cats – Yarn, Books & Roses

Hannah and the CoalBear: We Have New Beds!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Hey, do you see that little gnome? I bet I can snag it with my claws and then Mateo and I can HAVE SOME FUN!!!

This has been kind of a busy week already. The Mother of Cats cleaned out her yarn stash (I helped, like… a lot!!) and then she cleaned out her quilting projects and put most of them into a big box that she mailed off to a cousin. Bye quilts. She has been doing a lot of cleaning and stuff, which is kind of fun for Mateo and me. We love the chaos!! We love all of the yarn moving around. We love our new cat beds!!!

My favorite bed is the one that looks like a giant TUNA CAN!!! Can you believe it? I can snooze in a cozy little ~~tuna can~~ bed that even has a cover on it while I dream of tuna. How cool it that? Mateo kind of tries to sneak into my bed when I’m not looking, and he even messes with me sometimes while I’m asleep, so the Mother of Cats bought him a second bed that looks like a bowl of ramen. Does he sleep in his bed? Yes!!! Yes, he does. We are two happy cats at the moment since it is cold and windy outside, and we have to stay in because the wind is kind of scary and we don’t like the sounds that it makes. Besides, all of the bunnies are hiding too, so it is kind of boring…

The Mother of Cats also got some knitting done. Here is her first sock!

The Mother of Cats says that this is a scrunch sock.

Doesn’t that sock look warm? The Mother of Cats is slowly knitting away on the second sock and hopes to have the pair done before the end of the week. She is kind of anxious to have it done because she is all motivated to make more socks after cleaning up her yarn stash because… she found some mini skein yarn sets for fun socks!

Here is one of the yarn kits with the new book that she bought along with our fun cat beds.

She says that she is going to make doodle socks. What? Seriously, do socks sound fun to you? She should knit me some doodle mice to play with. Maybe a little doodle sweater to put on MATEO because he will hate it and that will be seriously funny. He deserves to have that happen to him because last night the Mother of Cats glanced over at him just in time to see him ripping the comb off the head of MY CHICKEN that she gave me to groom. What is up with that little idiot cat?!!! He had pulled lots of yarn pieces out and was clearly trying to rip the chicken open. What is wrong with him… does he think that he can actually eat the chicken? Sigh. The Mother of Cats took it away last night and put it on a high shelf where he can’t get it.

Bye chicken. I will miss you so much. Good thing I have a tuna bed to sleep in.

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The socks are Scrunch Socks.
I have three mini-skein sock kits from Moonglow to knit. Yay. Lots of doodling ahead! I’m chomping at the bit to start designing some socks, and I can see some posts ahead.
The cat beds are from Amazon. Here is the link.
I have also been working with the indoor garden and there is another post in there, too. What will I be writing about? Well… pruning geraniums, battling aphids, and an unhappy lavender plant. That’s just the upstairs plants! Who knew indoor gardening was so much work?
Because I have been down with tendon issues I have been clearing some books from my reading list. Oh. Another post.
Are you sensing a theme here? I also am waiting for the results of my heart monitor test and MY KNEES ARE KILLING ME. You already know about the bad boy wrists. I have a scleroderma post slowly brewing too. It is hard for me to type because… bad boy wrists… but I’m getting there. Hopefully there will be some more writing in the near future.

I just love the color of this rose! Oh. Do you see the aphids?

Hannah and the CoalBear: Lavender and Roses come Inside

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I’m basking in the lights of the new plant shelves!

The days out on the catio are getting a little cooler now, and there are leaves falling off the trees. Mateo really likes to chase the leaves! And the bugs. Okay… he chases everything that moves, basically… The squirrels are waaay more busy than usual, and I haven’t seen a baby bunny for weeks and weeks. There are lots of birds at the feeder that are kind of new, and sometimes there are tons of birds in the trees. The Mother of Cats says that the birds are flocking, and that there are changes coming.

Do you see the box that I am standing on? It was pretty long and a little heavy.

The Mother of Cats pushed that long box up the stairs and then she got out some tools. Yay! I love to help out with projects!!!

Look at all of the stuff that was in the box!

It took her a little while, but the Mother of Cats put all of those pieces together to make some shelves with lights. Oh. That’s kind of cool. I really like sleeping under lights like this, and shelves are always fun!

Then the Mother of Cats brought in all of the plants from the deck to come live under the lights in the indoor garden and on these new shelves. Look at what happened!!! There is no more room for me on the shelves! What was the Mother of Cats thinking of?

She brought in some of the plants from the deck and put them on my shelves!!!

After she brought in the first plants, she started messing around in the indoor garden so that she could make even more room for plants. Then the really big lavender plants came inside along with all the rest of the rose plants.

Now almost all of the plants that were living on the deck are now in the knitting room with the Mother of Cats and me. I love the plants!! Some of them are starting to put out new buds, more roses and lavender blooms are on the way, and the room smells kind of nice. Pretty cool, right? The new shelves even have a bar to hang plants from, there is a timer for the lights, and there is a shelf to put all of the knitting project boxes on the top. We are ready for winter now!!!

This week the Mother of Cats and I sat by the lights, smelled the lavender, and sewed up all of the chickens that she had knitted in September. So much fun… I like to chase the yarn while the Mother of Cats is sewing. This is what the finished chickens look like:

Didn’t I do a good job helping out? All of these chickens will go to their new homes this week. Bye chickens! It was nice to know you!!

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Note from the Mother of Cats: the lavender plants aren’t hardy enough to survive a Colorado winter, so indoors they came! Yay, lighted shelving!! These came from Amazon.

The Soldotna Saga Continues…

It has been kind of a tough week. The weather shifted and suddenly became hot; I struggled with the sudden heat and couldn’t sleep well. I had adventures with online ordering that created a duplicate of an expensive item that finally got returned for me by my son. Mateo caught a baby bunny somehow that he brought into the house; it took two hours to catch it. My ankles/feet have decided that they hate my guts with as much swelling and tendon pain as my wrists did last month. Then the absolute worst: my next-door neighbor poisoned the bunnies and every single baby bunny died along with most of the adults that I have seen. I suddenly understood why bunnies suddenly disappeared last year.

I put the bodies into her trash. Every single one of them, including the rescued baby that I had carefully returned to the yard two days earlier.

Okay, enough of that. You should see what has been happening with the Soldotna Crop sweater:

I’ve been taking the knitting off the needles and steam blocking it to check for length, and I’m so pleased with how the sweater fits and looks now. I finished the ribbing late last night, steam blocked the whole body this morning, and took it out for this picture. Looking good, huh!!

I put the sweater onto blocking mats to finish drying indoors, and then I headed out to take some pictures of the roses. Let me tell you, these roses are really happy with the water earlier this year, and now that it is hot, they are blooming like crazy!

These are the front roses, and they are really looking good this year! Do you see all of those buds? They have never been this lush and prolific before. These roses are called Hot Cocoa.

My Princess Alexandra of Kent roses are enormous!

That rose is over 4 inches across, and for once the plant is sturdy enough to hold all of the blooms upright.

These roses are the little ones that you buy in the grocery store. I planted them outside and they really are blooming their little hearts out now!

Do you see what is going on with this plant? I had to put supportive rings around it like you do with peonies because of the weight, and the buds haven’t even opened yet!!

So, the roses are looking pretty darn good. I went back into the house with the pictures and discovered that Hannah had ~~savaged~~ overly-loved the Soldotna while I was out of the house.

She has done this to other items. I think that she is grooming the sweater, but I was not happy…

I pulled the worst of the fluff to the inside of the sweater with a little crochet hook, and then I shaved the remaining fluff off. It isn’t perfect, but it isn’t horrible. I’ve decided to finish the sleeves and will then decide if I should rip back to above the damage and then reknit the bottom of the sweater. I don’t want to reuse the blocked yarn, and it all depends on how much of the dusty pink is left over. I’m pretty sure that I will rip and then reknit. This sweater must be cursed…

Hannah: I couldn’t help myself. I love the sweater soooo much… besides, it was WET WOOL!!!

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Mateo: Don’t forget about Caturday tomorrow!!!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Goldenfern Caturday

Hi. I’m Mateo.

We have been hanging out for hours at a time with the Mother of Cats while she knits and knits and knits on her new sweater. Sigh. She isn’t very frisky at all and she should get up and play with me more… instead she just reads and knits all day. Hannah is cool with that because she like to snuggle with the Mother of Cats, but I am still a kitten and I need to play!!!

You can see that she has made some good progress with our help. Yesterday she knitted all day trying to get to the end of the body of the sweater, and around midnight she finally cast off the sweater.

My sister and I were watching out the window when she finished. There is some great wildlife in our yard around midnight!!

Overnight Hannah and I knocked over a container of kitty treats, got the lid off and polished off all of the cookies. I thought that the Mother of Cats would be grumpy with us, but since we let her sleep in until late in the morning she kind of forgave us. Kind of. I did notice that she put all the rest of the kitty treats into a cupboard. Hannah knows how to open cupboards…

This morning she tried on the sweater, and it fit perfect! Well, of course it did. We aren’t exactly amateurs in knit support, after all. This afternoon she headed outside to take pictures of her sweater and I gave Hannah’s ears a washing.

Hannah: the CoalBear is the best little buddy ever.

Now it is almost night again and I’m pretty sure that the Mother of cats is going to make some supper and we will get some more kitty cookies. Yay!!

Notes from the Mother of Cats: The sweater is Goldenfern by Jennifer Steingass. My Ravelry notes are here.

What have I been reading this week? Here it is (please observe that the cover matches my knitting :-)). I would talk about the book, but I really can’t without giving out spoilers. Just let me say that I enjoyed this book and it was the perfect one for a surgery-recovering BioGeek.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Mateo does Caturday

Hi. I’m Mateo.

See that new orchid that the Mother of Cats brought home from the store? It has some little flying bugs in it. Yay!

The Mother of Cats isn’t as excited about the bugs as we are, but we are on the hunt and before she knows it we will have taken care of the problem. Aren’t we the best kitties ever?

I’ve also been helping the Mother of Cats with her new hat.

Don’t you like the color of that yarn? The color is called “Midnight Orchid” which is pretty cool because the Mother of Cats was knitting on the hat at midnight last night.

The yarn kind of matches the orchid that just started blooming last week.

I try to help the Mother of Cats in the garden but she won’t let me play with the plants. I am a really good digger and I think that she should be more open minded about it, right? Nope. She put up more chicken wire to keep me out of the orchids.

Well, I guess that is all. I have to go play with my new toy that the Mother of Cats got me last week and then maybe I can spend some time pulling down the clothes in the closet. In the evening I plan to watch the bunny in the backyard for a while and then I think that I will chase my sister Hannah around the house. She really likes to play chase-chase! Doesn’t that sound like an excellent Caturday to you?

I hope that your Catuday was good, too!!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Mateo does Caturday.

Hi. I’m Mateo (AKA the CoalBear).

I’m almost 10 months old now. What do you think of my ruff?

The Mother of Cats isn’t feeling well today so I am hanging around with her on her bed. I’m helping her write on her computer right now! I’m such a good boy!

I’ve been bringing toys onto the bed so she can watch me play with them.

I chewed on the palm plant downstairs to keep up my energy.

I then helped the Mother of Cats with her knitting. I’m such a great helper!!

I groomed my sister so she would let me sleep on the cat tree with her.

Happy Caturday everyone!!

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I’ve gone off my immunosuppressant drug so that I can get my Covid booster on Monday. Sigh. There was a big pressure change yesterday with a cold front that triggered some symptoms along with the predictable flare of my disease that has me back in bed for the weekend.

I’ve been in lockdown for two years and I desperately want the booster because my next round of medical appointments starts in another week. I also want to start knitting with my new-found groups, too. I want some of my life back!!

Please think of me and the other people in a situation like my own (high risk, immunosuppressed or immunocompromised, and struggling with chronic conditions that complicates their lives on the best of days) when you are out in public.

And wear your mask!

ps: I threw out the palm last night. It wasn’t a match for the CoalBear and I was afraid it would make him sick. Next up: a Boston fern.

Hannah and the CoalBear: So Many Hats

Hi. I’m Hannah.

The Mother of Cats has been making hats all week.

CoalBear: She spends more time with the hats than with me. I need more toys!!!

The Mother of Cats went off and left us all weekend long and let me tell you, I had a really hard time controlling the kitten while she was gone. He left his toys all over the house. He ate all of the kitten food. He pulled one of the quilts off of the wall. I was pretty exhausted by the time the Mother of Cats came back, and after all of that the kitten and I refused to let her out of our sight. We made her feed us as soon as she got home and we loaded up on some cookies, too. The kitten made her carry him around for some time, but I’m a big girl now and I didn’t do that. We did make her play with us with the laser light: seriously, that’s the least she could do for us, right?! It was a long weekend!

Then we hung out on the bookshelf in the bedroom keeping watch the whole time she was unpacking her bags…

And then we settled in up there to keep an eye on her while she slept. All night.

We’re still keeping our eye on her but mostly this week she has been good and stayed with us to knit more hats.

The kitten has been especially helpful while she has been working on the hats. He is a lot of work, but he has a good heart and is lots of fun.

Bye.

I need to go have a talk with that kitten. Again.

>^..^<

Note from the Mother of Cats:

Behold, the downed quilt and probable culprit…

The Saturday Update: Weeks 39 and 40, 2021

The days are still warm, dry and sunny, but the nights are finally getting a little cooler. I spend my afternoons in the swinging garden chair on the deck, reading and knitting in the strange silence that has now descended on the garden: no more crickets, cicadas, migrating geese, or even the pit bull next door. All are now gone, and the only sounds I hear are the squirrels racing through the trees and the occasional drifting fall of leaves. The maple tree out back, usually a blaze of red color by now, is slowly turning a golden brown with a few flashes of red. Seriously? This is how you are going to finish up the year? Figures.

This is as good as it is going to get this year I guess.

The ground is covered with dead leaves as these sorry examples of autumn glory drift off the tree. We never had a freeze, and I think that these brown leaves coming down are the result.

The baby bunny of the summer has found a mate.

Over the last weekend I noticed lots of digging in the yard from the bunny, and then one night the flood lights revealed that there were two bunnies in my yard! My little guy was not all alone any more! Now my bunny, all grown up, is gone.

Next week we will finally get colder weather and perhaps some rain. There will be snow in our mountains and all of my leaves will be gone off the tree.

Summer, truly, is finally over.

Knitting

I finished the second Rock It Tee this week!

Can you see how I blended the three skeins of yarn from light to dark as I alternated them through the sweater? The lightest is at the top.

I am now down to only one knitting project left, the second Snark-O-Meter that I am rapidly finishing off with lots of cat help.

I finished up clue 4 last night and will start clue 5 today. This baby should be done in just a few more days of knitting.

Yesterday I cleaned out my little project bags, sorted yarn in the stash, and organized myself for a prolonged sweater knitting campaign. I’m tempted to start the Stephen West MKAL (Shawlography), but as I sorted I realized that I had the yarn to make several sweaters all stocked up and waiting to go. It isn’t all that cold yet, but eventually sweater weather will get here and it is time for me to switch over to sweaters and to start working my way through the stash again.

I also, through great serendipity, located a community knitting group last week that makes hats for patients going through chemo at the infusion center where I used to go to my (old, kicked to the curb) rheumatologist’s office. I know that center, located between oncology and rheumatology, as I used to sit in that waiting room every rheumatologist appointment. Why is the infusion center next to rheumatology? Because, little known fact, many rheumatology patients (along with other people struggling with autoimmune disease), receive chemo and infusions of biologic drugs. I know, only too well, what a struggle it is to control Reynaud’s Phenomenon while hooked up to an IV in air conditioning. I’m joining the knitting group and will be knitting as many little fingerless mitts and arm warmers as I can for drop off to the center along with the chemo hats.

There. Knitting plans for the rest of the year all worked out. 🙂

Garden

This is ridiculous, but all of my mental energy is focused on planting all the potted plants into the gardens (Where should I put them? This is a big decision.) and making an indoor home for the jade plants that have been outdoors all summer.

This plant tripled in size over the summer. I moved it to this large pot, but now it is… large.

I recently discovered that jade plants are poisonous for cats. Oh, no. I have had jade plants in the house for years with my cats, and never had an issue, but now that I know I’m worried about a cat/plant interaction. I have an indoor garden shelf system established to keep the plants indoors over the winter, but this pot won’t fit now. I’ve decided to use chicken wire to keep the cats away from the shelf with the smaller jades, but this one plant is going to be challenging. Ugh. I can move shelves to create more space, or I can build a cage to put over the plant, or… these are the days when I miss the greenhouse I had in my biology classroom.

Books

I loved, loved, loved All the Light We Cannot See, so when I saw this book was coming out I preordered it right away. When it dropped into my Kindle library I forced myself to take a break from The Murderbot Diaries to read this. Holy, Moly! Best decision ever. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a book to read and savor.

So you probably have already guessed that I am really enjoying this book. It is the tale of a ridiculous comedy written by an ancient Greek author that is preserved over time and that connects people separated by centuries who are caught up in the jaws of history. Sounds improbable when I write it down, but this works and it is really good! I don’t want to give out any spoilers, but the story moves right along at a perfect pace, going back and forth between the characters and the Greek tale in a way that links them together and brings meaning to their lives and the Greek comedy in an unforeseen manner that eerily connects to my life also. Owls are a recurring element of the stories in the book: as I read in the night it is to the sound of booming “who-who’s” from the Great Horned owls in my neighborhood. (Bunnies: make good choices tonight!!) I read on in this book that is essentially about the power and of legacy of books as I consider which of my books to leave in one of the community Little Free Libraries next week. The power of books, the legacy of lives, the preservation of who we are: a big message contained in a book that immerses you in a powerful story.

Have a good week, everyone.

Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.

Hannah and the CoalBear: The Snark-O-Meter is done!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Do you see how big my kitten has gotten? He’s hard to share a platform on the cat tree with now because of that… tail! His tail is absolutely out of control.

The kitten and I have been helping the Mother of Cats knit her latest shawl for weeks now. It has been lots of hard work, especially since the kitten forgets to behave himself and starts carrying off the balls of yarn. I have talked to him about this, but he is just too crazy wild to really settle down. The proper etiquette is to sit on top of the knitting, purr like crazy, and to snag any moving yarn in your claws when you can… If the Mother of Cats accidently leaves the knitting downstairs you can drag it up the stairs to return to her, but not the balls of yarn. Especially if you forget what you are doing and leave the yarn balls in some strange place. Sigh. It is so hard to raise a kitten.

Umm… that’s because I’m a little CoalBear.

Anyway, the shawl is called the Snark-O-Meter and it is designed by another cat!!! This cat, Sharon from Security, is the employee of Casapinka and seems to be a little tiny bit hard to work with. She is always complaining and dealing with the misbehavior of her fellow employees and never has enough sushi. Also she keeps losing her squad car… and her subordinate Finn (who has a shady background and multiple passports) is also gone. You wouldn’t believe how she talks to the knitters, too! Talk about snark!!

Oh. I guess that is why it is called the Snark-O-Meter.

The Mother of Cats finished the Snark-O-Meter this week and left me alone with the kitten to go buy some blocking mats and more pins to use. Oh, my goodness, the blocking mats are the most fun ever!! The kitten and I were so excited to see them. The kitten chewed as many corners as he could get his little chompers onto while I rolled around and did a little cat yoga.

Aren’t these the best cat yoga mats ever?

Then the Mother of Cats and we got serious and worked on blocking the shawl. She had made a little test sample to make sure the colors wouldn’t run when wet and tried to lay it out on the mat.

Tried. Yep. The minute the kitten saw the loose strings of that sample he began swapping at them. Then I grabbed the sample to groom it a little… did I mention that I just love wet yarn? Besides, it needs to get smoothed down and dried a little… The Mother of Cats tried to pin it and the kitten pulled out the pins to drag off and play with. The Mother of Cats decided that the yarns weren’t going to run (this is true… I never saw them move at all) and put the sample away in a cupboard. That was okay, because then she started putting the shawl out on the cat yoga mats.

Helping with the shawl. I’m such a good girl!! I only groomed the shawl a little bit while the Mother of Cats was laying it out.

The Mother of Cats didn’t like how saggy the yarns in the sample were when wet so she decided to spray the shawl really well with water and then lightly steam it. This was not funny!!! She put in some pins, sprayed water everywhere, and then put in even more pins all around the shawl. Then she hovered the steam iron all around the shawl to make the lace look nice.

I moved to a safe place and the kitten played with his toys on the floor while all this was going on!

Then the Mother of Cats layered towels on top of the wet shawl and sprinkled some yoga mats on top of that so we wouldn’t sleep on top of the shawl. I slept on top of everything anyway. Did I mention that I love the smell of wet wool?

The next day the Mother of Cats took all the mats and towels off the shawl and the kitten and I helped her take all of the pins off and the mats apart. You would not believe how fast the kitten can pull out the pins to take away as toys. Sigh. I’m going to have a little talk with him again. I do have to say that the little corners of the mats are fun to chew on, though. The kitten is a lot of work, but he is fun too and sometimes has some really good ideas.

Last night the Mother of Cats took the shawl over to her son’s for a visit and the kitten and I got to chase each other around like crazy all night. The shawl looked really nice as she packed it up to take to the car. Of course. This was a cat written and cat produced knitted item of beauty.

My work here is done. Except for the kitten. He’s still work…

Note from the Mother of Cats:

The kitten Mateo is growing at an alarming clip and is now filling out and growing a longer coat than I expected. He is a really good natured little guy and makes little chirping noises as he runs around the house, and of course he is a great playmate for Hannah. He is now 6 months old and will certainly be a bigger cat than Hannah.

Don’t you think he looks a little like a bear?

Here is the finished shawl modeled by one of my son’s cats.

I have another one of these shawls to finish up. The cats can’t wait for me to pull it out and get going again because blocking the last one was so much fun!!!

The Saturday Update: Weeks 35 and 36, 2021

The heat is hanging on and the cats and I are totally over it at this point. Yesterday we set a new heat record in my state: 99 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun is a sullen red ball in the sky and the sky is slate white with smoke from the west. The heat is unrelenting, there has been almost no rain, and fire season is still going on, and on, and on… Should summer be ending soon?

“Not yet!”, say the plants and wildlife in the yard. The cats have been busy chasing late season houseflies and the trees are abuzz with pulsing cicada sounds. There seems to be wildlife everywhere all of a sudden as the lawn and garden recover from the intense sun (but not the heat) of July and August. I even had to chase a little garter snake out of my garage yesterday! Summer is being especially tenacious, but I am seeing some hints of fall as flocks of geese fly over my house and the first leaves on the trees are turning.

The baby bunny is now hanging out in the front yard entertaining the cats as they watch from the front door. Do you see all of that debris on the sidewalk and street in the picture of the bunny? That is the mess being left by the squirrels as they harvest the Russian olives off of my neighbor’s tree. There is a really cute squirrel with an exceptionally fluffy tail digging holes under my trees to stash food for later… not nice, little squirrel!! Speaking of fluffy tails, look at what is happening to Mateo’s tail!! This kitten is getting a lot fluffier than I thought he would…

Garden

Everything that is pink is just flourishing at the moment.

My Autumn Joy Stonecrop is just covered with bees and other plants in containers on the deck have decided that they want to bloom too. Even the roses by my driveway have decided to get a last bloom in. For some crazy reason it is all of the pink plants… even the hydrangea is putting out some new blooms with pink edges. It makes me happy to see all that color coming back even if it will be drowned out by all the fall colors in the trees and shrubs in a week or two.

Knitting

I had several quiet days following my right heart catherization procedure last week (okay, I also slept a couple of days afterwards) and I ripped right through the next clue on the Snark-O-Meter. If you haven’t been keeping up with all of the snark, the Snark-O-Meter is the latest MKAL shawl by Sharon from Security (Casapinka) and I am having a blast this time.

It is getting too big to show off the fun stitches in this project in one picture so I settled for shots of each clue. The top left is clues 1 and 2, the bottom left shows clue 3, and the picture on the right is clue 4. Look at all of those great and interesting stitches and use of color!! I’m going to get a ton of use out of this shawl.

Since I finished the shawl in just a couple of days after the clue was released, and because Sharon is taking a week off to let people catch up on their knitting, and since I was admiring all things pink in the garden, I pulled out my new Rock It Tee that is being knit in a pinky/rusty colorway called Cinnasizzle. The actual yarn isn’t quite as hot pink as it appears in the pictures, but it is full of clay, pink, and rust colors that are just too fun to ignore. I’ve been binge watching Billions on Amazon Prime and knitting like crazy this last week with a nebulous thought that if I really apply myself I can get this sweater done before Sharon releases the next Snark-O-Meter clue in another week. Ha! This is clearly impossible, but that never stopped me before! To try is all. I’m below the armholes now and it is just knitting in the round for the next 15 inches or so…

Mateo is now 5 and a half months old. Isn’t he getting handsome?

I’m still waiting for my cardiologist to contact me with the next steps in the ongoing Blue-Lipped Zebra project. Things are really slammed right now in the health field as there are lots of Covid-19 patients and Covid long-haulers who need help, and my cardiologist is pretty overwhelmed with the case load at the moment. (How do I know? My pulmonologist, who is also slammed, told me. I feel so bad for them.) It is a little hard to be patient and to wait my turn, especially since some of those people who are bumping me back in the health-care line are the unvaccinated.

Last week I was mocked in public by someone for wearing a mask. Umm… retired high school teacher here. I called him out on it and he immediately stopped.

But still, it’s a little shocking that it even happened.

This is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. What a sad, horrible day that led to unpredictable outcomes that were far beyond my imagination at that time. How sad it is to reflect on all that has happened, and continues to happen, in America.

I plan to knit my way though the reflection, waiting, and sadness this week. You all be safe out there!

Have a great week everyone.

Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.