Devastation

So, last night was a little rough. I left work a half hour early because I was overcome by dizziness and nausea. I had already had such a feeling last Friday. It came on very quickly. I decided to leave work early lest it get worse.
When I got home I was greeted with a tree branch and pine needles all over one of the couch cushions. One small dog had decided that one of the branches on the tree needed to literally be gnawed off, taken to the couch, and chewed to bits. I find this astounding since I still have cuts on my hands from where I carried it and screwed it into the stand. I can't believe her mouth wasn't bleeding.
In my feeling of illness I had no desire to get near it. Boyfriend had left it there for me to prove that the dog could do something so bizarre, and I just let it go. This little demostration had already sealed the dogs fate to be contained in her crate while we are at work. We had felt a little bad about putting her in there as she is a usually fairly well behaved, apart from her propensity to eat bones on the couch and "bury" treats under my pillow. However, it is clear that for the dog's safety, she needs to be contained in the crate where her options for chewing are confined to what I deem dog safe.
Well, you can imagine that after seeing the branch on the couch and feeling as sick as a dog, that I was only in the mood to crawl into bed -which is where I headed off to. Yesterday morning in my rush to get ready, I accidentally left my cabled scarf on the bed. I had meant to bring it with me in the hopes I could stealth knit on it some more. This is what I came home to:

You can imagine my dismay as I came into the bedroom and saw nothing but the splinters of the needles that used to be in the yarn. She ate the entirety of the loose needle, and pretty much all she could of the one that had the scarf on it. She broke the yarn that was attached and destroyed most of the stitches the were live. I was destroyed. I was already sick and this just put me over. I was in tears as I literally picked splinters out of the bed and Boyfriend attempted to gather the dog up and show her that this was not a good idea. Eating Mommy's needles was a big mistake. We both had a long talk with her about how she is no longer allowed to even look at the yarn or the needles. From the look on her face, I think she got it. And I know she got it because this morning when I let her in, without me saying a word, she trotted straight down stairs and into her crate.
Now I don't know what to do. These were the last size 8s from Crystal Palace at my LYS and the other store that I know carries them is in Bethesda. Getting there during the week before Christmas would be no easy feat. Something that I just can't do. I could buy other needles, but I'd rather not. Crystal Palace needles make me soooo happy. I can't bear the thought of having to work on others, if I don't have to.
In the meantime the mystery project is nearing completion. I have 9 more rows of colorwork and 25 or so rows of solid. The last part is seed stitch, so it's going to take a while, but at least I don't have to change colors every four minutes.

So that's where life is right now. Sort of icky, but getting close to better. If I could just get this Christmas shopping done, I think life would be a lot better....