Jackie

Hard to believe that this big boy was the runt of the litter and I was worried for a while that he would not make it. He is as sweet as he is big.

Monday

Monday morning, 8:30 am and I am ready to call it a day. ;-)
We released our little prisoner today and she is making up for the 5 days in the cage, catching up on all the missed running around and getting into trouble. I just hope her stitches can keep up with her.

I dedicated the last week of the month to finishing as many yarn projects as possible and I think I did well. Here they are:

2 scarves, 2 scarf-hat-mittens sets, 1 giant granny square blanket made from last year's yarn leftovers, 2 knitted hats (one of them is Del's birthday gift), 1 cat litter catcher made from cotton yarn leftovers, and my Pimpelliese (which turned out to be more of a scarf than a shawl because of the thin yarn)

I will use the last two days of the month to catch up on some housework and to get a head start on spring cleaning. For some reason our house is covered with a layer of fine white dust and I wonder where it comes from, maybe it has to do with the heavy construction going on in the area. Today I am also going to deep clean the stove - always a favorite thing to do and begin to climb mount ironing (where is all that coming from anyway, how can two people use so many clothes?). I will also take some time to plan a bit what to do next month.

Have a great Monday everyone, see you soon!

"New" Books

Just as we had finished our nice and quiet (the kittens were confined to the living room) weekend breakfast and had begun to settle in for a 'domestic' day, it dawned on me that there was something we wanted to do this morning. Oh yeah, the library's used book sale. We got dressed in a hurry and off we went. Here is what I came home with.

The craft books had either been picked over good already or there were not too many this year. Del found the quilting book for me. And since we were already out and about we ran a few errands and now we will settle in for a nice 'domestic' weekend.
Have a good one y'all!

A Treat for Myself

With two stressful events this week - Del had a checkup on Monday, all is well, and Miss P.'s surgery yesterday - I decided I needed a little something for myself. So I went and bought some yarn. I plan to make a few small things for myself from it. I was looking for blue yarn but somehow all these yummy purples jumped at me instead.

Our Little Prisoner

This morning we got Miss Precious back from the vet after her surgery yesterday. She is supposed to be on restricted activity for 5 days. Not easy with a kitten. So we went and bought a large dog crate. We figure with 5 more cats to have surgery it will come in handy and can also double as shelter for the whole furry family during the next tornado warning.
Precious is doing well and seems to be just a little woozy from the meds. The boys are wondering what exactly that big black thing is and why their little sister is inside of it.

Frankie

Monday Musings

Good morning world. I hope the weather is better somewhere else. Here it has been grey and wet and cold all weekend long and it still is. We were out and about on Saturday but stayed in on Sunday.

I took some PDF files to Staples to have them printed since I am out of printer ink and I am neither willing nor able to pay more than $70.- for ink cartridges. While waiting for my printouts I was playing around with the Kindles on display and I was wondering if it would work to get the cheapest one to keep my knitting patterns on rather than printing them out all the time. The cheapest Kindle is $79.-. Maybe I should start saving up.
Once all the medical needs of our little furry ones are met we will start saving up for a new printer anyway. We can get an all-in-one for around $80.- and the ink cartridges for that one are a lot cheaper than the ones for our old model. Isn't it nice how the technology industry forces you to give up your old stuff even if it still works, by making the accessories horribly expensive and thus contributing to the ever growing garbage heap mountain?

Speaking of our furry ones. They are now entering the cat equivalent of the human teenage years and I can just hope that we will all survive that phase. ;-) We already have one prematurely maturing female and it looks like the second one is about ready to go into heat. They are only 4 months old but the vet said it can happen, and of course if something can happen it will happen to us. Miss Precious will be spayed this Wednesday and if Miss Maggie goes the way I think she is going, she will be next. All our wonderful plans for financing the vet visits have gone out the window.

And speaking of money. Postage fees are a joke. I mailed two things I sold on Ebay and Amazon last week and the postage for a book I got $10.- for would have been more than $8.-. It no longer pays to sell anything, I might as well take it to the thrift shop or donate it to the library. We did manage to find a way to send it for less, but still, not much fun.

Other than that I had a pretty good weekend, with good food and some knitting and reading and I even baked a batch of ranger cookies. Today is major cleaning day. Del has this week off and we will try to make the best of it.

Have a wonderful beginning of the week everyone!

Yarn Along

Happy Wednesday everyone!
This week I show you the beginnings of my ripple blanket and I am also working on a pair of two needle mittens for this year's charity project. I just started reading "Star of the Sea" by Joseph O'Connor. The NY Times calls it a "ripping yarn" and now I am wondering if that book is actually appropriate for a yarn along. :-)
Please ignore the various cat parts in the photos, these days it is hard to take a picture of anything without getting at least bits and pieces of the gang in them.

Joining Ginny at small things.

Then and Now

Long Weekend

Well, our weekend was nothing like the last one, not very relaxing and a bit stressful.
It included

• monthly flea prevention for all cats
• a trip to the vet
• worm medicine for all cats

In between was some reading, knitting, cooking and game playing. The trip to the vet was unplanned and became necessary because on of my 16 weeks old kitten is in heat. Now we have an equally unplanned surgery ahead of us and we have decided to just stop planning and roll with the punches and go with the flow in the future. Plans seem absolutely obsolete around here. Just in case you wonder, our plan was to have the three boys fixed first because it would be easier on the finances and then do the girls as we have the money for it. Now it is going to be one of the ladies, then the rabies shots all around (required by law in NC even for inside cats) and then the boys and the remaining girls. Anyone want to donate to a worthy cause? I still have some stuff for sale. ;-)
I am not as rested as I was after last weekend and don't feel very creative. I will spend the rest of the week with housework and reading. Yay!

Armchair/Sofa Caddy

In hopes of finding my sewing mojo I joined the SewingRoom SewAlong on Liz's Blog.  This month we are making an armchair caddy. I just finished mine. I used the basic instructions in this tutorial but did not used pieced blocks. I am going to make all the projects with a cat theme (what a surprise, isn't it?).

Here is the caddy laying flat

and here it is 'in action'. My little ones seem to approve of the sayings on the fabric. :)

Yarn Along

And it is Wednesday again, time sure flies. My Pimpelliese is progressing nicely towards the finish and I set last week's book aside when "The Scottish Prisoner" became available at the library. I am also doing a little rippling on the side but more about that next week. Hop on over to Ginny's blog to see what everyone else is knitting and reading this week.

Kitten Playground

Weekend

I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend, it included

• shopping at Whole Foods
• knitting and reading
• playing games
• making and enjoying good food
• enjoying the warm weather
• playing with my kitties and watching them sleep

• buying yarn for my ripple blanket

I wish you all a wonderful week filled with moments of happiness.

Yarn Along

I am glad to be back for a new yarn along with Ginny. I am working on one of the unfinished projects from last year, my Pimpelliese, and I WILL finish it this time. ;-) As for reading, well I am reading one of the books I got at the Dollar Tree - All Other Nights by Dara Horn. I am not far enough into it yet to say much about it only that I think the story seems a bit strange to me.

WIP Wednesday

I pulled two small unfinished projects from last year from the UFO pile and I hope to get my sewing mojo back with them. They are both meant to become gifts so I cannot give more details. One is a cross stitch piece the other ones are redwork and both are a part of bigger projects.

Cross Sleepers

Weekend

The first weekend of the new year was nice, quiet and relaxing. It started with a trip to the now almost empty farmer's market. Our favorite farmers are still there, they have a nicely diversified farm and offer an interesting range of goodies. After all the sweet stuff we ate during the holidays it was time to stock up on greens. I got a big bag of kale, a smaller one of spinach and a jar of sorghum molasses (shoo-fly pies in the future).
I tried this recipe for the first time on Saturday and served it with some grilled salmon on the side. It is very good. I will also try this one towards the end of the week.
The rest of the weekend was spent puttering around the house, putting away what little Christmas decorations we had out and just relaxing, knitting, playing games, taking naps and lots of kitten cuddles.

It was also this weekend that we left the living room door open at night for the first time to see how the little ones would spend the night. They are surprisingly quiet. Some of them slept on the bed with us but all of them were really good about not waking us up until morning.
Del has today off so our weekend is not quite over. I will spend some time with my lovely new calendar and some knitting.
Have a great start of the week everyone. See you soon.

Happy New Year!

This picture pretty much sums up what we did for New Year's Eve. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! The new year begins whether we are awake or asleep.

In the past few years I made plans for the new year, set myself goals and life had other ideas. This year I am just making a list of things I would like to do.

In 2012 I would like to

• learn a new craft
• take a re-fresher course in Spanish
• plant new things in the garden
• finish most of the projects that did not get finished last year
• make a ripple blanket
• knit a sweater for Del
• be open to new opportunities and new projects
• continue eating healthy and buying local
• explore those great hiking trails in our area

Well, lets wait and see what I can cross off this least a year from now. ;-)