The next two weeks around here are just littered with appointments.  Littered, I tell you!  Accountant, car inspection, orthodontist, doctor, dental hygienist (x3), vet (that’s for the dog…), dinner with friends, birthday party, and then yesterday, a reminder that the Winter Concert at school is next Thursday.  This wouldn’t be so bad, but there was the further reminder that “dress attire” was required. 

Alex is the sort of child who defies sizing in any sense of the word.  He needs about a size 6 waist and a size 10 length.  Thank goodness for those elastic waist bands that so many brands now have where you can adjust them to the desired skinniness.  But here’s the thing – I have not had the good fortune to find such waistbands on dress pants.  We’ll just have to see what we can find, as long as the pants are not of the blue denim variety, we should be ok.  We also need to find a dress shirt, tie and shoes that are not sneakers.  Have I mentioned that Alex also has narrow, long feet?  Always an adventure to find sneakers to fit…

I offered to knit a tie in the event we could not find one, but my offer was declined.  Ah, well, one less project to have to complete in a week.

The scarf I am knitting is coming along nicely.  This is especially good since I need to give it away next Thursday.  Plenty of time.  I like to work under pressure, which is good, considering my knitting time is shrinking in light of the aforementioned appointments.  Projects will certainly come along for the ride, but most of my time loss involves driving, and unless I can figure out how to get the kids to work cooperatively with one steering and the other controlling gas, brake and clutch, I will have to lose more time to knitting.  (There may also be something illegal with having young kids driving, although I haven’t checked recently.)

Time’s a wastin’!  Off to the day to day.

Peace & Love,

Liz

This evening I made soup out of the turkey carcass, along with all the bits and pieces of leftover turkey, gravy, etc.  I must admit that it was one of the finer turkey soups we’ve had.  There’s still enough for a bowl of soup for lunch tomorrow, but other than that, Monday marks the return to “normal fare”.  Considering that we have a freezer full of beef, looks like that will be on the menu for dinner.

It would seem that there would be a lot of knitting time these last few days, what with kids home and no real schedule to follow.  And I did tick off some rows on a couple of projects, but I didn’t accomplish as much as I had thought I would. 

Today was quite lovely, so we finished up some chores outside.  The cows and horse were finally turned into another pasture to enjoy more late fall grazing (they like this way more than the hay), Bob cut more firewood, and I filled waterers and pulled large weeds blocking the barn door.  I also waded through a bunch of accounting work that has been languishing on the desk – but that’s done now, so I can justify weekday knitting, having accomplished this task on a Sunday.

I have been delinquent in getting out a newsletter for the website.  This is on the agenda for tomorrow, and I promise to email to subscribers with all due haste. 

And there is more dyework to be done – we’re expanding to include silk (roving and hankies), and by mid-December, laceweight yarns for all the lace knitters out there, plus wool roving for those addicted to spinning as well as knitting.  I would like to borrow an old saying that “There’s no such thing as too many books”, and apply this to fiber as well.  Between the two, I can’t think of a better way to spend my leisure time – particularly when I can corrupt include my children in these pastimes as well.

Wishing you an easy transition back to the real world this week.  And try not to think about how fast the next holiday is coming up…

Peace & Love,

Liz

I typed out a post last evening, then went to link a couple of items to what I’d written, only to have everything disappear when I tabbed back to it.  Technology is a wonderful thing.

I have been prepping food today for tomorrow’s big dinner.  Having company means that I do not want to spend the entire time they are here standing over the stove, washing dishes so as to make room for more, or forgetting things which I am prone to do if there are too many distractions.

So, the sweet potato pie, along with mashed sweet potatoes are done.  So are the regular mashed potatoes (with cream cheese).  Later this evening, I’ll prepare the stuffing and have the turkey ready to go in the oven by 8:30 tomorrow morning.

While I generally like to work under pressure (the “two minute warning” approach), I will admit that I have a lot of things organized by way of lists and mental notes.  This is my safety net – having a “plan”.  But with kids and a husband and a business that operates from home, things can fall apart at a moment’s notice.  Today, however, I am feeling smug in my pre-feast prep.

There are several knitting projects waiting in the queue – vest, mittens, shawl, baby blanket.  In an attempt to make it not seem that there were innumerable UFO’s, I have decided that these items are not so much object to be completed, as experiments in technique.  Feel free to use this line of thinking for your own UFO’s experiments.  I should mention that despite the number of items in progress, I came across "Korknisse" on the Ravelry site (still in beta mode, but accessible for preview).  The link to directions for these cute little folk can be found here.  I may need to make up some of these...

In other news, I had the great good fortune to attend this year’s Knitter’s Review Retreat.  You can read about it here.  The people were great, the food was great, the venue was great.  And there is so much talent out there.  Many thanks to all the lace knitters for their inspiration, and to Elaine for not only inspiration, but for so many helpful references and information on technique.  I could go on and on about the retreat, but will instead drop in references and information in upcoming posts, because I know you have better things to do right now besides reading blogs.

A very Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Peace & Love,

Liz