Sunset

I looked out the window this evening to see this beautiful, take your breath away gorgeous sunset.  As you can see there is a beam of light shooting straight up.  The sun had already sunk behind the mountains, so what looks like the sun is actually a beam from it.

I am stitching this evening, however, I had another craft project earlier.  I have shared in the past that I groom Liesl myself.  I had a wonderful groomer, but Liesl just became so anxious when I dropped her off.   It was brutal to watch.  She would be panting, shaking and drooling, something she never does otherwise.   Schnauzers have hair (and do not shed) instead of fur so they have to be groomed every few weeks.    I finally decided it was time to learn myself this year.

Now grooming Liesl is a multi-stage process that take place over the course of a couple of weeks.  Liesl is patient for only so long, then she starts wiggling and pulling away.  So I do things in small parts.  I will shave her neck, back, tummy, and hind quarters all at once.  By this time my clippers have usually gotten hot and she is over it.  So we stop.   Today, it was the most scary for me time of all.  It was time to do her head.  

The head is really tricky because, understandably, she does not like the clippers on her face.  Add the scissors snipping around her eyes and beard and you have the perfect storm.  Plus there is the stress of her ending up with a really bad looking home made haircut.  Get the bowl...

Today, Liesl decided to be absolutely perfect.  So so so perfect.  I shaved the parts of her head without any struggle, even her neck.  Then she sat still while I trimmed her eyebrows, did the dark patches around her eyes, then trimmed that fabulous beard.  I keep her beard short because she drags it around while she is sniffing and she gets it dirty quickly.  Again, she sat still and let me trim her beard.  She looks so pretty.  I keep telling her how pretty she is.  She loves that.  She is so proud of herself that she was a good girl, too.  

My camera is pretty slow so the only photo I could get was one where she was finally asleep. Usually I just getting a photo of her tail as she is moving around or a photo of the rug where she used to be...

It is experiences like this that make me appreciate her even more.  She has days where she is beyond belief stubborn.  However, more often she is pretty accommodating and is such a joy to have as a companion.