Hello December. How nice of you to bring us clear blue skies, warm sunny days, and absolutely no freaking moisture of any kind. The leaves are all gone now, the grass has turned a sad dormant brown for the winter, but all of the snapdragons are still blooming away in the unseasonable warmth and I’m still giving them water to keep them going. There is some talk of maybe getting some snow on the 10th… The squirrels rocket along my back fence every afternoon and dash over the roof to get to the olive tree in my neighbor’s front yard; Hannah rockets through the house as she tracks their movements and watches them through the windows. The great horned owl caught one of the wild bunnies last week and now there is only one sad little bunny to be seen in the evenings. I hope so much that it wasn’t my little backyard bunny of the summer that was caught, but I’ll never know for sure.
On another note, we are getting ready for Christmas!
Hannah was tremendous help as I tried to get the wooden reindeer assembled and set out front for display, and of course Mateo was the perfect kitten as I took his official Christmas picture. Do those reindeer look a little strange to you? They are much, much cuter when they have their evergreen cutting antlers on their heads, but I decided to not include the cats in that part of the assembly. Now the deer are outside sporting cute cutting from my Douglas Fir tree as their antlers.
Knitting
I’m still knitting chemo hats and PICC line covers like crazy for the Denver metro Kaiser infusion centers and they are slowly piling up in a couple of boxes in the craft room. Weekends, I have decided, are for my knitting, so I spent today knitting away on Kevat, a little cropped short sleeve sweater that has lots of character and detail.
I’m about halfway through the charted yoke and then it will be time to split the sleeves off and do tons of lace through the rest of the body. The blue yarn is from Uschitita and I know that it blooms really nicely when washed and should handle the lace in the body well.
Books
I made a lot of progress on the sweater today because I am also listening to a great book while I work. Okay, I think that it is a great book, but that is because it is the final book in the space opera series The Expanse and I have been waiting and waiting for this book for months. I love this series, and it and the television production based on the books are great examples of quality story telling in any venue: that they are space opera makes it even better!!
I have been faithfully following this story ever since the first book, Leviathan Wakes, was published years ago. I was captured not only by the fast-paced story, but also by the well-developed characters and economic/political themes. The story has evolved through the 9 books of the series as wars were fought, mysteries solved, villains apprehended, and characters aged. There have always been some important threads left hanging (um… there are these gates that are connected to ancient aliens and their unsuccessful attempts to prevent their own extinction…), and it seems that all of these threads are being picked up and resolved in this book. I’ve been told that the final resolution of the story is great, but I won’t know for sure until I get there myself.
I have one hundred pages left: Sunday knitting!
That’s it. Have a great week everyone!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
I like the sweater palette and the cat pictures
I LOVE the concept of the children’s ‘official photos’ for {whenever}; and I hope there will be more formal occasions.
The patterns that you knit and that I crochet come from different planets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vddel15dxN4&list=RDCMUC0Ecc319FKu9rf6mkBIT1TA&start_radio=1).
Mateo’s tail is becoming larger than the rest of him !; and Hannah is simply gorgeous. 😀
Are you making that sweater? It is very nice!! I can’t crochet anymore because… scleroderma broken hands… and I miss it. Yay you if you are making that fabulous sweater!! Mateo’s tail is as wide as his back and he looks like a huge ferret or something as he swoops around corners. It’s a riot! It’s like getting two cats for the price of one.
Wow you really get to see how long Mateo’s hair has grown. So cute
I absolutely did not want a long-haired cat, but now that I look back at his adoption pictures I should have seen it coming. Good thing he is the sweetest little guy! What you can’t see in the pictures is how incredibly soft that fur is. I sure hope he lets me brush it when he gets a little older!
Great photo of the Christmas Floof!
He excels at floof!! That tail is getting to be quite the thing.
What fun! We’re getting hit with snow today, which the dog just loves. I’m quarantined through tomorrow and hope schools end up closing (for weather) so I don’t feel entirely as if I’ve missed out. In the meantime, I’m knitting socks, sewing skirts and quilty pieces and cleaning some work spaces for dying…might try some experiments later today. So, for this one day, I’m enjoying the view of falling snow through the windows…next week, I’ll likely be complaining about it;-).
Snow days were the best when I was still in the classroom. I hope that you had yours; it sounds like you were going to be crazy productive. What a great end to the quarantine if it happened. It got really cold here overnight, but still no snow…
It did! Snow day, today. Question is: will tomorrow ngey to be another snow day, too?
I hope you got your snowy craft time. I heard today that it may snow this Friday here. I’ll believe it when the flakes start to fly. 🙂
Ah, middle school and stories of french Canada…or vieux Quebec. Mostly the same 6th and 7th graders this week…math, ela and social studies… Craft time will come this weekend (and still need the paycheck). Besides, as long as I stop spending in January and February, snow days will be a blessing 😀. Happy knitting.
I love how the sweater kind of matches the cover of the book!
The cats look great for their Christmas photos!
It was a happy accident that they matched. I finished the book last night but the one that I’m reading now kind of still goes with the sweater. Don’t you love it when things come together like that?
Your cats are quite photogenic! Hooray for getting some holiday decorations up. I’m afraid we are woefully behind this year. Loving the colors you picked for your sweater – that’s going to be gorgeous!
I have been very lucky with the cat photos! I usually have my phone with me and when I see a possible photo I snap it fast. I still miss a lot of shots because they move as soon as they see I’m paying attention to them. I’m happy with the sweater; now I have to fit it in with the knitting of the hats and PICC line covers. Yay. More knitting!
Thanks for sharing pictures of your sweet babies – they are so adorable! Your sweater is off to a great start 🙂 Hope that your weather stays mild for a bit, though I’m sure a bit of precipitation would be welcome!
I love the colors you chose for the sweater.
Thank you. I’ve been a little concerned that the blue speckled is too busy, but now that more is knitted I’m feeling better about it. The wheat color was my 3rd pick. Colors are so hard to pick when you are trying to imagine the final product.
P.s. worked a few heel rows on my socks on break today.
Good for you!! When I was still in the classroom it was hard for me to find time to eat, so you are really rocking the job!