Taking it Easy

When I got up this morning it was freezing cold and dark. I had not slept well and felt stiff and tired so I decided to take it easy today and just sit on the sofa, watch old movies and knit. Once the sun came up I decided to wash and hang a load of laundry. Then I washed dishes and while doing so I noticed two bananas in the fruit bowl that were getting very ripe. So I decided to bake some banana muffins.


While I was at it I thought well, might as well bake some bread.


In between I re-arranged some stuff in the den and the dining room, folded laundry and re-organized a drawer in my dresser.
It is now almost 3 pm and I have not yet sat on the sofa and knit, but I feel a lot better. :)
Tomorrow I will make luminaries to place along the path to our front door for eventual trick-or-treaters. Since we are new to the neighborhood we have no idea if and how many there will be, but we are prepared. :)
I will also try to make ginger beer and cream cheese. I really hope I won't poison someone someday with my kitchen experiments but there are a lot of things I want to try.

Corners of my Home

Our house is by no means yet where I want it to be (it is getting there, but slowly, where did all that stuff come from?), but I managed to at least decorate the mantle a little bit for fall and hang some pictures.
I hung the perpetual calendar from the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna above the fireplace

and did a little Fall decorating on one end,

on the other end I put one of the roses from my garden and a glass container with sea shells I collected many moons ago during a trip to Scotland (they have survived several moves),

in the middle I put my two cat tea light holders (I use battery operated teal lights for safety) and my only reference to Halloween (a cat of course).

Washcloths, Soap and Fall Birthdays

I have been knitting a lot of dishcloths/washcloths recently and most of them are for sale in my Etsy shop. Some of them I decided to give as presents to friends and family. They looked so pretty, I decided the only thing missing is some homemade soap. Well, making soap is a bit complicated and at the time I am not equipped for it. But I bought some glycerin soap, purple die and soap molds at the hobby store (I used lavender oil that I already had for scenting) and now I at least have some handmade soaps to got with my washcloths. And I collected some of the pretty maple leaves off the trees in our front yard and made some birthday cards with them.

October Roses

About a week ago I noticed that the rose bush in my garden is in bloom. The previous owners of the house told us that it is a very old bush and that the roses smell heavenly and I agree. :) I cut a few of the heads and dried the petals. I had a pack of baby-shower-favor-bags and used them for the dried petals. They still smell good and make lovely little gifts. Here are pictures of some of the roses, you can see the rest of them here.

Miss Kitty

Miss Kitty gave us quite a scare Friday before last. In the morning she acted weird, agitated and confused, and she was obviously in pain. So we called the vet, packed her up and took her there. They suspected a bladder infection and told me that I had to leave her there because they needed to get an urine sample. That was really hard for me. Del had to go to work, the vet closes at 4.30 pm and I wanted my cat back. What am I doing? I still have a problem with asking people for help, probably because the people I used to know were not very helpful. I remembered our pastor telling me to call his mom whenever I needed a ride and so I did just that. She came and picked me up and we got Miss Kitty back in time. A big THANK YOU to Ms. Penny. :) I would not ask anybody to give a ride to the post office or to the store, but this was a real emergency and I did not feel quite so bad about it. Besides, I am always a total mess when something is wrong with my cat.
Kitty did have a bladder infection - the very first time in 13 years! The vet also told us that fleas are a really bad problem at the moment and that I should treat her. He also gave her a rabies booster shot which is required by state law in NC. And, best of all, I now have to give her medicine 2 times a day. Did I mention that she is not my best friend at the moment? But I am getting really good at it, as soon as she has eaten, I sneak up on her and squirt the medicine into her mouth. :) Afterwards she gets a treat.
She loves to be out in the mudroom by the back door, but I don't like to leave her there by herself because I don't know which way she'll run if somebody comes and opens the screen door. As a compromise I now let her be in the enclosed porch on the side of the house from which she also can watch all kinds of birds and animals, and get plenty of sunshine - provided the sun is shining. :)

Survived the Move!

Well, that is more than can be said about a few of our belongings. Unfortunately the biggest piece that did not survive was the glass top of our dining table. What should have been tempered glass burst into a million pieces when it slipped out of my husband's hands. Oh well, we decided to look for a used wooden table that would match the windsor chairs that were left for us by the previous owners. It will fit much better into the house than our dinette set would have.
I am - for the most part - finished with unpacking and I am now working on getting organized and keeping up with the daily chores.
I have been knitting a lot lately and I am currently working on Christmas and birthday presents. :-) I can't wait to get my sewing machine set up and start making curtains and other stuff for the house.
Miss Kitty is happy in her new house and has even allowed me to put her on a leash and take her into the garden.
Our biggest problem at the moment is that neither one of us is brave enough to go up the rather shaky ladder into the attic (which looks really nice from what I can see from down here). We have to find a solution for that problem soon, I want my dining room to be used as a dining room and not as storage for moving boxes (containing Christmas stuff and Del's train stuff).
Other than that we are doing well, recovering from colds and a bad fall Del took the day before the move, luckily he did not brake any bones, just had a big nasty scrape on his elbow.
BTW, does anyone have a use for lots and lots of slightly used moving boxes? ;)