Today the Kitten Mom decided to sew some more face masks. I am a very busy girl, but I decided to hang out with her and help as much as I could.
The Kitten Mom used a computer to help her sew the masks. I tried to help out with the computer but she made me sit on the cutting table. It’s kind of hard to see from over here… Why does the Kitten Mom need a mask? Wouldn’t it be better to just have whiskers? She should look into that…
After the masks were done she got out her quilting and we started working on that. Woohoo! I really like the quilt as there is a lot of papers and fabrics and stuff for me to play with. I dragged off some of the fabric to my playhouse downstairs and played with the pin cushion for awhile. Why does the Kitten Mom say NO! so much?
Gee… I really love playing with papers…The Kitten Mom took my papers away from me too!! Do you see that the paper says to “Remember to relax and have fun”? Kitten Mom needs to read her papers more!
That’s okay. I still found lots of things to do after she took away my papers. I dragged away some yarn to play with and took a nap right under her chair. I found a knitted cat hat to play with on a cabinet and… this little cat statue fell off… and it broke-ed…
It’s okay though. I helped the Kitten Mom find all of the pieces and then she let me play with the hat some more.
Now the day is done and we are upstairs working on this post. For some reason the Kitten Mom says she is exhausted, but I have tons and tons of energy left. I still want to play in my papers and chase around the house. I haven’t played with the palm downstairs yet this afternoon. Maybe I can convince the Kitten Mom to wiggle her feet so I can jump on them. Do you think that it is too soon for cookies?
I’ll just hang out up here until I can get her to get up and play with me again. Maybe if I knock down a book… I bet you I can walk on the door jam… do you think that I can jump all the way over to the ceiling fan?
Bye.
I have stuff I have to do!
I’m such a good kitten.
Can I have some cookies now?
>^..^<
Notes from the Kitten Mom: Sewing with Hannah is pretty darn stressful; I finally developed a headache and quit for the day. The scariest part is keeping her away from the hot iron… and the electricity… and moving sharp things… I found the pin cushion under the bed this evening: it was pretty easy as I just had to follow the trail of pins on the carpet.
Oh, boy. What a week it has been. Election related news is heating up as we come into the homestretch for our presidential election. Covid-19 case numbers are climbing steeply in the state. The fires in our mountains continue and towards the end of the week a couple of new fires erupted and, in high wind conditions that kept aerial firefighting operations on the ground, literally exploded into a monster within hours. People scrambled to get to safety as the newest fire, the East Troublesome fire (really, that is the name…), grew 100,000 acres in one day, crossed the Continental Divide, and now threatens to merge with another fire, the Cameron Peak fire, which is currently the largest wildfire in Colorado’s history. The smoke plume from these fires is amazing as it fills the sky to our north. Both fires are burning in Rocky Mountain National Park and threatening the surrounding communities. It seems like just yesterday that I took this picture in RMNP…
This is the view south from the Visitor’s Center. I don’t know if this forest is still there. If you look closely you can see areas with dead trees in the pictures. One of the problems that we are having here is beetle kill in the forests caused by climate change.
Because of the extreme drought right now the forest is really dry and vulnerable to fire. This is the worst fire season in my memory; the wind has been blowing so strongly the burning embers are starting new fires downwind from the main conflagrations. As I said, it is a mess. Today, however, things took a turn for the better.
It’s really cold outside and snowing! We expect almost a foot down here by my house, and more in the mountains. This won’t be enough to stop the fires, but it certainly is a welcome break for the firefighters as this will certainly slow down the fire activity for them. Yay!!
Still inside avoiding the smoke I have been consumed with crafting and cleaning. I shredded piles of old financial records, sewed more face masks, washed all of the linens and cleaned out cupboards, and… well… I played with yarn and did a little online yarn shopping. Just a little. I needed a little more yarn. Blue yarn.
Seriously, there is a post growing in my mind about all of the blue in my life at the moment. Yarn. Books. Curtains. Toys for the kitten. Oh, yeah. There is also a post incubating about all the convoluted yarn decisions I’ve been making and the angst about color matches. I’ve decided to ignore these growing posts and all my little yarn issues for the moment and jump right into sock yarn.
I have been visiting Hue Loco online and checking out all of the new colors for the fall. I had already bought that blue speckled yarn on the left at my LYS, and it really, really needed some new friends. I ended up buying a skein of each of the new colors at Hue Loco with the thought that I would make socks from each skein and then, once I had a feel for the colors in the skeins, go on to combine them in a larger project like a sweater. Okay, I just wanted to have the yarn.
I started the first pair of socks this week. This color is called Elixir, which is the second skein from the left in the picture above. This is not how I thought this yarn would look, but I am loving it!
If you don’t know Hue Loco already, it is a local Colorado dye studio and I really like the colors. (It is also located right in the smoke plume of those wildfires right now, so I am really happy to support the studio.) New colors appear each two weeks which is a little bit of a problem for me as I discover with each new issue of yarn that it would be absolutely perfect for project that I’m working on. As I make project decisions I also discover that I need a couple more skeins of some yarn (usually blue) to make everything work. Okay, I have a lot of knitting that is getting lined up. So much yarn, so little time…
I need to clear away some projects to open up the slots for my new sweaters-in-waiting. I have a sweater, a shawl, some gloves, and a whole slew of socks that are WIPs, so I’m motivated to knit at the moment. I’ve been working on my new Far Away Dreams (Joji Locatelli) shawl steadily this week, but it isn’t all that nice to show off at the moment as it is basically a big blog of squishy blueness slowly getting some lace added on the edges. See what I mean?
Yep. One big blue blog of squishy yarn. I’ve just gotten started on the lace portion of the edging so there isn’t all that much to show off. Maybe by next week there will be lace worth showing off. I’m making kind of slow progress because…I’m getting so much help from Hannah!
Since I don’t have really nice knitting photos to show off I thought I should throw in one of the finished Secret Handshake cowl.
Isn’t that the cutest cowl ever? I’m wearing it tonight to stay warm as it is about 5 degrees outside and that is definitely cowl weather!!
I’ve written about the Secret Handshake MKAL in the last couple of posts, so I won’t go over all the fun shenanigans online as a member of this knitting group, but I have to mention that the cutest, most perfect retro camping trailer has arrived in Casapinka’s backyard and Sharon is freaking out today as she finally has to come clean about secretly buying it online using the boss’ PayPal account. Did I mention that the next MKAL designed by Sharon is a glamping blanket to use in the camper?
Hannah: Way to go, Sharon!! Could you please send me a PM about how that PayPal thing works?
So that kind of takes care of the knitting of the week. I’ve also been reading away at a new science fiction series and a couple of murder mysteries, but haven’t finished any of them. Think of them as book WIPs. 🙂 My poor garden is buried under the snow at the moment except for three miniature roses that I dragged inside (to Hannah’s joy), but they are a not worth showing off at the moment as they were beat up in a sleet storm a couple of nights ago. I’m debating building them a shelf along the south facing sliding glass door instead of putting them under grow lights this year because…
Hannah has decided that torturing playing with plants is one of the best things ever and I’m a little concerned about having more electricity and glass lights near the plants that she is drawn to.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Ugh. The last two weeks have been a blur. I’ve been rolling with the punches and trying to make the best of things as I dealt with all the good, bad, and ugly of the last 14 days. My son is better and is out of the hospital. I fractured a rib on the opposite side from my bad hip, and walking with a cane became utter torture for a week. My outdoor roses are blooming their hearts out. I had bloodwork done and I’m happy to report that I am recovering some lost ground with my scleroderma-induced organ damage. Ruth Bader Ginsberg died. The smoke rolled back in from the western wildfires, my symptoms flared, and the weather turned nasty hot again. Inhaled steroids brought my symptoms back under control in just a couple of days! My neighbor repaired the fence between our yards: this is great news because… pit pull in her yard. The Covid-19 death toll passed 200,000 in the US. I bought some wicked cute new clothes. Miss Pitty-Pat, the cutest hamster ever, died. I went crazy and bought new yarn, and I finished knitting my fabulous The Sharon Show.
It is done.
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this entire MKAL experience. It was so much fun; the rapidly changing knitted elements in the shawl made it engaging and interesting, and the support and camaraderie of the Facebook group was just amazing. Did I mention that there is cat snark and policing going on, not to mention the multi-state chase of a stolen squad car with a platter of sushi in the glove box? In fact, the whole thing has been so positive that the adventure continues with another MKAL being run by Sharon that is a cowl called The Secret Handshake and the Facebook group is all atwitter with excited knitters showing off their yarn, the first knitted efforts with Clue 1, their drinks (yes, these clues come with beverage recipes…), and the kittens that they just adopted. If you don’t want to own a cat, this is a dangerous group for you as kitten adoption seems to be contagious right now…
Speaking of kittens, Hannah and I had our birthdays last week and we made cookies to celebrate. As chance would have it, my birthday and Hannah’s 6 month birthday were the same day.
This is Hannah on the day I brought her home…
And on our birthday last week. Boy, has she grown.
I had planned a post all about Hannah, but it kind of flamed out in the general chaos of the last two weeks. She is growing fast and has really started to develop a personality all her own. Especially when I’m working in the kitchen!
Which brings me back to the cookies. 50 years ago I copied this cookie recipe out of my mom’s loose leaf collection of favorites. It was originally a gumdrop recipe that has been adapted to become my family’s favorite chocolate chip recipe. Here it is for you, as a birthday present from me. 🙂
These cookies are coming to you straight out of the 50’s. Enjoy!
Cream together:
1 cup softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
Add and mix well:
2 large (or extra large) eggs
Add to the bowl and mix well:
2 cups white flour (I never bother to sift)
2 cups fast cooking (minute) oatmeal
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
(1 tsp. salt – I never add this as I am living the salt free life and if there was salt in the butter you may not want it. Suit your own taste.)
Add in 12 ounces of chocolate chips (or about 2 cups) and mix well. If the mixture is too crumply for your liking you can add a little milk.
Spoon cookie amounts of the dough onto the cookie sheet, flatten a little if you like with a little pat, and bake about 10-12 minutes at 350°F. The cookies should be lightly brown on top and will spread as they bake; they puff up while baking and then flatted when they are done. Let them cool before you start eating them!! These cookies freeze well and have survived shipment in care packages many times over the years.
My mom would put all kinds of things into the dough… raisins, chopped dates, nuts, gummi bears, shredded coconut, you name it. It’s your cookie, make it your own!! The total amount of additives should be around two cups. I’ve also used old fashioned rolled oats, but I didn’t enjoy them as much as the instant oats.
Happy cookie crunching, everyone!
I think that I may now go online and buy a little more yarn while crunching my own cookies…
The days have finally cooled down here and the first leaves are changing color on my trees. The air quality is better as some rain showers in the evenings cleared the worst of the smoke from the air. The plants in the garden are recovering and so am I; the painful joints/muscles are now behaving themselves and I am getting good sleep again. I’m making more progress in cleaning my house (this week I got ride of fleeces that were at least 20 years old…) and am ready to return to a little quilting.
Hannah thinks that would be fun!
Knitting
I was really productive this week in the knitting department. I finished the Far Away Dreams shawl that I have been working on for a few weeks now.
This cushy shawl is just perfect for wrapping up in on cool evenings.
I especially like how the lace turned out.
Can you see in the picture above that the light outer trim on the right side of the shawl is just a tiny bit wider? I lost at yarn chicken and did the last row of the dark lace in the lighter color. I’m pretty sure no one will notice the difference while I’m wearing the shawl. 🙂 My Ravelry notes are here.
I like this shawl so much I already went digging into the yarn stash for more yarn to make another. This time I’m going to have a lighter outer border.
This will look more like the knitted sample shown in the Far Away Dreams pattern. I’m liking it!! The speckled white will be the lace border. I can’t wait to cast on!
I need another shawl to knit on because I’m racing right through The Sharon Show shawl. It is so much fun!! I can’t wait for the new clue to arrive on Friday and I usually have it done within a day or two. This week I focused on finishing the Far Away shawl and put off Sharon until the end of the week. I got Clue 3 done Thursday night and was just chomping to start Clue 4 as soon as it dropped. I’m now halfway through Clue 4. I won’t show the entire shawl because… MYSTERY… and I don’t want Sharon from Security to track me down with a citation (but I’m pretty sure that Hannah would be excited to have her come visit and maybe play chase-chase with her…) but here is a glimpse of my latest work.
How fun is this?!
I kind of want to cast on another one of these shawls, too, but I’m waiting to get to the end before I make the final color decisions. I’m also fussing over yarns and color choices for another couple of sweaters these days (with lots of help from Hannah) and I’ve been reflecting on how robust my yarn stash is and how happy I am to be able to put together an endless number of projects using just stash yarn. Seriously, there is yarn in there that I’ve wondered, up until this summer, just what it could be used for that is now exactly the right amount and color for a new sweater pattern just dropped by a favorite designer. Good planning. Good luck. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Garden
To you see this? The miniature roses are starting to bloom again. This year I plan to plant the roses into the garden to overwinter instead of bringing them indoors for the winter because, Hannah!
There are several new buds on the plant. Can you see them?
Books
I’m reading again now that my eyes have recovered. I’ve gone back to the 16th century for some murder mystery action.
It’s a murder mystery.
Our hero is a lawyer named Matthew Shardlake who has undertaken an investigation in the service of the Lady Elizabeth who wants to ensure that justice is served in the murder trial of a distant Boleyn relative who is also embroiled in a land dispute with a neighbor. This story, written about a time centuries past, also echoes some themes current today. There is a lot of political uncertainty as the current king, Edward VI, is 11 years old and his uncle is ruling in his name. You get a sense that power is being abused; coinage is so debased it is almost worthless. Landowners are turning out tenant farmers to enclose their land because sheep earn a better profit for them than crops. Displaced and homeless people wander the landscape in search of a living while the wealthy insist that their actions are necessary to maintain their way of life; the landless citizens are seen as dangerous and criminal by the more stable upper class and resentments are brewing. The shifts to the new religion and an English language mass continue and are also creating tensions. To be clear, this is a time of unrest and uncertainty that kind of rivals our own. In the middle of this a run-away wife is found murdered and Matthew is dispatched to discover the truth. I’m about a third of the way through and I’m enjoying myself.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
I love water. Water is my favorite thing right now. I watch it in the sink. I play with it in the bath tub. I splash it around my food bowl. I play with the water that the Kitten Mom puts on the plants. I love to knock over the water jug over to make the water come out. Water is fun…
There were big crashes and lights and loud noises and these huge blops of water fell right out of the sky and hit me right through the window screen. I didn’t do anything and IT HIT ME!!! And the noise just kept getting louder once the water blops started.
I wailed. Kind of a lot.
The Kitten Mom carried me until it stopped.
Then I had cookies.
Hannah, 5 months old.
>^..^<
Note from Kitten Mom: After almost no rain in two months we had a real thunderstorm with huge drops that had to be melted hailstones along with thunder and lightening: Hannah’s first real thunderstorm.
Here I am again, posting late on Sunday night. This week was not good. Bad week, bad!! Seriously, it was just multi-dimensional in the badness that went on during the week. I have to admit that it can’t all be blamed on the calendar, although I do think that 2020 continues to behave in a completely unacceptable batshit manner. Fire tornadoes?! Really! Two hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time?! There is an asteroid approaching earth? Of course there is! 2020, just stop right now!!
An interesting development of the week was Hannah discovering MacKnitzie on the bookshelf. She’d been up there several times before, but now she thinks that it is fun to drag him down by his tail onto the floor to play with. Such a determined girl, she is undaunted by the crash of falling books…
Incorrigible! I think that MacKnitzie is in for a few adventures…
There was almost no reading this week and very little knitting. Why? Just read on, my friends. 🙂
I am fighting an infection, which is always a situation where I first respond with an “oh, oh” and then with a shortly followed word that won’t be shared here. I went onto antibiotics and off my immunosuppressant drugs: race time!! As my immune system revs up and attacks the infection I am also going into a flare of my disease. SO NOT GOOD!! The plan is that the antibiotics will tip the scales to favor defeating the infection before I’m too sick. Ugh. As I got sicker and sicker from my autoimmune buddies I started sleeping through most of the day.
We waltzed around with triple digit heat all week. That slight wailing you hear is my crispy garden plants crying in the heat. The louder wailing you hear is me…
There are horrible wildfires going on in my state and California that are sending smoke my way. A lot of smoke. The sun is a dull red ball in the sky, ash is falling, and things don’t look to improve soon. My distress needle is firmly pegged in the red. My lungs think this isn’t optimal. The smoke is affecting my eyes so I can’t read and I’m staying on oxygen 24/7 while this is going on. I know that this is nothing compared to the people fighting the fires and evacuated from their (possible destroyed) homes. The latest news is that Australia is sending California fire fighting resources, and our governor just activated the National Guard. There is another tough week ahead.
The nightly news over the last week was also enough to make anyone go back to bed. In the midst of an uncontrolled pandemic that has me trapped in isolation with my adventure-seeking kitten, completely dependent on delivery services, evidence surfaced this last week that the postal service has been sabotaged. No wonder my prescriptions have been wandering around and arriving late and why hasn’t my printer ink come yet!! I’m taking this really personally since now, instead of just messing with the world supply of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that I need to control my Sjogren’s and scleroderma, the agency I need to bring it to my door is also under attack. Instead of knitting I directed energy to writing my congressmen.
It is the 6th anniversary this week of my scleroderma diagnosis. Normally this date wouldn’t lay me low, but this week I couldn’t walk, breath, eat anything without a negative consequence, and… you get the idea. Sad anniversary, scleroderma.
Whew! The flaming hot hard lump in my leg is much better today and I went back onto my immunosuppressant drugs. This evening, as I type this, my dizziness has faded away and I feel almost peppy walking on legs that don’t hurt. Yay! Hopefully the antibiotics will manage on their own from now on.
Bring it, 2020! I’m ready for you again!
Knitting
I did manage to get some knitting done through the week. I am now working away on the lace outer edge of my Far Away Dreams Shawl. Look!
My goal for the week was to get the lace edging done, and truthfully I worked into the wee hours of the morning last night to get there, but nope, not yet. It is starting to look really nice (all bunched up on the needles…) and I’m liking that dark color for the lace more and more.
I’m also still working on The Sharon Show. The third clue dropped Friday but I am doggedly knitting along on Far Away Dreams since I am so close to the end and I should be able to catch up with Sharon later on in the week. I did download the pattern and discovered that this third clue had lace sections. WOOHOO!! I love lace. This MKAL shawl is going to fantastic. The knitting goals for the week are now set: finish Far Away and then Clue 3 of the Sharon Show.
Also, I dug around in the yarn stash to find some yarn to make another Sharon Show. This shawl is fun!
Garden
I can’t really go outside too much, but by wearing a mask I’m managing to make short trips out to water plants and pick up mail. I wanted to buy some more bedding plants for the fall to replace ones that expired in the heat, but the way things are going right now I decided to take down the hanging pots and put them on top of the dead planters in the front yard. What do you think?
The heat hasn’t been kind to the plants so I babied them for a week on the deck before moving them out front. There is more shade in the front and I hope that they will continue to recover and bloom.
Books: don’t make me laugh. Smoke in my eyes and all that…
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Here I am with a late post following an hectic, nonproductive week. Well, it was actually productive, but not in the ways that I wanted it to be. It is very hot here, very dry, and our wildfires are worse than they were last week. There is so much smoke in the air now that I’m trapped in the house from the air alerts: tonight I wore a mask when I watered the lawn and that helped. Good thing I have some masks laying around, right?
So, what is going on, you ask? I’m knitting, and cooking, and cleaning house. I bought stuff on Amazon to fix things up. That sounds good, right? Well… I’m doing the Sharon Show MKAL and I really, really want to print out the pattern. I ordered ink, but it doesn’t fit my printer. I found an old printer from my classroom in the garage, hooked it up, and tried to get it going. Nope. I dug through office drawers and my old school supplies hunting for ink cartridges and cords. I learned how to activate wireless printing. Three hours later I had cleaned parts of the office and garage while fussing with the printers and I had gotten no where. I gave up and ordered more ink for both machines. Sigh. I need a print out of the pattern to get through the next round of clues… Hey, I’m chronically ill. After all of that I couldn’t knit anyway. Nap time!!
Round 2 of the quintessential summer game.
Last night a moth got into the house and flapped its way into the tall torch floor lamp by my knitting chair. Hannah immediately went airborne, tore right up the lamp to get her moth, and the whole thing came down in slow motion with me trying to get untangled from my knitting fast enough to grab the lamp while Hannah scrambled to get out of the way. Disaster in slow motion!. It took a bad bounce off the chair and hit the floor: the glass shade and a light exploded into shards. Standing at the perimeter of the debris field Hannah and I could see the stunned moth at ground zero; undaunted by events, Hannah just tip-toed in and took her moth away. Instead of playing with the moth I collected glass and vacuumed the downstairs for the second time in one day. Hey, I’m chronically ill and that was the end of the knitting for the night. Bed time!
The pill organizer that my sister sent me to help me keep track of my meds for the week.
Today I carefully set up my pill keeper for the week making sure that Hannah was safely occupied and unlikely to get involved. I was being sooo careful with the pills. I just needed to get this new bottle of one medicine from the drawer to finish up… and I bumped the phone cord, the phone hit the pill case, and the pill case with all of the little doors open tipped over and hit the ground. I threw Hannah out of the room and carefully picked up all the pills, counted them and returned them to the little compartments with little Hannah paws flashing under the door all the while. All good, except that there was one pill missing… I searched for that pill for 2 hours as I moved furniture, books, and then vacuumed the room again. I ended up cleaning the bathroom and laundering the bedding while I was on the search, but I never found that pill. I am sure that it is not where she can easily get it, and that will have to do for now. Hey, I’m chronically ill and I didn’t get any knitting done until late this evening because… nap!!
So, with all of the disasters, cleaning, naps and everything else, I just didn’t get that much done this week. I’m staying out of the garden because of the smoke, and outdoor pictures are really poor now, too. I’m not reading this week either because the smoke affects my eyes. I do have some knitting to show off!
Knitting
I’m finally knitting around the edges of the Far Away Dreams shawl. Next up: the lace border.
I have mixed feeling about this shawl with the light interior and the darker lace, but that’s the way the stash worked out. I already have plans for another version with a darker interior and a very light lace border. This is a nice calm knit for stressful times and I may be making a few more to gift at the holidays.
I was going to be good and not show off any pictures from the Sharon Show MKAL, but it is on Facebook now and I’m going to show off some of my efforts. If you don’t want to see any of these pictures, just stop reading my blog right now! Three… two… one. For anyone who is left, I just have to say that I am having so much fun with this!! The pattern is just a riot to read and I love the snarky cat voice of Sharon. The shawl contains many little sections showing off the colors, patterns and some texture, and the names are just a riot!
This little section is called “Scratch Marks on the New Velvet Chair”.
This section which features thorn stitch is called “Secret Spy Place”. All cats have secret spy places and this stitch also evokes the very floofy tail that Sharon flaunts.
See Hannah in her Secret Spy Place in the yarn stash?
Here is Hannah napping on the finished Clue 1 of the shawl. I am so happy with all the action going on as I knit.
This is a great, fun project and I am hanging out with people on a Facebook group as we all knit. I am thrilled with the size, and as I wear a lot of grey and black in the winter this shawl is going to work out great for me. That is, if Hannah is going to let me wear it… Today is her 5th month birthday and she is kind of wanting the shawl all for herself!!
After the whole moth/kitten/lamp adventure that’s MY shawl, Hannah!
Let’s hope that the printer ink from Amazon comes in another day or so as I am at the point where I really, really need a paper pattern to work off of.
Sharon, please don’t write me a citation for being bad and showing off the shawl in progress. I did warn people, I did!!
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
I love hanging out in front of the window fan in the mornings.
The Kitten Mom and I have been hanging out indoors all day long because it is really hot and smoky outside. A brand new box of toys came from Chewy this week and I was so excited to help the Kitten Mom unpack it. There was kitten food (!), kitty litter (ugh) and some toys. The best thing in the box, however, was the packing paper!!!!
I love the packing paper! I sleep in it, play with my toys in it, and drag it all around the house.
I go crazy running through the paper with my toys and every single time the Kitten Mom walks by I flop over in the papers, meow, and make the Kitten Mom pet me for a few minutes. She has been remarkably easy to train, the Kitten Mom.
Then she used the Chewy box to make me a playground of connected boxes. I have half of my toys in there already!! There are doors that connect all of the boxes so that no matter where the Kitten Mom is walking I can rush out and attack her. This is so much fun!!!
Then there are the toys that I find by carefully exploring the house. I got the best ribbon in the world off of the new orchid plant, and after dragging around a plastic bag with spinning fiber the Kitten Mom gave me a skein of yarn in a plastic bag secured with a hair tie. That yarn is the best kick toy ever!!
I love these toys!
I play a lot in the bathroom in the mornings. I pull up the drain plug in the bathtub, chase through the shower curtains, and put my toys under the rugs. I sleep on the wet towels after the Kitten Mom’s showers and help her water floss her teeth at night. The bathroom is a whole kitten playground!! My favorite, by far, is the toilet!! Oh, my goodness! This is so cool!
I do have to mention that there are some things that the Kitten Mom seems to feel are NOT toys. I tore a piece of the fern off and she was very disappointed with me. Oh. That plant is not a toy, I guess. She actually said NO! to me. I dragged the Teflon sheet that she uses while working on the quilt downstairs and she took that away from me too. Hey, I only tore it up a little bit… those holes aren’t that big. It was okay because that is when she gave me the bag of yarn to kick and bite on. Finally, there is the issue with yarn. I like to bite the yarns in half. The Kitten Mom is always a little sad when I do it, so I am stopping that too.
But yarn is really nice to take a nap on!
Notes from the Kitten Mom:
There are several serious fires burning in Colorado this week. The I-70 freeway through the Rocky Mountains is closed right now because of a fire and there is a really large one on the western slope too. The weather continues to be hot, dry, and windy which isn’t helping the fire fighters. I’m indoors for now avoiding the smoke.
It is International Cat Day! Hannah is besides herself and has been celebrating all day with the new toys that arrived from Chewy yesterday.
Hannah: it should be International Kitten Day!!
Hannah is wondering if her feet are getting kind of big… yeah, a little bit… I am laying in more kitten food! Anyway, it was a pretty good week for Hannah and I as we knitted, read books, cooked meals for the next week, and basically took it easy. Well, I took it easy; Hannah is getting more athletic and demanding and expects me to play with her and… wait for it… feed her KITTY COOKIES!!! That’s right. She has decided that she likes those kitty cookies after all. Why do I do this to myself. Under no circumstances will I let her drink out of the faucet!
Knitting
I spent a lot of the week knitting and knitting on my Far Away Dreams shawl. I want to be honest here; I started this because I wanted no stress endless garter stitch as I was stressed out and fighting a flare. Now I’m less stressed out, the flare has receded somewhat to the usual background level of symptoms, and the garter stitch is still going on, and on, and on… There are 231 ridges of garter stitch and I am now close to 200 ridges, which is 400 rows. The end is in sight. Lace is right around the corner. I’m going to get this shawl down in the next week or two…
Then I opened up Ravelry.
Caitlin Hunter published another pattern!!! I love this sweater! I need to start on it right away!!
Hannah and I headed right up to shop the yarn stash for the yarn. This is what I found:
Won’t this look great?! The gray will be the body of the sweater and the multi (which is the Rocky Mountain Colorado colorway!) is the detail.
I was so excited to start. I planned to wind the yarn almost immediately. I made a fatal error. I succumbed to curiosity (curiosity killed the cat, you know… it can also be damaging to knitting progress…) and clicked on the icon for The Sharon Show by Casapinka. If you don’t know about this already, The Sharon Show is a MKAL (Mystery Knit Along) that is being run by Casapinka’s entitled, snarky, highly opinionated, snax demanding year-old cat. I don’t do MKAL’s at all, as I prefer to know exactly what I’m knitting before I invest all of that yarn. But this is pandemic time and I am sooo isolated right now. I just looked at all of my yarn and I know what I have up there. How can I walk away from interacting with a cat like this?
Sharon is in charge of security at Casapinka. Sharon is bossy and dripping in attitude. Sharon is not above writing up a citation if you violate knitting suggestions. The snark is strong with this one. I bought the pattern.
The pattern came with some info on color choices and a schematic coloring sheet to help you plan the order of your colors. And strong admonishments from Sharon about abiding with guidelines. There might have been some threats about citations…
I got going on playing with the color order and when the first clue dropped yesterday I cast right on and got started. The pattern is so cat snarky and fun!! I am so glad that I am doing this. My first picture of the knitting can be found on my Ravelry project page; I don’t feel that I should post it here because…MYSTERY Knit Along.
I have a lot of knitting going on now. I am going to finish my clue each week as fast as I can and then really concentrate on the shawl so that I can open up the needles I need for that sweater. It’s a plan. I’ll let you know next week how I did.
And a beautiful Japanese Beetle has arrived to snack on the plant.
I hurried that beetle on his way and gave the plant a good spray with soapy plant insecticide. Things are picking up in the garden. I’m looking forward to some butterflies coming by for a visit and snack. Hannah will like that!!
Books
I was a prolific reader as a kid, and very early on I was sucked into science fiction books. Heinlein was a popular author with me and I read Starship Troopersmany times over the years. The last two weeks I have been reading a series of military science fiction books that are reminiscent of the books that I grew up with by the author Marko Kloos.
Space going military, giant alien invaders, hot-shot maneuvers, and desperate battles. The plot moves right along and the dialogue is snappy. Perfect.
This actually is the 6th book in the series which I suspect is coming to an end with this volume. I have to be honest; I started the first book because it was included in my Kindle Unlimited package and it included a free audiobook, but once I got into it I was a happy knitter/quilter/flare-fighting invalid and kept getting the next volume in the series as soon as I finished a book.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Do a look a little startled? That’s because Kitten Mom woke me up for this picture.
I’ve been very busy the last two weeks. I’m growing like a weed (that’s what Kitten Mom says…) and I’m learning lots of new things and developing some wonderful skills. I can now streak up the screen door all the way to the top every time the Kitten Mom tries to come in! I love to race through my crackly tube when we go downstairs. I can jump higher and race faster then ever, and there are so many wonderful things that I can do now.
Like hunt bugs!
This moth was hanging out on the wall in the bedroom one night…
when I saw it!
I launched right into motion! I flew past the Kitten Mom’s head, pushed off the headboard, and hit the wall right next to the moth. I knocked some stuff off the table as I followed the moth down (who knew the Kitten Mom could grab a falling lamp that fast! Almost kitten-like in her reflexes…) That moth took off across the floor and I dove through a gap under the table to grab it mid-air. What an awesome move! I looked like the kitten version of She-Ra!! Then the moth darted sideways and flew into the bookshelf…
Hey, where did it go? I saw it fly in here, but now it is gone…
I found one of the wings on the floor, but the moth is just gone. I’ve been looking for it for days now in the bookshelf and there just isn’t any sign of it. Hey, that is so unfair! I wasn’t done playing with it yet! I’ve looked in the bathtub, and under the bed, and all through the bookshelf several times, but I still can’t find it. Darn.
I asked MacKnitzie where the moth is and he doesn’t know either.
Today I got over the moth and doubled down on playing with the water in the toilet. The Kitten Mom keeps messing with it and the WATER MOVES!! This is so cool. Almost as cool as the moth.
Sigh.
Forget the toilet. I still want my moth. Maybe tonight it will be there if I push down more books…
Notes from the Kitten Mom:
Hannah is a very effective bug hunter and has located several creepy crawlies since she came to live with me. I don’t know whether to be grateful that she locates those spiders or horrified that there are spiders for her to run to ground. Anyway, she plays with them until I take them away. Moths, however, are where she shines as she can instantly transform into an athletic airborne kitten wonder. Who knew?
Yarn, Books & Roses 