man's dog.

There wasn't much I could do 

except remind him that we really gave Joxer a good long doggy life,

but then on Pinterest I saw this:

IggyStarpup, from whom I had bought this adorable Totoro embroidery hoop...

... had a custom listing for pets.

In the listing, she suggested that they would make a nice memorial for pets who had gone.

Now I knew what I wanted to do for the Sweet Man.

For Joxer's clothes, the Boy suggested "street urchin," 

since Joxer had been a stray before he joined our home.

I sent IggyStarpup a photo of Joxer and this image as a clothes reference...

... and she got to work.

In less than a week, this arrived in the mail:

Isn't it wonderful?

The Sweet Man loved it,

and now Joxer is back in the office,

watching over the Sweet Man.

The (Not-So) Incredible Journey of Linguini The Tomato Hornworm

I was building a new raised bed by my Little Free Library...

...(which turned out very well, thankyouverymuch)...

... when THIS GUY suddenly appeared out of nowhere!

AUGH!!!!

Once I was done SCREAMING, I realized that 

a) this was a tomato hornworm,

and 

b) although a pest, they're actually quite pretty.

So I took the little guy into work.

The kids were fascinated, but none more than, uh, 

sedentary-challenged Mr. E.

I had recently started a punch-card reward/break system with Mr. E....

...(idea found on Pinterest, natch),

and he decided he'd like to spend his five minutes of reward time

playing with the newly christened "Linguini."

This turned out to be surprisingly effective;

the promise of five minutes' time playing with a cool-looking caterpillar

kept him on task better than anything else I've tried.

BUT...

I took Linguini home for the weekend, 

and put him on a tomato plant for a few light munches of fresh greens.

I went inside for just a sec to see which branches of a tomato plant were "suckers,"

and therefore good to feed to my pet hornworm,

but when I returned?

He

was 

GONE!


"Luinguiniiiiii!!!!" I called,

but sadly he did not return like some pup at the end of a Disney movie.

I'm not sure what I'm going to tell Mr. E.,

but I'm tying some yellow ribbons around my tomato plants...

...and I'm hoping this sign will help:

****   ***   ***

ETA:

Shameless promotion time!  I just added a new
Harry Potter receiving blanket to my Etsy store.  

Cool, huh?
It's a great addition to a Harry Potter nursery!