Sleepy Kitty

Game Night

What you can't see are the four other cats that came up during the game and just swatted the tokens off the board. :-)

Cross Stitch Patterns for Sale

I am letting go of some cross stitch patterns I will never have enough time to do. If you are interested hop on over here and have a look.

Weekend Food

Pavlova for 'Australia Day'

Chocolate Cake (just because)

Shortbread for 'Burns Night'

Rustic Pizza with Caramelized Onions for Saturday Lunch

We did not eat it all this weekend, there is plenty left of everything,

Create Along 2013

I finished my first project for the first quarter of the 2013-Create-Along that Liz is hosting this year. My plan for this project is to use what I have. My first project is a new crochet cushion for the sofa, made from the yarn that was left over from the ripple blanket.

Weekend

The snow melted off the hard surfaces and the roads were mostly dry by Friday evening. We did our usual grocery shopping and on Saturday morning we drove to the farmer's market. It is rather empty now but our favorite farmer is there all year long and the inside shops are open too. The weather was bright and sunny all weekend long and most of the snow is now gone. My poor garden is once again a muddy swamp.

The weekend was nice and relaxing with knitting, reading and doing some stuff around the house. The kitties had torn off the rather flimsy fabric that covered the bottom of the sofa so Del replaced it with cardboard and a lot of help of course. 

The furry ones enjoyed the sunshine on the porch, bird watching and snuggling on the bed.

I got my seed order finalized and a lot of tea was consumed.

And there was food. Sunday lunch was meatballs with onion gravy and mashed potatoes with peas.

I hope your weekend was a good one, we have one more day to enjoy, Del is off today. Have a great week everyone!

I am dreaming of a white ....

Hey wait, that's not for another 11 months, so what is all that stuff then?

Pictures from my Weekend

Tuna pizza for Saturday lunch.

Getting the projects for the 'Home Sweet Home Create-Along' ready.

With help of course.

New Socks

I had to buy an extra ball of yarn for 5 rows on my cardigan, so most of the yarn was left over and since it is thin enough for socks I am now the happy owner of a pair of lime green socks.

First finished project of 2013

I finished my Leaf Yoke Cardigan last night. It is still unblocked and buttonless but the search for the 'perfect' buttons is on.

New Year's Day

The weather was grey and wet.

The best way to deal with this kind of weather.

Our favorite pie.

Hello 2013

Happy New Year!

A new year is like a blank notebook, ready to be filled with thoughts, dreams, joys and sorrows, adventures and projects. I love notebooks and I am ready to get working on this one. I don't make resolutions, they only last about a month anyway. Instead I have started an organizing binder for the household and other things. I think that even a small household like ours can profit from a bit of organization. If the not so fun things are well organized I have more time for the things I enjoy doing.

There are only a few things I really want to do this year:

• Bring the garden back to life.
• Make a quilt commemorating all my cats, past and present.
• Read more.
• Get back into quilting without giving up knitting completely.
• Paint the bathroom blue and the kitchen yellow.

Other than that I want to live in the moment, find joy and beauty in my every day life and keep my mind open for new projects, dreams and adventures.

Here is to a good year for all of us!

Good Bye 2012

Some years seem to go by faster than others and 2012 was one of them. I can't believe it is almost over.
It was a good year and it gave us a bit of a break after the last two years which were rather stressful.

In 2012

• nobody got seriously sick.
• nobody in our immediate family died.
• no major appliances broke (well, the car needed new tires, but that was it).
• out of the 9 things I wanted to do, I did only 2 but when I made these plans I did not know that my life would be taken over by a herd of cats. I am not complaining, I love the little monsters. I just had to make adjustments to make it all good for us and for them.
• the only major bad thing that happened was our garden not doing well at all and I really felt the pinch in the wallet when I had to buy the things I usually grow.
• I did a lot of knitting and a little sewing.
• we continued to eat healthy and buy locally as much as possible.
• my main feelings were tired, the last two years took a lot out of me and I really felt it this year, and thankful for the break.
• I did not read as much as I wanted to.
• the weather was weird.
• the world did not end.

However you celebrate tonight, be safe and have fun. See you all next year!

Holiday Food

Since I could not do much decorating this year I put my energy into cooking and baking. I made a beef roast using my mom's recipe for the first time ever and despite not being able to find any parsnips it tasted just like I remembered. Dessert was an orange-spice cheesecake with cranberries. I also baked a cinnamon-raisin swirl bread for breakfast and some sugar cookies and gingerbread.

Merry Christmas

I'll be stepping away from the noise of the world for a few days to focus on my home and my family. I will be back after the holidays with ideas and projects for the new year. Until then I wish you all a very

Merry Christmas!

Holiday Greens

I brought some Rosemary in from the garden and bound it into a garland for the kitchen. I hope the cats will just ignore it.

This is my 'ancient' Christmas Cactus that faithfully blooms every year.

Knitting

I abandoned my second attempt at knitting 'Hermia' it is just not to be. I think it would not look good on me anyway. So I have all this lime green yarn and although I did not want to start a new project this year, I am now knitting the 'Leaf Yoke Cardigan'. I think that style will work better for me and the pattern is really pretty.

Advent

All of a sudden the 'bah humbug' feeling has left and I am writing Christmas cards and looking for cookie recipes. ;-) Better late than never. That first Sunday in Advent sneaked up on me and caught me unprepared and I was convinced that I could not have Advent candles this year due to the overly curious cat population but this morning I decided I have to have my Advent candles and this is what I came up with. (I know I will have to hide it during the night, but that's okay.)

Purple Cowl

I finished this one a long time ago but never took pictures, no idea why. The pattern comes with the yarn (Patons Lace Sequin in Amethyst) and I like the 'wrong' side a lot better than the 'right' one.

Leftovers

Of the yarn kind, that is. I always have small amounts of cotton yarn left over when I knit dish cloths. In the past I knitted them into strips and then made rugs out of these to put under the cat boxes to catch the flying cat litter. This time I decided to knit up some funky bath mitts instead.